Suchergebnisse

Issue 35.4 of the Review for Religious, 1976. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edtted by faculty members of St Louis University, the edttorlal offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 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 © 1976 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $1.5.00 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. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Book Editor Assistant Editor July 1976 Volume 35 Number 4 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of .address should be sent to REvx~w FOR RELmiOVS; 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 REviEw vOa RELmIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gailen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; .Phil'adelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. "Jesuits Today" Horacio de la Costa, S.J. Father de la Costa wrote the March contribution to'our series on the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, "A More Authentic Poverty." He resides at Xavier House; P. O. Box 2722; Manila 2801; Phil!ppines. ' Just. before it adjourned, the 32nd General ~Congregation of the Society o[ Jesus arrived at a clear and distinct,idea of why it had met. This realiza-tion is expressed.in its In~troductory Dec.rce,~ which, being introductory, ~was of course taken up last. The decree makes several points. First, that the congregation immedi-ately, preceding, the 31st, sought toadapt Jesuit life to the directives of the Second Vatican Council. Second, that it did so in documents which '~ccuraiely and faithfully.~ express the genuine spirit and tradition of the Society." Third, that during the decade that followed, "significant" success attended the effort to reduce these documents to practice. Fourth, that that success Was circumscribed by "two exaggerations, each tending in an op-posite direction," the one a resistance, to renewal as being "somehow a de-parture from the genuine Ignatian spirit," ~the other an adaptation of Jesuits and their work to the needs of the world w.hich is excessix, e,,,and in fact "runs counter tom the .Gospel message." Fifth, that these conflicting tend-encie~ not only "threatened unity within the Society," but gave "cause for concern" both to the superior general of. the order and to the Pope. And hence, sixth, that the aim of the 32nd General Congregation was, by recog-nizing and removing these exaggerations, to achieve "a balanced renewal of 0religious life and a discerning re-dedication to apostolic service." A~ congregation delegate put it more imaginatively by saying that the 31st General Congregation had launched a satellite, to which the 32nd then 481 4a2 / Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/4 proceeded to transmit certain course corrections, its intention being not to modify, much less to reverse its trajectory, but rather to focus it more ac-curately on its moving target. And that, while engaged in this exercise, the said congregation received a fairly strong input from the Vatican com-puters. The focus which the congregation decided to give the 'Society today centers on the concept of mission. More than ever before, mission--the act or state of being sent--must be a key element of the Jesuit's self-iden-tity. "A Jesuit . . . is essentially a man on a mission: a mission which he receives immediately from the Holy Father and from his own religious su-periors, but ultimately from Christ himself, the one sent by the Father. It is by being sent that the Jesuit becomes a companion ot~ Jesus.''1 Well, then, what is the mission on which Jesuits are being sent today? Considering only the multiplicity of works in which Jesuits are actually en-gaged, and leaving aside the multiplicity of works in which they think they should be engaged, it covers a very wide range indeed. But are these works merely a miscellany chosen at .random, a collection without internal co-hesion? Or is there some unifying, some integrating factor-pulling them together in a convergent thrust? The congregation decided that if there isn't there should be, and that it should be the service of faith and the pro-motion of justice considered as complementary facets of an undivided whole. "The mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.'''~ This is the "basic choice," the "priority of priorities" for the Society at which the congregation arrived. How did it arrive at it? It may be well to consider this briefly, to consider not only the product, but the process by which it was produced. The product is this handful of documents which .~esuits are supposed to translate from words to action; to bring to iife in their lives. Well and good. The trouble is that they are texts, and legisla-tive texts at that. Paragraphs On parade, marching down page after page in neatly numbered companies, footnotes following after like a baggage train; all spick-and-span, i's dotted and t's crossed, treadling the measured tread of ecclesiastical Latin. Parade-ground texts, remot~ely reminding us of a battle, butobearing only a faint resemblance to a battlefield. ~ How can we make these texts come alive? Would it help to have re-course to one of Saint Ignatius' little devices for making things come alive? "First prelude, the history of what I am about to contemplate. Second pre-lude, a composition of place. Here it will be to see with the eyes of the imagination . '"~ Very well; and what will it be here? Perhaps, to try to see these texts as people; the people who produced them; the congregati 1GC 32, "Jesuits .Today," n. 14. :GC 32, "Our Mission Today," n. 2. 3Spi~ritual Exercises, n. 102. "Jesuits Today" / 4113 whom the Society sent to Rome to discern what its response should be to the call of Christ. See them there in that hall on Holy Spirit Street--Borgo Santo Spirito --men from widely different national, cultural, occupational, experiential backgrounds, who, in trying to fulfill their brothers' commission, strove strenuously not only with each other but with themselves, and in the pro-cess got confused, enlightened, dismayed,_ heartened, disheartened; lost courage and regained it; got bored, doodled, dreamed of home; went to the Gesfi to celebrate the Eucharist; got an insight; tried it out on a couple of companions over a plate of pasta and a flagon of Frascati; and finally ar-rived at the consensus congealed in these texts. We must not, then, be deceived by the asceptic neatness of these docu-ments. They are the fai'r cop, y of whai:at first looked like an illegible scrawl, but; in the end,. surprisingly, made sense. If God writes straight with crooked lines, then the g.roping and searching, the backing and filling, the findin.g and losing, the consolations and desolations which filled the house on Holy Spirit Stri~et with tongues of fire disguised as will-o'-the-wisps were the crooked lines with which God wrote straight for Jesuits; and it may help to see how straight God has written if we have some idea of how crooked were the lines. I am not, of course, suggesting that the congregati thought crooked. QO the contrary; the~y were straight-thinking, straight-shooting men. The trouble was that the targets they were shooting at seemed to weave wantonly from side to side, and sometimes to disappear altogether. I think most of them will agree that there was hardly a moment during the congregation when they were not in one way or another confused: confused by the ap-palling diversity of the Society's apostolic initiatives and commitments; con-fused by the added complication that Jesuits are inserted {hus variously in a world iri process of rapid change; confused by tensions old and new, in the Society and outside it, between generations, between the backward-looking and the forward-looking, between innovation and tradition, be-tween development and liberation, between ideology and praxis, between capita!ism and socialism, between the two sides of the Iron Curtain, between East and West. A confusion so great that if a consensus emerged--as it did --it is more than likely that that straight line was drawn not by the hand of man.but by the finger of God. The consensus is what is embodied in our text~; and what I am really trying t'o say, I suppose, is that to appreciate the consensus it is necessary to have some idea of the confusion that preceded it. The Introductory Decree speaks of "two exaggerations, each tending in an opposite direction," which "have threatened the unity of the Society.''~ 4n. 4. 41~4 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 One cannot say that the exaggerations themselve~ ~vere present at the con-gregation., but one might suggest that the tendencies they exaggerat~ were. The congregation seems to have brought into confrontation two radically different ways of thinking about the Society ~nd its mission, so different as to seem irreconcilable. One approach was conservative, traditional, back-ward- looking; the other was radical, inno.vati~;e, forward-looking. In Commission I on the Norms of the ApoStolate, Commission II on the Missiofi of the Society, and Commission IV on the Promotion of Jus-tice, what the "radicals" seemed to be saying was this: "Let's start from the facts'. Let's" look at what has to be done in th~ world and let's do that. What kind of work? Never mind what kind o,f work, as long as it works! We must do only 'Jesuit' works? There are no 'Jesuit' works! What does Pedro Arrup~e say? 'Jesuit identity ~s to have no identity!' " To which the "conservatives" seemed to r~eply: "Now, wait. You can't possibly mean that. ~'ou can't possibly mean that there is no specifically Jesuit apostolate. There must be something 'Jesuit' a Jesuit is supposed to do. Start with the facts? What facts? Real facts, or what are alleged to be facts by those who have already de,ideal ffhat they want to do? Let's not start with such facts. Let's start with something more certain and secure: the Formula of the Institute, the Constitutions, the Spiritual Exercises, the directives of Paul VI. Let's reflect on what the~, say we should be doing, and let's do that. There are others in the Church ahd in the world ~;~o c/an do the rest, and do it better. What does John Janssens say? 'We can-not be Divine Providence.' " Two approaches to the apostolate. Two "niind-sets," each convinc6d that"it was i'ight and the other wrong. And so there was debate. No need to pl~y down the fact that there was debate: a cl~ish of argument' on a corn= mon ground of discourse. It will not do to give ttiis congregation the image of a group of gi-6wn men politely bowing to each other and saying, "Ah, so? That is what you think? How nice! Thank y.ou very much!" And each or~e going off, as the poet says, "eonvinced against~ his will, but of the same opinion still." A "confrontation, then, conducted for the. most. part with sweet reason-ableness, but not without sound and fury. Such at least was the impression given by couriers to the staff officers of the Deputatio ad Secernenda Pos-tulata (the commission to validate initiatives taken by Jesuits, individually or corporately, for consideration of the co.ngi'egation), standing on.their rise o~ ground ab.o~ve the smoke of battle: Committee Room P, fourth floor. But when the smoke of battle cleared, and the field glasses went up to sur-vey the sh~m. bles, it became visible even to the naked eye that,what began a's a confrontati6n had turned out to be a convergence. What happened? Some would say that debate had given way to discern-ment, It may well be. 1 do not know enough about discernment to be cer-tain. My personal observation is that as the~congregation progressed people "Jesuits Today" / 485 were listening more to each other, and were more inclined to question not only those from whom they differed, but themselves. Thus: We must promote justice. That is the conclusion imposed by the facts. Yes; but what is justice? What do I really mean by it? Or rather, what does the Gospel say it is? , Or again: The. Formula of the Institute says that we are a society founded for the .defense and propagation of the faith, Yes; but how do you defend and propagate the faith? By word alone? Also by wit'ness? What kind of witness? What kind of witness in a divided' world? And further: Jesuits in the developed world must be chiefly concerned with secularism, with the~ marginalization of Christianity in societies an-ciently Christian. Jesuits in the underdev.eloped world, on the other hand, must be chiefly concerned with underdevelopment, with' the marginalization of the powerless in unjust societies. Certainly; but are these two phenomena completely distinct? Or are they somehow related? How related? And finally: Take a look at the Constitutions, Part VII, where Saint Ignatius lays down his norms for the selection of ministries: the more uni-versal good, the more lasting good;,.help to those most in need of help, works that have a "multiplier" effect, spiritual works by preference, but corporal works if more urgent. Apply these norms to our moment of his-tory, and what do you corne up with? ~ . It was by some such process of shared reflection that the two mind-sets we have described discovered, initially to their discomfiture, increas~ ingle, to their delight, that they were saying the same thing. More precisely, that they were in the same boat; rowing, ,bailing, or busily polishing brass, but in the same boat, with Diakonia Fidei (Service of Faith) stenciled on the port side and' Promotio lustitiae on the starboard side. ,A pretty rocky boat, to be' sure; not quite,rigged and already slightly battered; with cracks to be sealed, sails to be set, a course to be charted; but one boat, not two planks from a shipwreck. And not completely at .sea, either; for we now have, by this callida.iunctura of faith and justice, a focus to our apostolate, a destination for our mission. The convergence can be more clearly seen by juxtaposing nn. 4 and 10 of the document "Jesuits Today" and nn. 2 and 3 of the document "Our Mission Today." We arrive at this basic choice' from several different points of departure. The postulata received from the provinces, the panorama of the state of the Society presented at the congregation, and the suggestions given us .by the PoPe, ~all direct our .attention to the vast expanse, and circuit of this globe and the great multitude and diversity of peoples therein . We are con-firmed in this basic choice by being led to it from another point of departure, namely; the original inspiration of the Society as set ~forth in the Formula of the Institute hnd the Constitutions . 486 / Review]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 The mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith~ of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement . In one form or another, this has always been the mission of the Society; but it gains new meaning and urgency in the light of the needs and aspirations of the men of our time, and it is in that light that we embrace it anew. Put that way, it sounds pretty obvious. The point, however, is that when the congregation began it was by no means obvious; that it became obvious by a convergence of two different approaches in a process of interaction; and that this convergence was, for many in the congregation, a discovery. Closely allied to the problem of what Jesuits do is the problem of what Jesuits are. There was a far greater number of postulata from the provinces concerning the first problem than concerning the second. However, there were enough for the Deputatio ad Secernenda Postulata to decide to form an Intercommission on Jesuit Identity. Why an "intercommission"? For two reasons, First, because its members were recruited from the regular commissions which had already been formed. Second, because the Deputatio's instructions were that this group should be a link between the other commissions; or rather, a listening post, lis-tening in on all of them to pick up and put together what they were saying that could have a bearing on Jesuit identity. But why did the question of identity come up at all? What gave rise to the postulata on the subject? One reason might have been the feeling that many of those who leave the Society do so because they no longer have, perhaps never had, a clear idea of what it is to be a Jesuit, or why they should be Jesuits rather than something else. Or else, the concern that we are engaging in all sorts of development work, justice promotion, political action, and other efforts to build up a more human world, but doing so according to the norms, ideals, and procedures of secular agencies or move-ments engaged in the same enterprise; in effect, that we are identifying our-selves with them instead of making the' original, the unique contribution we are called upon to make as an apostolic, religious, sacerdotal body. Which, incidentally, is what the.more reflective among the secular humanists them-selves expect us to make. They don't expect us to do0what they are already doing: They expect us to do "our thing." But what is "our thing"? We do not seem to be quite clear on that. This intercommission, then, was told to do something about the problem, but it was also very distinctly told that it was not to make up "Jesuit iden-tity" oui of its own head. It was by all means to avoid being creative. Its job was simply to find out what the congregation itself was saying about Jesuit identity, explicitly or imlSlicitly, in the course of its deliberations on mission, formation, poverty, government, community lift; and if it succeeded in drafting a statement on the subject, to sub/nit the draft to the congrega-tion for approv~il. The result is the document entitled "Jesuits Today." An earlier title, "Jesuit Identity," was rejected by the congregation, and "Jesuits Today" / 4117 rightly so. This document is in no sense a formal definition of the Society or of the Jesuit. It is simply a descriptive summary of some of the attributes that may serve to identify Jesuits both to themselves and to others. Even as a description it is certainly not definitive, for Jesuit identity, like that of any other personality, is, first of all, elusive; it cannot be pinned down or exhaustively catalogued in any statement. And it is elusive chiefly because it is in [ieri, in process of becoming: the identity of a living and growing thing which keeps changing while remaining itself. Some future congrega-tion will doubtless find it necessary to draw up another statement of Jesuit identity. That is why it was finally decided to call this document simply "Jesuits Today." As the effort at self-understanding of persons who do not take them-selves too seriously, it was given, inevitably, other, less formal titles. "Cari-dent: the toothpaste with Formula 32, a special blend of charism and iden-tity, guaranteed to enhance that dazzling, distinctive Jesuit smile." "ldenti-kit." the police portrait of the mystery man going around holding up people and asking them, 'Who am I?' " But "identikit" is not just a gibe. It contains a thought of Father Arrupe's which he expressed to the Intercommission on Identity~ I hope I may be forgiven for paraphrasing it here. A photograph of Jesuit identity is not possible, only an approximate likeness, as in an identikit. Why? Interiorly, spiritually, we do have an iden-tity:, the Ignatian spirit, insofar as we live it. But exteriorly, apostolically, what is Jesuit identity? It is to have no identity. We have no specifically Jesuit ministries, as other religious institutes might have: not education, not social action, not parishes, not this or that form of action or contemplation, 'but only what here and now God wants done. The document begins with the first and most obvious clue to a Jesuit's identity: his name: Jesuitbsomeone who pertains to, who belongs to, Jesus. Everyone knows how tenaciously Saint Ignatius clung to that name. Nothing could induce him to change it, This complete certitude that he and his company are something that belong to Jesus seems to be based on the spiritual experience Ignatius had at La Storta, a.wayside chapel just outside Rome. He was making his way to Rome from the north on foot, and all the way he was praying to Our Lady that he might be "placed with the Son." Arrived at La Storta, he had this vision, or enlightenment, or insight, in which the Eternal Father asks Jesus carrying his cross to take this pil-grim into his company. And Jesus accepts him. It is interesting that in all this the Lord is not called Christ but Jesus. Jesus, his personal name. Which suggests that for Ignatius being "placed with the Son" meant entering into a personal relationship with him, a rela-tionship of personal love. This is confirmed by the fact that when his com-panions asked him what our Lord's words to him ("I shall be propitious to you at Rome") meant, Ignatius replied with great joy, "I don't know. Maybe it means we shall b~ crucified with him in Rome!" A love relation- 488 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 ship, then, not just between servant and master, not just between soldier and cat~tain, but between sinner and Savior. This brings us to what the document sees as another clue to Jesuit iden-tity. The Jesuit is a man who has come to a vivid realization not only of his sinful acts but of his isinfulness; and with equal vividness has come to realize that his conversion, his turning back to God, began not with him but with Jesus: the saving love of Jesus reaching out to him, in his sinful-ness. "You did not choose me; no, I chose ~,ou.'''~ If, then, the Jesuit is' one who, following Ignatius, asks to be placed with Jesus, it is because he is responding to love: the love of Jesus which, beyond,all expectation, antici-pates and seeks his love. His response is that of the converted sinner. These are the two related thoughts with which the document begins: "What is it to be a Jesuit? It is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus.''G There was some objection at the congregation~'to beginning the docu-ment with" this confession of sinfulness, this "beating, of breasts." It was thought to be overacting~ or over-reacting to the alleged Jesuit.propensity to arrogant ~triumphalism. Does this show.of humility really counteract that impression--if, indeed, it is the impression Jesuits give? Is it not, in fact, a kind of triumphalism in reverse? Why not simply ~and immediately focus on the central element of Jesuit. identity, that of being socius lesu: the com-panion of Jesus, the man who has answered the call of the Eternal King? Perhaps. But the point is that that is not how~Ignatius began. And that is not how the Spiritual Exercises begin. Ignatius the Jesuit begins with what James Brodrick calls the "pilgrim years," when this wandering penitent signed his letters "Ignacio pecador": Ignatius, sinner. And the Exercises begin not with 'the Meditation on the Kingdom but with the First Week: with the effort to realize thfit the love of Jesus has reached out to me in my sinfulness. They begin, in fact, even before that. They .begin with the First Principle and Foundation: with the love of Jesus reaching out to me in my nothingness; by the act of creation choosing me out of nothing. That in the. mind of Ignatius it is-Jesus who does this, is suggested by the fact that both in the Exercises and the Con-stitutions there is constant attribution to the Second Person incarnate not only the title of Savior but of tfiat of Creator. The next few paragraphs of the document: bring out what seems to be another essential i~ngredient of Jesuit identity. It is outward-looking more than it is inward-looking. After his conversion, the Jesuit fixes his gaze not so much on what goes on in tlie soul within him ~at on what goes on in the world around him. We are all familiar with the popular (and, one hopes, .~Jn 15.16. G"Jesuits Today," n. Ol. 7nh. 4-9. "Jesuits Today" / 4119 distorted) image of the Jesuit as a worldling, inclined to involve himself in mundane affairs which are none of his business; conducting himself in a manner far removed from the popular (and equally distorted) image of the "man of the cloth" as so completely wrapped up in, things divine that he cannot even change a blown fuse when the lights go out. Well; let's face it. There is an element of truth in this. We will find it in the initial response of the converted sinner as expressed in the key colloquy of the First Week of' the Exercises: "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ?. What must I do for Christ?" What to do. What, and where, is the action. This is not the initial response of other types or schools of spirituality. By way of contrast, we might paraphrase a passage from the Chinese phi: losopher Mencius, of which', surely, there are echoes in the Western world: Yoti wish to find God? God is in the heavens, .the infinite heavens. But the infinite heavens are reflected in a small pool deep.in a,well-~-the well of your soul. Plunge, then, into your soul, and there find God. But that is not what the Jesuit does.~ What the Jesuit does.is go into the Second Week of the.Exercises. There he hears Christ calling for-com-panions to go with him to conquer the~world,s There ~he looks up to God in his .Trinity of persons and finds their gaze also, fixed on the world, whose salvation they are d~ciding to accomplish? There,.he, sees Christ choosing mento send into the world to proclaim his sacred tehching,to persons ot~ every class and calling.~° From which it appears that the Jesuit instinct (or charism) is not to withdraw from the world to be~alone with God, but rather to turn to the world and ask himself, "Wh~t~ can Io do for God. in this world in whose midst I am, and to which I am sent?" This would seem to be the force of Saint Ignatius; assertion that the grace,by which the Jesuit is driven to serve men is identical with the grace by which he achieves his pe~:sonal salvation.1~ Or, as our document puts,it: "The grace of Christ that enables ~nd impels us to seeko'the salvation~and perfection.of souls' or what might be called in contemporary terms the integral liberation of man, leading to participation in the life, of God himself is the same grace by which we are enabled and impelled to seek 'our own salvation and perfection.' ,,1~ It was suggested earlier that "Jesu.its Today." is an "echo" document, echoing in the key of identity what the other documents of the congregation say about mission, compa~nionsh]p, freedoha, dis~ernment,~ and love. The emphasis ,on mission: that the Jesuit is essentially a man who is sent by Christ through the mediation ot~ those who hold Christ's authority, is clearly an echo of the document "Our Mission Today." 8Spir. Ex., n. 95. .~lbid., nn. 106-107. aOlbid., n. 145. a~General Examen, n. 3. ~-~"Jesuits Today," n. 1~1. 490 / Review for Religious, °l~'olume 35, 1976/4 The emphasis on companionship: that the Jesuit is essentially a com-panion, a companion of Christ first, but in Christ also of those whom he has called to the same companionship, is similarly an echo of the document on "Union of Minds and Hearts." The emphasis on freedom: that the Jesuit is essentially a man who is free, or rather, a man who has been set free, and this, paradoxically, by the vows that bind him, is an echo, at least in part, of the document on Poverty. The attitude towards the vows here brought out as characteristi-cally Jesuit is that they are not meant to enclose a man, to protect him from the world, to pluck him from the madding crowd and wall him up in some pleasance of peaceful contemplation--in the matchless phrase of Fray Luis de Le6n~ ~'la escondida senda por donde han ido/los pocos sabios que en el ~mundo hart sido"---but to detach him; to hack away from him all en-cumbering armor, and thus to free him from the constraints that may hold him back from any service in the world that Christ working in the world may require of him. The emphasis on discernment: that obedience for the Jesuit not only permits but demands discretion, is an echo, again, ,both of "Our Mission Today" and "Union of Minds and Hearts." It recalls Ignacio Iparraguirre's dictum that the Constitutions are not so much law-book as guide-book, and Pedro Arrupe's oft-repeated saying that being told what to do does not exempt us from the necessity of discerning how to do. In thi~ connection, it is surely significant that the command "to water a dry stick, or "to bring a lioness unto him (the superior)" of the Ignatius/Polanco Letter on Obedi-ence does not include detailed instructions on where to get the water or how to persuade the lioness. And, finally, the emphasis on love: that the Jesuit is essentially a man moved by a personal love for the personal Christ, is an echo not of any particular document but of what might be called the La Storta insight, which seems to have been recaptured, to a greater or less degree, by so many of the delegates to this congregation. As Father General Arrupe, bouncing up the back stairs of the house on Holy Spirit Street after breakfast one morning, put it to one of them, sleepily drifting down: "We proclaim the Gospel in poverty and humility-- fine. But perhaps to add: in love. There is much concern today about loving the Mystical Christ, seeing and serving him in our fellow men, espe-cially the poor; and that is good. But if we do this, is it not because we love Christ in himself, in his Person? Is it not because each of us, pilgrims with Ignatius, prays to the Father 'ponerme con el Hijo' (place me with the Son)?" Which obiter dictumomay serve to explain why our document says: "In love: a personal love for Jesus, whom we seek to know with an ever more inward knowledge that we may the better love and follow him; Jesus, whom "Jesuits Today" / 491 we seek, as Saint Ignatius Sought, to experience; Jesus, Son ot~ God, sent to serve, sent to set free, put to death, and risen from the dead.''~3 There is a lack of definition in what the document says about the So-ciety as a priestly body.TM It strongly asserts the elements which make up this attribute: that the core, as it were, of our membership is a group of brdained priests; that the vocation .to the Society is one; that it is the whole body of the Society that is priestly; and, consequently, that all its members share in that priestly attribute, even those who are not ordained ministers" of the Gospel. But as to the precise nature of that participation the document says nothing. This reflects pretty much the state of the question as the con-gregation left it. The general sentiment was that further theological reflec-tion was needed to say anything more on the subject, and it was hoped that this reflection would form a vital part of our ongoing renewal of spirit. If we now take a look at the document as a whole, we will notice that it has a certain quality of movement: this movement being, basically, that of the Spiritual Exercises. In other words, Jesuit identity is conceived not as state but as process. Companionship with Jesus begins with conversion: the realization that having been called to life by God Creator, then estranged from him by sin, I have been recalled to life by God Redeemer. This realization draws me to stand before (~hrist crucified and make my first oblation: What will I do for Christ? The First Week. Hard upon this conversion comes the call of Christ the King: "I want you to b~come my companion, and the companion of these Others whom I have also called." To do what, Lord? "To be sent, as I was sent. Into the world; not away from it. This world, your world; in all its diversity, agony, tragedy, hope: Sent to share with people the saving faith I have shared with you, and in my justice to reconcile men to God and men with each other." My response to which is my second oblation, the~Kingdom obla-tion: to bring Christ to men not by the witness of word alone but by the witness of life: in poverty, humility, and love. The Second Week. What is 'the range of this oblation? It involves all that the apostolate involves--for Jesus as well as those Who have asked to be'placed with him. Some' experience of success, certainly, and an abiding serenity; but also frustration, b~trayal, defeat, nakedness to p~in. An oblation to failure. An oblation t6 the CrosS. The Third Week. But out of the depths of failure, joy. The joy of total and mutual self-giving: Jesus to me, myself to Jesus. Day by day joyfully going to ttie work site with God the Workingman--habet se ad modum laborantis to build a world at once more human and more divine. My third oblation. Take and receive. 131bid., n. 27. 14Cf. ibid., nn. 21-22. The Freedom and Detachment of Submission Sister Mary Catherine Barron, C.S.J. Sister Mary Catherine last published in our pages in the March, 1976 isstie of Review for Religious. She resides at 808 Cypres.s St.; Rome, NY 13440. ' In his Asian-Journal, under a November 19 entry, Thomas Merton speaks of three doors which he posits as desirable for the eschatological pilgrim to enter: "the door of emptiness, the door without sign, the door without wish."' And in an earlier work of his, C~ontemplation in d Worl~l~of Action, Merton tells of the internal spiritual liberation which such surrender of self brings: ". a kind of permanent vacation in the original sense of 'emptying.' ''~ Perhaps it would be fitting for each of us in our individual lives to pon-der the possibility of taking a "vacation" through these three rather unin-viting doors. ~ Father JohnoQ. Haughey, S.J., in his most recent.book Should Anyone Say Forever? recounts a pos~sible interpretation of the statement of Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14 where he tells his disciples to "enter by the narrow gate" since this alone "leads to life." Father Haughey says: "The narrow gate Jesus was alluding to probably refers to the gate in Jerusalem which could only ~accommodate people unaccompanied by their possessions and camels and donkeys.''3 If we are to become such a people "v~cationing" through 1Thomas Merton. "The Himalayas/November 1-25." The Asian Journal ot Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions Paperback, 1973), p. 154. '-'Thomas Merton, "Problems and Prospects," Contemplation in a World o] A'ction (New York: Image Books, 1973), p. 36. aJohn C. Haughey, S.J., "The Underpinnings," Should Anyone Say Forever? (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975), p. 21. ,~ 492 The Freedom and Detachment o[ Submission / 493 ngaargreo-w-t ghaetne si ta nsed. te_~rr.ar.inss"p athreant tw doe omrsu, sutn benecguinm tbheere jdo ubyrn eexyc ewssit the mtwpoor raal tbhaegr- im-portant spiritual qu~ilities: freedom and detachment. And since Jesus never exhorted his foil6wers to any endeavor that he himself would not surpas, singly complete, qt would be well to follow in. his footsteps on the roadway to and through t_,hese beckoning (but sometimes, frightening) entrance-ways to the Kingdom. " The Free Christ '-Jesus was' a free man, able ~o commit himself to a way of life which in-evitably and irrev6.cab.!y would end in ignominious agony. Because he wa's free,,,he was also. supremely detached froin the picayune compromises Of life by which we' s6 ~asi!y bind ourselves to ~he transient. Categorically'~l~eaking, it seems that Jesus was free enough to:°sub-ject himself to 6th~rS (in his case, always his inferiors); subject himself to the law (re, ligi~'s and civil); subjeCt~ himself to the Transcendent (his Faiher). And ~e.c.a.u.s.e he was' unafraid of that type of subjection which we, in ~so utterly a human stance, avoid, C'firist becomes the detach.ed and liber-ated man, par ~exi~ellenc¢--i.nfi.nitely able to detach and .liberate us for him-self. Submission to Others ~,, In all. of hi,s relationships with others . (his creatures).,~ Jesus is able to submit{ His first profound submissibh in the womb of Mary initiates the patter.n of "nm:row gate" and "doors ,w, ithout signs" that he follows through-out 'his. life. Frbm the early Temple .expe.rience: "And he then~.went down with them . .;.'~and lived under their au, thority" (Mary and,. Joseph.), to Ca~a: "They have no wine" (whe~ he lberforms his first miracle through the intercession Of his mother), thro~ugh .his public, life: "Lord, that I may see~gain" (miracle after miracle upon request), to Calvary:" . ~h et y¯, . ,~,.led him awfiy to crucify, him,'! Jesus fi~lfills~ th6 will of others. Had he .done so out b.f mere fiuman weakness, or .the inability to assert himself and dominate, or through the petty hop~ of gaining prestige and popularity, wealth and'status, his final submission atGolgotha would be but the ~pathetic end,to an :already. doomed demi,gOd. But Jesus submits freely--in total self, surrender--comPletely in control o~ his own life and that of his corn temporaries. Knowingly, willingly, in complete gix;enness, he yields to others. Why? Why such a profound stooping into emptiness, into human obliterr ation, into the undesired door of death to self? "I have come that they may have life and have. it to the full,"-.J'~.sus answers (Jn 10:10). The words are haunting because they imply that fullness of life commensurately grows as we become more liberated and detached for others. If this is the pat-tern for Christ, can it be any,different for his followers? ~ 494 / Review [or Religioux, ~'olume 35, 1976/4 Submission to the Law Jesus also demonstrates throughout his earthly, existence that interior freedom enables one to become so detached from self that adherence to imposed human statutes becomes possible. He is born according to the law of the Scriptures, in fulfillment of the prophetic words and visions trumpeted through the ages of Salvation His-. tory, in complete accordance with all the signs and symbols which mani-fest his coming. And he dies in the same manner, as derided and rejected as Isaiah had seen that he would be, "lifted up" as he himself proclaimed, under Jewish rejection and Roman assent. And situated between those two n~atural, human laws of birth and death remain the countless daily submis-sions to civil and religious law which Christ fully and freely accepts. He announces in the Temple that "this day the Scriptures are fulfilled in your midst" (and in his person) while at the same time having scrupu-lously adhered to the proscribed religious rites. In response to the legalistic baiting by which the Pharisees hop,e to entrap him: "Master, is it permissi-ble for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" (Lk 20:22) Jesus judiciously replies: "Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; to God the things that are God's," thus delineating the parameters of civil and religious obedience. Ironically, it is his fulfillment of religious law (the feast of the Passover) which brings him to Jerusalem--to Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate who sen-tence him to death. In the presence of these designated earthly authorities, Jesus, detached, submissive, and free, recalls the only reason for anyone's submission to human law: "You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above" (Jn 19:11). Knowing this and authorizing it, Christ, freely gives himself over to these misguided, conniving, fearful, self-centered representatives of the Law, who wash their hands of him and conclude that "it is better for one man to die than that the whole nation perish" (Jn ~11:50). Again we are tempted to ask the question "why"--why this submission to human laws and human beings by one who is their Source and Origin? Perhaps the better question would be "how"? How do we become liberated and detached enough to do the same? Submission to the, Transcendent Once again Jesus provides us with the answer: "The world must be brought to know that I love the Father and that I am"doing exactly what the Father told me" (Jn 14:31). In other words, he tells us that we will only be able to submit ourselves to temporal rules and temporal persons if we have first submitted to the Eternal Rule and the Eternal Person: "Love the Lord, your God with your whole heart and soul and mind" (Lk 10:27). Christ did; Totally, constantly, unswervingly, he submitted to his Father: "I come not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me" (Jn 5:30). And it is this~awareness of the Father's will and the Father's The Fr'eedom and Detachment of Submission / 495 love that is the motivating force of all of Christ's other submissions: "No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son who is nearest to the Father's heart, who has made him known" (Jn 1:18). Christ makes the Father known through his execution of the Father's will In the name of his Father, he cleanses the Tempir, restoring it as a place of worship, proclaiming it his Father's hous~e, and thus establishing, in one dramatic act, the power of his filial submission. In all his conversations with men, Christ consciously mentions the Father. To Nicodemus, he confides the reason that he has been commis-sioned by his Father: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life" (Jn 3: 17). To the Samaritan woman, he outlines the "kind of wor-. shipper the Father wants" (Jn 4:23). To the Jews, he openly acknowledges his dependence on the Father: "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can 0nly do what he sees the Father.doing" (Jn 5:19). And when his disciples ask him to "show us how to pray," .Christ refers them to the Father. Even when he teaches, Christ does so in the name of the Father. And the only authority he possesses for his teaching derives from his submis-sion to the Father: "The works my Father has given me to carry out, these same works of mine testify that the Father hasjsent me" (Jn 5:36); His final great submission to the Father coincides with Christ's final great submission to religious and civil law as dispensed through the hands of his human subjects. In perfect freedom, detachment, and submission, Christ foretells and then completes his passion and death. When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself: what the Father has taught me is what I preach; He who sent me is with me, and has not left me to myself, for I always do what pleases him (Jn 8:28-29). Having uttered these profrundly simple words, Jesus stoops through the "narrow gate" of death, passes through the ."door of emptiness, the dorr without a sign, the door without desire"--the Cross. The Father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own free will, And as it is in my power to lay it down, so it is in my power to take it up again; and this is the command I have been given by my Father (Jn 10:17-18). What liberation and detachment infuse these submissive words! 496 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 The Paradox Merton would be among the first to assent to the paradox inherent in freedom, detachment, and liberation. He states: "Obedience [submission] is, paradoxically, the one guarantee of . . . charismatic, inner liberty" ~Contemplation, p. 34). And Christ himself was the first to demonstrate the paradoxical dimension inherent in following him: "Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone ~vho hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" i, Jn 12:25). The choice~is ours to mal~e. Haughey cogently reminds us that b~, our choices we are irrevocably defined (Should Anyone ¯ . . , p. 32). And Christ urgently.prods us to make his own irrevocable ~hoice. ours, when he claims:~ Eternal life is this; to know you, " the only true God ~" ~'~ ~ and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn 17:4). In such knowledge, indeed, resides the foUndatiori arid reward for all the liberation, detachment~ and Submissidn of thepi!grim heart. ~ t'The three doors (they are one door) . .' Christ said: '!~am the door. I am the op~er~ing, the. '.shewing,' the revelation'" (Asian-Journal, pp. 154- 155). "Come follow m6"--through the "narrow gate~" through the "'un-marked, undesired doors;" into thd liberation and detachment of submis-sion- the Chri~tic "vacation" of love. The ,,'Active-Contemplative" Problem in Religious Life David M. Knight Father Knight is a member of the House o! the Lord community which staffs a "house of prayer" established in Memphis under the jurisdiction of Bishop Dozier. His present work is mostly in the. area of priests' retreats and team approaches to parish missions. He has published" before in 6ur page~, his latest title concerning religious government and obe~lience (July, i97]). His address: Nazarettl 'House of the Lord; 1306 Dellwood Ave.; Memphis, TN 38127. Can we still use the terminolbgy: "active-cQntemplative-mixed" to char-acterize religious life today? Aiad if we do use these tdims, ar, e we really using them in the way St. Thomas understood them--a way that carries oo the aut.horit3~ of his own tSrestige? Father Ladislas Orsy, S.J., suggests:that we abandon this terminology with its threefold division 9f religious life:" The arguments against the division are manifold. First,, all religious institutes are called to .be con~templative. Then, there cannot be true apostolic action in the ,full sense without its being rooted in the inspiration and strength of the Spirit which is contemplation." Finoally, tl~e express!on "mixed life" does not make s+nse. Action has to grow fi'om contemplation; they are 6rganically united, not mixed. ¯ . . "~here~'ore, so far as the distinction has a foundation, it must lie in the external way of life of these communities; in the specific approach to the realization of contemplation and action. TO avoid confusion, it might be better to describe this differentiation among religious by spe~king about fully enclosed life. moderately enclosed life, and fully open way of life. (Open to the Spirit, Washington (Corpus Books), 1968, pp. 271-272). 497 4911 / Review for Religious, l/'olume 35, 1976/4 Fathers Thomas M. Gannon, S.J., and George W. Traub, S.J. present St. Thomas's division as a distinction between "the contemplative life, the active life, and the apostolic life" (The Desert and the City, New York: Macmillan, 1969, p. 142). So far as I have been able to discover, St. Thomas does not use the term "apostolic" any more than he uses the term "mixed'" to describe a category of religious life (see George E. Ganss, S.J., " 'Active Life' or 'Contemplative Life'" in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 22 (1963) pp. 53-66, esp. p. 61). He teaches that human life in general is divided simply into "active life" and "contemplative life" (Summa Theo-logica, II-II, Q. 179, art. 1) and that, in itself, the contemplative life is "more excellent" than the active (ibid., Q. 182, art. 1). But he adds that a man might be "called away from the contemplative life to the works of the active life on account of some necessity of the present life, yet not so as to be compelled to forsake contemplation altogether. Hence it is clear" that when a person is called from the contemplative to the active life, this is done by way not o] subtraction but o] addition" (ibid., ad 3, emphasis added). There is much evidence in St. Thomas's treatment of this subject to conclude that Thomas would consider all religious as belonging essentially to the category of contemplative life. Some reasons for this are: 1. The religious state is directed to the perfection of charity, which extends to the love of God and of 6ur neighbor (Q. 188, aLt. 2). But to direct one's whole life to growing in loving knowledge of God without which the perfection of charitY is impossible is to embrace the goal of the contemplative life. 2. The active life has two senses for St. Thomas: a) a life directed to the practice of the moral virtues as con-trasted with the theological virtues. The moral virtues (pru-dence, justice, temperance, fortitude) aim at the correctness of man,s external actions toward persons and things in this world (Q. 181, art. 1 and Q. 180, art. 2, Sed contra). The theological virtues (faith, hope, charity)aim at knowledge and love of God himself, as object. It is obvious that no one striving for the "perfection of charity" can make th~ moral virtues the goa.1 of his life. And Thomas teaches explicitly that if a person is practicing the moral virtues in order to arrive at contemplation, he is in the contemplative rather than in the active life (Q. 181, art. 1 and 2). And this is what religious do. b) In a second meaning, the active life is one which is taken up with external activities, such as active works of service to the neighbor. When Thomas argues in favor of this for religious he always seems to be working on the assump-tion that the religious in question is in the contemplative life, The "Active-Contemplative" Problem / 499 but that he accepts to leave contemplation partly or tempo-rarily and add works of the active life "in order that God's will may be done and for His glory's sake" (Q. 182,~ arts. 1 .~ and 2). That he assumes this to be the case when religious engage in active works is indicated by his answer to the question "Whether a religious order should be established for the works of the active life?" One objection against the proposition is that' every religious order belongs to the state of perfection, but the perfection of the religious state consists in the contemplation of divine things (Q. 188, art. 2, obj. 1). Thomas doesn't contradict this. He ~imply answers, "Since religious occupy themselves with' the works of the ' " active life for God's,sake, it follows that their action-results~ ]rom their contemplation o] divine things. Hence, they are not entirely deprived of the fruit of the contemplative life." (Emphasis added.) St. Thomas recognizes; however, that active work may result from contemplation in two ways. It may be that the work results from the full-ness of contemplation. A man contemplates God until"he is filled with a wisdom, an insight into the mind and heart of God, a graced understand-ing of the Scriptures, that overflows his heart and is shared with the neigh-bor 'in preaching or teaching. For St. Thomas, obviously, preaching and teaching are not something°'a .man .is prepared to do by academic study. The intellectual who is not a contemplative cannot teach or preach in St. Thomas's sense of the words, which refer precisely to a sharing with others of the fruits of one's contemplation. The merely academic teacher of theology, the eloquent intellectual in the pulpit, are nothing but sounding brass' and tinkling cymbal; their activity does not even enter into this dis-cussion. There are other works of the active life which do not presuppose the fullness of~contemplation: active works of service for the neighbor, such as taking care of guests, nursing the sick,., and so forth. And yet, if they are engaged in such works out of love for God and a desire to serve him perfectly in his Body on earth, they do proceed at least from a beginning of contemplation; from a prayerful response to the Scriptures. (If, such work should, in any given person, proceed from a merely humanitarian concern for others, it ~would not.be~ a Christian act, and again would not even enter into our discussion here. )" Also, St. Thomas presumes that, in religious, such activity is directed to the end of religious life, which is the '~perfection of charity." And since, as we have seen, this perfection cannot be conceived apart from contemplation which attains God directly in faith, hope and love, we must conclude that this activity, in a religious, is directed to the end of the contemplative life. In other words, a religious engaging in such active labors is; in 'fact, a contemplative.A given religious may not 500 / Review lot Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 be a contemplative in the sense of having already attained that degree of spiritual deepening and prayer., which enables him or her actually to con-template in the full sense of this word, or to share with others the fruits of contemplative insight into the mysteries of God. But the religious is still a contemplative by reason of the.end to which his or her life is directed. Thus a postulant or candidate in a religious house who has not yet begun to pray seriously, who perhaps has little or no spiritual ~xperience to share with his neighbor~ and who spends his day washing dishes in the kitchen or teaching some secular shbject in a school--that person is, nevertheless, already in the "contemplative life." He is a contemplative in the same sense that a fetus in the womb is a human being: he is not yet sufficiently developed to function fully as a contemplative, but he is already intrinsically ordered, by a free choice of his destiny, to the "perfection of charity," to loving knowledge of God answered by a total gift of oneself. We should also apply to this qtiestion St. Thomas's reasoning about the pursuit of moral virtues belonging to the contemplative rather than to the active life if contemplation is its ultimate end (Q. 181, art. 1 and 2). If a man engages in :active works, but with the intention that through these he will rise to a more and more loving knowledge of God (contempla-,, tion), then this man, too, is inthe contemplative life, although .he.is occu-pied in the ,w~orks of the active life. We should remember here that even a monk in the most enclosed contemplative monastery is still engaged :in the works of the '.'active life"---even though he.is called a contemplative~ so long as he is at that stage of spiritual growth in which his main concern is acquiring moral virtues, and his prayer life is sti'il on the level of active meditation, spiritual reading, and such (see John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, ch. 17, par. 4). To be engaged in the "works of~ the active life" not only means doing what we popularly refer to as "active work"--teaching, nursing, repairing houses, keeping books, etc. In its most fundamental sense this expression means actively using one's human powers to bring about, a change, whether in oneself or in outside reality, whether one does this through carpentry or through meditation on the. gospels. Contemplation, on the other hand, is resting in what one has~ already learned, already come to love, letting oneself be transformed without labor (not without pain) into what one sees. Where meditation is studying,~,think-ing, deciding, contemplation is looking, listening, loving. Thus we conclude that religious, even though entirely taken up with° external activity, truly belong in the category of "coritemplative life" so long as their works-- whether of moral virtue or of service to others--are not, for them, ter-minal activities in themselves, but means to arrive at a more loving knowP-edge of and union with God. As St. Thomas puts it: "When a man makes use of~ things pertaining to the active life, merely as dispositions to con-templation, such things are comprised under theocontemplative life" (Q. 181, art. 1; and see Q. 180, art. 4). We might have to. question ~ind The "Activ~e-Contemplative'" Problem / 501 qualify the word "merely" in this sentence, but the main point is clear: so long as a religious is aiming at the perfection of faith, hope and love, which is inseparable from contemplation, he is in the "contemplative Aife." What we call. the "active life" for religious, then, is one of two things: first, it~might be an overflow of contemplation. This might take the form of an overflow of love as well as of knowledge. That is, it might take the form,~not just of preaching and teaching, the two examples St. Thomas gives, but of heroic service in nursing, counseling, social action, or the like. In this first sense, then, a religious might be an "active" contemplative through any form of activity which is, .in this individual, so impregnated with grace and love that it~ results, in the given case~ from the "fullness of contemplation." In a second sense, the "works of the actiVe, life" might be a stage of growth toward contemplation--not towa~:d spending long hours in formal prayer, necessarily, but toward habitual contemplation, toward such intimacy with God in faith, hope and love, that° one is always, in a sense, seeing the face of God, and reflecting it (see Q. 182, art. 3). In the words of Gannon and Traub (The Desert and the City, p, 148), ¯ . . In Thomas' understanding as well as in the usage of other ascetical writer~ ~ ofthe time, the active life and the contemplative life designate successive but interacting stages of growth.ifi the interiorqife of a Christian' seeking "spiritual .growth, whether he be a religious or a layman. The active life is the earlier , stage where, seriously 'beginning his pursuit of living spiritually, he struggles ~ against sin and imperfections in himself and both learns and practices the moral virtues and the exterior acts @hich spring from them. Activity thus comprises the'Ltwo stages of spiritual growth which were later named "~he pur- ~. ~gative way of the beginners" and "the illuminative way of th6 advancing:" The :contemplative life, on the other hand, is a higher stage where the Chris, , tian practices c,.hiefly the theological virtues, especially charity, and under its inspiration works of love that witness to it. Among these manifestations of charity one often finds a growing desire to withdraw into solitude in order to achieve undistracted contemplation of God°. We are now better able to understand St. Thomas's comparison of the three kinds of religious orders. (Q. 188, art. 6): .° . The work of the'~active life (that is, the work that religious can do) is of two kinds. One proceeds from the fulness of contemplation, such as teaching and preaching . And this work is more excellent than simple contempla, tion. For even .as it is better to enlighten than merely to shine, so it is better to give to others the fruit of one's contemplation than merely to Contem-plate. The other work of the active life consists entirely in. outward occupa-tion, for instance, almsgiving, receiving guests, aiad the like, Which are less excellent than the works of contemplation, except in cases of necessity, as stated above.'. Accordingly, the highest place in religious orders is held by those which are, directed to teaching and preaching . The second place belongs to those Which are directed 10 contemplation, and the third to those which are occupied ~vith external acii0ns. J Tl~e lowest 'place among religious orders is held by those "which are 502 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 occupied with external actions." Understand here that these actions are not such that they must proceed from the "fullness of contemplation," such as authentic--that is, spiritually effective--preaching and theological teach-ing must be, but actions which achieve their proper end equally well whether the one performing them is a beginner in the spiritual life or a mystic. A candidate of one day in a religious order, if she is a skilled nurse, can nurse as well as another who has twenty years of contemplative prayer behind her. However, we must also understand that these actions can pro-ceed from the fullness of contemplation, in which case more will be taking place than just the action itself. A nurse who is a mystic will communicate the love of God, to her patient as well as she communica'tes all the human concern implied in good nursing care. If a given religibus order is set up in such a way that it effectively fosters in the members a contemplative spirit that will make all the external actions come from the fullness of con-templation, then that order belongs in the first, and highest, category .of religious ordersEnot in the third one. Likewise, an order established for teaching and preaching, if it is no longer such that it effectively fosters contemplation in the members, does not belong in the first category of religious life, but in this third, and lowest one. What we call here an "ac-tive" order, then, is one which is basically in the contemplative life, because it has loving knowledge of God as its end, but which is not really organized to produce this loving knowledge of God very effectively. An individual religious here and there might attain it, but the order as such does not concentrate on the attainment of. contemplative union with God, but just on the active work to be done. In such an order contemplative union with God will not be excluded as an end, of course; in fact, it will be specifically proposed (in words) as an end, and there will even be some prayer, or other spiritual exercises, prescribed or suggested to help the members attain union with God. But it will be obvious from the real structures and policies of the community that what the order as such is bent on is active service, with or without much progress in loving knowledge of God. If the com-munity's particular mixture--harmony, balance, formula--of prayer and service are such that they do, in fact, lead one to ri~e through the active stage of growth (active methods of prayer and emphasis on moral virtues as well as active service) to the loving knowledge of God that belongs to developed faith, hope and love, i.e. to the plane of developed contempla-tive life, then in that measure the order does not. belong in this third category of "active" .religious c6mmunities. We might ask here whether any "active" orders as we have just de-scribed them really exist. Here we have to distinguish between existing in ]act or existing juridically; i.e., existing as active orders because they have degenerated into mere service organizations or because that is what they were founded and accepted by the Church to be. ~It may be that in ]act, the majority of the orders we call "active" in the popular sense today The "'Active-Contemplative" Problem / 503 (meaning not strictly contemplative) have become ~tctive as described above. Juridically, however, many, perhaps most, were not founded to be this, as is clear in the history and constitutions of such communities as the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, and so forth. If, though, there are orders actually founded to be active in the sense we have described, then they were probably founded on a double principle of practical realism: first, some active task had to be performed, and dedicated hands were needed to perform it. Secondly, it was assumed that the persons who would be called to such a life would not be, as a general rule, apt material for a way of life that aimed at much more than solid moral virtue and a sound, con-sistent piety that kept one living and functioning as a dependable worker in the vineyard of the Lord. God might, of course, raise one to the highest contemplation and mysticism in such a way of life; but the life as such did not presume to aim so high. Let us be frank in admitting the possibility of a certain class distinction in this. Just as St. Ignatius hesitates to give to rudes (the crude, uninstructed, ignorant) more than the "First Week" of the SpiritualExercises (namely, the part that aims at conversion from, sin and systematic practice of the moral virtues: see Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Annotation 18: Louis J. Puhl, editor, Loyola Uni-versity Press, Chicago, 1951, pp. 7-8) so the founders of some religious communities seem to have assumed that their recruits would be mostly uneducated peasant girls, whose interior life would be adequately nourished by a few simple exercises of piety and a strongly structured community life. I do not know if this was the case, any more than I know if any "ac-tive, .order as we have described it was ever approved or founded to be such in the Church. But if such an order exists, it is easy to see why St. Thomas would give it the lowest place in his hierarchy of religious com-munities. It is also easy to see why the Church so ~asily grants permission to transfer from an active order to a contemplative order, if even part of the description of active orders as we have presented it above should be true. The second place on the scale of religious orders belongs to those "which are directed to contemplation." Since all orders are ordered to con-templation indirectly, at .least, this category obviously applies to those orders which occupy themselves primarily and directly in-exercises which by their very nature tend to foster contemplative prayer. We must recall that many of these exercises may belong, of themselves, to the "active life"; the practice of moral virtue, active methods of meditation and prayer, etc. To be a member of a contemplative order does not mean that one has already attained to contemplative prayer, or that one's life is actually char-acterized by a deep and habitual awareness of God in faith, hope and love. But it means that one's life is organized directly to foster this spiritual growth. Obviously this is a "higher" form of religious life than the active life described above. It is not yet the highest form of religious life, in St. 504 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 Thomas's opinion, 'becausethe aim of the community is just the interior development°of its own members., The community is like a tree whose energies are all bent towards growth, but which is not yet mature enough~ to produce fruit. It,is better to aim at full developme]at than to be content with giving lesser fruit on a lower level, A developing fruit tree is a "higher" form of life than" a bush already serving to prevent erosion. So the orders we call "contemplative" are in themselves on a higher,plane than those we have described ~here as "active." The contemplative at least aims directly at~ spiritual growth towards contemplation, while the active qife seems to be designed for beginners who are going to remain on a non-contemplative plane of spiritual activity. St. Thomas assigns the "highest place" among religious orders to those "which are directed to teaching and preaching,"' but with the understand-ing that "preaching and teaching" presuppose contemplation: that what is preached'and taught is precisely the fruit of a contemplative life. He is not referring to those who teach secular subjects, or even to those who teach academic theology unless what they teach proceeds from the fullness of their contemplative prayer. We might add to St. Thomas's teaching' here-and pr~opose that "teaching and preaching" as the fruit of contemplation might be equally the work of a cloistered, contemplative commianity or of a community of Social activists busily reforming social structures in the political ~arena. What is r~quired for ,"teaching °and preaching" is not presence in the classroom or pulpit, but simply the fact ,of communicating to others the truth of God as this proceeds from that loving sureness of vision 'which is a mark of authentic contemplative prayer, It may well be that in" our day no teaching and preaching are more eloquent, or more needed, than the silent, inescapable witness of the,,monasie~ on the moun-tain top. Still another way to teach and preach has been brought very much before.~our consciousness these days. The Synod of Bishops, 41974, spoke of the "intimate connection" between the Church's work and concern for social justice and her task of evangelization. An earlier synod, 1971, went so far as to say that "action on behalf of justice and participation, in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel." (Both texts available from U.S. Catholic Conference,Publications Office, passages cited fr6m p. 1'8 and p. 34, respectively.) By0 this principle any"outward occupation, even the very active one of political struggle for social justice, is. a form of Christian teaching and preaching--and 'in the sense that St. Thomas. uses the terms --provided that it truly proceeds from the fullness of contemplation and is done in such a way that what clearly appears to the world is the truth 'of Christ's own mind and heart~ embodied in unambiguous action. St. Thomas's argument for this hierarchy of religious orders is based on' two principles. The first concerns the value of the end that is aimed at; the second concerns the effectiveness of the means employed, to achieve The !'Active-Contemplative" Problem / 505 the end. Orders which share the r+sults of their contemplation with others are more excellent than those whic~h just, contemplate, because these orders aim at the end of all religious life, the perfection of charity, in a way that includes more of the end, more of[the good that "charity" embraces. They organize their lives in a way design,'ed both to bring them to a more loving knowledge of God,in contemplati,~n, and to be of service in love to the neighbor (Q. 188, art. 6). Remember that, as we have explained this, any .I religious order, from the most clo~.stered contemplatives to the most active workers in the Church, can belon~g to this third and highest category of rehg~ous life provided that the commumty truly has a. formula for living that combines prayer and service in such a way that the community "speaks" to the Church out of tl~e fullness of contemplative insight into God. The superiority of such an order is based on the fact that the end to which it is directly ordered includes, both the good of contemplation and the good ,of active service to the! neighbor. It is obviously this kind of community St. Thomas has in mi~d when he argues that a religious order i . can be founded for works of the acuve life because their activity "results from the contemplation of divine ihings" (Q. 188, art. 2) and that~ a per-son who is in the contemplative life can .be called away from exercises of contemplation to works of the active life without losing anything bec~ause his engagement in active works is idone "by way not of subtraction but of addition" (Q. 182, art. 1 ). In suctl a case one does not forsake contempla- . tion entirely, but only partly or te~mporardy in order to add works of the active life (ibid. and art. 2). Thus such a community is "better" because "its end is a greater good." I Hence a religious order is preferable to another if it be directed to an end that is abso.lutely more excellent eit,her because it is directed to a greater goo~!,~ or. to more goods (A. 188, art. 6). This is the first principle by ~vhich St. Thomas rates religi6us orders, the principle that looks to the goo~d or end they are directly structu.red to attain. The second principle looks ito the suitability of the means emplpyed to achieve the end: !. If, however, the end be the same, 'ithe excellence of one religious order over another depends secondarily, not o~ the amount of exercise, but on the pro-portion of the exercise to the end in view. Wherefore, in the Conferences of The Fathers (Coll. ji, 2), Blessed Anthony is quoted~.as preferring discretion, wherebY, a man moderates all his at c¯ tions, to fastings, watchings, and all such observances ( ibid). I In evaluating a religious community we should look to its structures. The question is not really how austere the community is, or how strict its life appears to be. Nor is the question how human the community is, or how free its members, seem to be. The real question is: how well are its structures adapted to helping the members attain the goal of religious lile? 506 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 A tight ~community is no better than a loose one--and no worse. Whatever leads persons to the perfection of charity--towards God and neighborm is the ideal of religious community policy. St. Thomas warns that a religious order is not better because it has more penitential practices than another, more prayer than another. But in our day we may be failing into the same error he warns against under a different form. In our reaction against some of the rigidities and distorted practices of the past, we have perhaps apotheosized another set of values, made idols out of some other very particular and limited ideals. We have refocused our attention on-freedom and personalism, discernment and dialogue, community life and social involvement. And because these values are good,~we are under the illusion that in pursuing them we are renewing religious life. The truth of the matter is that religious life is not renewed by .any community exercise as such, whether it be dialoguing or taking the dis-cipline together. Religious life is renewed by discovering, in prayer and surrender to the Holy Spirit, an integral and harmonious set of structures that correspond to the complete goal of the community. If growth in con-templation, for example, understood as loving knowledge of God, is an integral part of the community's aim in life, then the community must in-corporate into its life-style specific and effective structures that really promote this growth. To affirm the ideal in words in the Constitutions is not enough. Communities should be evaluated, not by the orthodoxy of their statements, but by the effectiveness of their structures. What a com-munity really is should be judged, not by the goals it proposes to itself, but by the means it is willing to commit itself to in order to achieve these goals: and commit itself to realistically by building them into its life-style. We might ask what point there is in comparing religious orders. After all, the "best" order for any individual is the one which is most suited to his own temperament, stage of growth, and particular call from God. What point is there in comparing'religious orders in the abstract? I think that the precise point of all this is that the three categories we find in St. Thomas are not meant to be--or at least cannot be taken today to refer to---three different patterns for authentic life. We are not really offered three different choices of what a religious order can aim at. I believe that in St. Thomas's sense every religious order must be founded for "~teaching and preaching" if it is to be Christian. For the teaching and preaching that we intend here is nothing more specific or less spiritually profound than Christian witness. A religious vocation is a gift from God. But it ig a gift like those St. Paul speaks of in 1 .Corinthians, chapters 11- 14: manifestations of the Spirit given for the common good. A purely active religious order that really did not provide within the structures and policies of its communal living, means effectively to promote spiritual growth--growth towards deeper and deeper contemplation (under- The "Active,Contemplative" Problem / 507 stood not as longer hours of forma!, contemplative prayer, but as an ever more constant loving awareness of God and of all other things in the authenticity of their being as relation to God) would hardly be a legitimate form of life in the Church. At the most it would be legitimate as a com-munity that understood and accepted itself, with frank humility, as a com-munity for persons incapable of ~rogressing beyond the level of moral virtue in the spiritual life. But can.[we believe that any such category ac-tually exists? And would such a community really be viable? Would its apostolate really be valid? Yet I think we have around us in the present day examples of communities which have become in fact, if not in desire, purely "active" communities. The level of prayer is very low. Deep under-standing of the life of grace is praciically non-existent. This is not in every individual, of course, but it is embodied in the communal expression of the community as a whole. In these, communities does an authentic "apos-tolate" really exist? We may run sc,hools or hospitals, may engage in social service or social action with enthusiasm, and labor to the point of exhaus-tion. But by our fruits we must be judged. Are our schools producing peo-ple who have been touched by an ,encounter with Jesus Christ as a person --real in himself and active in his ,Body on earth today? Are our hospitals symbols and witnesses to the whol~ world of Christ's healing concern for the poor, the suffering, the afflict~ed? Is our reform of social structures permeated with the spirit of the beatitudes. Where the labor and service of an "active" order does not reail3} "teach and preach" the truth of Christ and the gospel, is that labor reall~ an apostolate? And can one's activity express the truth of the gospel if it! does not rise from a loving con.templa-tion of that truth within one's own!, heart,° a contemplation that makes one alike in one's being to, what one sees? Let us suppose, on the other h~nd, a more contemplative order, either a cloistered community or a veryI explicitly prayerful, active commumty. And let .us. suppose that it is so turned in-on itself, so defensive against all that is going on in the Church, sd protective of its own traditional struc-tures in their last, rigid detail, thatlthe community as a whole is not a wit-ness to anyone in the Church. Or w.orse: let us say the community ',speaks" to a diehard minority of crustacean Catholics who are clamped like barnacles onto anything in the ChUrch that~has the appearance of a rock. Suppose the community really exists to encourage a faction in the Church to believe, in opposition to the main body of the hierarchy, that Vatican II is only a passing wave:~that will soon get over us, leaving things exactly as they were before? It would be hard to accredit such a community as truly contemplative, of course, no matter how much time they spent in silence and stances of prayer. But one clear reason why the community would be invalid even as a contemplative community is that the com-munity would have no truly apostohc d~mens~on. They would not .be preaching and teaching--not in ~the name of the Church and for the 508 / Review lor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 Church--but in the name of a factional spirit that is resisting the life of the People of God. Sucti communities are teaching a spiritual archeology and calling it biology:' holding up fossils to the world as the living Body of Christ. Let us suppose another.contemplative order, one still in its beginning stages. Let us say it is set up to be ~a community of solitaries. In its first efforts to really achieve solitude and a true spirit of prayer this community may have to defend itself to some extent even from contacts with the main body .of the Church. "It may ~have to. withdraw far into' the wilderness, far from the paths of men, and jealously guard its privacy for a while. To this extent it'can appear, momentarily at least, as a "counterwitness" to the ~solidarity of the whole Church's sharing in the charismatic .gifts of ~every member and group. But soon, if the community's charism is authentic, the flow of life back into the Church in the form of "teaching and preach-in~" .must begin anew. The monastery will begin to shine as a 4ight in the world--and most visibly to. the Church--through its manner of life and prayer. More than lik.ely pilgrims and pray~ers will begin to come, and they will be welcomed in the spirit of open faith traditional to monastic communities: a spirit of hospitality which receives each guest as possibly sent from God to receive or to give a blessing only God foresees in its details. On a level that is deeper yet than hospitality, and theologically more fundamental, the community must always understand itself, very con-sciously, as called and gifted for the benefit of the whole Church: The community must be aware of, and concerned about, what its life is "saying" to the Church, and what the Church's life is saying to it: how its self-understanding matches and fits into the ~ Church's contemporary under-standing of herself. The enclosed life must not" be a seIJ-enclosed life. There is no self-enclosed life in the living Church, the organically-inter-dependent mystical Body .of Christ. The reactionary community, be it monastic or non-monastic, is a non-apostolic community. Whether it spends twenty-four hours a day behind monastic wails or eighteen hours a day exhausting itself in the inner city, the community that has ceased to inter, act vitallywith tile Church is a non-apostolic community. How can a group that has sealed itself off from the Church's life claim in spite of this to be "sent" by the Church or to the Church? It is not possible, therefore, for a contemplative (or any other kind of) community to be authentically Christian. if it opts 'to live solely in its own little ~world of private tradi-tions, and practices, oblivious to all that is taking place in the life of the worldand the Church around it. To be truly contemplative, 'then, is to be apostolic by that very fact. And to be authentically ~apostolic one must be contemplative. And to be either, or both, in .the Church one must be in vital, responsive contact with. the. rest of the Body of Christ on earth. This contact crosses denominational The "~4ctive-Contemplative~' Problem. / 509 . lines: an authentically prayerful com, munlty of Protestant Christians (Taiz6, for example) speaks very eloquent!y to Catholics, and vice-versa. But a community that has set itself up as[ a standard for the Church, in opposi, tion to the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church, speaks to no one. If the community is factional in a ]reactionary sense, clinging, to the past while the (~hurch moves into the future with God, its teaching becomes a "spiritual necrophilia," a fascinatioo with what is dead and controllable, based on fear of responsible encouhter with the Living God. °If the com-munity is factional in a progressive '~ sense, caught up in the .current of this world:rather than moved by the v~inds of the Spirit, then its teaching is idolatry: 'it receives man-made images from the pagans, or shapes them: from its contemplation of the worla, and presents them to the People of God as a ~graven image, a reflectioh of man's own contemporary face, to Worship as the new face of God. What, then, should We say in conclusion about the traditional threefold division of religious orders into "active," "contemplative" and "mixed"? First we should recognize that the word "mixed" may not legitimately claim a place in our tradition aldngside the categories of "active" and "contemplative." To describe the th'ird category as !'apostolic" rather than mixed (as G;innon arid Traub do) is misleading,~ because it implies that' the other, two categories, are non-i~postolic. This could be justified,° per-haps, if we_use "apostolic" t,o :refer~ in a very strict sense to precisely the kind of life the twelve Apostles' le, d,.as Father Orsy does (Open to the Spirit, pp. 273ff.). But', this is not thee meaning the word "apostolic" evokes when we ,:use it. In current usage~ "apostolic" means bringing grace to others as Christ's instrument, contributing by~(~ne's life' to the redemptive work, of the Church. Father Orsy"p0ints out this distinction very succifctly when .'he~ Says of rehg~ous, All are ,apostles but not all apostles follow the~ apostles', way of iife" (ibid.):ii, St. Thomas seems to recognizeIonly two categories of life for human beings, the contemplative and the active. He seems to assume that all re-ligious are in the contemplative li~fe by °virtue of the fact that they are striving for the "perfection of charit:y," which cannot be conceived of apart from that loving knowledge ~of God which is c'ontem~lation. Likewise all religious must be apostolic, 'became love of neighbor is included in the perfection of charity., . In the organization; the~structufing of religious life, however, one com-munity differs from another. Some ~ommunities organize their lives almost entirely toward actiVe works of sergice: Contemplation is still a recognized goal (asit is of every fully Christian life), but the community as such does not directly aim at it in any signifidant way through communal policies or structures. So far as the communl!y as a whole is concerned, its visible stance, embodied in structures, points it: only toward active service, and toward the active stage of spiritual "growth. Spiritually the community is 510 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 geared to the level of moral virtue. Each member is expected to labor generously in the vineyard of the Lord, and to live peacefully and coopera-tively in community. The vows as such are not stressed except as a basic and not particularly elevated platform on which to live and work. Mem-bers are called upon to live celibately and purely, to make simplicity and sharing the characteristics of their relationship to material things, and to subordinate personal preferences to the decisions and goals of the com-munity where the common good requires this. This life of "reasonable service" is nourished by workshops, discus-sions, and reading; by some sustaining prayer, and methods of personal and communal evaluation and accountability. Good liturgies and theological input are welcomed where available. Spiritual direction is encouraged for those who feel the need of it and can find a director. Everyone is expected to find time to make an annual retreat of five to eight days, and allowed to make it usually, on whatever level of depth the individual desires. If a person lives a morally virtuous life within this framework, causes no trouble in community, and does his or her work well, the community will ask nothing more: This describes the kind of religious community we have called "single-mindedly active," and it may correspond to the reality St. Thomas defines in his comparison of religious orders as a community "occupied with external actions." There is a direct concern for the spiritual life in these communities, but the level of spiritual life aimed at is that which will sustain the members in their active work for the Church and in their inter-action with one another in community life. For anything beyond this the individual must seek means and support on his own. Other communities are singlemindedly contemplative. They embrace structures and organize their lives in such a way that the way of life itself is a constant impetus toward growth in specifically Christian faith, hope and love. In these communities the life is so designed that anyone who is simply leading a life, of good moral virtue and pei'forming well in com-munity and in his work will have it brought home to him with increasing conviction that he is nothing but a "useless servant" (Lk 17:10). The whole manner of ~living is specifically designed not to. make sense except as an expression of the mystery of Christian. faith. And therefore a person must be constantly aware of this mystery to find the life even bearable. The key here is not austerity as such, but simply the absence of any rea-son within this world for living as one does. This "faith or foolishness" quality, stands out with dramatic clarity in the cloistered contemplative life, where not even work can be used as a justification for the way one lives. The active religious might be able to tell himself in moments of waver-ing faith that even if there is no God it is worth the sacrifice of family and possessions just to devote oneself to one's fellow man in his poverty, his sickness, his ignorance. It is certain that many active religious and priests The "~4ctive-Contemplative" Problem / 511 pour themselves out in work in order not to have to face the deeper ques-tions of their relationship to God in fi~ith. It is more difficult for the cloist6red contemplative to do this. He ~ight try, but everything in the life-style he is submerged in will cry out to him what he is doing. The cloistered orders give a place to prayer that is obviously not intended just to support a life of moral virtue or keep people generous in their work. The poverty, pursued by these communities is, as a rule, a level of deliberately-sougllt deprivation not imposed by circum-stances or embraced just out of a s~nse of solidarity with the poor, a style ~of life designed to be congruous. Religious obedience is recognized, not just as a means to harmonious, cooperative living, but as a form of kenosis and a way of surrendering to the Holy Spirit in the Mystical Body of Christ. And the structures of com-munity life embody this understanding of religious obedience and of the government that corresponds to it. ~Within such a context celibacy is both understood and expressed as a poSitive way of relating to God through Christ in a relationship of growing lintimacy, mutual comprehension--and gift, ' Communities designed to express and to lead to' the fullness of Chris-tian knowledge and love of God and of all other things in the light of God are obviously, in St. Thomas' opinion, preferable in themselves to communities that do not aim at this. If it came to a choice between one or. the other--an either-or alternatave Thomas would say the second kind of community is the better choice in itself. It is better, in the abstract, to be a singieminded contemplativ~ than to be singiemindedly active. It might be, however, that for a givenl individual, or in a given set of circum-stances~ it would be a better thing in the concrete case tO choose the more active form of life. But are we really faced, in theory at least, with an either/or alterna-tive. Granted that the choice betw,een an enclosed, a cloistered life and a non-enclosed life is an either/or alternative. Granted again that the choice between a life of solitude and continuous contemplation in the sense of an undistracted intellectual preoccupation with God is an either/or alternative to a life of active, absorbing labor.' Still, "actively' and "contemplative" do not have to be either/or alternatives. Contemplation need not be restricted in its meaning to the absorption of the intellect in God during periods of formal prayer, Contemplation can be, and ought to be, a total and con-tinuous attitude of mind and heart; an ~rientation toward God and an awareness of relationship with God in all that one does and encounters (see Gannon and Traub's seventh ]chapter, "Finding God in AllThings," op. cit., p. 152ff.). This awarenes~l of God in all things is fostered both by periods of formal prayer (experience teaches that. these are normally indispensable) and by a total life~-style that expresses emphatically and 512 / Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/4 unambiguously the faith, hope and love of which one wishes to remain aware. For St. Ignatius of Loyola the key to continuous contemplation is an ever-growing abnegation of self and a continuous stance of renunciation towards this world embodied in concrete choice (see Gannon and Traub, op. cit., chapters seven and eight: "Finding God in All Things" and "The Logic of Christian Discernment," esp. pp. 158- 172). For St. Thomas Aquinas the choice presented by the active and con-templative life-options is not an either/or choice but a triple one: either the active life, or the contemplative life, or both. In the third option one chooses to live in a way that leads to contemplation and in additio.n to this to share with one's neighbor i.n service the results of one's contemplative life. It may be--this We neither defend or dispute--that St. Thomas made too much of a distinction between contemplation and action, conceiving of contemplation too narrowly in terms' of an explicitly intellectual absorp-tion in formal prayer. It may also be, as I believe the case, that he did not understand, or at least develop, how many kinds of activity could be included under the term "teaching and preaching" that for him designates the kind,.of work in which th~ fruits of contemplation are shared. But if we follow the principles of St. Thomas's doctrine, I believe we arrive at an ideal of, religious life towardwhich every community can aim. This is re-ligious life characterized by a double end: that of growing explicitly in loving knowledge of God in faith, hope, and love while explicitly ordering one,s life to the spiritual benefit of the neighbor. Such a life must not only be explicit about its end. It must also incorporate effective means to produce the contemplative spirit and apostolic effectiveness sought. In the measure that a given form of religious living really does produce contemplative peo-ple and really does "speak" to the Church in a solid and effective way, that life corresponds to St. Thomas's ideal. This ideal of St. Thomas~was expressed in,Vatican Council II as the ideal, not of one particular category of religious order, but of religious life itself: ", ¯ . . As they seek God before all things and only Him, the members of each community should combine, contemplation with apostolic love. By the former they adhere to God in mind and heart; by the latter they strive to associate themselves with the work of redemption and to spread the Kingdom of God. (Decree on the Renewal o] Religious Li]e, part 5, Abbott p. 47~0. See also Orsy, op. cit., chapter seven, "Filled with Grace and Power: Contemplation," esp. pp. 209, 254). The "mixed" life, in other words, is not really an option in religious life:if we use the term in the sense developed here, it has tobe an aim. To'~be practical we should suggest in conclusion that every religious take a good, hard look at.the concrete reality of his or her community's life. What concrete structures, policies, activities, or provisions: of com- The "Active-Contemplative" Problem / 513 munity life are specifically designed ~to foster the contemplative spirit? How effective are they? What real priod~ty are they given in the actual life of the community? How much do they influence community decisions? In what visible ways do they determiqe the community life-~style. Secondly, what is the life of the community saying to the Church? What are the real effects of the c~mmunity's work? What are the fruits of its apostolate? Is the communityiin reality working for the Kingdom of God, or just working and offering ~hat work in some general way for the Kingdom .of God? Is the .community corporately ~fiware of the difference between a life of moral virtue and a life of theolbgical virtue? Is there an insistence, in visible, concrete ways, that each member keep growing to the level of perfect faith, hope, and love? Or d~es the community in its actual policies insist only on a good day's work and a cooperative spirit in community? To be a "good religious," an acceptable member of the community, how much contemplative spirit is required? Are prudence,~justice, temperan.ce, and fortitude enough? o. ~ It is certainly legitimate for an individual to live the "active" life during certain periods of his spiritual growth. But this is only legitimate if th~ active life is seen as a phase of growth ordered toward achieving contem-plation. Or the active life can be added to the contemplative as a way of sharing its fruits with others. But ithe active life as such cannot be the final goal or total plan of any serious;Christian's life. What is legitimate for individual~ is legitimate for communities. That is, a community can structure its corp9rate; its communal life to be "active" for some members or for a certain~ time. But this is legitimate only if the community situates its active life-s~tyle within the broader context of an identifiably contemplative life-style~. The community must .be able to identify the explicit elements in its overall style of living--its structures and policies--that present the contemplative life to its members and foster its growth. The community must be able to show that it is concretely geared --and not just abstractly committed~to bring its members to the "per-fection of charity," the fullness of the loving knowledge of God. If a community is not willing or able to do this, it should take the responsibility of redefining itself. It should present itself to its members and to the ~world as a singlemin~ledly "active" community, a "service orgamzatlon in the Church. This ,;vould be,' in St. Thomas's explanation, a third class religious order. A second-class religious order ~would be one that is committed and geared toward achieving contemplation, but which frankly acknowledges that it is not strong enough in itsl contemplative life to take on an ex-plicitly apostolic dimension. By "apostolic dimension" I do not mean, of course, just active work. A comm.hnity of solitaries strictly cloistered in the desert can have a fully-developed apostolic dimension. By "apostolic 514 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 dimension" I mean an explicit concern about what one's life is "saying" to the Church. (This is, I believe, a legitimate interpretation of what St. Thomas means by "teaching and preaching.") Any community can put this concern aside temporarily. A novitiate house, for example, or a new religious older in its first beginnings; might have to forget for a while about what it is saying to the Church in order to concentrate exclusively on what God is saying to it. But a community which did not see itself as ever having any concern~except the growth and sanctification of its own members would have to acknowledge itself as a second-class religious order--a sort of spiritual hospital for people who are never expected to become strong enough to share the burden of the Church's mission. I seriously question whether either of' these first two choices~ are legitimate options in religious life. If religious life (like every,.valid Christian life) has the per[ection of charity as its goal, it seems a contradiction in terms that one would accept to be a second- or third-class religious. Realistically, I think ,the value of St. Thomas's distinctions lies in the help they give us in recognizing situations that ought to be temporary in the life of religious communities; situations we might be tempted to accept as permanent. We have mentioned a legitimately' exclusive preoccupation with one's own spiritual growth, provided it is temporary. We see in the life of the active orders around us a-similar preoccupation at this moment in history, but which might not be recognized for what it is. After Vatican II, when religious renewal began in a massive way, one religious com-munity after another awoke to the distortions that had crept into our understanding of religious life. We realized that in our efforts to become spiritual we had lost s~ight of ,what it was to be human. Words like "ful-fillment" and "interpersonal relationships" began to punctuate our con-versations. We threw ourselves into the rediscovery of our emotional and affective lives. We made acceptance of ourselves h religious goal, and embraced as a duty the grateful enjoyment of this world as God's gift. Words like "renunciation" and "abnegation" became "trigger" words, sym-bols of a repressive' and distorted spirituality that blanketed human values and suffocated human personality under an all-covering mystique of self-sacrifice. Religious began to pursue courses and workshopg for their own intellectual and psychological development. Individuals began to take responsibility for their own decisions and to speak up like adults in com-munity discussions. We went in for group decision-making and discern-ment. The emphasis was placed on personal responsibility. Bells were abolished, the time and place for prayer left up to each individual. Supe-riors were abolished, too, in many cases and group accountability substi-tuted for personal, spiritual ,government. People began to furnish their rooms in ways that expressed acceptance of the world rather than austerity. Convents went in for bright curtains, pink bed spreads and teddy bears. A rich variety of food and drink became available twenty-four hours' a day. The "Acttve-Contemplative" Problem / 515 Smoking and drinking ceased to be tabu to nuns. The ancient practice of the "peculium" so constantly condemned in religious tradition, came back in the form of personal budgets. Nuns and priests started dressing to ex-press their individual personalities as well as their maleness or their womanhood. Sisters experienced what it was to "feel like a woman again," for better or for worse. Priests and seminarians fell in love with sisters,~ and sisters fell in love with them. Some left religious life and got married. Those who remained began to speculate on the "complementarity of tlie sexes," and to ask how one's human sexuality could be integrated into a celibate life without compromise to chastity. Experiments were acted out, mistakes were made. Growth resulted, tragedy resulted; there was good and evil! In all of this there has been in religious community life an absorbing corporate preoccupation with "self." Religious communities have turned their gaze inwards, trying to straighten out their own house. For the time beirig many communities have become more concerned with what religious life is saying to them than they are with what their religious life is saying to the Church. In many specific instances, communities have defied alike the prejudices of the laity and the precepts of Rome. In their intense ef-fort to listen authentically to what God is saying to them, it would seem that some religious have become less attentive to the voice of the wider Church, whether this comes from the ranks of the People of God or from the official representatives of that People. A temporary preoccupation with self is legitimate and good, even on the community level. But no real discernment.or renewal of religious life can take place in the long run in isolation from the People of God. Re-ligious cannot ignore what their life is saying to the rest of the Church. As long as a community is doing this, or has to do it, it is engaged more in spiritual therapy for its own members than in making its contribution to God's people. It may well be that for a certain time a religious community may have to direct all its efforts toward "becoming human." Perhaps the human values of responsibility, affectivity, self-acceptance, and interper-sonal relationship have been lost through a distorted way of living in the past. These values may have to be recovered. But if a religious community accepts as its permanent goal in life, and as its normal guideline for community policy, the ideal of "becoming human," that community must inquire into its place in the overall community Of the People of God. So long as a community is mainly preoccupied with the healing of its own self-inflicted wounds it falls, I believe, into St. Thomas's second cate-gory of religious life. Whether the community is exclusively preoccupied with becoming divine through contemplation, or with becoming human through sensitivity sessions and the use of creatures that reinforce people's sense of personal ~worth, it is not yet strong and mature enough to share with others the fruits of a healthy and developed spiritual life. We should 516 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 recognize this and make sure that we do not accept a temporary, therapeu-tic situation as normal policy for religious life. We can set up spiritual hos-pitals for oursel~,es on a temporary basis. But .if the raison d'etre of our lives is just to constitute a healing milieu of humanness, our expectations for the future should be that no healthy human'beings will apply. Religious life is intended to lead people through active and contempla-tive stages of growth to that developed maturity of life, both human and divine, which allows each person to become a word of grace made flesh; a word of light, of life, and of love spoken tothe People of God. Religious life structured to this goal is the first, the highest, and I believe: the only authentic form of religious life. St. Thomas's distinctions invite us to look at three levels of value in religious life and tO ask" ourselves if our own communities are concretely and effectively geared to achieve them all. To a Young Sister on Her Final Profession Day You .,ask me for a poem, Sister, in honor of this day on which you place for all eternity, your life. your total self~ within the Heart of Him who called you, drew you, in a thousand subtle ways to 'love Him for Himself alone. But how can words of human speech express what is forever inexpressible, what can be only numbly felt :by hearts too grossly fles!! Even the Psalmist's flame-tipped words that ride ~he winds and pierce the clouds fall, helpless, to the ground. The only poem I can give you, Sister, is a prayer, whispered in the depths of nay own heart, to Him who dwells there too, as in Your own. And even that prayer says less in words than in desire. Love Him---trust Him--always, Sister, until that day when there will be no need of poems or words but only of that Word who is all love that ever was or is ° or can be. He is your poem, Sister! Sister Mar~c'Luke, c~S.]. 3556 Rocky River Drive Cleveland, OH 44111 The Incomplete Conversion J. 'Rankin, King~ . Mrs. Kin"g graduated from St. Louis University in 1973. She has pfiblished poetry in The Haiku Anthology, Poet atid~,C~itic arid elsewhere. She 'is presently engaged in research fin the .field of comparative re!igious,experience. Her address:. Nativity Hermi-tage;. Taos, NM 87571. We are b~ now, as participant observers,, nearly used to~ the revived in-terest in spirituality which has characterized the seventies, jStudies .and ex-periments inthe practices of Eastern Orthodox and Asian traditions oc-cupy~. a small but well educated and serious° number of cgntemplative re-ligious: Monumental tasks of research and translation by monastic scholars pr_o_mise considerable assurance that the monastic renewal will be both sound, and profound. A. reawakened interest at. the popular level in the role of .the, Holy Spirit in Christian life heightens mass awareness of God's saving ,pr.e~sence. ,Chri_stocent~ic~,incarnationalism, more intellectual than the popular movement, less comprehensive than the monastic effort, pro.- vides a vehicle for renewed devotion to th.~:, humanity of Christ among many priests and religious. These tendencies exist beside, and tend to color th_e spiritualities o.f, the religio_us orders which are more and more coming to be seen as mutations of and variants upon the one-basic spiritually of ~the Church Universal, simple ,and whole, the spirituality of the ages. Of all these, this essay .will °attempt to deal 0nly with the contemporary popular tendency. It, will stress its weaknesses rather than its strengths, its situation of risk rather than its posture of promise, because it is, among the trends developing at pres_ent, at once the most massive and the most fragile. It. is my hope that this approach will contribute more at the pres-ent moment to the ongoing recovery of spiritual discipline among us than the positive one which has been the more common over the past few years. 517 518 / Review ]or Religious, F'olume 35, 1976/4 While the popular spiritualities of the prayer group and the pentecostal meeting discover their sources in traditions outside the Church, they may also be accurately described as reactions to the conventional spirituality that preceded them. That earlier spirituality stressed rule and form, this proposes the Spirit and the spontaneous. That spirituality was rooted in the prescriptions of the spiritual manuals, this adventures without them. If that spirituality had nearly forgotten the Illuminative Way, this is ignorant of the Purgative. That spirituality put affectivity to its bow and aimed it upward, often so austerely as to be accused of being cold. This is charac-terized by a diffuse and volatile emotion. Conventional spirituality was a spirituality of reserve, interiority. Popular spirituality celebrates the mani-fest, effuses. Their differences are sufficiently radical to render them remote and, in a very profound way, both antipathetic and antithetical to one another. ~ And yet both have this in common, that the first had forgotten and the second has yet to learn the meaning of metanoia~f metanoia not as moment but as process. It is ironic that popular spirituality, in setting out to recapture the Spirit and the Life, should bear within itself, also, that precise element the want of which drained the previous spirituality of ex-actly those things. For it was certainly °its failure to grasp and implement the mechanics of the Purgative Way--that radical reaction to the discovery of one's own sinfulness--which stripped the previous spirituality of its vitality and left it, intact in all its structures but resoundingly,empty, a prey to that kind of renewing which obliterates altogether. It is characteristic of reactionff to~ over-react and, sometimes, to miss the point, Iri this case the.point was not that there was something wrong with the spirituality of the manuals: it was, hfter all, the Catholic spiritual-ity, the spirituality of the ages; but that there was something dreadfully wrong with those .who professed it. Specifically, they were not half sorry enough for their sins. On the contrary, they often thought themselves very good folk°'indeed. It is not perhaps surprising that their ~lateral~descendants should harbor a similar misapprehension, and that it. should produce, spon~ taneity to 'the contrary, a similar chill of ';righteousness"; a characteristic which proclaims as clearly as any antinomianism; the Spirit's absence. Genuine metanoia is a process. It begins, to be sure, with a haoment: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee: Wherefore I abhor.myself, and repent in dust and ashes,''1 I abhor myself~ an abhorrence that generate~ an ongoing and ever deepening reaction. We have called that reaction the Way of Beginners, the Purgative Way. We have identified with precision its stages; its characteristic rhythms of prayer, its temptations, its joys and sorrows, its goals and the interior technology which must be employed if they are to be attained. And we know its term: aJb. xlii, 5:6~ The Incomplete Conversion / 519 a sincere and complete conversion; .and'its consequence: a man sufficiently iiast to bear experimental cbntact with the Spirit of God in illumined faith-- a man who has the justice, the prudence, the temperance and the fortitude to worShip in Spirit and Truth under the influence of infused prayer. ¯ At the present time 'the popular movement recognizes the moment but is unaware'0f the process. Its characteristic exercises--shared and peti-ti0riaty prayer and Scripture reading--are not primary metanoiac agents. It is difficult to see how the movement is to proceed, if it does not assim, ilate a technology" of interior change. Popular spirituality's mistaken guess that the first gift of the Spirit is joy prevents it from cultivating that sorrow, with its concommitant hatred of sin and the filial fear of the Lord which dreads' to lose him, which are, in fact, the Spirit's choicest gifts to the youngest of his Chosen. ~'Its apprehension of a fullness of some kind, when overly encouraged, acts as a bar to its experiencing its own poverty. A dollar may indeed look like a great deal to a man who has known only'plugged nickels all his life but. it remains, nevertheless, a dollar, with a dollar's purchasing power. There seems tO be some danger of the popular renewal's forgetting that the ish seddqdh~ the just man, is ?a member of the an~wim, God's afflicted ones: the poor, the weak, the humble, the meek, the oppressed . the needy, the broken hearted, the crUshed in spirit.''-~ In its search for signs of the Spirit's presence, it is prone to overlook the "Sign of'Jonah" proposed to a previous unbelieving generationhthe death, burial and resurrection of the Lord and i.s, in consequence, diverted from living any coherent program of its own daily dying which is, after all, the Christian's only entrde to the higher life. "There is an apophthegm of Pambos," writes Andre Louf,'a "that is all the more pointed for its brevity: 'Acquire a heart and you can be saved.' 'Acquire a heart': this implies that we do not yet have that spiritual sensi-tivity, that alertness of heart, that can discern and understand the things of the Spirit." The popular, spirituality is of~theopinion that it can. There is perhaps no greater bar to the acquisition oL a heart than the persuasion that one has one. "Better just to smeil a~ flower in the garden or something like that," wrote Thomas M~rton,4 "than to have an unauthentic experience of a much higher value." * A concept of change nearly defines traditional spirituality. Life in Christ is metamorphosis. Its dynamism is the life of God in Trinity which enters the soul 'at the time of its baptism or through the"second and "labo-rious" baptism of penance. Conversion, then, i.s not an arrival :but a de- 2David Holly, The Quest ]or Biblical Living; Cistercian Studies,~ Vol. X, Nos. 3 and 4, p. 235. aAndre Louf, Spiritual Experience, Cistercian Studies, Vol. X, no. 2, p. 128. 4Patrick. Hart, ed., Thomas Merton, Monk (New York: Sheed & Ward; 1974), p. 190. Review. ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 parture.: To delay upon the platform, cheering the trains as they come in, is nearly always fatal. The Kingdom of Heaven withers when .it finds~a pos.t-conversion ?'level". and is staticized there. Transformation is'the primary work of the Holy Spirit. ,It is' to this--a definitive delivery~ffrom sin--that" his chief inspirations tend, for he is indeed the very SpiriL.of Christ, he who came to ~.set free the captive, to deliver those Iying in prison, To un. derestimate the extent of,the captivity, the depth of the dungeon, is to miss entirely the pointoof the Mission of the Spirit. . We often hear~it said today that because God loves us he accepts us. That is, of course, the one thing he will never do-,-because he loves us. "When he said 'Be perfect,' he meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hanker-ing after is harder--in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard4or an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to, fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you.cannot go on. in-definitely being just an ordinary, decent,;egg. Wg must be hatched or go bad.''~ , Perhaps we could say that contemporary popular spirituality is in a situation of vulnerability at the moment because it does not dream that~it is an egg. It would seem to be a fatal diversion to cultivate joy if "real spiritual joy is one of the rarest fruits of the., spirit, to be attained only near the summit of the way, after all evil ,habits and thoughts are overcome, all passions conquered, and reconciliation with God is reached?'~ If "the true signs of sincere penitence .are the taming of the beast of anger and absti-nence from all condemnation.of others''~ and if only sincere pen.itence can open the way to any kind of consistent experience of God, then it would seem to be the better .part of enlightenment to .work at those hydra-headed passions. That, at any rate, seems to be what the Spirit.has always bee.n saying to t.he Churches. ; It wbuld not,.perhaps, be necessary to notice the belief clusters and attitudes in popular spirituality which .hinder its. developing genuine in-teriority if it had not attained a very rapid and, indeed, massive growth and were not now showing a decided disposition to impose .itself wherever possible on the rest of theoChurch. Now it is, of course, highly d~e~irable that we should all be more committed Christians, but it may be4hat a good many of us do not desire to be imposed upon, nevertheless. ~Especially by those whose light does not exceed our own. The prospect of spending the rest, of one's spiritual life occupied in "praise"~ and intercessory prayer, punctuated by predictable prophecies will not appeal to everyone . While enthusiastic neo conversi may be able to speak winningly and cohvincingly of their ~newly discovered life in Christ, it is the Church's ex- ;'C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1974), p. 169. ~-~ "Iulia de Beausobre, ed., Russian Letters b] Direction, 1834-1860, beiiig the l~tter~ of Staritz Macarius of Optino.(St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1975), p. 106. rlbid., p. 169. The Incomplete ~onversion / 521 perience that fruitful apostolates are the result of a mature Christian life. And it is, besides, the spiritual doctrine of Catholicism that too great an eagerness to teach others is, in beginners, a sign of sp!r!tual pride.i, Although it is typical of evangelical Christianity to send its converts immediately into the field, it has not been the apostolic Church's custom. Following the example of her Lord, who spent thirty years in obscurity be-fore undertaking his public mission, she has preferred that her children nurture the life of grace in humble penance, in mortification and in prayer before sending them "as sheep among wolves." ". when we are fully grown men," writes Tauler in full fidelity to the tradition, "we may come and live in the land of Judah. 'Judah' means 'to confess God.' Then you can teach and admonish in Jerusalem . You can cross over into Galilee which means 'overcoming all things'. ,,8 The facility with which the technique for inducing a Pentecostal type conversion experience can, apparently, be acquired, makes it tempting to the popular movement to adopt evangelical traditions of proselytization. The maturer fruits of conversion oin terms of authentic interior cleansing will not be likely to develop, however, under condition~ 6f forc6d acti~on. Th6 spirit of "results" apparent among the'fastest paced evang'el!qa~l,16rom0i~r~ today should give us pause. For that spirit is not the meek Spirit, the Holy ~pir!t, thee Spirit of repentance which the popular spiritua!ity ~has claimed for its own. "I realize," wrote Andre Louf in a rece6t ar~ic, le, that repentance is not o_nly~ a difficult theme to touch on today, but is also~ g~ven the .complexes of our times--one of the most. difficult to pin down and live authentically. And yet it remains essential. In general, repentance is:'re-fused today. We live at the turning point between th~ obsessive neurosis (if ~ - I may call it that) characterizing the pe~:iod immediately before our own, and °~ the adolescent effervescence add aggressivity of a period that is now freeing ~ itself;of~ that neurosis. ProoL~that he has sinned can only create unbearable ~, ~anguish in one ~ho is already eate.~ up with anguish. Sin was intolerable for the l~eriod immediately before our own, and people tried to free them-selves from it by what the Fathers used to call dikaioma, the pretension to ° justice. Sin-is unbearable, so one claims to be just by an outward observance of law, or rather, of a certain n~n~ber of r~gulations; in r~hlity one is fleeing from me~tanoia. Today instead we hav~ an adolesc,eni effervescer~ce and aggreg- '~sivi~y which is~just as~ neurotic and ~'for which sin is just as uhbea'rable; the solution now, however, is to say there is no such thingP " ~ '" -~or to bury it under the cliches Of "love" and "joy" and "community" and "perice." ~' " The question for the next few years or s6, so far as the popular spirithal-itY goes, is whether ~it ~ill be able radically, to assimilate to its present spirit the basic spirituality of the Church and its metan~iac techniques. Or will the conversion remain incomplete? ¯ - SJohn Tauler, O.P., Spiritual Con]erences (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1961), p. 38. aAndre Louf, Spiritual Experience, Cistercian Studies, Vol. X, no. 2, p. 132. Ministry, Grace and the Process of Humanization Rev. Stephen J. Duffy Father Duffy is Associate ProfessOr and Chairmarl of the Department of Religious Stud.ies; L6yolaUr~iversity; New Orleans, LA 70118. My" subject ~is ttie very topical "theology of liberation.''a Before we plunge into the subject, however, there are some contextual questions that demand an answer. Why should w~ be concerned with grounding Christian pastoral or social ministry in theology at all? In this connection, is talk about a theology of liberation just a pep-talk or a sales pitch to send enthusiasm soaring? Are institutes and courses on pastoral ministry some kind bf inter-lude before we all get back to our real work? Do they amount to little more than abstract and theoretical discussions designed to titillate, the more intellectually inclined? My strong conviction is that a theology of liberation and discussions of pastoral ministry in that context should be far more than any of these. ZGustavo Guti6rrez, A Theology o] Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis B~oks, 1973)." See also his "Notes for a Theology of Liberation," Theological Studies 31 (1970), pp. 243-261. Guti6rrez is prob~b~ly the most widely read and mo~t influential single theologian of liberation. For a good overview accompanied by a rather, complete bibliography, see Phillip Berryman, "Latin American Liberation Theology," Theolog-ical Studies 34 i(1973,), pp. 357-395. A variety of liberation theologies has been flourishing outside the Latin American situation. Cf. e.g., James H. Cone, A Black Theology o! Liberation (Philadlephia: J. B. Lippincott, 1970); R. Lauren.tin, Libera-tion, Development and Sa/v~ttion (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1972); J. B. Metz, Theology o] the World" (New York: Seabury Press, 1973); R. Reuther, Liberation Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1972);~F. Herzog, Liberation Theology (New ¯ York: Seabury Press, 1972). 522 Ministry, Grace and Humanization / 5~23 '~ I am convinced first of all that there is a deep theological meaning to pastoral ministry. One of the most important contributions of Vatican II's Constitution on the Church is' the notion of Church as mystery. According to Vatican II, the. Church is first and foremost a mystery, a "kind of. sign of intimate union with God," and of the unity of all mankind." The Church is ,an outward sign and instrument, at once concealing and dis-closing the invisible action of God in the world. But if the Church is a mystery, then all its activity in the world is mysterious too, sharing in the very mystery of God. And if0'the Church is not solely the hierarchy or a voice speaking infallibly, or some vague entity.floating serenely above the chaos of this world, but is rather a community of persons, then our ac-tivities, too, share in the mysterious character of the,Church's action. As individual Christians, and as persons engaged in a work more or less clearly identified in some way as the Church's, there is no esCaping the fact ,that our activities will not be merely social or economic or educational or political .or psychological, but will bear a dimension that is Christian, and therefore mysterious. In the second place i believe'it is highly important for us to understand theologically this Christian dimension of our work, to grasp something in our own lives of this mysterious sign simultaneously revealing and con-cealing the. mystery of God. It is crucialfor us to understand what w~ are doing, for it is difficult to do a task well or enthusiastically without under-standing its purpose and meaning. Crucial, I say, because the meaning of Christian ministry cannot be exhausted by political~ sociological, economic, educational, or psychological interpretations. As sharers of the Chris'tian vision we affirm, in fact, that all such human acti'~ities, abstracted from their Christian dimension, would be ultimately meaningless. Thirdly, as students of theology, or :at least as persons with something of a professional interest in the Work of the Church, we must learn to think in theological terms about our ministry in the world. One of the emphases of liberation theology is that if theology has any meaning at all, it .must be applicable to real-life~ situations. Theoria .and praxis must be wed. I think that here our Christian education is :often lacking. We go through hours of religious instruction, even theology, without a hint that sometiow this must have practical implications. Few attempts are made to show the student how to relate what he has learned in °the classroom with what he is meeting in the s~reets. When Thomas Aquinas faced the prob-lem, at the very beginning of his Summa~ whether theology is a practical or a speculative science; he answered that it is both. From our~practice think we would have to deduce that we consider it to be purely speculative. The popular image of the priest closing his theology books on ordination, never to reopen ttirm again, is, unfortunately, close to the truth. Now I do not in the least want to downgrade theoretical or specuiative theology. I do not want it thrown out in favor of pastoral or even biblical Review ]or Religious, Volume 35; 1976/4 theology, I. feel it should.be even more emphasized, in the sense thaf each one should be trained, not merely to accept passively the theology he. or she is taught, .but rather to be able to reflect actively, creatively, theologi-cally, not only about classroom matter, but about the whole spectrura o1~ Christian :life in the world. If that is not done the pastoral gimmicks taught today will be obsolete in ten years, Critical theological reflection, by rel-ativi

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

Issue 44.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1985. ; Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries" The Community Prayer of Religious Lay Associate Programs Volume 44 Number 2 ° March/April, 1985 R Evmw ~:OR R r:LIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. R~:vl~:w FOR RELiGiOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1985 by R EV~EW FOR R ELtG~OUS. Composed, printed and manufffctured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year; $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Editor Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Associate Editor Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. " Review Editor Richard A. Hill, S.J. Contributing Editor Jean Read Assistant Editor March/April, 1985 Volume 44 Number 2 Manuscripts, hooks for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REvl~:w voR RELIGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. " Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R EVlEW FOR R ELIG~OUS; Room 428; 3601 lAndeR Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Transformations in Religious Commitment .Patricia Wittberg, S. C. Sister Wittberg teaches sociology at The College of Woosier; Wooster, OH 44691. Her previous article in these pages was "Sociology and Religious Life: Call for a New Integration" (Novem-ber/ December, 1983). It has long been obvious that the post-Vatican II period of experimentation and renewal has been marked by .a precipitous decline in the numbers of religious men and women--reflected both in fewer entrants and in a massive exodus of current members. Some observers have attributed this to the perni-cious effects of the reforms themselves,t others to the failure 6f congregations to enact even more reforms, or to enact them more quickly.2 Which of these assessments is more accurate has recently resurfaced as a point of debate, for the shrinkage of communities and their increasing median age were specifically Cited by Pope John Paul II as reasons for the current study of American religious. In this article I hope to explore the role of group commitment mechanisms in the retention or loss of members in religious orders. Two concepts which will be useful in this endeavor are "intentional com-munity" and "association." An intentional community may be defined as a group of persons living together on a more or less permanent basis, who voluntarily surrender control Over some choices which are normally considered private (the focus and means of sexual expressio.n, choice and schedialing of. work, property ownership;and so forth) for the sake of establishing a whole new way of life. Intentional communities call for more commitment than do. other groups, demanding the investment of one's self as well as one's resources of time, money and talents. This investment, ideally, is not shared with other competing organizations, but belongs to the intentional community alone. In contrast, an association is a group of persons who have invested a certain 161 162 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 amount of their resources in the attainment of some common goal or Objec-tive, but who retain more personal autonomy and competing loyalties than would be possible in an intentional community.3 It is the contention of this article that some religious cong~regations--or at least a portion of their members--are moving from an intentional community model of group commitment to an associational one. This transition involves a fundamental change in the character of those religious orders that attempt it, and an examination of what this transformation entails is, therefore, essential. As an aid in our research, we might apply several very good sociological investigations of intentional communities such as the nineteenth-century Shakers and the Oneida Community, or the Bruderhof, a twentieth-century Hutterite group in New York.4 Which of these groups made similar transitions from intentional communities to associations? What happened to them after-ward? How did other intentional communities retain their original commitment structure, and what were the consequences of this retention? The Role of Common Ideology In her study of nine successful nineteenth-century communes (i.e. those that had lasted longer than one generation), Rosabeth Moss Kanter listed the problems that an intentional community must resolve in° order to survive. Steps have to be 'taken to insure that the work necessary for economic self-suf-ficiency (gr.owing food, making craft items for sale, and so forth) is done, that decisions are made to everyones' satisfaction, that close,.f~lfilling and non-ex-clusive relationships are established among members, that new members are recruited and socialized, and that individual uniqueness and autonomy are expressed in a way not destructive to the unity of the group. The self-renuncia-tion involved in these tasks raises the possibility that some individuals will be tempted to withdraw from the community if its demands get to be "too much." To avoid this danger, the members must be encouraged to share a common ideology or world myth that would make them want to subordinate their personal interests to those of the community as a whole.S Once internalized, the group's cosmic myth infuses all of a member's actions with meaning and directs them toward the common goals: I feel that if I have overcome my tendency to return an angry word when a Brother has spokento me, I have resisted the evil spirit. 1 have struck a blow for winning back part of the universe for God Almighty.6 In general, those who study intentional communities agree that groups which are able to maintain their common world view will survive, while those which fail to do so will disappear. The profusion of competing ideologies in twentieth-century America makes this especially difficu!t. As long as the .origi-nal founder of the group is ~alive, his or her charismatic presence, may be enough to maintain the cosmic myth. Howex~er, the founder may lose this charisma over the course of the years, or may die. Intentional communities that are successful in weathering the crisis of their founder's death or fall from Transformations in Religious Commitment / 163 grace are those which have evolved additional, supplementary techniques to foster their sustaining ideology. These usuall~ include common ritual and traditions, common work and recreational activities, boundary maintenance, self-renunciation and sacrifice. Common Ritual and Traditions Sociologists since Durkheim have recognized the importance of ritual celebrations in uniting a social group. As Kant'er expressed it: These rituals both express and reinforce jointly-held values, and represent ways ~f coming together as a group, of feeling closer to One another. For this reason, group rituals are often the most significant and important aspect of community life to members, for it is here that the higher, transcendent meaning of living in utopia is affirmed .7 Successful intentional communities evolved a set of rituals around almost every event: All important occasions in the Bruderhof are marked by a love meal .The dining room tables are arranged in a horseshoe, spread with white tablecloths and specially decorated; the dining room is lit by candles . Everyone gathers outside before the meal. TheY sing songs and walk into the room together.8 Pentecost. is especially important . A huge fire is lit which is the symbol of the burning up of the old and the hope of the coming of the new? These rituals ma~ enact the central aspects of the communal ideology, or they may have more seemingly trivial meanings. The important thing is that, by the regular and frequent group performance of the ritual, the underlying ideology which gives meaning to, the entirety of group life is reaffirmed. Togetherness in Work and Play It is also necessary that the members of an intentional community become emotionally attached to each other as though they were members of one family. Indeed, as Kanter remarks, family terminology such as "Brother" or "Sister" is Often deliberately used to refer to one's fellow group members,t° The development of this familial attachment is facilitated in many groups by requiring that everyone work together at the same limited number of tasks, rather than allowing members to leave daily for eight hours or' more of work outside the community. Common recreational activities also strengthen group family bonds: Perhaps the most memorable thing about the Bruderhof is the singing . There is a song for every mood, every event, every occasion. There are winter songs~ summer songs, morning songs, evening songs, folk songs, love sofi,,gs, birthday songs and wan-dering songs . The singing itself is beautiful and mowng, with effortless three- or four-part harmony on every song.t~ Eating the main meal, or all the meals, ~ogether can also serve a unifying purpose. As would be the case with any family, the more frequent and all-encom-passing the contact among group members, the more intense their mutual 164 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 attachment is likely to be. Intentional communities that are scattered over several locations must get together very often in order to keep their union alive, Zablocki remarks that the three American Bruderhofs both visited and inter-changed residents frequently, and also ran up large telephone bills in calls from one hof to another. A reverse side to this emphasis on family style unity ~equires that steps be taken to root out particularistic attachments which might otherwise lead to division within the group. Historically, monogamous marriage has been a barrier to the full unity of an intentional community, for it establishes compet-ing loyalties in the members. As both Kanter and Coser point out, intentional communities have usually encouraged either celibacy or promiscuity as alter-natives.~ 2 Another frequently used tactic is to discourage "too-close" friendships that shut out the rest of the members. Boundary Maintenance In addition to building up feelings ,of mutual attachment among members and ritualizing the group's unifying myth, care must also be taken to'isolate the community from those aspects of American society which embody competing ideas, attachments and values. Limitations are accordingly established on con-tacts with butsiders (including, especially, non-group parents and siblings of members). In the Bruderhof, most members rarely left the community, and even television watching was done infrequently:" ~ Great care is taken to see to it that the children never h.ear visitors, delivery men or other outsiders say a dirty word. Play with neighborhood children is discouraged. The adult members seldom retain membership in any outside organization, and at one time even their mail was censored and their newspapers and magazines were checked for objec-tionable material which was clipped out,t3 A sense of we/they is deliberately fostered, and the community is Often tbld that it represents a higher, purer way of life which must not be polluted by contact with the uninitiated. ~ An effective way of reinforcing the distinction between in-gro~]p and out-gi'oup is the wearing of distinctive clothes by community members?4 Still another is their development of a distinctive vocabulary to refer to particular activities or at'titudes?5 Finally, it is a good idea if the intentional community can become as "'institutionally complete'~ as possible, so that it depends very little on the outside world for goods and services. This is especially true in the area of education. Many intentional communities attempt to educate the children of their members in separate schools, in order to keep them from any polluting contact with the dutside world: Adult members who desire to add to their education may be forbidden to do so, or limited as to the institutions they are permitted to attend. The Death and Rebirth of the Self A powerful technique for internalizing the world view of an. intentional community is to die to one's old identity and to be "reborn" into anidentity Transformations in Religious Commitment conferred by the group. The Bruderhof novice is. isolated from his past and from his distinctive roles in the out-side world. A woman with psychological training was criticized every time she discussed Something in psychological terms: She was told that this was going to be a major barrier for her to overcome. She was also not allowed to have very much contact with a Sister who had gone to graduate school with her. A woman with an exceptionally beautiful voice was in the habit of bursting into song while sitting alone out of doors or at work. The community made her stop this in order to chastize her ego . Weakening the identity is furthered by the deprivation of choice . The commu-nity decides for [the member] what work he shall do. He has, at least after taking the novitiate, no money of his own. He must ask even for simple necessities like toothpa, ste =. or shampoo.!6 This loss of identity begins ~vith the new member's assumption of his/her guilt and individual worthlessness, often helped along by required self-criticism sessions. Once their old identities are renounced, the individuals receive their entire status and a new sense of worth through the group. A member may, in s6me groups, even receive a new name as a symbol of his/her'new self. With this new source of status and sense of self-worth; as Kanter states, one's self-esteem-depends on unswerving commitment to the norms and values of the gl'OUp.17 Sacrifice A final activity which can be used to deepen a group's commitment to its underlying ideology is to require some sort of sacrifice, When living out the intentional community's world view requires the renunciation of sex .or personal adornment and the adoption of a generally austere lifestyle, the value and sacredness of the cosmic myth is enhanced.18 Members actually find a great deal of joy in undergoing the privations, and often miss them when life becomes easier: That was one of my ti'oubles, giving up clothing. Certain skirts. One velvet skirt 1 had [laughing] oh, how 1 loved that velvet skirt! [Q~ Why did you have to give it up?] Well . we were made to feel., that you shouldn't want something particularly pretty and that looked well on you, that compliments you. This was pride . In order to belike God would wish you to be, you would give up these things. Well, 1 remember 1 struggled withthis and finally one day I was able to march over with a few of these things and my velvet skirt. And I just felt, when I expressed this to [the Housemothers] they rejoiced with me.~9 The Latent Danger in Successful Survival Mechanisms While the five~ mechanisms described above do strengthen the common ideology that had first drawn the members together, they can sometimes become so successful in themselves that the original vision becomes,secondary. The traumatic prospect of !osing all of one's friends may .be sufficient to persuade a doubting member to remain in the community even if he/she no longer ascribes to its worldview. The common pooling of economic goods may strongly discourage a member who has had no occasion for the personal use of money for years from leaving and having to find a self-supporting job.29 166 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 Others, who have not read a newspaper or watched television for several years, may remain in the community because they feel unable to, cope with the unfamiliar outside world.2! Thus, with the passage of time, it may be debatable whether members truly believe in the founder's worldview, or whether they remain because they fear what would happen to them if the~ left~ To avoid this loss of fervor, attempts may be made to rekindle the primal emotional commitment to the group's worldview. Many sociologists have pointed out, however, that unity based solely on emotional feelings is noto-riously ephemeral. Most groups tend either to evolve into a cornmunity based primarily on socially-integrative mechanisms, or else gradually to relax into a looser association in which "members regain virtually full personal autonomy and the commune becomes a cooperative venture in support of its members' individual self-interests. Many of these latter types last for two or three decades, but rarely are they able to produce a second generation."~2 Reflections and Applications The research quoted above has obvious implications for religious life. The integrating mechanisms used by the successful communal experiments strongly resemble certain practices followed, today and in the past; by many religious communities. Furthermore, sociologists who have studied intentional com-munities stress that such value-reinforcing techniques are indispensable if a group's unique world view is to be preserved in the face of the competing values of American pluralistic society. Religious congregations who wish to remain intentional communities without the aid of common ritual, the limita-tion of members' apostolates; boundary maintenance and sacrifice are doomed to failure. Use of these techniques, however, risks the usurpation of the cosmic myth itself. This paper began by contending that some religious communities are responding to this dilemma by abandoning the model of the intentional com-munity altogether and moving toward the less-demanding "associational" model of commitment. Individual religious today often work and live sepa-rately, and come together only periodically foi- prayer or discussion meetings. Whereas intentional religious communities had to adhere to geographical lim-itations in order to preserve their unity (with congregations restricting their members to a particular diocese or a given set of schools or hospitals), the looser associations might be based on some common interest (e.g., social justice, nuclear disarmament, or charismatic prayer forms.) Models for this might be groups such as Pax Christi or NARW, whose members are'.building links of mutual acquaintance that span the continent. Future historians of religious life may see this movement toward association as a radical redefinition, led by the Spirit, of what "religious life" means. Such redefinitions are not new to the Church. Each of the major traditions of religious spirituality--the Benedictine monastics in the fifth century, the mendicant orders in the twelfth, the Jesuits and the Daughters of Charity in the. Enlightenment era--are the Tkansformations in Religious Commitment results of similar communal adaptations to.societal changes not addressed by previous forms of religious life.23 In this way, the Holy Spirit moves and breathes in the Church, and the trend toward looser associations in place of intentional communities can simply reflect the results of prayerful discernment of God's call to a new dimension of service. As was the case in other times of redefinition, the new wine may not fit in the old wine skins. If a congregation chooses the associational model of commitment, therefore, it is necessary to reexamine what, if anything, the evangelical counsels would mean in this new context. Opening the group's membership to married couples may be feasible, since the competing loyalties of marriage would not be as detrimental to these new, less-demanding associations as they had been to the more intense forms of communal living. In fact, since the newer types of association will not provide the emrtional ties and feelings of familial attach-ment which the intentional community had, more and more of the original members may welcome the opportunity to marry and yet to remain in the congregation. The vow of poverty would then have to be reevaluated in the light of providing for members' children, or if members were expected to rent their own apartments and keep their own bank accounts. The congregation would also have a lessened mandate to require obedience from individuals who had competing job or family obligations. With their unifying worldview less carefully shielded from outside influences, members, might refuse to " comply with requests from the congregation, if these infringed excessively .upon their own freedom. There are several dangers in choosing a less intense type of communal commitment. The congregation will risk breaking up completely as its members are distracted by new loyalties: as Zablocki pointed out, few such organizations survive more than two or three decades:22 Also, Canon law (and the I.R.S. !) may not consider these new forms of community living to be tr~uly religious life. The legal ramifications of this have to be explored by both civil and canon lawyers. Loss of tax-exempt status may imperil some of an associa-tion's ministries; loss of canonical status may result in less support'from the institutional Church. Another extremely important question is whether or not an association of religious will be perceived as essentially different from groups devoted to transcendental meditation or saving the whales. Potential members may well question why they shouldbother joining at all, should the association cease to present a distinctive witness to the rest of American society. Finally, an association will not serve as the sole, or even principal, provider of the affilia-tive needs of many of its members: as mentioned above, combining marriage and membership may be the more desired option. For a woman religious over forty, hrwever, the "freedom" of association members to marry may seem a cruel joke in a society where an unbalanced sex ratio and the attraction of men to youngei~ women renders the likelihood of her marriage extremely improba-ble. 24 To compensate for the emotional closeness which her former intentional community can no longer offer her in its new associational form, such women 161~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 may find themselves clinging to family members for support, or, :increasingly, isolated and alone, In the face of the dangers of associational commitment, many religious may feel that there is still a place for the intentional community lifestyle in providing ministry and witness in the Church. If the research on previous intentional communities is to be believed, however, it is impossible to maintain such a lifestyle without integrating practices to strengthen the members' com-mitment. Religious orders that elect to retain or readopt the traditionM prac-tices which had so effectively united pre-Vatican communities will face their own set of dangers. The .tendency, mentioned in the preceding section, for these practices to become sufficient in themselves, and to displace the ideals they were originally designed to protect: will still exist. It was precisely this displacement, of course, which had sparked the post-Vatican movements to return to the spirituality of one's founder in the first place. In addition, prac-tices such as isolation from the outside world and self-renunciation rituals have become suspected of destroying members' personalities and mental health. Communities adopting or retaining these techniques will have to deal with charges that they are fostering immaturity, personal dependency, and other psychological ills.25 A Third Alternative Religious life appears to be trapped between the Scylla of a psychologically-destructive intentional community which tends to become an end in itself, and the Charybdis of an ultimately unstable and gradually co-opted association. A third alternative, however, may be possible. Efforts could be made to use the insights of the research quoted here in constructing integrative mechanisms more adapted to late twentieth-century American culture, taking steps to insure that these mechanisms remain valued means to maintain the founder's char-ism-- absolutely necessary in a group of s6cia!ly dependent human beings, but open to change and replacement lest they become ends in themselves. A congregation at.tempting this alternative would first of all sponsor workshops, seminars and weekends (parallel to the psychologically-oriented conferences on mid,life crisis, burnout, and so forth) which would sensitize its members to' the fundamental necessity of ritual, "common times" of togetherness, and other techniques of group unification and identity affirmation. Particularly ~successful techniques developed or discovered by onegroup might be shared with other groups within or outside the congregation. Policies would be enacted ¯ .by the General Chapter requiring that a certain minimal number of these practices be chosen and implemented by members living in a local house, a city or a region. The leadership of the congregation would need to be empowered to call to accountability those members who persist in isolating themselves from the community. The dilemma of how to avoid the disintegrating effects of diversified minis, tries--while keeping their benefits of individual personal growth and flexible T~ansformations in Religious Commitment response to social needs--would also have to be faced. Once the membership and leadership of a congregation were sensitized to the pressures and competing loyalties that inevitably devolve upon any member who accepts a remote or a nontraditional ministerial position, steps could be taken to minimize these effects. The member might be required to return to the congregation during the summer, for example, to engage in the work onlyfor a limited number of years, or to live with congregational members even if not working with them. The role of sacrifice in uniting a community may also provide possibilities for creative~exploration. Periods of congregational service, whether in leadership or in supporting roles, might be one form of sacrifice; budgetary cutbacks to support Some congregational work among the poor might be another. In any event, religious congregations which wish to remain intentional communities, and .yet avoid the traps into which such communities have fallen in the past, must develop the sociological sophistication to choose the integrating mecha-nisms most suited to their needs and those of their members. Individuals must be encouraged to study and research these techniques; degree programs and summer institutes need to be established to make this possible. Conclusion The dichotomy between intentional community and association which has been developed in this paper marks, in reality, two poles of a continuum along which' most religious communities currently exist. In the ongoing process of moving back and forth between these poles, not all bfa congregation's members are likely to agree, either on the degree of intentional community that remains appropriate for their charism and ministry, or on the customs and practices to be used in achieving it. Communities may even.decide to divide, formally or informally, into subgroups according to the intensity and style of the integrating practices they desire. Wherever on the contihuum~a congregation ultimately finds itself, to the extent that elements of an intentional community are pres-ent, mechanisms will have to be developed in order to safeguard its unity against outside pressures. To the extent that the group resembles an association, the problem of reconciling the affiliative and emotional needs of the individuals with continuing and active membership in the congregation will have to be faced. There is undoubtedly room in the American church for varieties of religious life which exhibit many different degrees of communal or associational com- " mitment. This article has argued, however, that it is extremely dangerous for the ministerial effectiveness and the very existence' of a congregation not to recognize and choose freely the type of commitment proper to its founder's charism in the late twentieth-century United States. Only by realizing and acknowledging the strength~ and weaknesses inherent in the type of commit-ment they have chosen--which presupposes that they know which one it is---can the strengths be emphasized and the weaknesses minimized. This paper is a call for the integration of previously ignored sociological insights 170 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 into the self-study of American religious communities. For some, their very survival may depend on it. NOTES ~James Hitchcock, ~Vocations Holding Up in Traditional Communities" in The Catholic Uni- ¯ verse Bulletin, Cleveland, July 6, 1984, p. 10. * 2Sara Harris, The Sister: The Changing Role of the American Nun (N.Y.: .Bobbs Merrill, 1972), pp. 137-8. 3Benjamin Zablocki, Alienation and Charisma (N.Y.: Free Press, 1980), Chapter 6. 4Sources for my informa[ion on these groups include the following: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community (Cambridge, MA: Ha~rvard University Press, 1972), Lewis A. Coser, Greedy Institutions (N.Y.: Free Press, 1974), and Benjamin Zablocki, The Joyful Com-munity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). ~Bennett M. Berger, The Survival of a Counterculture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), p. 124. 6Zablocki, p. 29. 7Kanter, p. 47. 8Zablocki, p. 39. 9Zabl~cki, p. 52. 10Kanter, p. 46. tlZablocki, p. 47. t2Kanter~ p. 44; Coser, p. 31. ~3Zablocki, p. 172. t4Kanter, p. 84; Zablocki, pp. 129-30. ~Kanter, p. 84; Zablocki, p. 259 ~6Zablocki, p. 250. tTKanter, p. 103. ~SKanter, p. 76. tgZablocki, p. 185. 20Kanter, p.80; Zablocki, p. 281. 2tZablocki, pp. 282-3. 22Zablocki, Alienation and Charisma, p. 289. S¢ also Herbert Schmalenbach, "The Social Category of Communion." 2JJoan Chittister;~ O.S.B., Women, Ministry and the Church (Ramsey, N J: Paulist Press, 1983) ¯ p. 28. 24Tish Sommers, "The Compounding Impact of Age on Sex,, in Ovil Rights Digest, Fall, 1974, pp. 2-9: ~sZablocki, Alienation "and Charisma, p. 325. Jonah and the Vine M. Basil Pennington, 0 C. S. 0 No stranger to these pages, Father Pennington continues to reside and write in St. Joseph's Abbey; Spencer, MA 01562. The nineteenth century was a great time for religious life. At its opening, empty and ruined cloisters stood everywhere in Europe, the fruit of the Pro-test~ nt Reformation and the French Revolution. By the end of the century not only had many of these ruins" been restored with the renewal of the ancient monastic and religious orders but many new religious institutes had come into being: With the opening of the twentieth century these institutes were stretching out to all parts of the world calling the whole human family to spiritual rebirth and renewal. Then suddenly their spirit ~ seemed to really catch on, and the King of Nineveh rose from° his throne and called all to renewal--good Pope John called down the Holy Spirit in a new Pentecost for all humankind. It was disconcerting. Not only had the institution that was to be called to renewal taki~h the lead, but the Spirit seemed to know no bounds. There was a great spiritual renewal among the other religions of the world, and soon spiritual masters from Hinduism and Buddhism were within what we once considered our enclave, calling forth our young men and women, our.prospective members. ¯ The Lord had given us our consoling vine. It shot up overnight. Remember the burgeoning novitiates after the Second World War, the great novitiate buildings we put up in the fifties and sixties--the ones that stand empty now or serve as .conference centers, or which our Buddhist and Hindu brothers and sisters have taken off our hands? Our vine was suddenly cut down. And we sir on our hill, in our little shelter (our new social security benefits?) and gnash our teeth, or we try to keep on doing what we were doing before, with little of the means and less of the fruit, because we are always more and more out-of-date. ¯ Well, not all of us, maybe, but how many of t~s? 171 172 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 One of the things we can note in the closing lines, of the Book of Jonah: as God calls him to universal compassion there is in him no breath of conversion. He who had called others--so successfully to conversion, himself will not convert. He sits there in his bitterness. We who have so successfully called the Church and the human family to spiritual renewal have we ourselves ~heeded the call of the Council to true spiritual renewal? Or have we just tried some "adaptations" and .now in our bitterness blame them for our present plight. The publication of the new Code of Canon Law offers us an opportunity to be again confronted, rather directly and concisely, by the message of the Second Vatican Council: a call to religious to be religious. (Religious comes from the latin word: religo, to be bound again bound again to God, most intimately.) The opening canon in the section on religious tells us that our life is for those "who follow Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit"; it is a life ."totally dedicated to God who is loved most of all . dedic~ited to his honor, the upbuilding of the Church and the salvation of the world" (Canon 573). It is "through charity to which the counsels lead that [we] are joined to the Church and its mystery in a special way" (Canon 573). When the code comes to speak of the obligations of religious it states first th'at "religious are to have as their highest rule of life the following of Christ as proposed in the Gospel" (.Canon 662). Then it goes on to state that "contem-plation of divine things and assiduous union with God in prayer is to be the first and foremost duty of all ~religious" (Canon 66.3). When it comes to speak about novitiate formation, it says not only that "the novices are to be led to cultivate human and Christian virtues . to be prepared to cultivate the worship of God in the Sacred Liturgy . to be instructed to read and meditate on the Sacred Scriptures" but also "to be instructed to contemplate the mystery of salvation" (Canon 652): Conte~mplative union with God is for all religious, and novices are to be effectively taught how to open their lives to the contemplative dimension of prayer and life. There was a very interesting developmen~ at the Second Vatican Council (P, ope Paul insisted constantly that the'Code of Canon Law is to be but the practical implementation of what the Spirit had said to us in the Council--a ¯ call to constant renewal). At the first session a long treatise on religious life was offered to the Council Fathers, some one hundred thirty pages. The commission was told to boil it down. They returned to the second session~with thirty five pa, ges. Again, the word was to boil it down. At the third session the Fathers found at their places a brief document of nineteen propositions, very much what we have, with a couple of added paragraphs on monastic life. This,new schema had a very long fo0tnote--almost half as long as the whole text. In this footnote the writers explained that the threefold distinction in regard to religious life that had come into common use from the teaching of Aquinas and was found even in Pius Xll's Humani generis, namely active, contemplativ~e, and Jonah and the Vine / 173 mixed, was not to be retained. There could be no such thing as a simply active religious life. All religious, by the very nature of religious consecration through religious profession, were called to contemplative union with God. Some were. to:be "mere" contemplatives." Others were called to pass on the fruits of their contemplation in apostolic ministry. This very significant shift, a real call to renewal, has been largely~ missed. The code spells it out very clearly. Will we hear? We can continue to sit apart in our pathetic little structures and bewail the fact that no one is paying any attention to us any longer, and leave renewal to ,:the laity, the hierarchy, and the clergy--and to the other religions! We can watch creative, new !ay ministries take on our former missions--in itself not a ¯ bad thing at all. We can watch our most promising youth, who really want to do something to make a difference in a world that is hell-bent on global destruction, respond to the call of the great swamis and roshis who practice what they preach, and of the new prophets who have caught the universalist vision and call for global.unification--perhapsnot such a good thing. But the reality of it all is that we, the sons and daughters of the Book, have, in the intimate revelation of God in Christ and in the empowerment of the sacred tradition and the sacramental life, so much more to bring to the human family. It will only I~e when we teach the fullness of the call of the Gospel, so powerfully re-enunciated in the Second Vatican Council, and actually live what we teach, that we will be credible and effective and attractive--in the right sense of that w.ord--again; The great progenitors of the Second Vatican Coun-cil were, first, John Henry Cardinal Newman, who reminded us that doctrine-- and all else in a living Church--keeps on developing. Hence, we cannot stop with Vatican II, but before we advance beyond it, we have at least to get what it has given us. Can we honestly say we have really absorbed the teaching of the documents of Vatican I19. Certainly I can't, and I have been working with them steadily for over twenty years! Second was Teilhard de Chardin, whose call was ~to a new level of consciousness that integrated the whole of creation, centering all in the heart of Christ; in the awesome power of Divine Love that was poured out in our hearts in the Holy Spirit who groans within us to be free to do mighty things in and through us: things of prayer and worship, things of empowerment and life. Have we heard Newman and Chardin? Are we stretching to keep develop-ing, and expanding our loving concern and our creative vision to the whole of. the human project, the divine creative project? Sad to say, not a few monasteries, not a few religious'institutes look a bit like Jonah on his hill, under his little structure, with his wilted vine lying prone across the opening. Elderly monks and religious seem to be saying: "Enough! I won't begin anew. I have done enough. Let it die with me. After all my years ¯ of service they rush on to new things and take no notice of all I have done." Maybe the younger religious don't realize it, but the charism of the com-munity, that precious gift to the Church and the human family, is incarnate in 174 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 the seniors. However, can we blame the younger ones (who are often all too few or even non-existent), those in whom the call to share this same charism is awakening,if they do not see it when the seniors allow it to be hidden under the bushels of structures and attitudes that do not let its light shine forth? The Second Vatican Council, or rather the Holy Spirit speaking through the council, asked us to bring this precious heritage into confluence, or we might even say confrrntation, with the signs of the times. Sure, that is going to cause upheaval or at least unrest and some tension. But what is the alternative? To sit with Jonah in our shack and groan? Renewal .is going on among the laity. They are taking on many of the tasks and missions that ~religious have done so well. And perhaps they are even doing them more effectively in a secular world. Renewal is going on among the Eastern religions and their renewed "religious," the swamis and gurus and roshis, seem to be more effectively serving, and attracting to their ranks, the fine young people who used to enter our novitiates. (How often when standing listening to an impressive young TM teacher or an EST seminar leader or a "Moonie" who has just earned his PhD at Harvard, have I thought to myself: this young man would surely have been a Jesuit in the pre-Vatican II days.) ~ Are we going to watch all this as passive spectators, cheering it on, or worse, lamenting over it? Or are we going to be open to the spirit of Newman and Chardin, adapted to our own particular charism, a priceless gift of God to the Church, and take full part in the tremendous spiritual renewal of our times which we in,great part are responsible for inaugurating? Even if there is a wonderful spiritual renewal taking place in many corners of our society and our globe, they are still just corners. Depressing, competi-tive, greedy materialism is the rampant reality. Millions and millions still are not in touch with the spiritual dimension of their being, and know only ultimate frustration. There is plenty of work for us all. The new code says our consecrated life is to be "an outstanding sign in the Church--and beyond--foretelling the heavenly glory" (Canon 573)--giving to the human person something big enough to call him or her forth fully, and to make life truly worthwhile. This is our call. And so--what now? Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries": The Role of Provincial Superiors Today Gerald A. Arbuckle, S.M. Father Arbuckle has become a more frequent and influential contributor to our pages of late. The present article continues his study of government in religious communities considered under particular aspects. His earlier study, ~General Government: Its Leadership Role Today" appeared in the November/December issue of 1984. Himself a member of his congregation's General Administration, Father Arbuckle resides, and may be addressed, at their headquarters: Padri Maristi; Via Alessandro Poerio 63; 00152 Roma, Italy. ~nnovation is at the heart of survival and growth. Without innovation in response to rapidly changing conditions, human groups stagnate and die. This is true of business firms, of local and national economies. It is also true of religious ~ongregations, of provinces within the congregations.l Religious exist to serve the Church. They are to be concerned not just for the survival of their own province and congregation, but in particular they are primarily oriented to spearhead pastoral and spiritual growth within the Church. They are to be specialists in innovation: "Their whole lives are dedi-cated to God's service." Religious are to show forth "boldness of initiatives."2 In quite expressive language, the document Mutuae Relationes emphatically insists on the innovative role. of religious:~ there is need "to devise new, inge-nious, and courageous ecclesial experimrnts under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit . A responsiveness rich in creative initiative is eminently compatible with the charismatic nature of the religious life."3 Innovation is the generation, acceptance, and implementation of new ideas, pastoral methods or servibes, whatever can help develop within ourselves and in others the kingdom of God. Application and implementation are at the core of this definition; it involves the ability to change or to adapt.4 Easy enough to define innovation. But how does innovation take place? What role do major superiors, especially provincials, have in stimulating change? 175 176 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 This paper is an attempt to answer these questions. I propose to approach this key topic by: -summarizing recent management studies on how innovation takes place; -summarizing relevant research conclusions of applied anthropology; -applying these insights to the role of provincials within religious congre-gations. I believe provincials today face challenges,that their predecessors rarely confronted prior to Vatican II. They are called to be change-agents within their congregations; in fact, I believe the future of their congregations might well be said to rest in their hands. But, through no fault of their own, they often do not know what to do. If they do know what to do, they often do not know how to go about stimulating innovation. Japanese and American Business Cultures During the world's tough economic years after 1978, the picture on either side of the Pacific Ocean was remarkably different: soup kitchens in Detroit contrasted vividly with an apparent freedom from economic depression in Japan, where business firms exported more and mo?e the things that Ameri-cans made once upon a time. Some people almost in a fit of hysteria have called for more protectionism against the "Japanese m~nace." Saner minds, however, do not blame the Japanese or the tardiness of the American govern-ment to build trade barriers, but they blame the limitations of America's managerial culture.5 Recently I noticed a bank advertisement in O'Hare air-port, Chicago, which stated: "In Chicago, nothing takes off faster than a Good Idea." This is not as accurate as it should be, simply because the Ameri-can culture at large, and the management sub-c.ulture, are not as conducive and supportive of innovation as is the Japanese cultural system. Several man-agement experts, therefore, have concentrated their research not so much on the psychology of industry or business management, but on the anthropology of culture and culture change in relation to business action.6 By culture we mean that network of common meanings ~and values that is deeply rooted in the corisciousnessiunconsciousness of a group of people. This network gives life to distinctive structures and institutions, myths and symbols. The symbols of a people have many.meanings that are deeply real to those who share them; they give people a sense of identity, security, purpose. But since they are derived so much more from the heart than the head they are difficult for outsiders to grasp and describe. What are the significant differences b~tween the two business cultures? There are two key variables the individual or potential innovator and the group--and both are given different emphases in the two cultures. Both cul-tures stress the importance of change-agents or innova!ors, that is of people who are gifted with the "art of anticipating the need for, and of leading, productive change."7 In Japanese culture, innovators evoke change in and through the harmonious support and active participation of the ~roup. L~yalty Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries" / 177 to one's group is a most respected personal attribute. The culture emphasizes harmony not for the purposes of maintaining the status quo but for innovation. Group leaders know this and hence concentrate less on the task of production than on thee growth of good relations, morale, value~ that support .innovators within"the group. The innovators themselves do not seek to stand outside the group; they recognize that only through the active support and participation of the group itself will the ideas be implemented) But in Western business culture, reflecting the broader culture of the society, group leaders tend to stress the productive task to the neglect, of group mainte-nance activities. Theoretically there is an assent to the need for building a supportive innovative culture, but "American managers don't quite realize that what they are creating requires a lot of energy and attention from them to sustain."9 The Western culture, and in particular the American way of life, gives vigorous support and status to independence, to being "a rugged individualist." The American West may have been built by thousands of"rugged individuals spread over the vast frontier. But millions of lone rangers employed under a few thousand cor~porate roofs may not much longer prove workable."~° In this system the rugged individual, the would-be innovator or change agent, must struggle and battle alone to prove the. value .of his or her insight. The group is assumed to have what .really adds up to a negative or opposition, role. The individual, as it were, stands outside the .group; the group is not assumed to have any substantial role in helping to stimulate the innovative idea or in participating in .its implementation. In the Japanese culture the innovative idea can tr.uly be said to be the group's, though articulated at first by a particular person; .in American, or Western cultures in general, that is not the case. The consequence for Western economies of course is unfortunate. It generally takes an extraordinarily tough individual to sustain his or her enthusiasm in the face of constant passive or open opposition. Little wonder that managerial researchers complain about the deadening restraints on innovation in Western business cultures. The firms that are notably successful today in America are precisely those where the leadership recognizes that the primary task is to clarify, articulate and insist on key values: quality goods and setA, ices,: the participation of all employees in, discovering .and supporting people who have new ideas for the maintenance of quality. This task of leadership is a tough assignment. If it fails, then the business culture becomes stagnant, oppressive of innovators and new ideas.~ So, if American (and Western) businesses are to become truly competi-tive. with, Japanese enterprises, their leaders must become and remain cultur~al revolutionaries. Then the advertisement at O'Hare airport will be accurate! Innovation and Innovators: ~nsights of Applied Anthropology . Anthropologists in general have the reputation of always aiming to preserve what is traditional. If they do take that approach, it is because the' general thrUst of socio-economic development programs, particularly in Third World 1711 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 countries, has been in the direction of what an expert on fisheries once called "bulldozing the tropics into civilization.''~2 In the 1960s and 1970s (to a less extent) it was rare indeed for development experts to ~ake into account the fact that people are human beings and also have distinctive cultures.,The so-called experts descended as it were from on high with the "good news of develop-ment." The people had to listen "with gratitude," do what they were told and rbecome "rich and good" just like Westerners! Since so many projects have failed or are failing, there is a greater openness to turn to anthropologists to help uncover why "the good news" became "bad news," The ignorance of.the experts might have been bliss for them, but their lack of wisdom has meant immense suffering for the people, The following general conclusions have emerged from the study of anthro-pologists into the success or otherwise of development projects: 1. Changes will succeed only if they are in response to felt needs of the people. The discovery of what in fact are the real felt needs of a group of people is a long and difficult task. It is so easy for the would-be innovator to impose his own needs on people who for the sake of peace agree. I came across an example of two American volunteer development workers on a South Pacific island, who were worried by the fact that the ladies of the village had to go down a rough slope to a river to do the washing~ So, they imported cement, "convinced" the ladies that the use of the village washing tubs would be far more convenient. After the tubs had been built, the good ladies used them for one day and back they went to the river. The volunteers were annoyed, but humble enough to ask why the tubs were not used: "We like togossip about the men; If you wash at the tubs, the men will hear. Also, our backs are sore from standing at the tubs. We like to squat when we do the washing!" In order tO obtain the real felt needs, there must be lengthy and tiring dialogue based on the willingness to learn on all sides, considerable questioning and active listening by the change-agent. 2. Innovative leadership must be encouraged to emerge from within the group and be supported by the group. A girl was taken from a Fijian village and trained in the capital city in how to improve the nutrition quality of village cooking. She went .back full of enthusiasm; within a few days she was back to the old style of cooking. Why? No one in the capital thought it important to work with villagers on the spot to heip them become accepting of change and Supportive of the local innovator. The experts expected the impossible of one person. This is a critical point. Innovators or change agents are "the right people in the right place at theright time."~3 The right people are the would-be innovators because they have ideas that look beyond the established ways of doing things. By the right places we mean that the people who have to be motivated to accept the ideas are willing in fact to be motivated and to participate in implementing Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries" / 1"/9 the ideas. The would-be innovator and the group are not to be in opposition to each other, but are to be integrated.into a team. The task of the main leader or ~main innovator--often one who holds an official position, e.g. government officer, town mayor, village chief--is precisely to help create space for individ- ' uals to "get the,power to experiment, to create, to develop to test--to inno-vate." t4 This means that a tremendous amount of time and energy must go into disposing the group to be open to change, to be positively accepting of the innovator. There is no short cut! The more the group is encouraged to become the agent of its own growth, the more in fact it will b~ sensitive to the need for the right type of innovators. Would-be innovators tend to.fall into two broad types: those who are basi-cally loners, uninterested in the group, possibly deeply bitter about being rejected by the group. Unless they can get over their spirit of excessive individ- - ualism, such people, because of personal reasons and/or the neglect by the group, can obstruct growth. There are others; however, who have been pushed to the margins of the group's life, but who still are deeply attached to the welfare of the group and who in their own way sorrow for the sense of blind conservatism and fatalism that the group expresses. These are the people that should be very specially spotted and encouraged by the main change-agent or change-catalyst. 3. Deyelopment projects are more readily successful, if there is maximum delegation and involvement within small groups. For example, I found credit unions far more successful than large-scale business co-operatives in Fiji, because the former were village-peopled based, but the latter were firmly directed from the capital city by government officials. The people felt the credit unions .were theirs; they "owned them" by participating daily in" credit union affairs, their management, direction. But, this could be done only because credit .union values of cooperation and honesty were con-stantly articulated by the official educational change-agems. And the people were called to the accountable by their own leaders on.the basis of these values. ~ 4. The innovators must not move faster than the group. The innovator can be so far out front that the people lose confidence in the project. The innovator in this case is equivalently' demanding culture changes that require too many risks for the people; identity and security are endangered. So, the people retreat to old and familiar values 'and customs. They cannot be blamed for this. They have everything to lose, but the insensitive innovator with his skills and status may have little to lose. By way of summary, there are three indisputable research conclusions: people definitely resist cultural .changes that appear to threaten their basic securities; they resist changes they do not understand and they resist changes that are being forced oti them.~6 But these conclusions all sound so logical, so obvious. Why are they so 180 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 frequently ignored, in practi~ce by even the most educated and intelligent'of people? I can pinpoint four reasons in particular. First, it is not easy for many of us to realize that all change involves in one way or another culture change, that is change in values, new security systems, and more. And culture change basically is very slow. We belong to a culture that has come to assume instant answers to instant problems! It is difficult for. us.to grasp the reality that the innovation process is a combination of technical and human or cultural factors, rather than being a purely technical or mechan-ical matter. The would-be innovator requires considerable patience and open-ness to learn just how change takes place. o Secondly, leadership is so often confused, with the use of authority. It is assumed that change can take place simply by command.For example, it was decided in the mid-1940s that Fijians should have in their villages hygenic toilets of a simple design. The word went out from London, eventually reach-ing the district British officers in rural Fiji. The fine toilets were built .by the villagers, under British direction, but not used! Officials "forgot" to involve the .villagers in a decision that concerned them. True leadership aims to evoke participation. This is-often more important than what is visibly done. Thirdly, no matter how intelligent and educated the innovator may be, if he is insensitive to the dignity of the people the project will fail. People yearn to grow as people through participation in all that concerns their lives. If they are refused the chance to participate, or if they sense the innovator is out to manipulate them by going through the motions of participation, then they will withdraw from involvement and become passiveand angry observers. When I was researching in Fiji into village development, I was frequently told by colonial officials that "Fijians simply cannot handle their own affairs.': The tragedy is that the people had been told this so often that many had come to believe it. When the credit union movement was brought to Fiji by an Ameri-can Jesuit, Marion Ganey, the people showed that the colonial officials were wrong. The people discovered that they could handle their own affairs. A major factor in this movement of self-growth for the people was the deep faith that the Jesuit expressed in the people and their potential. One Fijian in village summed up what this meant for him: "When he comes into the village, even though he cannot speak our language, we feel ten feet taller and ten .years younger!" Respect for people must spring not from fine words, but from ~the deep conviction in the heart. People sense whether it is there or not. Fourthly, would-be change-agents can fall into what really is culture shock. People when confronted with a culture that is different from their own can feel so lost that they really cannot cope. They lose all sense of judgment and may well begin by acting in a thoroughly authoritarian manner in order to cope. In brief, the findings of contemporary managerial and applied anthropology studies are the same. Innovation is the key to survival and growth. Innovation flourishes in. those cultures in which innovators and people are positively interacting and participating together in implementing the new, ideas. No mat-ter what position the potential innovator holds, e.g. manager, village chief, Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries"/ 181 government officer, church official, member of a group, to be ultimately effec-tive he or she must be imbued with a philosophy of deep respect for the .potential of the people to be masters of their own growth. As George Foster notes: ''The ethic of helping people change their culture includes knowing what the culture is. what its processes of change are. It is ~not enough to be a competent technician, morally fortified with the unquestioned assumptions of goodness of one's profession . The ethic irivolves restraint and caution in missionary zeal. It means. [being] careful not to plan for people, but to work with them in searching for realistic answers to their problems . .It means learning to be humble, to be willing to learn . It means sympathy and tolerance . It means a genuine and unselfish desire to help., in a realistic way based on full understanding of the nature of culture."17 The warning of the wise Lao-tzu centuries ago remains universally true: "As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people .honor and praise. The next, thepeople fear; and the next, the people hat~ . When the best leader's work is done the people~say, 'We did it ourselves.'" Challenges Confronting Contemporary Provincials The Church's culture, prior to Vatican II, was highly structured and open to little change at any level. Its mission was clear and its pastoral methods were considered to be universally validono matter what culture was being evangelized. Religious congregations reflected, this type of culture. Major superiors gave clear commands, reminding people of the importance tq maintain the rules of the community. They commanded; subjects were expected to obey. Certainly they did not expect to be consulted. It was assumed that superiors knew what was right, what God wanted. But with Vatican II superiors and their fellow "religious were reminded that together they hadto s~arch to discover what God was asking of them. Pastoral methods that were once valid could no longer be considered so in a world subject to chronic change. These new emphases and values undermined t.he security and identity of the old religious-life culture. Questions replaced answers; clear and simple command~ gave way to process. Sole authority yielded to rule by committee. We know well the malaise and confusion that hit congregations and individual religious.~a The role of the contemporary provincial is an unenviable one. How can a provincial stimulate a province to accept a culture in which the religious are open to change, effectively willing to participate in change, are supportive of innovation and innovators? In order to understand the complex nature of this challenge, I will construct a "typical contemporary .province culture." I will then summarize various possible reactions on the part of~a provincial when faced with such a culture. Since we are dealing with a cultural construct or type or model, it is inevitable that there will be oversimplifications, imprecisions. Readers can make their own additions or subtractions. A Typical Province Culture -Membership is aging; few, if any, recruits. -A significant number of religious were trained under the pre-Vatican 1112 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 model in which creativity and innovation were discouraged. -A significant percentage of religious are distressed, disoriented, by the theological, pastoral and spiritual emphases following~Vatican II. -The province, in whole or in part, denies that there are real manpower crises which demand positive planning and changes. -Houses are closed; pastoral works put aside, not because of creative, forward~looking pastoral planning, but because the province has run out of manpower resources. -A significant percentage of the province is spiritually uninspired and uninspiring. -Small groups of reiigious or individuals are marginalized because of their innovative pastoral ideas and practices, or because they ask out of deep love for the Church andfor the congregation challenging questions relat-ing to renewal, or because their radical religious lifestyles are uncomfort-able. to the power forces in the province.~9 -Religious strongly support decentralization of authority and personal freedom, but do not support a corresponding accountability to major superiors and to the province. In this cultural model of course there are values and practices that are in conflict with each other. In fact, it can happen tha~ in this model many religious find little of substance that they have in common. What happens when a newly elected provincial is confronted with a province'that approximates this type? He can react in a culture-shock manner or accept the reality in an ~understanding way and, adopting the operational principles that should guide any would-be change-agent (described above), proceed to help cultivate a religious-life culture that is innovative, effectively open to change, a culture in which religious support innovation and partiCipa~te in its implementation. A brief look first at possible models of culture-shock reactions of the new provincial. Again, it is important to note that we are constructing models; it is necessary to indicate emphases rather than rounded descriptions. ' 1. The Minister Provincial: one who concentrates almost exclusively on the welfare of the individual religious; planning and animation are neglected. 2. The Administrator Provincial: one who keeps to his office desk, involv-ing himself as far as possible in paper work; ministering and animation are neglected. 3. The Preacher Provincial: one who concentrates on preaching about the need for change; planning and ministering are avoided. He has an impact on no one. 4. The Laissez-faire Provincial: he opts out of all key functions. He assumes that kind words to all will produce lasting peace. Others assert leadership by default, but it is a leadership that builds up power for some strong sections of the provinre to the detriment of weaker power ~blocks. Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries" / 183 5. The Planner Provincial'. this is the dreamer who devises all kinds of plans for change, but avoids the nitty-gritty of organizing the imple-mentation of the plans, the hard grind of administration and the demanding task of animation and ministering to the religious of the province. 6. The Authoritarian Provinciak this is the one who assumes he can min-ister to the religious, plan, administer and animate allby himself. Refus-ing to dialogue or to delegate, he believes "it is time that religious obeyed, put their heads down and got on with the job." He may set up a variety of committees, not to hear what they say, but to get things done that he decides should be done. Given the pressures on a provincial today, we must not be surprised:if some behave in ways that approximate to one or other of these models. So great can ¯ culture-shock be that individuals may not consciously be aware of why they react in these ways. We are now in a better position to look at objectively what the functions of a provincial are today, how he or she should act in a reasoned way when confronted with the task of fostering a culture supportive of innovation. The Provincial as a Cultural Change-Agent Leadership has to do with meeting needs. Religious need a sense of spiritual purpose, they need to feel valued by fellow religious, they need to participate in decisions that affect them, they need to be stimulated to accept in an ongoing way the call toa deep union in Christ; the province has need to be cleai" as to its goals and how to realize these goals in practice, it needs a culture that is ¯ supportive of change and change agents. Provincials truly exercise leadership to the degree that they respond to these needs. We are here speaking of transformational leadership, as defined by J. M. Bums. For him: "Transform-ing leadership ultimately becomes moral in that it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration for both leader and led, and thus it has a transforming effect on both."20 It is a leadership that rarely uses the authority of the office, not a leadership that moves people to act "by the sheer over-whelming magic of his personality and persuasive powers.TM The type of leadership the provincial should be exercising is described in the findings of applied anthropology given above. It is therefore a leadership that aims to help religious discover, individually ~and corporately, that they have within them-selves the power and the commitment to enter into a process of innovative change in service of the Lord and his Church. Such a provincial is "influential by strengtheningand inspiriting his audience . The leader arouses confidence in his followers. The followers feel better able to accomplish whatever goals he and.they share."~2 This is an extremely tough assignment. A provincial has several definite functions as a leader: to ministe~ in a pastoral way to the needs of individual religious, to plan for the future of the province, to administer the province by implementing the plan and to animate Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 the whole province' to be part of the planning and implementation of the corporate plan. Each function is related to each other function listed. How in practic~ are these functions to be realized so that no one function achieves a priority it should not have? I believe a provincial can fulfill the mandate to lead the province by empowering individuals and groups to use their gifts for the common good; by helping the province to discover 'its common goals; by helping the province to discover the means 0f.achieving the g0als.23 Let me explain the meaning of each of these statements: 1. ?he Empowering of Individuals and Groups ,~ Individuals and groups need to be reminded that they are called to serve the Church as committed religious, placing whatever gifts God has given them at the disposal of others; In the post-Vatican Church this is a most demanding provincial apostolate, particularly when so many religious have been personally wounded or disoriented as a result ofthe cultural changes following the Coun-cil. Tremendous patience in listening is required. Religious in fact may need specialized help if their sense of self-worth and confidence is .to be restored to them. However, the more religious are affirmed in the gifts given by God, the more they are open to participate actively in sharing their visions with others and in supporting innovation. In his visitations the provincial is also able to discover individuals who are already change-agents or potentially so. They may need affirming in their role, particularly if there is opposition to their insights~ The provincial, eventually using his authority, may then decide 'to place these change-agents in positions where these people can be the most productive. He can spot those religious who with further training are able to become change-agents, e.g. as spiritual leaders, administrators, pastoral leaders. ~ At the corporate and individual levels, he articulates the values that relate to the welfare and purpose of the province, e.g. values of'Christian service, cooperation, participation, support for innovators. This role is called the "hands-on, value-driven" approach, an apt description that religious life ani-mation should mean.24 It is a role that requires the provincial to keep challeng-ing the province, to keep 'raising awkward or difficult questions that others do not want to raise, e.g, what is the purpose of what you are doing?why are we in this particular apostolate--just because we. have always been doing it or because this is what God wants us to do because people really need it? what ideas do you have to improve the quality of your apostolate? It is not sufficient to ask the questions; he miast be on the spot, either personally or through a delegate, to hear the answers and to ,question further if the answers are not adequate. Remember, this. is the only way for the real pastoral felt needs to emerge. The more religious.are forced into responding to such questions, the more in fact they are being empowered to utilize their God-given gifts. The word forced needs to'be further explained. In order to be forced into Provincials as "'Cuhural Revolutionaries'" / 185 reacting to realities, it might well be necessary for a provincial .to cultivate in certain circumstances a "planned apostolic neglect or avoidance" of individuals or groups. Sometimes people will not respond to reality until they are forced to do so through suffering and the discovery of their own powerlessness. The discerning provincial will know just when this suffering should be permitted to occur.25 For periods of time he may become the object of considerable anger from the individuals or groups in question who keep demanding that "he solve their problems." I recall me.eting members of a credit union in one Fijian village that for several years had become inactive. They told me that for a long time they blamed outsiders for their problems. The founder, Fr: Ganey, kept away quite deliberately until the people finally realized that they were the source of their own inactivity. They expressed gratitude for the skilled neglebt on his part. Paradoxically, this is an example of the "hands-on, value-driven" type of leadership. 2. Helping the Province to Discover Common Goals . Without common goals, a religious province will break up into many competing groups, struggiing for ascendancy over one another and for:control over ever-declining manpower or financial resources. Just as the. discovery of what the province's felt needs are is a long and difficult process, so also will it be challengingto refine the common goals that relate to these needs. A provincial might be °able to discover the goals ,himself and articulate them to the whole province. Notionally the province might accept them, but in practice they will reject them for they have never had the chance to own them by participating in discovering them themselves. How are these goals to be discovered and articulated? We all know from bitter experience how chapters so frequently end up with finely worded state-ments of goals for°the province and for this or that apostolate. But, once the texts are published they are shelved and nothing happens, until the next chapter when the same procedure is adopted! Recall the anthropological insight above: projects are more readily successful if there is maximum delega-tion and involvement within small groups. If this is done in provinces and the information and experience of the groups are fed up to a chapter or provincial council, then the goals that emerge will more likely be owned by the whole province. A provincial then will use interest groups and, if necessary, foster new groups to emerge that are close to where action is taking place. Delegation is insufficient; he must keep calling them to accountability. When this process is adopted, time-consuming though it may be, individuals with innovative ideas are more likely to emerge and their insights more easily owned by the group. From the point of vie~w of a desk administrator, the approach is not particularly efficient as regards t~he use of time, but it will definitely be effective. It means, of course, that the provincial either directly or indirectly will be present to these groups, actively listening,.challenging them to see their goals and objectives in 186 / Review for Religiouy, March-April, 1985 light of wider corporate needs and goals. If he ignores them, they rightly become discouraged, bitter and angry, eventually either going their own way independent of ~he provinc.e's needs or becoming purely passive, without any interest in innovation. 3. Helping the Province to Discover the Means to Achieve Goals A province that denies it has a manpower problem, when in fact it obviously has, must be challenged to recognize this reality. I heard of one province of a congregation which expected at the very most to have three priests ordained for the coming ten years. The provincial chapter encouraged each apostolate to state their manpower needs; they did and they were accepted without question by the chapter. No one wanted to accept the fact that the total manpower requirements of the province as passed by the chapter were twenty priests beyond what the province could ever possibly field. A province that is really participating in its own growth at the grassroots would never have,reached such an unrealistic state of denying the obvious. A provin-cial will work closely with various interest and apostolic groups, challenging and planning how to achieve the goals established by the groups and by ~the province as a whole. Moreover, the provincial will aim to discover just what the criteria for manpower assessment is being used at the grassroots. For example, if the Church is defined in organizational or hierarchical terms, then low recruitment coupled with an aging membership in a clerical religious congregation is a severe crisis. On the other hand, if the Church is defined in community terms, the present search for new directions promises all kinds of possible ~theological and sociological variations in forms of ministry.26 In addition, a province in which many members have been trained to be passive, uncreative, unsupportive of innovation and innovators will have a manpower crisis that is Open to correction by a provincial. A proxiincial who has the ability so to empower religious to discover that they can be creative even in small ways and open to change will be developing resources within the province that were not able to be considered before. In brief, therefore, the provincial's task is to stimulate the province through its own discernment process to an awareness of its own resources. The criteria-- theological and otherwise--need to be spelled out and repeatedly articulated until owned by the province. They cannot be the criteria of the provincial alone. Qualities of the Provincial as Cultural Change-Agent In this paper~it has been assumed that leadership is "the process of influenc-ing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation. In essence, leadership involves accomplishing goals with and through people."27 It means that the leader is concerned about tasks, but also human relations. A provincial will need to know what the mission of the Church is, the charism and: mission of his own congregation, an understanding Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries" / 187 of the manpower and financial resources of the province. He will need to know the theory that relates to how to stimulate the province to discover the pastoral needs of the people they exist to serve, and how to go about setting and implementing policies: If he has little knowledge of these points, he can still turn to others for help. But he cannot turn to anyone else ffr his most basic and primary skill, the skill of working with people.28 As applied anthropology points out with incisive clarity, this quality must flow out of his sensitivity to , the innate potential in every human person for responsible self-determination. This sensitivity will inevitably produce empathy, which is the ability to accept people as they are, not to condemn, but also to accept them for their potential. The response of empathy is not necessarily verbal. In fact it is primarily an internal response wherein a provincial identifies with the feelings of the province and the religious members.29 :From this sensitivity there will naturally emerge also a gift of listening, a willingness to enter into dialogue with the province and its religious at a speed that is not insulting to the dignity o.f all concerned. A provincial of this. kind is a humble person, aware of the immense riches of God's grace and power that he will discover even in the most wounded of the province's members. Ultimately, for a provincial such qualities of openness and sensitivity will be maintained, despite the considerable testing, only if his own life is centered within the heart of Christ the Servant (Mt 20:25-28). Rather than command with the authority of status and appointment, the servant: shows by example. Servants seek the free choice of those being led.30 This is the model clearly evident in the new Code of Canon Law (618): "The,authority which Superiors receive from God through the ministry of the Church is to be exercised by them in a spirit of service., i. By their reverence for the human person, they are to promote voluntary obedience, They are to listen willingly ~o their sub-jects and foster their cooperation for the good of the institute and the Church, without prejudice, however, to their authority to decide and to command What is to be done." Finally, what amount of time should a provincial give each of his functions? I believe the greatei" percentage of his time should be directed to ministering to the corporate body, that is the emphasis on planning and animating the province to become a culturesupportive of innovation and participating in innovation. I believe the ministry to individuals should occupy less time:3~ This latter is extremely demanding of energy and it can be never ending. But, it is a vital ministry that can be shared with others in the province. If a provincial is not clear as to his role, he can so easily slip into one or other of his functions to the detriment of the other duties. Conclusion A provincial is the officially appointed chief change-agent for a province. Without his vigorously stimulating leadership, it will be most unlikely that his province will become or remain innovative and creative in the service of the Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 Church. I assume throughout the article that inno~,ation in itself will not really be effective, unless it comes out of a province that is turning with renewed vitality to Christ, the Stimulant and Sustainer of all change. I also assume that there is a process of reappropriation of the founding charism, that is members of the province, reflec.ting on the needs of the world around them on the one hand, and the gospel message on. the other, have the same sense of shock at the gap between them that their founder experienced.32 However, I can almost hear a very committed provincial who is deeply disturbed by the type of problems we have listed in the model of the "typical province" above sayz "What you write sounds good, but it is from an ivory tower. I see several houses in my province that have long since served their apostolic usefulness: I know which way the province should move to touch the real needs of people. I see good-meaning people who are in fact obstructing all change. Therefore, I see the need to move fast and decisively; I will close the "houses and disperse ~he men to places of real apostolic need. One needs to be practical, not theoretical!" I fully sympathize with siach a provincial. But, in this article I claim that the most practical way of changing a culture so that it is supportive of positive innrvation, not just for the present but also for the future, is for a provincial to learn to work with people in the ways explained above. Neither people nor cultures are mechanical structures. By struggling slowly 'to enEourage innovators to develop within the culture and to be sup-ported by the culture of the province, the provincial will be acting in a thor-oughlypractical way. This is the lesson of contemporary managerial studies, of the findirigs of applied anthropology, and, of course, of a spirituality of.growth within religious life in the service of the Church. We spoke in the article of the virtues needed in this challenging role. Together, ithey could be united under one virtue--the gift of humor. A common characteristic of dictators, revolutionaries, and ecclesiastical authoritarians alike is the refusal both to laugh at themselves and to allow others to laugh at them.33 He who has a sense of spiritual humor recognizes deep in his heart that ultimately he can do nothing by himself. He needs God, he needs other people. When lie tries to do everything himself, he plays God~ And what could be funnier! ". See how the kings of the earth stand in array. He who dwells in heaven is laughing at their threats [their pride], the Lord makes light of them" (Ps 2). NOTES ~See Raymond Hostie, The l_zfe and Death of Religious Orders: A Psycho-sociological Approach, (Washington: Cara, 1983, pp. 276ff, and Lawrence Cada, Raymond Fitz, Gertrude Foley, Thomas Giardino and Carol Lichtenberg, Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life (NY: The Seabury Press, 1979, p. 60 and passim. Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries"/ 189 2S.C. for Religious and Secular Institutes and S~C. for Bishops, Directives for the Mutual Relations between B~hops and Religious in the Church, Rome, 1978, par. 12. 31bid. 4See E. E. Hagen, On the Theory of Social Change: How Economic Growth Begins (London: Tavistock, 1962), pp. 88-97. 5See Rosabeth Moss Kanter, The Change Masters: Corporate Entrepreneurs at Work (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983), pp. 17-36 and passim; William H. Davidson, The Amazing Race: Winning the Techno-rivalry with Japan (NY: John Wiley, 1984), passim. 6E.g. see R. M. Kanter, op. cit.; Terrence E. Deal and Allan A. Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate IDle, (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1982); Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Compan-ies (NY: Harper & Row, 1982). 7R. M. Kanter, op. cit., p. 13. 8See Richard T. Pascale and Anthony G. Athos, The Art of Japanese Management (London: Allen Lane, 1982), pp. 116-140); also Chic Nakane, Japanese Society (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), pp. 88f. 9R. T. Pascale and A. G. Athos, op. cit. p. 126. ~0Ibid, p. 124. ~See T. J. Peter~ and R. H. Waterman, op. cir. p. 291 and passim. nSee Lucy'Mair, Anthropology and Development (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 13. ~3R. M. Kanter, op. cit., p. 306. ~41bid, p. 23. ~sSee Gerald A. Arbuckle "Economic and Social Development in th~ Fiji Islands through Credit Unions" in Credit Unions in the South Pacific, edited by Nell Runcie (London: University of London Press, 1969), pp. 90-108. irSee (ed) Edward H. Spicer, Human Problems in Technological Change (NY: John Wiley, 1967), p. 18 and passim; Ward Hunt Goodenough, Cooperation in Change: .An Anthropological Approach to Community Development (NY: John Wiley, 1966), passim;:William W. Biddle and Loureide J. Biddle, The Community Development Process: The Rediscovery of Local Initiative (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), passim. ~T Traditional Cultures: And the Impact of Technological Change (NY: Harper, 1962, pp. 268f. ~sSee Gerald A. Arbuckle, "Why They Leave: Reflections of a Religious Anthropologist" in REVIEW FOR RELIrlOUS, Vol. 42, No. 6, 1983, pp. 815-826. ~gSee Evelyn M. Woodward, "On the Grim Periphery: Reflections on Marginality and Alienation~ in REVlEW FOR RELIGIOUS, ~'ol. 42, No. 5, 1983, pp. 694-711. ~ocited by T. J. Peters and R. H. Waterman, op. cit., p. 83. 2'David McClelland, cited by T. J. Peters and R. H. Waterman, op. cit., p. 84. '2David McClelland, ibid. '3See Speed B. Leas, Leadership and Conflict (Nashville: Abingdon, 1982), p. 28ff. ~4See T. J. Peters and R. H. Waterman, op. cit.,'pp. 279-291. ~For an analysis of "situational leadership" see Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, Management of "Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human' Resources (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1982), pp~ 149-175. 26See J. Moore, "Some Aspects of the Sociology of Priesthood" in Social Studies: Irish Journal of Sociology, April 1979, p. 129; and William R. Burrows, New Ministries: TheGIobal Context (NY: Orbis, 1980), p. ll7ff. ~TSee E Hersey and K. Blanchard, op. cit., p. 84. ~sSee T. R. Batten, The Human Factor in Community Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 181. ~gSee Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness (NY: Paulist, 1977), p. 20f. ~oSee Lawrence O. Richards and Clyde Hoeldtke, A Theology of Church Leadership (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), p. 107 and passim. 190 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 3~See comments by Conleth Overman, Current Issues in Provincial Leadership (Washington: Cam, 1983), p. 76. 32See Finbarr B. Connolly, Religious Life: A Profile of the Future (Dublin: Reality, 19~2), pp: 10ft; Diarmuid O Murchu, The Seed Must Die." Religious Life--Survival or Extinction? (Dub-lin: Veritas, 1980), pp. 35-40 and passim. a~See Conrad Hyers, The Comic Vision and the Christian Faith: A Celebration of Life and laughter (NY: The Pilgrim Press, 1981), p. 24. Christ the Center of O.ur Vowed Life by Boniface Ramsey, O.P. Father Ramsey's three articles on the vows of religion are available as a single reprint: i - The Center of Religious Poverty ii - Christocentric Celibacy iii - Cruciform Obedience Price: $1.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Living the Difference: Contemplative, and Apostolic Lifestyles Marie Beha, OS.C. Sister Marie is a frequent contributor to Revieff for Religious. Her last title, "By His Wounds," appeared in the March/April, 1984 issue. Sister Marie continues to reside in the Monastery of St. Clare; 1916 N. Pleasantburg Drive: Greenville, SC 29609. The letter repeated a familiar theme, "I keep wondering why you did it. Why you entered a contemplative monastery, .instead of loving and serving and praying where you were. What have you found there? What's so different about it?" 1 put the letter down and reflected again on the frequency of such inquir-ies. What db they mean? What do they say, not only about individuals, but also, and especially, about the larger picture of the future of apostolic life and the needs of His church? Those questions are much too big for me; I only ask them by way of "consciousness-raising" of you the reader. My purpose here is far more modest than any attempt to answer such questions. 1 would only like to suggest some of the ways in which monastic contemplative life differs from active; apostolic life. To do this I will tell you a story or two. They are true stories; true to my own experier~ce but also limited by it. And further limited, as are most stories, by touching only on externals. But underneath what appears lies all the .difference of attitudes and value choices. In short, my stories hope to be parables! Life in a contemplative, monastic community is a completely different kind of life: it is not active, apostolic life, with more provisions for times of prayer, silence, and so forth. Nor is it, by any means, a reliquary of pre-Vati-can 11 customs untainted by the adaptations of renewal. No, it is a completely different kind of life, a unique way of expressing the love of God and neighbor and of serving the Church which undergirds all Christian life. Let me try to illustrate some of these differences with a parable or two. 191 199/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 A Matter of Timing -, The bell ending supper-recreation had just rung and the schedule 1 had been given guided my steps toward the kitchen. The last exercises of the monastic day were: 7 p.m.: dishes; 7:30 p.m.: Night Prayer. 1 noticed that there were plenty of dishes, stacks of them. The cook had been baking, and so we had an assortment of taxing bowls and loaf trays to add to the usual array of pots and pans. I checked my watch and made some quick equations. Amount of work' to be done divided by time till Compline equals rate of speed at which dishes must be washed. It would be close timing, and 1 pitched in with more good will than skill. After several such evenings 1 began to notice something: I was the only one working at that rate of speed--to say nothing of noise level and general confusion I generated. The other sisters were quietly, peacefully, going about their usual work--at the usual rate of speed. "We'll never get finished that way!" l was right. We didn't get finished on time. Night Prayer did not start at 7:30. But I also noticed that no one else seemed disturbed, l commented on this interesting phenomenon to another sister. She was surprised. She cor-rected my schedule to read: "Night Prayer after dishes?" She also challenged my thinking: "What's the hurry? Where are you going?" Not Counting the Cost My second story could be titled, "Quantity: a Further Qualification?' A generous benefactor had endowed the monastery with bushel upon bushel of Eeaches, all needing almost immediate attention, it was "All hands report to the kitchen" for several days of hard work, punctuated only by the regular rhythm of the Office. At the end of several very full days that, with the community refreshed by peaches served in any number of creative ways, we finally got the remainder of the fruit stored away intb jars. It was with a feeling of genuine accomplish-ment. that I asked the~sister in charge, "How many quarts did we can?" Again that startled !ook. "How many? 1 have no idea, sister; I never thought to count but 1 can if you want me to." Obligingly she did and reported next day. But 1 could see that she remained puzzled by my interest so ! observed, "You hadn't counted them before, had you?" "Oh, no; we just do as many as we can. How many doesn't make any real .difference, does it?" Well, does it? 1 had more thinking to do. 1 could very well imagine any number of people answering that question with a rousing affirmative: "Of course!" Again I computed my answer, based on previous life-experience. Price per jar is the product of outlay for raw materials times the .number of hours needed to produce the finished product. ! pursued my line of thinking a bit further and calculated the cost of our seVeral :days of labor. Evenat minimum wages those were expensive peaches! I didn't see how we could afford such luxuries, I reported my findings .back to the sister of whom I had made my previous inquiry. 1 could see from the expression on her face that she found my analysis Living the Difference / 193 puzzling. "But someone gave us the peaches and we had the time . " Her math went something like this: "given the peaches; given the hard work and the time," 'it all added up to total gift. There was no need for any further computation. Who Is Gifted? "Everything is grace." Everything is gift--if it is given. A visiting sister was being introduced to the community. Name followed name in bewildering rapidity uninterrupted by any qualifying phrase. Only the abbess was further identified by the job-description of her title. I could sense Our visitor"s barely suppressed desire for some functional description to distinguish one "Sister" from another "Sister," and these from still more "Sisters." I began to let my mind roam over the possibilities. You could say: "Sister X is cook right now." But next year it would be another sister's turn either to learn hbw or to manage with expertise. No matter. And "sister A is presently the laundress." A promotion, a demotion? The job meant neither. All such speculation is simply useless, l can still recall with amusement the shocked look on the face of another visitor who had: risked asking an obviously r~fined and very well-educated sister, "And what do you do?" And the sister an-swered, truthfully enough, "Oh, I'm in maintenance right now." The truth is that no amount of natural giftedness, no degree of profes-sional' preparation will ensure success as a contemplative. Accomplishment is far less important than whole-hearted effort. And in this area there are no objectivized standards, no satisfying sense of accomplishment. In a contem- ¯ plative community the most gifted are not the individuals with the most to give, but rather those who give the most of themselves. The prized "positions" are, very often, those that allow for routine repeti-tive work that can quiet the mind and open it for deeper levels of prayer~ a . "lived mantra." But newcomers to contemplative life have to discover these values disguised in the monastic staple of manual work. On the face of things, one could only agree with a new postulant whose previous career in social work had included service in a shelter workshop. On being introduced to the routine work of the altar-bread room, her classic comment was, "What a marvelous type of work this would be"for a shelter workshop." The other sisters engaged in baking and cutting and checking hosts could only enjoy their newfound classification among the "retarded." What does one's doing have to do with who one is? ~. What Do You Do All Day? This is not my favorite question. And frequent repetition has not given me any more ready an answer. Sometimes the more knowledgeable questioner will add with understandable awe--or skepticism--"Pray? Do you pray all day?" Experience has shown me that the bare recitation of the monastic schedule doesn't provide a satisfying answer. In fact, it may well obscure rather 194 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 than reveal the truth about ou~" activity and its meaning~ Only too often the next question is: "Aren't you bored?" No, certainly not. The last time I was bored was so far in the past that 1 would have to mount a sweep-and-search operation to discover it. If the dailiness of my life were not. rich and full 1 would leave and try another style of living, one that offered the possibilities of more interesting avenues of escape! Granted, the e~ternals of the monastic day do have a certain fixed struc-ture to them. From Easter to Thanksgiving and through the New Year, the regularly recurring Hours of the Liturgy spell out continuous praise. Breakfast on Christmas morning will be celebrated in the same silence that prevails at the beginning of any "ordinary" day. So too the gathering peace of a Fourth-of- July evening after Night Prayer will be just as quiet as that of any other completed day. All of which does not rule out celebration. On the contrary, the liturgy of monastic life requires celebration. Unfortunately, it is easier to explain the staples of monastic scheduling than to present the nuances of silent celebrat-ing~ So let me try another story. It was watermelon season in the South, and our garden had produced a superabundance "pressed down and running over" with additional benefactions from other fortunate gardeners. After a full morning of grass mowing I came into choir at noon,:grateful for Midday Prayer's refreshing pause. Dinner routinely followed and the monastic menu had some of the same invariability: simple, nourishing food for which hunger provided most of the spice and sauce: the main dish would be several vegeta-bles completed by fruit for dessert. This day, once again, there were generous slices of cold watermelon. Now I'll confess, watermelon is not my favorite fruit. But as I sat down in silence, .giving thanks by opening myself to enjoyment, l suddenly found myself alive to the deep down goodness of--watermelon! Nothing had ever tasted so good. And another eucharist was celebrated. So what do contemplatives do all day? They celebrate the ordinary and enjoy its giftedness. Routine simply stabilizes their capacity for wonder. Lei-sure opens their work,to prayer and regular periods of formal prayer prevent work from becoming its own taskmaster. Bored? Never. There is too much challenge in the being/doing that is living. "But;" l hear you ask: "what's the living for?" Is Seeing Believing or Is Believing Seeing? If the bottom line of any loving is faith's free assent, then contemplative life can only be sustained in a faith that believes even when there is'nothing to show or even to see for oneself. And it's such blindness that illuminates everything and makes it all worthwhile in redemption's economy. To illustrate with another story or two. 1 had to make a trip to another monastery and ! was laying out my preliminary plans for this unusual venture with the abbess. Would | fly? Or Lt'ving the Difference / 195 take the bus? Sister replied that she would prefer I took the plane: it would be worth the extra expense. I heard her caring, and I appreciated its typical concern. But when next we spoke 1 shared with her the details of my further research on the subject of the. bus and its costs, all carefully detailed and worked out. The abbess stopped me halfway. "But, Sister, I already told you l would prefer thht you fly." That grounded me for a while. She commended my original initiative and recognized my desire to go the way of the poor. "Yet 'He became obedient'; that is what redemption is all about." Many years later I am still struggling to learn and to live in that mystery, believing that a surrender which is adult and free makes whole a world still fragmented by original disobedience. Such simple obedience is only part of the faith story. The contemplative expression of poverty, celibacy, community all take "believing" for their true "seeing." Most of the time, in my experience, all that is visible is the effort required to live out faith's assent, but sometimes understanding is given--that one may believe. Another story. The sign propped up on the refectory table amid the potato salad and the cottage cheese indicated one more national tragedy. "Mrs. S. just called. X has been shot. Please pray." My supper was seasoned by some speculation: Who had done it? And why?--the inevitable, incredulous "why". Later on that evening, when 1 found myself drawn, back to the choir to pray, those samb questions still formed the backdrop of my inarticulate presence before Him. Then, slowly, my prayer became more expressive, not so much with words as with life experience. Who had done it? Not ~them," "out there." No, I had done it. I was involved, deeply so. I was guilty. "Why?" 1 felt the surge of frustration, anger, hatred boil over within me and reach out for revenge, l was there. It was my choice to feel, to know--and to bring it all with me, in me, to Him. l stayed on in the choir in darkness, l could see why l was there, why l am here~ Ultimately it is only faith that makes the difference. So if I were to respond to my original letter of inquiry with a counter-ques-tion, 1 might well ask: "What do you consider Worth a whole life's giving'?" The richness of multiple-choice answers to that question is what completes our world and opens it to the ever fuller coming of His kingdom. The contemplative response is spelled out in a structured leisure that works hard without the sustaining drive of competitive accomplishment. It is a style of life that appreciates individual giving over personal giftedness, that values the simplest of contributed services. A contemplative is constantly surprised by beauty in the ordinary and learns to celebrate it in the language of sameness. The reconciliation of obedience with initiative and eager participa-tion with a .life that deliberately stands apart, these are some of the other paradoxes of contemplative, monastic life. So the stories go. There are many, many more--as .many as there are contemplatives and communities living out their life's faith in values that are expressed with a difference. :Spiritual Direction Frank Wallace, S.J. Father Wallace is engaged in retreat work at the Campion College Retreat Centre (Campion College; 99 Studley Park Road; KEW, Victoria, 3101). Prior to that he had been Tertian Instructor for his province. Pastoral care is a term that covers the work of many helpers whose roles may at times oVerlap, yet are specifically different. There is the parent who nurtures, the teacher who instructs, the religious superior who rules a com-munity, the confessor whose specific function is to convey sacramental for-giveness, the counselor who helps the client get in touch with his or her feelings, helps remove blocks, assists in decision making and psychological growth. And there is the spiritual° director, whose specific function is to facilitate the .encounter between God and the directee; so also do confessors, religious superiors, and perhaps, too, the other.helpers. Yet the spiritual director has a distinctive, specific function, which is emerging ever more clearly.' The Role of the Spiritual Director ~' The experience of most older religious today is that the spiritual director (or spiritual father, as he was often called) was someone you consulted about problems, distractions in prayer, and who helped you in those areas. With the growth in prayerfulness and the awareness of the need for guidance, lest we may "fall off the mountain," with the increasing popularity of directed retreats and houses of prayer, with the work of depth psychology, ,the role of the spiritual director is .seen to be more than problem solving. It is concerned very much with growth in prayer. The spiritual director has been called God's usher and so is one who helps the directee to become more aware of God coming, of God present,,.by being with the directee as he or she is opening up to God's love. Spiritual directing belongs properly, to the opening to,the Sp!rit. As Alan Jones says, spiritual direction is worship, adoration, waiting on God (Explor- Spiritual Direction / 197 ing Spiritual Direction, p. 56). At times, the spiritual director may have recourse to a psychological coun-selor or, if skilled, act as counselor, to assist inthe psychological growth of the directee, because psychological growth and spiritual growth are related, though not synonymous (see Dr. Gillian Straker, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Vol. 38, 1979). There may be distorted images of .God, of self, of prayer, that are blocking the encounter with God and which need correcting for that encounter to take place. In this, however, the spiritual director will not lose sight of the relationship with God as the focus of his or her caring. The valuable work of the counselor in helping the directee to be in touch with his or her feelings and to acc'ept the real self, facilitates the journey to a real God, by means of real communication. So often this experience, to borrow the title of one of Morton Kelsey's books, is reaching for the real, and necessary for growth in spiritual freedom. ~ The spiritual director walks with the directee, who shares his or her prayer experiences, and together they discern what is happening. At the very heart of spiritual direction is discernment, which, in its. full meaning adds a deeper dimension to counseling, as we shall see later. The Rules for the Discernment of Spirits are a valuable cdntribution by Ignatius 'Loyola~to spiritual directing. The Directory of 1591 compares the director to a midwife. Hugo Rahner says of this: "This somewhat remarkable compa'rison of the director tO a 'midwife' is in itself an introduction to that great patristic theme of the 'birth of God in men's hearts,' which the great psychologists and~experts on human nature among the l~athers saw as a.time of internal conflict, during which considerable importance must be attached to the discernment of spirits" (Ignatius the Theologian, p. 140). Recently a friend, who is a mother and who had been directed by me in a retreat, and who had never heard of the 1591 Directgry, wrote to me, andwith her permission I quote: "I rather think you are like a midwife--assisting those in the throes of labor--knowing the birth is to eternal life.We don't see the birth--only the struggle. I know once I reached the stage of b.eing able to push, it wasn't nearly so bad .and .nobody could do the pushing for me. But getting to that pushing stage,was greatly helped by understanding midwives who helped me to know what was happening and where I was at. They encouraged, dispelled fears, transferred confidence, lifted sagging spirits, soothed and cossetted and bullied me throughout." That is as good a description of a spiritual director as I have come across, and it certainly opened up for me the validity of the 1591 image of midwife. Any serious entry into one's spiritual life may cause a great "agitation. of spirits,." as Ignatius Loyola and Peter Favre both said. The director needs to be very encouraging and reassuring, be willing to share the helplessness and pain. Convinced that any experience can be creative Qr destructive, he or she will be ready to encourage at times of fear, discouragement, disappointment. Encour- "191~ [ Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 agement is, perhaps, the most significant help that the director gives. Linked with this is enlightenment, so that the directee sees what is happen-ing, discovers the hidden God or new ways o.f praying. Enlightenment does not mean telling the directee what to do, playing God in his or her life, imposing the director's experience on the directee. The director should be a mirror for the directee to look into, a sounding board to bounce off ideas, a companion of hop, e and !ight. ' In the following model interview we note the encouragement and enlighten-ment ,offered by the director: Director: You have been telling me about, your prayer with Jesus in the garden, and said you were disappointed. What were you disap-pointed about, Mary? Retreatant: I was just fighting distractions all the time. I couldn't slay with the Lord, and I wanted to comfort him. Director: You really wanted to comfort him? That desire is surely from the Spirit, wouldn't you say? Retreatant: I suppose so, yet I really l~eel I let him down. Diredtor: Do you think the Lord is disappointed in you? Retreatant: Well, I didn't do much for him. Director: Have you asked the Lord whether he was disappointed in you? Retreatant: No, but he must be, surely. Director: Could you go to him and ask him? Only he can tell you. your disappointment is real and it is important to find out more about it. So speak to him about this feeling of letting him down. Retreatant: D6 you think this will he!p? Director: I believe it will. And I also hope you haven't forgotten about that desire to comfort him. That's the result of his power at work in you. Retreatant: That's. ~right, I did want to comfort him. So I mustn't be all wrong. Director: Well, talk it over with him. Here the director is trying to encourage and bring the retreatant to the Lord. No doubt he or she will discuss at some time the retreatant's concept of prayer, the handling of distractions, and will direct attention to the Lord's experience of pain in the garden. These are areas arising from the interview about which both must seek further enlightenment. The director will have noted how the retreatant tends to focus on the negative and forget the positive. But haste is made slowly. The Context of Spiritual Direction The context of spiritual directing varies, and so do the people seeking. There is the spiritual direction proper to a retreat. If the retreat is fully directed, the dialogue will be very much centering on the prayer experiences shared. Of course, there will be references to out-of-retreat life, but usually the focus is on the retreat prayer. Sometimes the retreat may be "semi-guided," characterized by one or two talks to the group, and the opportunity to talk with a director. In Spiritual Direction / 199 that context there seems to be less discussion of the individual, distinctive prayer movement, because the situation is not as intense. So in these two retreat contexts we see some variation. Outside of retreat there may be ongoing spiritual direction, characterized by regular, frequent interviews, extending over a year or longer. This will mean discussion of daily life experiences as well as the prayer experience. Often this means that the director moves into a counselor's role, although the dialogue about prayer and God should not be overlooked. There may be the kind of directing relationship that calls for interviews only occasionally during the year, as a kind of "accountability checkup," with the opportunity to talk over one's spiritual life made available at these meetings. Finally, a spiritual director may be sought out in a crisis situation, either because he or she is recommended, or because the alternative of seeking a counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist is too alarming, Although the expectancies and the dialogue in all these cases will vary, the spiritual director, qua director, will focus on relationship with God--though in differing ways, according to the directee's needs. Gerald G. May summarizes the role of the spiritual director very succinctly when he describes it as "a pointing of direction; a 'setting of environment, a sharing of oneself, and a deep attentiveness"( Pilgrimage Home, p. 23, Paulist Press, 1979). Some Qualities in a Good Spiritual Director Ordination, of itself, does not gift the priest to be a spi~tual director. Today we are seeing lay people °and nuns exercising this ministry; and doing so successfully. What are the qualities needed? Love The director must be able to relate to people, to love people, to be free to feel warm to them and to receive their warmth. Morton T. Kelsey in Caring, writes well of this and says: "It is impossible for us to love other people unless we listen to them . The kind of listening I am talking about is listening which does not judge or evaluate" (p. 67). It is the quality of the listening that shows whether you are .loving the person, deeply interested in him or her, listening to know and accept, not to change, judge; evaluate. It is a listening that respects the distance and the difference of the other, a listening that patiently waits for the revelation of the other, a listening that can lay aside personal agendas because of ~he absorption in the other. It is a warmth, however, that is not possessive, that allows the other the freedom to be his or her own person. In The Practice of Spiritual Direction, Barry and Connolly speak of the need to have a "surplus of warmth" (pp. 126-130). They mean "a love for a variety of people, warts and. moles and all," which is characterized by com-mitment, the effort to understand, and spontaneity. The director must be free 200 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 to be his or her own person, not seeking to satisfy emotional needs through the directee, nor imiaosing agenda or experiences on the other. Nor must the director lay fidse expectations on himself or herself by trying to play God in the other's life as a solver of that person's problems. He or she listens so fully that he or she "enters into the skin" of the directee. This demands generous love because it leads into compassion which is shared helplessness, shared pain. It means beifig able to stay with the other no matter how hard that is, losing yourself in the other. Clearly we are not talking hire of sentimental attachments, but love as understood by St. Ignatius in the Contemplation for Attaining Divine Love. Sensitivity, courtesy, gentleness, reverence, patience are all quali-ties that fill'out the love the director must have for the directee, plus a willing-ness to accept silence: He/she is responsible to the directee, but not for. The quality of our responding reveals how we are listening. If there is no response, the directee may not have the sense of being heard, and, as Gerard Egan says, that is "hollow listening." Listening with the head only leads to judgment and just as the directee wants to be heard, so also does he or she want to be accepted, not judged. "Don't worry about that. You have no need to feel that way," as first responses are passing judgments, and reflections on the directee. What he or she wants is to be accepted, and this is experienced through responding with understanding. "I see that is very worrying. You must have been very hurt," and so forth. As the director listens with full absorption, the understanding will deepen, so that the sources of the feelings will be seen. When judged opportune, the director may communicate that deeper under-standing. The goal of listening is total listening, responding from the heart, not merely from the head. Gerard Egan writes well of listening and responding in You and Me. Total listening means listening with one's eyes, ears, head, heart so that one is lost in the other. It is contemplative listening, which hears what is not said, which hears the tone of anxiety, sees the expression of joy or worry, enjoys being with the other, and communicates that: "You are the only person in my world just now." The genuine love we are speaking of is marked by utter honesty and openness with the directee. So there can be no pretense, no bluffing by the director, but a transparent, open love. Brutal harshness and'severity have no part in this honest trust, even though sometimes they are mistaken for it. If there is to be confrontation it is important that~ this come from love, and be seen to come from love. Setting up "win/lose" situations tomes from a desire to Be right, not from love. As the directee experiences being trustbd by the director, so he or she is encouraged to trust the director with that precious "hidden self" that Paul writes of in Ephesians 3:14-21. All this will facilitate a genuine encounter between persons and with God, not just a mask meeting a mask. Sensitivity to the mystery of the other is the soil in which intimate relationships grow. The director needs to be comfortable with mystery, whether it is the mystery of God, of the directee, of self, so that there is this growth in sensitivity. Spiritual Direction / 201 There must, then, be patience to wait on the directee, on God. It is a great temptation to push sometimes, and this must be resisted, for, as Ignatius Loyola teaches, the Lbrd chooses to deal directly with the soul, and the director must not get in the way of this meeting. Simone Weil spoke of "waiting patiently, but with expectation, for the coming of the Lord." As the example of the midwife reminds us, it is only the ,mother who pushes, not the midwife. Dr. Jack Dominian describes this love as sustaining, healing and promoting "growth (Tablet, 14 May, 1983). Toial listening is sustaining because it conveys to the other that you care. A responding that clarifies, confirms and ~ffirms the goodness of the'other, not reinforcing the badness they see, and which" can help open the directee to God's personal love, is healing and promotes growth. There is little growth without pain. Wounded people can be frightened by the love offeredand may lash out in their fear, challenging the sincerity ofthe love offered. The director must be willing to stay in there,"sh~ring the hurt and the helplessness. That~ is compassion, shared helplessness, and the director shares in the growth of the directee as they walk together' in the mystery of pain_ and healing. We are all wounded healers if we are close to Christ. Mary could stand by the cross, sharing the helplessness of JesuS, without moving away because she could "do nothing" for him. At times the directoi-'s role is just to be a presence, helping transform helplessness into strong hope, not hopelessness (2 Co 12:7-10). This can be very difficult and painful, because the more love we bring to a situation, the more vulnerable we are. Peter tried to come between Jesus and his cross because he loved Jesus. Later he learned it was a false kind of Io~e, that was directed more at himself than at Jesus. So, the director may feel deeply the pain of the other and wish to come between the directee and Calvary. Dr. Dominian is not exaggerating when he writes: ~For anyone of us to succeed in loving, we have to suffer, and die a thousand deaths. Here is the encounter between grace and nature at its most powerful" ( Tablet 14 May, 1983¢p. 446). Directors who have stayed with directees in their Gethsemanes will agree. Feelings and Affectivity . The director needs to be aware of the importance of feelings. They are messages to ourselves about ourselves and we are diminished when we do not listen to them. The relationships.between the director and directee, as .between both and God, are deepen.ed as there is a growing .awar¢ness of the feeling responses present, and a sharing of them. ,. Feelings, by Willard Gaylin M.D. (Ballantine Books, N.Y.) and Feeling and Healing Your Emotions, by Conrad Baars M.D. (Logos) are helpful books. Baars speaks of humane and utilitarian emotions, directing attention to the psychic energy emotions release. ., Barry and Connolly speak of Anger, Deep Fears, Warmth.and "l:enderness, and Sexual Feelings, as very strong, deep feelings that people experience. There must be no blaming the other for one's feelings, for feelings are deeply 902 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1985 personal and must be personally owned. So the director encourages the directee to reveal such deep feelings to God also. Some may be prepared to reveal their so-called good feelings but not those they judge to be negative, e.g. anger. Or they may be willing to share anger (because it is becoming acceptable) but not strong sexual feelings they might be experiencing. Authentic prayer, though, is not a performance. It is an encounter with God, possible only when I am truly myself, One should be on guard against an exaggerated emphasis on anger which can be a cover up for less acceptable feelings as, for example, .sexual feelings. And it seems to have become rather common for persons to blame parents, school, Chur~ch~ their religious congregations for their present unacceptable state. Withotlt wishing to deny the influence all .these have, I wish to stress that our feelings are our ow9, and blaming others is both false and harmful. It is a sign of growing maturity when we accept responsibility for. our now lives. So .often we discover that the feelings that surface in prayer reveal the concept the directee hasof God. Hannah Hurnard in The Hearing Heart tells that for long she could not pray to Jesus, only to the Father. She was afraid of approaching Jesus lest he ask something hard of her. This would indicate that JesuS seemed to her excessively demanding. She was healed of this distortion, and could then pray to him. So a retreatant might pray to Jesus as God, but not as Man; she feels safe that way because she is frightened of men. Yet that fear is hindering an intimate relationship with Jesus, keeping him distant. Somebody else might pray to a God whois infinitely powerful, holy--and also infinitely distant, impersonal. Could such a person':experience that God really care~, is deeply fond of him or her? Perhaps what we see here is a fear of intimacy. The affectivity of the person includes the will, which besides being'an executive faculty, is also a loving faculty. The affective act of the will, "I love you," e~presses the basic desire for the well-being, the continued existence, of the beloved. Besides the will, our affective life also includes our feelings. These~are what I call the surface responses--sad, mad, glad, scared. There is alsoa deeper level of affectivity where dwells our faith, hope, love, peace, which one is aware 6f even though sensible "feeling signs" are missing. For example, a directee may speak of aridity in prayer, and yet there is the longing to pray, together with the awareness of an underlying deep peace. When John of the Cross speaks of the signs for moving prayer into contempla-tion, he is alerting us to these deeper levels of our affectivity. Discernment Thespiritual director is a walking contradiction, in that he or she isto be a "Competent incompetent" as someone has: said. The director must be incompe-. tent, because it is God's work at issue, God's. power that gives the increase (2 Cb 12:7-10; 1 Co 2:1-5). So, we must~tru~t ih God's power at work in the °Spiritual Direction / 203 director and in the directee, "doing infinitely more than he can ask or imagine" (Ep ~:14-21. This attitude must be continually growing and relied upon. But the director also must be. competent, skilled in total listening and in discet:nment. It is the discernment of spirits that is at the heart of.spiritual direction and which ultimately differentiates it from counseling. Ignatius Loyola and Peter Favre were good directors because they were both skilled in dis-cet: nment. As with them, so with the modern director, this skill is learned by being attentive to one's own responses--thoughts, feelings, behavior. Reflect-ing upon these experiences, for instance, the director will begin to observe their beginning, their middle and their end. Thus he or she begins to distinguish movements which are from God, movements authored by self, and move-ments stemming from forces outside, whether good, neutral or bad. The spirit-ual director learns from the movements in his or her own life the skills of discernment. Rarely are things black and white. Sifting tlie good and the bad, the wheat and the tares, is.a gift from the Spirit. The matter for discernment is the actual experiences revealed by the directee. Together, the director and directee prayerfully reflect upon these experiences to distinguish what is God-wards from wtiat is not. The directee, for example, may speak of a "peace-filled prayer." Nrt all peace, however is from the Good Spirit. Some is the result of achievement, some the accompaniment of a tranquil environment, some is the false peace of complacenc~,, and some truly i~ God's gift. What is this "peace" before us now? What are its fruits, and is it enduring? How does it measure with the packet group of Galatians 5:22-24? Humbly, patiently; both director and directee wait upon the Sp!rit to reveal the truth. Perhaps disappointment is reveaied in h sessio_n with the director. "Whom are you disappointed in? What are you disappointed about?" Following through on the answers offered can be richly rewarding, and can point the way in which the Spirit is guiding the direcl~ee. There are many writings about the discernment of spirits to help ,the director. A good knowledge of the Rules ~iven in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola is most helpful. Jules Toner has published a Commentary on these Rules for the Discernment of Spirits. This° is the fullest and deepest treatment I have read. Chapter 10 of Fessard's ~fe in Faith and Freedom, Michael Buckley in the Way Supplement 20, Harvey Egan in "The Spiritual Exercises and the Ignatian Mystical Horizon," the Memoriale of Blessed

Issue 41.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1982. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1982 by REVIEW FOR REI.~G~OOS. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years. Other countries: $10.00 a year; $19.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW FOR REt,IGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Jan./ Feb., 1982 Volume 41 Number 1 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW I"OR RE~.IGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 541h St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints shoul.d be ordered from Rt:v,Ew Vo8 RE~oIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindetl Blvd.; St. L~uis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Review for Religious Volume 41, 1982 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1982 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. The Art of Wasting Time: Thoughts on the Expropriation of Leisure James W. Heisig Father Heisig, of the Society of the Divine Word, is a Permanent Fellow of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, General editor of its book series on East-West thought and Associate Professor of Humanities at the Nan:an University. His address: Nan:an Institute for Religion and Culture: 18, Yamazato-cho. Showa-ku: Nagoya, Japan'. In modern industrialized nations, time is thought of as an investment commodity with a fluid market value. The power of time to cure all ills that the ancient Greek proverb celebrated has been drained from it to reduce time to disposable mer-chandise within our control. Some people's time is now worth more than other people's time because they know how to use time .profitably, that is, to achieve maximum production with minimum consumption. The ideal management of time is measured by cost-benefit analysis. As a consumer commodity, time is also unevenly distributed: some people now possess more time than others, which they are free to invest wisely or foolishly. It does not take much reflection to appreciate how the metaphor of "annual income,"the most Oniversal measure of the relative value of time, has crept its way into the modern imagination and laden words once rich in personal meanings with the double entendre of economic connotations. And that is as true in the world of business as it is in the world of religious or humanitarian devotion to an ideal. We hear it said that the fund~.mental shock occasioned by the increased pace of modei'n living is that shorter and shorter periods of time enable us to achieve the same things that former civilizations took much longer to achieve, which in turn produces the need for constant novelty. In fact, we do notachieve the same things at all. By submitting time and human needs to new s.tandards, the quality of life 3 4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 itself has been altered and important spiritual values siphoned off as waste. The trip across the Sinai that took the ancient Israelites forty years to complete would hardly take forty minu~tes today from t~ikeoff to landing. But whereas their voyage was a.journey that transformed a band of refugees into a people of God, ours is reduced to a mere change of location that takes place too quickly to effect any but the most superficial of insights. For us, time wasted in travel, in the use of outmoded tools, and in the inefficient use of resources and personnel is money flushed down the drain. On the one hand, time well spent promises the reward of time to spare; but on the other, the time that we have saved is only of value if it, too, is well spent. The result is that leisure has become a luxury item, with less to be found among workers today than there was among the slaves of ancient Greece and Rome. In such circUmstances, it has become easy to market time-measuring devices for popular use that approximate the precision of scientific equipment. A wrist-watch that takes time to wind and has to be reset once a week is an anachronism to the modern mind. The practical advantages of such accuracy are fictitious, but the ideological advantage is very real. We are so firmly locked into the modern myth of time that the thought of unclocking oneself, even for the purposes of relaxation, has become the moral equivalent of undressing in public. The idea of time that has colonized the habits of thought that gird the institu-tions of modem society--school, church, business, entertainment, travel, health care, politics, social action--has wrought a spiritual impoverishment on our native sensibilities. The reverence for free time Freizeit and leave from labor (leisure) has not disappeared, but its motivations have shifted. The important wisdom that time belongs among the "best thing~ of life" that cannot be bought and sold, that belong to all of us as our common human right, and that are their own reward, is in peril. The expropriation of leisure by the consumer ethos is one of the most harmful ideas that pollute modern consciousness and obstruct the construction of an equitable and sustainable global community. Instead of having time for oneself, time for the earth, and time for the human race, we have become content with having time to consume the goods and services manufactured in other sectors of society. We have come to think of time as a nonrenewable resource, and lost the art of wasting it lavishly for our spiritual well-being. Deliverance from this state of affairs begins with learning to make transparent the myth of time that we inhabit unawares. And onestep in that direction, it seems to me, is to have a look at some of the things we no longer seem to have much time for. Time for Oneself The story is told of a certain clergyman who went to see the famous psycholo-gist, C. G. Jung, complaining of an impending nervous breakdown. His story was a familiar one. Working fourteen hours a day to fill up his life of service with meaning, he found only a spiritual tiollowness to his work. The harder he worked, the more tasks he took on, the more his nerves stood on end, threatening at any moment to shatter through the fragile mask of the busy pastor and expose his The Art of Wasting Time hypocrisy. 3ung's advice was simplicity itself; he was to work a mere eight-hour day, go home and spent his evenings quietly in his study alone. Unconvinced of the wisdom of .lung's counsel, but sufficiently agonized to have no other recourse, the man made up his mind to follow the prescription to the letter. He worked his eight hours, returned to the parish house for supper, then retired behind the closed doors of his study for the rest of the evening. Some time later he returned to see .lung, reporting that, alas, the remedy had been a complete failure. Spiritually he was worse off than before, and the parish had fallen into disarray for want of attention. He had done everything just as he had been told, but to no avail. "What did you do in your study?" Jung asked. "Well, let's see, the first night I finished a Herman Hesse novel and listened to some Chopin l~tu~les. After that I read some Thomas Mann and listened to a Mozart sonata. Next I . . ." "But you didn't understand," .lung broke in. "I didn't want you to spend your time reading novels and listening to music. I wanted you to be alone with yourself.""Oh, but 1 couldn't stand it. i make such bad company," the pastor replied. "Aha! Now we see the problem," said .lung. "That very self that you can't stand for even a short period is the same self you have been inflicting on others for fourteen hours a day.~ The pastor's problem and the way he set out trying to cure it both belong to a level of cultural development that can only be called elite. The freedom to opt for a fourteen:l~our work day and drive oneself to psychological tatters, and then to reduce one's time of labor by 40% for the sake of spiritual hygiene; the possibility of consulting a professional therapist and paying for the service; the ability to read classic literature and appreciate classical music--all of these things belong to a style of life unthinkable to the great masses of humanity, who do not work for ends supererogatory to survival that can be dispensed with when body or soul collapses, but work to keep alive, and great numbers of them successfully. I do not mean to imply that the man's problem was not a real one, or that it should be classified, along with cosmetic surgery and Caribbean cruises, as needs bred of boredom or surfeit. I mean only that, like all spiritual problems, its roots reach over into problematic social structures as well, whose repair requires more attention to one's own soul. Of this, more shall be said later. What 'lung showed the pastor about himself, and what many of those who share his general cultural field can readily identify with, is that people will often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid having to look at themselves without a role to play. The crises of meaninglessness.that had attacked his work spread over into his leisure because of a common fundamental bias that value can only be generated by keeping busy at a socially acceptable task. In each case, he fled what he feared would do him more harm than anything else: his deep dislike of himself. In his work, the pretense of altruism threw up a thick smoke screen, almost as if deliber-ately to cloud the problem; and in his leisure the pretense of polishing up his education protected and reinforced the hollow ideals he could never quite recog-nize as his own. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Before one embraces those words as a commanded task, they need first to be accepted as a statement of fact: like it or not, one cannot love another if one does not first love oneself. And 6 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 there is no way to love oneself if one does everything possible to avoid spending time with oneself. The pastor's abuse of leisure meant that leisure was not a freeing time but an enslaving time. Instead of serving as a re-creational balance to the creativity of his work, it bound him more firmly to the estrangement he felt between his own innermost beliefs and his outward devotedness. The proper use of leisure, on the other hand, demands the capacity to turn solitariness into solitude, not to dread it as a mere isolation from things that have value. If there are human values that daily life and work sterilize conscience against, and if those values are truly the eradicable imprint of the divine on the soul of each individual, then the deliverance of the human from the inhumanity of which it is capable begins with a transforma-tion in perspective metanoia towards oneself. And that takes time, leisure time. To be denied that time to waste on oneself, or to deny it to oneself, is to forsake redemption from the common habits of evil that we all participate in unawares. Time for the Earth A second dimension on which our~modern myth of time has expropriated the functions of leisure is that of our relationship to nature. In order to get to the core of this problem, 1 should like to cite a story from the Inner Chapters bf Chuang- Tzu, the Chinese mystic and Taoist philosopher of the fourth century before the Christian era. It is a story about a certain master carpenter named Stone and his apprentice, and how they happened one day to encounter the truth about worth-less trees. It seems that on one of their voyages the two chanced to pass by a gigantic oak tree standing by a local village shrine. The young apprentice stopped short and stood aghast with awe at the towering majesty of the tree, whose trunk he thought must measure a hundred spans in girth, and whose branches were so immense that at least ten of them he reckoned could surely be carved into boats. But the master Stone just stalked off ahead without so much as giving the tree a second glance. Catching him up, the apprentice inquired of him why a carpenter should pass up such timber, more splendid than any he had seen since taking up his axe. "Stop!" the master rebuked him. "The tree is useless. A boat made from it would sink, a coffin would soon rot, a tool would split, a door would ooze sap, and a beam would have termites. It is worthless timber and is of no use. That is why it has reached such a ripe old age." That night the oak,tree appeared to the carpenter Stone in a dream and complained of being compared with useful trees that are stripped and pruned and robbed of their fruits or cut down in their prime because they attract the attentions of the common world. "As for me, I have been trying for a long time to be useless. I was almost destroyed several times, Finally I am useless, and this is very useful to me. if I had been useful, could 1 have.ever grown so large? Besides, you and I are both things. How can one thing judge another thing? What does a dying and worthless man like you know about a worthless tree?" The next day, when the °The Art of Wasting Time apprentice heard of the dream, he was puzzled. "If it had so great a desire to be useless, why does it serve as a shrine?" This time the master took up. the cause of the tree. "It is just pretending to be one so that it will not be hurt by those who do not know that it is useless. If it had not been a sacred tree, it would probably have been cut down. It protects itself in a different way from ordinary things. We will miss the point if we judge it in the ordinary way." Let us say the carpenter Stone, with his "ordinary way" of looking at things, is a type of technological men and women whose tools have so eclipsed their direct contact with nature that they can no longer revere the world except as something "useful" for their equipment. As the tree reminds the carpenter in his dream, however, there are values that go beyond the useful, beyond the values that civilizations assign to things when they judge them to be worth our "while." These values reach deep beneath the differences that separate the human from the rest of the earth, to the point of geocentric unity that was broken with the anthropocent-ric revolt against being merely a thing among other things. They reach beyond the divisions of means and ends into which people classify everything about them. Insight into such values begins with learning t9 listen to the earth, something whose importance we are only now rediscovering after a century of industrial progress. Even so, we have the greatest of difficulty in unplugging ourselves from the apparatus we have built to mediate our way to nature. The world is still viewed by and large as raw material for human civilization. We struggle to keep our environment free of pollution because we fear the spread of disease among people and the poisoning of our food. We lobby against the mindless pillage of forests because we fear the effects of soil erosion on our buildings and landscaping. We protect the wilderness because we need somewhere to "get away from it all." These are reasons that make sense to a civilized mind, but do not satisfy it quite yet. We still want more sense than that. Increasing numbers (especially those for whom there is no economic danger involved) are finding it therapeutic to sympathize with the plight of species endangered by hunting or the destruction of natural habitats. Others are relearning to use the tools that scientific advance had thought to render into museum pieces. Something like a spirituality of the earth is coming to birth, but its douleurs d'enfantement are spasmodic and uncomfortable in the extreme. Perhaps the major reason that the developed industrial nations of the world do not yet have time for the earth is that their livelihood depends on a world frag-mented according to its utility for tools, and on a work force of specialists who literally feed off of one or the other fragment. The kit of tools that provides us with our ordinary way of looking at the earth functions not only because it represents a considerable extension of the power of the human body--legs into automobiles, voices into radio waves, eyes into telescopes, arms into cranes, and so forth, in the great caricature that humanity has made of its own image--but also because it succeeds in devaluing any other way of looking at life and work. While this has made impressive leaps in scientific and technical progress possi-ble, it has also taken its toll on the human spirit in the form of a massive addiction I~ / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 to packaged, processed experiences of the earth. We seek respite from the drudgery of working at our own specialized task only to find ourselves consuming the product of someone else's specialization. The woman who sits from morning to night on an assembly line at a canning factory learns to put up with the boredom and servility of her labor by concentrating on the privileges it will give her through the money she earns. Come vacation time, she happily skips into a great steel can sealed in Los Angeles and opened in Hawaii, clutching her five-nights-six-days-cut- rate-holiday plan around which she has organized her hopesof regaining some of the dignity she had to forfeit in order to afford the trip in the first place. She may well spend her whole life without noticing 'that she is being sold on the earth in entertainment-packages by an industry that depends on people not being able to experience the beauties and pleasures of nature without their help. Such contact with nature, far from helping one to recover the basic human demand for creativity and meaning in work, only reinforces the same feelings of impotence, ignorance, and strangeness in the face of the complex machinery and bureaucracy that has come between people and the earth. From the point of view of those who have forgotten that demand, such time may be considered very well spent, very useful, and very recreational. But it is not the freeing time of leisure because it does not so much as waste a moment on trying to step outside the ordinary way of looking at the earth, to see nature once again from the inside as it were, as something valuable in itself. Time for the Human Race In addition to the estrangement from oneself and estrangement from the earth, there is a third dimension on which our myth of time has expropriated the dower of wasted time, namely estrangement from our own race. We who compose essays on electric typewriters and subscribe to journals on the spiritual life tend to forget that the technology we take for granted is still experienced as an oppression by the vast majority of human beings. Consciously it is felt as the oppression of neglect at the hands of those who dwell in the economic penthouses of the global commun-ity. Unconsciously it is felt as the oppression of envy for the equipment and the life style of affluence and the accompanying disgust with their own primitive enjoy-ments. For all the commonsense wisdom contained in the counsel that money cannot buy happiness, and that more often than not it only multiplies the possibili-ties for unhappiness, both the rich of the earth and the poor are agreed that it is a misery they would prefer risking. The consumer ethos that pervades and sustains a high level of technology at the top of the human pyramid also pervades and sustains the grotesque want under which most of our kind are forced to live. - By far the greatest part of the human community has no opportunity for employing the technological tools that are now transforming the fac~ of the planet, and in many cases do not even know that they exist. Those who use jet transporta-tion are an absolute aristocracy; for every one of them there are several thousands who have never ridden a bicycle. The number of illiterates in the world still far The Art of Wasting 7~me / 9 outnumbers the number of those who even own radios; and the number of people who own television sets is far lower than the number of those whose annual income does not reach the cost of a television. The rest of humanity, for which individuals in the developed world have no time, have fallen into conditions made more difficult to escape by the surfeit that one small portion of the world enjoys. At the base of the human pyramid there are ~hundreds of millions living on the borderlands of vegetation and death, which in turn belongs to a group of nearly one billion people whom we have now come to speak of as the fourth world. Above them is the third world, over half of which lives in a poverty they have no hope of remedying, yet a poverty tortured by the knowledge that some of the race spend their lives struggling to acquire still greater surpluses of luxury, and to glut themselves with still more of the already maldis-tributed fruits of the earth. Those who are born and bred in life at the top of the pyramid have little practical feeling for the current inhumanity that is ravaging most of the race. They find it easier to imagine science-fictional futures than to imagine the present reality, let alone to image their own complicity in the way things are. They may watch documentaries about starvation in Africa or floods in Asia, but fail to make any connection when they book passage the next day for a tour in the Yucatfin. Or perhaps better, they have allowed their.questions to be silenced by the whole tangle of government and economic organizations that constantly complain of how com-plicated everything is. They may know that the budget of New York State, with its twelve million people, exceeds that of India with its six hundred million, and perhaps even permit themselves a sigh of pity; but they entrust the sorting out of injustices to the experts who have been trained to worry about such things. All the privileged of the earth know for sure is. that they have no objection to others sharing in their style of life, provided it does not make any demands on theirown appetities. Clearly, this is not enough. Within a generation we shall have six billion people on the earth, with five billion of them living in poverty. The tactic of indifference, which amounts to a war of the few against the many, kills and dehumanizes more effectively than any weapon we have yet dared to use. But it is running out of time. As the poor arm themselves with the surplus of our .stockpiles, sold off cheaply to make way for more advanced weaponry, we cannot suppose that they will forever remain content with waging war among themselves. The smaller and more concen-trated the centers of wealth become throughout the world, the more vulnerable they become to the masses of those who have been trained to be jealous of what others are free to consume. The urgency of the situation, however, is not of itself enough to guarantee the quality of any and every attempt to alleviate it. Just as time for the self and time for the earth tend to get absorbed without remainder into time for the consumption of luxuries advertised as refreshment from working time, so time for the human race all too readily gets twisted into the donation of services that perpetuate the spirit-ual impoverishment of the technological world by camouflaging it behind an 10 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 idiom of charity. Those who are touched with a sense of pity for the maldistribu-tion of wealth and feel the pressure to help, all too frequefitly lack the requisite insight into their own patterns of thought to realize how their aid can amount to the substitution of one form of dehumanization for another. In providing hospi-tals, schools, factories, and modern transport for the underprivileged (that is, for those denied the right to consume culture as we consume it), the donor organiza-tions narrow their responsibilities down tc~ the unilaterial sharing of goods and values. The possibility that alternate social systems, now' rendered obsolete, unproductive, and unsustainable by the current management of the world's resources, may have something to, teach the human community about liberation from the consumer ethos is pushed to one side in the rush to make amends for gluttony overcome with guilt in the face of deprivation. I1: the price of providing bread for the world is further investment in the current means of producing and distributing bread, then bread for the world there will never be. The economics of this are fairly intricate, but the direct ratio th~it obtains between the number of people who are starving to death and the increased number of organizations and agencies aimed at distributive justice is plain enough to see. A leisure that is freeing for the human race is not simply time given free of cost by the haves to the have-nots, but a time for withdrawal from the ruling myth of time. It must, in the first pla~e, be a waste of tilne altogether free of investments economic or ideological, time wasted on the whole of the race, ourselves included. Of all the forms of leisure, this is the one that has become most radically enslaved to the biases of working time, despite the way in which improved means of communication have enabled an altogether new image of the universal h~]man family. There may be no greater constriction of.the imagination in the history of human thought about world order than that of the present day face-off in devel-oped industrial nations between the philanthropic illusion of the rich nations of the world opening their storehouses to share with the poor on the one hand, and the financial illusion of increasing productivity to the point of being able to sell more goods more cheaply without monetary loss on the other. And this, too, is a mark of grave spiritual immaturity. The Reappropriation of Leisure If I have left a good deal in the previous pages to innuendo and only hints of an explanation of how leisure time has become victimized by the spread of consumer metaphors, it was not only to condense a manifold problem into a few words, but also to prepare for what 1 wish to propose by way of conclusion. Simply put, it comes to this: that only the personal awakening of increasing numbers of individ-uals to the considerable loss sustained by civilization in its forward march into technology can provide the footings for a modern spirituality, and that only the redemption of leisure time from its servility to current structures of thought can provide the conditions for such awakening. The reappropriation of the need for leisure--an unadvertised, unprofitable, and withal revolutionary need--begins with the individual or it does not begin at all. No one can stand l~roxy for another's The Art of Wasting Time spiritual conversion. No expertise can service a society with personal insight, judgment, and decision. For it is not so much concession to the logic of particular conclusions that is the point, but the recovery of the process of working one's own way out of familiar biases. This process hinges on the art of wasting time. In the first place, leisure time should nurture a spirit of resistance to the humors of resignation that poison the bloodstream of industrial society. It should increase one's resistance to the workaday bias that the submission and trust due divine providence, for having cast us into a world with hopes in our hearts too big for our abilities, should be extended into a submission and trust in social provi-dence, for having spun a web of institutions so tightly about us that we are powerless to do much more than lay a hand across our inquisitive mouths and adjust as best we can. From the point of view of the world of time where work gets done, free time that results in raising basic questions about that world is not only wasted time, it is counterproductive. No doubt a life in which leisure means nothing but filling up with comforts and entertainments the hollow gouged out of the soul by resignation to the complexities of modern life is an ideal few, if any, would Openly champion. But the fact is, the bare physical need for periodic reinvigoration always has a spiritual dimension to it as well, and in industrial society that spiritual dimension tends to vacillate between the reinforcement of patterns of passive consumption of relaxation and spare-time thoughts about better pay, shorter hours, or increased benefits. In either case, it remains subser-vient to the structures of work and effectively concedes defeat to their power. It lacks re-creativity. This is the idolatry, of epidemic proportions, that afflicts the spirituality of technological society. Second, in order to offer this sort of recreational resistance to the spirit of resignation, time wasted in leisure should be an abandon to the spirit of playful-ness. I use that word in a broader sense than either the games of children or the athletics of adults to cover not only the labor of alternative activities but also the enjoyments of repose; and in a narrower sense than sleep or intoxication on the one hand, moonlighting or profit-making hobbies on the other. The playfulness of leisure has three facets. The first of these is the imagination of possible futures in which we might be free of the oppressions of the present. If such futures are truly' possible, that is, if they are able to emerge out of the existing world by a rearrange-ment of its priorities, then their entertainment in imagination is capable of being sustained and deepened from one period of leisure to the next. This in contrast to the scattered daydreams of wishful thinking that come and go for all of us without effort or lasting impression. That is, such images can accumulate sufficient form in time to lead to the commitment to some preferable future from among the possi-bilities~ To experience such a reorganization of hope in playfulness is to experience the genesis of an ideal within oneself. Not to experience it is to keep leisure locked up in itself. And finally, there is the transition from the possible and the preferable to the enjoyment of the future in the present. This is where most people are best at wasting time, even though they may not know what they are doing. It consists in the construction of a temporary utopia about oneself where the things one values 12 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 most can be savored. It is a timefor tasting ideals of companionship without strife, pleasure without labor, crafmanship without pressure, play without punishment. The reigning fear among those who wish to protect their leisure time from being absorbed by spiritual or intellectual recollection is that too much reflection inhibits enjoyment. And to be sure, there are those whose twisted sense of asceticism drives them from one cause to the other, volunteering their services and neglecting the wisdom that comes from having a good, wasted time. At the other extreme, enjoyment cut off from reflection about the future altogether quickly shrivels up into a mere pampering of a self exhausted by labor, with the result that it becomes less and less enjoyable and more and more like the pure passivity of sleep. Some-where between the two lies the art of celebrating a world that is not but might be for a while, a world filled up with the spirit of playfulness. Third, leisure should help foster a spirit of survival in the midst of this by no means best of all possible worlds. Just as the struggle for physical survival requires ingenuity in using available resources and at the same time remaining alert to the opportunities for deliverance if and when they present themselves, so too with the struggle for spiritual survival. It requires anger against avoidable evils, sensitivity to appropriate solutions in which one's anger may be expressed, and the capacity to wait without exploding from within or being sapped of one's energies from without. One may have to buy chemically treated food because fresh produce has been priced beyond one's budget; one may have to drive an automobile to work because public transport systems have become an economic deficit to the com-munity; one may have to put up with menial labor because one's skills are not in demand; one may have to swallow large doses of injustice, stupidity, and callous-ness. But one does not have to pretend to like it or allow it to embitter enjoyment. Survival means wedding a resistance to resignation with a love of playfulness so as to forfeit neither the gusts nor the disgusts of life. Fourthly, leisure needs to infuse a spirit of the sacred into the time that we waste. When the ritual, beliefs, and holy writ of a religious tradition become fettered to the myth of consumer time, they forsake their sacredness. When they cease to cut like a. two-edged sword that denounces sinfulness and announces goodness, they dull and profane their capactiy of re-creation. At the same time, when they provide mere divertissement from the trials of working life or serve only as platforms for supporting the flood of causes that wash through the mass media with the regularity of spring and autumn fashions, they betray their meaning. Sacred time is not an investment measured in loss and profit to the current problems of a civilization. It is a necessity--the necessity to hallow the self, the earth, and the human race as a single great gift beyond all desert. It insures that, whatever of practical use may come out of time wasted in leisure, it is the wasting that is holiest. Sacred time unplugs us from our own time and opens up a horizon of all time, against which the greatest sin appears as the desire for absolute control and the greatest goodness as the grace of being absolutely loved. All of us, every soul of us on earth, breathe the myths of our civilization as inevitably as we breathe the air .that surrounds us. They are transparent, taken for The Art of Wasting l~me / 13 granted, but essential for human .life. Leisure time is like a flute that transforms.the silent secrets in the air into music. It shows us the harmonies and the cacophanies, the purity and the pollution of our myths. Without leisure, we have no way to know the air about us, no way to love back the One who made us the,mythmaking animals we are. View From Behind Tapestries look like battlefields from the back. Threads like soldiers in hand to hand combat-- who is most resilient? Arms locked, elbows out, clenched fists of knot scattered like small skirmishes across the expanse. Who is most flexible? Stitches quarrel in overbearing voice, rush to trenches, maintain positions. Colors invade each other's territory, singing violent victories of light. All clamor, all struggle, It faces the wall of faith while the weaver and the watcher . work from the front. St. Anne Higgins, D.C. 123 Franklin St., Petersburg, VA 23803 Celibacy in Africa Matungulu Otene, S.J. Zaire's Father Otene, ordained in 1977, is presently working in St. Peter and Paul parish: B.P. 1125: Lubumbashi: Zaire. This article is excerpted from the booklet. "C~libat Consacr~ pour une Afrique assoiff~: de F~:conditi:," published by Editions Saint-Paul Afrique, P.O. Box 8505; Kinshasa, which was translated into English by Louis C. Plamondon. S.J.: Manresa; Box 47154; Nairobi; Kenya. In English, it is no. 65 of the Spearhead series, "Celibacy and the African Value of Fecundity," published by Gaba Publications: P.O. Box 908: Eldoret: Kenya, which graciously granted permission for our use. ~f the reason for Christian celibacy is unique, that is, for Jesus Christ and his kingdom, every Christian called to this type of life is also called to live out this experience in the context of his own culture and personal history. An African celibate today is not celibate in exactly the same way as an Indian of today, even if both are celibate for the sake of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. There is a whole world of emotions and affectivity which permeates our celibacy very deeply. This is so true that the world we live in affects the objective and subjective content of our celibacy. Both what we hear being said about celibacy and what we experience in our flesh by living out what is said, are rooted emotions. Without this emotive element, there would be no human celibacy in the full sense of the term; conse-quently, there would be no Christian celibacy since the latter is deeply rooted in human nature and since celibacy itself has also to be incarnated. The affective life of a South American--his way of feeling and living celibacy--differs from that of an African from Zaire or Senegal. Among Africans there are a certain number of differences in affectivity. However, even if it must be admitted that within the same people there are different ways of feeling things, this, nevertheless, does not mean that African peoples do not have a greater affinity with one another than with peoples from the West or the East. After all, their cultural heritage is common. This seems evident even if there are shades of meaning or subtle nuances which are hard to express in these few short pages, which do not pretend to be a psycho-so-cial study of human societies. 14 Celibacy in Africa The cultural milieu in which the young African lives has a very great impact on his response to the Lord's call. Celibacy is surely an area in which sensibility is a very important factor, if not the most important. In fact, coming as he does from a family where marriage is viewed in a very special light, the young African will carry in the depths of his being, perhaps through his whole life, the impact of this way of thinking. It will take only a circumstance or an event to awaken in him a whole world of memories accumulated throughout his short life. The fact that his grand-father was polygamous, that his own father had more than one wife, and that his own mother was not the first wife of his father, nor the one preferred, cannot but have significance in his life of celibacy. The mere fact of knowing that in his extended family there is somewhere a cousin with five children, each with a different father, cannot be without significance. Those are his half brothers, but this entails that this good cousin of his.is a husbandless woman with children entirely dependent upon her. To know that his aunt is a prostitute with children, cannot' but have some impact on him. It is no small thing to have a deep sense of all these situations and still, despite all this, to dedicate his life to God in conse-crated celibacy. This world which I have just described briefly cannot be found as such in Europe nor in North or South America, but this is the world that has shaped the young African of whatever black African country he may be. One cannot ignore these realities and pretend that they do not have any influence whatsoever on people. For Africans the child is a reality to be treasured; and each human being does all in his power to leave behind him :some offspring, whether he be married or not married, living the life of a prostitute or of enforced celibacy. All Africans desire to have children, sometimes by any means. The young man who hears the Lord's call is living in this very world and not in any other. His' reflections and ways of thinking are rooted in the environment from which he comes, in the psycho-social milieu which surrounds him. This does not frighten the Lord just as no human milieu frightens him, because it is in such complex situations that he manages to find celibates for his kingdom. Growth in the Life of Celibacy To be sure, other cultures also have their own difficult problems in this area. I am merely showing that our way of experiencing the world has an influence on celibacy and that the cultural traditions are to be taken seriously, but without exaggeration. The young African called to a life of celibacy or religious life will have to integrate progressively within his affective life the realities which surround him without seeking to escape from them. He will do so by looking at them frankly, without panic, in prayer, in his personal relationship with Christ in the Eucharist. God's grace is always there, and this is what gives us confidence in the face of the strong temptations in this life. This young human being will have to understand that since the Incarnation, God gives his grace through weak human beings. Accordingly, to see clearly within his own being, he will have to be open with another person who has the experience of Jesus Christ. The one the Lord will "16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 put in his path will show him the road to follow and will give him courage in the moment of trial when temptations are strongest. Celibacy requires a lot of disci-pline. He will have to learn to exercise great control over his senses and sometimes to give up things which are innocuous, and to focus on the unique reality which is necessary, Jesus Christ. For certain types of people, chastity can be gained only after a hard fight lasting many years; and this can cause a lot of anxiety when it happens to people who are scrupulous by nature, yet desirous of achieving holiness. What I have just written is not rhetoric. It sometimes happens that young people are torn apart inwardly because they want to dedicate themselves entirely to the Lord but yet cannot completely control certain evil habits or certain attitudes which they find difficult to evangelize. I insist that it is a difficult fight--a fight to death--a fight which moulds a man gradually as he learns bit by bit not to depend upon his own strength but on that of the Lord who has set him apart from his mother's womb to preach his Gospel to men of good will There are less sensitive types of people who do not encounter very many types of problems in their development, but irrespective of their sensitivity, all will undergo moments when they are forced to make a decision for the Lord. The chastity that is required by a life of celibacy is not a case of spontaneous generation--it is a garden that must be tended lest weeds grow in it. When one has gone astray, one finds it difficult, sometimes even impossible, to go back; thus, it is not surprising that some young, generous people have gone astray. Vigilance is necessary in these matters, but the kind of vigilance characteristic of those who are sure of victory; for if Christ is with us, who can be against? Sooner or later Christ will defeat this devil of our middle age who likes to attack our flesh, born in the human condition, born incomplete. The young celibate, therefore, will learn not to abuse God's grace. He will be prudent; he will not take chances with his celibacy. He will have the simplicity of a dove but the prudence of a serpent. The married man who is a dedicated Christian will not flirt with other women lest his marriage, be threatened and, accordingly, his real happiness and that of his home. The same holds true for religious. They also cannot take chances with their passions and put themselves in the position of violating the gift they have made of themselves in the simplicity of their heart. Nothing escapes lay people when it comes to observing the behavior of reli-gious. They notice even the smallest detail when they want to criticize their priests or religious men and women. Some even take pleasure in judging them, in scrutin-izing their behavior to find the smallest reprehensible thing. In this way, they purify their religious, even without wanting to. Lay people are surely not gullible, even though they sometimes misinterpret the way African religious live out their celibacy. They can often distinguish between the religious who is loyal and faithful to his consecration to the Lord from the religious who is beginning to compromise and. to give in. Assuredly, their judgments are not gospel truth, and often one would do well to minimize themremembering that even the great saints were often Slandered by malicious tongues. Celibacy in Africa Certain Difficulties or Certain Illusions It is sad to 'note that many young, generous and seemingly solid religious have lost the grace of celibacy because of supposedly spiritual relationships with women religious and with young girls. There is nothing more dangerous than these suspect relationships between men and women religious, nothing more scandalous for African Christians than to see their priests, their men and women religious become involved in expressions of human love under the pretext of love in Christ.Many men and women religious believe rather too easily that they have been made immune to the weakness of their flesh. They are a little too quick to believe that they have attained the required maturity in celibacy. They sincerely think that henceforth sex has no hold over them since they have become spiritual. Yet, it is a very sad and illusory spirituality which makes man believe that he is now immune to sin. A really spiritual person, on the contrary, depends entirely on the grace of God without giving up healthy vigilance. I believe that the closer one gets to the Lord, the more one realizes that what seemed innocent until then now takes on the appearance of something that is not entirely pure. However, far from being threatened or discouraged by this increasing desire for purity, one has more and more confidence in the Lord and greater humility when one thinks 6f how little one is virtuous. In true love there is no fear. This is so, it seems to me, in the case of one who wants to respond wholeheartedly, day after day, to the call of him who has made us pass from darkness to his wonderful light. In my humble opinion, it often takes many years of solitude to be able to experience a true spiritual friendship in Christ with members of the other sex. The danger is to believe too quickly that the right moment has come. That is often when one goes astray. As for any genuinely Christian life, celibacy cannot go without suffering. There is no real celibacy without the mystery of the cross written, as it were, in the flesh of baptized people. A celibacy without renunciation, without a sacrifice that is willingly accepted, a celibacy which refuses to die like the grain of wheat fallen in the soil is a celibacy locked up in solitude and bearing no lasting fruit. There are people who are undoubtedly privileged because of circum-stances and especially because of the Lord, but let us not be too quick to classify ourselves among those people and risk spoiling the splendid grace the Lord has given to us--the grace of living the celibacy of simple people without any special favors from God, I mean without any extraordinary grace. This simple gift, in fact, honors the Lord just as much as the extraordinary gift that some of us humans might receive from God. I don't mean to say that it is absolutely impossible for men or women religious to experience a healthy spiritual friendship with members of the other sex, but I believe that some of us think that we have attained that stage when we really haven't. Often, because of a lack of restraint or a lack of real self-knowledge, one strikes up a friendship which will tomorrrow become sinful, therefore, bad for oneself and for theirs. A friendship to which we are too attached, a friendship which prevents us from fulfilling our duties is a friendship to be "18 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 purified or, better still to be abandoned while there is time; that is, as soon as we become aware off where it is. leading, the relationship must be severed politely and without human respect. This is for the greater good of the person whom we love in Christ; finally, it is for the greater glory of the one who has called us to holiness, Jesus Christ. In the same way, a friendship which would render a member of a religious order incapable of being available to do what his superiors want 9f him is simply not good. It is for the Lord that we have joined religious life, not for the purpose of surrounding ourselves with protective partnerships which go against true charity. In,his infinite goodness, the Lord may put on our path a person of the other sex for a certain period of time. This, person will enrich us through, friendship, and this enrichment can be mutual. But, here again, this gracemust be lived in all simplicity and with the necessary prudence since we are all weak, sinful human beings. Hope for Africa ~ , Certain missionaries have led young Africans to believe that celibacy is more difficult for them than !t is for young people from the West. This opinion is based on ignorance or it is a lie. The fundamental problem, in fact, is the same for all human beings; the conditions that are found in any culture are not qualitatively different. In the final analysis, it is the same fundamental problem for different people in different cultures; there are accidental but no essential differences. I have sometimes been shocked to hear this type of broad statement according to which it would be practically impossible for Africans to live a life of celibacy. For me, celibacy is rooted in faith in the living Christ. It is something which permeates the faith of the one who feels called, and faith is something which is given by the Lord without any distinction of culture or race. There are differences, but they are not so essential that they make a life of celibacy impossible in AfriCa. There are enough African religious to show th~.t this is true. Among these meia and women of Africa, often living in some isolated areas, there are men and women religious who live their cbnsecration to the Lord even in heroic fashion. Their silent example is enough to prove that celibacy is possible for Africans, at least for those who feel themselves called to it and who respond generously. Not too long ago, 1 was telling a group of young Africans the following: either we are Christians or we are not; either we believe in Jesus Christ or we don't believe in him at all. In this area there are no half measures. It's all or nothing. This is why faith in Jesus Christ requries a complete transformation of our life-style and of our outlook. One of the aspects of our outlook on life which must change because it is absolutely against Christianity is this requirement of a fruitfulness that is exclusively biological. A man without children among us in black Africa is one who does not bear fruit, who is useless and even an outcast. If there is an obstacle to the awakening and living out of vocations (and I am talking here about voca-tions to the priesthood or religious life), it is our too limited way of looking at fruitfulness. Many Africans believe that a man cannot be completely fulfilled in or outside of marriage unless he has many children. Among us, celibate people and Celibacy in Africa married couples without children are not seen in a good light because they seem useless to our society. It may be understandable that some non-Christians think this way. But for Christians this is disastrous. Haven't we ever meditated on the life of Christ? Can we ignore that he was himself celibate? Or do we believe that Jesus was not a man like us except for sin? Yet our creed is very clear on this. Jesus was truly God and he was truly man. If such is the case, why wouldn't we allow those among us who wish to live like Christ to doso? If it be true that the face of being celibate did not diminish the God made man, why wouldn't we accept that a certain number among us are not diminished by celibacy for Jesus Christ and his kingdom? Has the world ever known a being as fully developed as Jesus of Nazareth, our Love? Yet, he was celibate. Isn't this Jesus who lived without a wife and children still, even today, a source of all life for us? One doesn't lose anything by responding to his call, by becoming celibate for him and for his kingdom where we shall all have only one Father, his own, and where all of us will truly be brothers and sisters in the Spirit who makes us one. The young African is thus called to live a life of faith in Christ. He must not think that celibacy is more difficult for him than for young people in other continents. This is simply not true. Let us take the example of the West where today may be found pornographic films, sex shops, nightclubs. To live in such a world is not always easy. It requires a certain self-discipline. In order to live a life of celibacy in such an atmosphere, it is necessary to cling to Jesus Christ, to have a deep life of prayer and to receive the Eucharist regularly. The young African man or woman called to religious life will always remember that we live in a world of male and female; consequently, it is clear that we have to live our celibacy in the midst of men and women of our times and of our culture. There is nothing wrong with that; on the contrary, it is a grace that the Lord gives us by inviting us to live out his gospel in the midst of the world and not in some isolated corner. At the crossroads the Lord may put on our path certain persons of the other sex. We will welcome them as brothers and sisters in the Lord. The gospel is full of examples that show us how Jesus respected persons of the other sex. He doesn't send away the sinful woman who comes to the house of Simon, the Pharisee to have her sins forgiven. On this occasion, Jesus could have been afraid of shocking people by receiving such a woman with open arms. But the Lord was not afraid of what people would say or think because in true love there is no fear. Neither does Jesus judge the woman caught in adultery like the Pharisees who bring her to him. On the contrary, he defends her against the "unmarked tombs" who have grown old in sin and yet want to preach to others. Jesus is close friends with Martha and Mary as well as with their brother, Lazarus. Jesus has pity on the widow from Naim who has lost her son. The Lord admires the Canaanite woman's faith, and he is exceedingly affectionate toward his mother Mary, the Immaculate Virgin. In his Gospel, the Lord shows us how his celibacy did not exclude anybody. He Was completely open; he welcomed others. In solitude he prayed and he was a 20 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 source of joy and peace for the people that God, his Father, had placed in his path. If religious life is to flourish in our African continent,it is necessary that there be more and more religious who witness by their life of celibacy. A celibacy based on Jesus Christ cannot but be fruitful. Black Africa, which has such a high regard for fruitfulness, will see a new type of love which outstrips in fruitfulness the love of the children of this world. We, the sons and daughters of Mother Africa, have believed in the word of him who said, "there are some who are eunuchs because they have made themselves so for the kingdom of heaven. Let him who can understand, understand" (Mt 19:!2). If there is a word which has become the life of our life, that is the one. Spiritual Fruitfulness If there is a fruitfulness that is biological, there is another one which is spiritual. Any parent worth his salt knows that it is' not enough to procreate children. In responsible parenthood, it is also necessary to help the child that we have brought to life to grow untilhe has reached a stage where he will truly be an adult. To educate, to instruct are part and parcel of his awakening to human life. It takes only one instant for a couple to initiate the process of procreation. It takes only a little time to call someone into existence, but it requries many years for a child to become an adult. Whether it be as parents, as educators, or in any other capacity, all those who are engaged in human formation are doing a type of work that is spiritually generative. Any man who helps another one grow and become more human is a man who is gpiritually generative. This spiritual generation exists at various levels; yet, the spiritual fruitfulness of a Christian is not that of a non-Christian. From a Christian point of view, any Christian man or woman who awakens another human being to the life of God in Jesus Christ is spiritually fruitful. The object of spiritual fruitfulness for a Christian is Jesus Christ and his message. It is the person of Christ which distinguishes any typically Christian fruitfulness from any other. All Christians are called to be fruitful but in different ways and in accordance with their state in life. The form of life of one who wakens to the life of God in Jesus Christ is not something that is accidental. There are some who believe that the way of life--whether it be of married Christians or of "eunuchs for the king-dom of God"---has no importance in the process of awakening to life. But when one awakens somebody else to life, one does it with all one's being. If our way of life is not something external to us but a part of our being and, therefore, a part of our relationship to God, to others, and to the world, we can readily understand that this life-style is not without importance in matters of spiritual fruitfulness. In his life Jesus preferred celibacy to marriage, and this choice is not something accidental. The Jesus of the gospels presents himself to us as celibate and not otherwise, and this is part of the mystery of incarnation. In the same way Jesus was not at the same time a man and a woman. He was not both married and non-mar-ried. He was a celibate, and tfiis fact has some relevance in the transmission of his Celibacy in Africa message. He wanted to be born of a virgin, Mary, and this also is not something purely accidental or accessory in the mystery of salvation. Thus one who chooses celib~acy for the kingdom of God is fruitful differently from married people. This difference is rooted in the order of being and not of having. It is an ontological reality and, therefore, it is a dimension surrounded with mystery. The spiritual fecundity of those who live in celibacy resembles closely that of Christ. In other words, the way that Christ was spiritually fruitful resembles the way in which a man is fruitful through a celibacy chosen for Christ. Obviously "to resemble" or "to be close to" is not the same thing as "to be identical to." Wherever a true local Church is to be found, there will be found also Christians who are married and Christians who are eunuchs for the kingdom. Each of these forms of life has a great importance in the aspect of fecundity which is essential for the life of the Church. The uniqueness of the spiritual fruitfulness of a celibate for the kingdom of heaven shares something of the mystery of God made man, of God who wanted to be among us without woman or child while being eternally generative. Death Song of a Grain of Wheat Born above the earth, Beloved of the sun, Sky-held. Rain-touched. Wind-taught to dance, I know I sang of joy. Borne beneath the ground, Forsaken by the sun, Sky-denied, Rain-forgot, I feel no more the winds, And know a slower song. Yet reach I for the sun-set fires And C~rr the hidden waters. Stretched, song-heavy with the wait ' Of days too long to measure, I learn to trust the darkness That consumes me: That sends my myriad children to be Born above the earth. Sister Linda Karas. RSM Mercy Consultation Center P.O. Box 370 Dallas, PA 18612 The Sparrow Has Found Its Home At Last: A Personal Account of Transfer Anonymous The author is a sister who transferred from an active to a contemplative community some several years ago. She explains in the article why she prefers to remain anonymous. The sharing which follows comes as the result of a suggestion made to me that I write about my experience of transfer from an active community to a contempla-tive order. My first response was a hasty and hearty "No." Then the possibility of helping any individual or community involved in a similar experience crept into my prayer and thinking. The good which might be achieved seemed to outweigh my natural reticence and my disinclinatio.n to discuss the subject. I have not taken any polls, nor have I statistics. I personally know exactly six solemnly professed nuns and a few people in formation who transferred from active to contemplative life. However, one would'have to have lived on a remote Pacific atoll for the last several years not to know that transfers are on the increase. What follows is not a scholarly analysis of the phenomenon of transfer. It is just my own experience and an endeavor to share what ! have learned. The reason for my choosing anonymity is that I might feel freer in what I write and also guard the identity of my former and present communities. There is another reason: the story is more God's than my own. The transfer, or more correctly, my contempla-tive vocation, is his work, his call, his idea. My part has only been a response to his initiative and to his love. Early History The idea of transfer did not come as a sudden inspiration. My first desire to be a nun came when ! was twelve and I was certain then that I was called to be a contemplative: I even knew to which order and monastery I was attracted. Some-thing, though, interfered with following this vocation: My father adamantly opposed the idea of his daughter being immured in a cloister. The whole topic was 22 A Personal Account of Transfer forbidden, and gradually I forgot the idea. In the meantime, I became acquainted wi~h the sisters working in our parish. I won my father's consent to join this :community which 1 genuinely loved and admired. I received a good fo, rmation and an excellent education. I was very happy and contented. One thing consistenly moved and drew me: prayer. Right from the beginning I had some difficulty with meditation books and their outline of points, colloquies and resolutions. It all seemed too ready-made. Also, the time given to this prayer (one-half hour) never seemed to satisfy my longing for greater intimacy and depth. My difficulty was remedied by the fact that God simply transcended the books and led me along his chosen path for me in prayer. Another remedy came by way of hiding alone in solitary places on the novitiate property. There God had free rein in my heart. The one thing I most wanted was to love him and see him known and loved. Of course I did try to speak of this desire to superiors. They seemed mbre concerned that I live the common life, practice virtue, and eliminate my faults. All this was quite understandable but not terribly encouraging. Matters came to a head when I became a junior sister. My desires for loving God alone and in hiddenness, and for a life which would embrace withdrawal and penance became a steady fire within me. Neither studies nor work could distract me from it. After some months of inner turmoil I finally had the courage to broach the subject of a contemplative vocation to the community confessor, a, retreat maste.r, and my immediate superior. None of these persons told me the whole thing was a temptation against my vocation, but since 1 was happy and well adjusted, they each felt that I had enough opportunity for the things I was seeking within the scope of the religious life as it was then being lived in the congregation. Again, this was essentially what I had been told in the novitiate. My disappoint-ment was as strong as the attraction I had experienced but l was able to set aside my yearning. The work in which I was engaged kept me busy. I enjoyed it and gave myself to it wholeheartedly. A few years later, an unforgettable retreat, coupled with God teaching me to pray with Scripture some months after retreat, gave direction and support to me in my relationship with him. He was so near, and daily he spoke to me in his word. This did not rekindle the desire for contemplative life~ but it did establish me firmly in the way of contemplative prayer. This brief history serves, I think, to underscore a fact in my life and in the lives of those women whose stories of transfer I know well: the vocation was felt very early and not taken too seriously by those in a position to advise and assist. Had they done so, a good deal of the suffering, struggle and turmoil of coming to a decision to transfer,after many years in an apostolic congregation might have been mitigated. . Coming to a Decision In the years following Vatican Council II my community undertook its renew-al and adaptation. I welcomed all the initial changes as healthy and hopeful. As time went on, however, I became unhappy with my own and the community's level 24 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 of secularization. My modest wardrobe and collection of trifling possessions troubled my conscience. I wanted and expected to receive annual assignments, but the new approach of applying for both position and residence, with the full expectation that one's preferences would be honored, contradi6ted my understand-ing of Gospel obedience. T.V., mixed drinks, popular novels, dating, and all the inevitable departures from religious life were matters of grave concern to me. It seemed to me that the true life of the community was ebbing away, that God and the love of God were no longer the focus of life. We still did a first-class job in our work, but there appeared to me~ little difference between ourselves and dedicated lay persons. Without going into more detail, I felt it necessary to include the foregoing inasmuch as it formed some of the background for my transfer. However, I do not feel that discontent and disapproval, even if justified, are good reasons for transfer. They would form a very shaky foundation for any new beginning and would surely raise questions in the community accepting a transfer sister. Flight from trouble could well indicate that the same pattern would be followed in the new community. It could also mean that the heart of the problem might be within the sister herself, and her response to difficult circumstances. Fleeing trouble was never part of my motivation. Had this been the case, I would have done it much sooner because I lived in painful community situations for several years before making a transfer. Furthermore, 1 was always very open and honest in communicating my thinking to my superiors. One cannot simply leave. There must be integrity in the decision and it should be made in peace and, as far as possible, in harmony with one's higher superiors. There should be no bitterness, resentment or anger. The vocation is followed as God's call and is a result of his initiative. This fact, if kept central in the minds of all concerned, makes for peace; and it is in this way that God's presence manifests itself to all involved. God uses all our experiences to our good and brings about his purposes. While not my motivation, discontent and disapproval were part of my personal expe-rience and did serve to keep me from what I saw as wrong, In a more positive vein, they ,kept me praying for God's light, strength and help. Certain tragic events in my own family also form a part of this picture and had their effect. Instead of completely discouraging me or leading me to despair or exodus from religious life altogether, everything brought me to the God of all peace and consolation. He alone became myRock of Refuge and Teacher. The alienation I experienced from my community and its value increased my love for him and my trust in him. Thus it was that my attraction for simply being with God in love grew stronger. A mere "concidence" (in quotation marks because the providence of the God who numbers the hairs of our fieads extends to every circumstance and happen-ing) occasioned my writing to the superior of a monastery. In time we became correspondents. When I first visited her and met her community in the grilled and bare parlor of the monastery I was deeply moved. This surprised me. I had not thought of contemplative life as my vocation for years, yet here 1 was, feeling completely at home with relative strangers and very strongly drawn to their sim- A Personal Account of Transfer / 25 plicity, humility, joy, peace and poverty. In the months that followed 1 was haunted by the experience. I found out more about their life and read of their origin. Could it be? Might 1 become one of them? Or was this merely a desire for escape from present suffering ("the grass is always greener.") or a dream too good to be true? Then, too, there was the possibility to be faced that God was calling me to deeper contemplative prayer rather than actual contemplative life. And might I be doing more good in the world outside a cloister rather than in it? I went through this inner and secret turmoil for several months. All the while 1 begged for light and some discernible, positive direction from God. 1 kept waiting and hoping for some outside confirmation of God's will. God was, in fact, giving me all the "signs" I needed, but I distrusted the most significant of them: the profound attraction the life held for me over the years and especially at that moment, the fact that it fulfilled the most unselfish aspirations of my heart, and the fact that I seemed to have the requisite "talents." How is it we so readily distrust our own intuition and heart? Yet here at the deepest level of our being is where God works. Again, I have heard the same experience related by others who transferred to contemplative life. 1 went through no particular "process" of dis-cernment. There was just myself and, I trust, the Holy Spirit, plenty of tears, prayer, and searing, soul-searching honesty. One thing 1 knew: my life had one purpose and that was to love God with all my heart and soul, mind and being and to tend solely to him. Nothing else mattered. I did not see it then as clearly as I do now, but that, too, was evidence of a contemplative vocation, and had been the most important reality in my whole religious life. In his own time, God spoke, and he completely calmed the storm. I came to a "peace surpassing understanding." All my doubts vanished. My questions came to an end. I knew. In light of that peace I first asked the superior of the monastery (of the same order as that to which I was first attracted at the age of twelve) if there were any possibility of her accepting me. At the time I made my request I know now I was too little aware of the risk a small enclosed community takes in accepting a transfer. 1 next confided in my old and saintly grandmother who gave me her blessing, encouragement and wisdom--along with a warning that there was "still plenty of the world" in me and that I'd have far to go. She was absolutely correct. With my grandmother's prayers to back me, I approached my major superior. She was wonderful and accepting. The depth of my peace and conviction were evident to her. She fully realized and agreed.that this was a genuine vocation and not a result of any differences of values or opinions. We communicated in a real spirit of love. Not knowing much about contemplative life, her concern was that my personality might be stifled or my gifts ignored and unused. 1 had tentatively broached the subject to a priest friend in a letter some weeks before. Visiting him, 1 told him the whole story and said that I really thought it was God's will for me to transfer. He informed me that it came as no surprise to him, that he had seen it coming but had not wanted in any way to interfere with God's guidance of me. Among my family and friends, the least suprised was my mother. Her intuition had led her to realize that a great change was in the offing. 96 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 The responses of all the above mentioned persons further confirmed my expe-rience. I cannot say that my decision was accepted or understood by all my friends and religious family. It caused some painful estrangements and there were those who could only accept it as my "thing" and therefore all right for me. The actual process of transfer was thus initiated after what had felt like an interminable period of waiting and praying. Perhaps God wanted me to realize that it was first necessary that I be utterly surrendered to his desires and that the only way he could achieve this was to let me struggle on "alone" during that time. It was a kind of game of love. He so deeply drew me but never let me fully reach him. Left to myself 1 could not believe in my own heart. It was not until he gave me that unmistakable sign and gift of peace that 1 was sure that what I had been experiencing in my own heart was indeed his will for me, that the two were not two, but one. Legal Process of Transfer Because 1 am rather sure questions about procedure will arise, it may be helpful here to tell what 1 know about getting the document known as a "Rescript of Transfer" from the Sacred Congregation for Religious. In my own case this was done in the last months of my postulancy immediately prior to my receiving the habit and commencing my canonical year. For the validity of novitiate, one must have this document. Ordinarily the Vicar for Religious of the diocese in which the monastery is located handles the paperwork. He directed that three letters be written: the first by the superior of the community ! was leaving expressing her approval and her willingness to receive me back at any time before solemn vows should I leave the monastery; the second by the superior receiving me stating her willingness to receive me and including pertinent data regarding my status in religion (name, age, years professed, community of origin); the third by myself. handwritten and addressed to the Pope, stating my request and my reasons for it. These letters are sent to the Vicar who forwards them to.Rome through his office. In approximately six weeks, upon receipt of the rescript, he sends copies to the superiors. This is, as ! understand it, the general procedure, although I have heard of it being done through the Vicar of the diocese which the transferring sister was leaving. I have also heard of cases handled by a major superior independently of the Vicar for Religious. The superior dealt directly with the Sacred Congregation for Religious. In any case, this rescript is the only permission one needs to begin the canonical year and proceed through formation to vows. New Beginning I entered upon my new life with certain expectations. Some were realistic and some not so realistic. It was realistic to expect some sense of dbjb vu. This was in many ways a return to customs and practices l had lived in my first several years of religious life. With these things I was at home. I had also rightly anticipated a warm community life. Of course 1 allowed for a period of adjustment, but I did not A Personal Account of Transfer expect it to last more than six to eight weeks, in fact, it took much longer than that. The reason was not that I was too old to learn or change or that 1 lacked a willing docility. It was more subtle than this. Without realizing it, I expected to enter upon a period of rest, a sort of honeymoon in a safe harbor after years of struggle and sorrow. This was not to be. For one thing, the monastic community I entered was going through its own renewal pains. And much worse, for me, was that when I came in the front door of the monastery it seemed that God left by the back door. Here 1 was at last, and where was he? The work tired me. The hard bed took some getting used to. Often it was impossible to get back to sleep once it had been broken by the Office or night adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes the closeness of my neighbors irritated me beyond measure. There were no days off from routine. I expected to master everything easily but it turned out that I was the one to be mastered. After many years in religious life it amazed me to learn how deluded I was about myself. Without the distractions of apostolic work and all that goes with it, without useless conversation, reading and entertainment, God's light began to clarify my vision. The very starkness of the life, its purity, makes for this experience. I was face to face with myself, my weakness, my poverty. Anything is possible if God is tangibly supporting us. It is when he is appar-ently nowhere to be found that things get out of hand and we are unable to cope with the simplest and most normal inconveniences and trials of daily life. But ought not a contemplative be able always to find refuge in prayer? Self-made prayer is most unsatisfactory. What a contemplative learns by being unable to pray, by being reduced to utter poverty at every level of existence (and this was my experience) is just to cling in naked faith to Jesus Crucified. Paradoxical as it may sound, there is no greater happiness. Having come to this reality through suffering, both in my life before 1 entered the monastery and in the years 1 have been here, I know something of what it means to say with Paul that I have been crucified with Christ, that my life is not my own and Christ lives in me (Ga 2:19-20). The way to the deepest joy I have ever known is just as the Son of God has taught us and that way is by losing my life and denying my very self. The total experience of knowing myself as nothing, of having nothing, has opened my eyes in faith to the All within me, the Being who in unfathomable love calls non-being into union with himself. My love for God, my hunger for him, unites me at the Heart of Reality with all my brothers and sisters in this world. I do not live for myself, nor suffer for myself, nor weep for myself. My vocati6n embraces every person on earth. In their names 1 pray and work. In their names, I, too, am in misery and pain. I am a whole world calling to God in need, in love, in trust. 1 have entered eternity in time and within me there is infinite scope for love. I came because of love and I have stayed because of love. Surely it is "a narrow gate and a hard road" (Mt 7:13-14), but it "leads to life," life opening more and more into the mystery of God as love. The Needs of Contemplatives in Direction Barbara Armstrong, O.SS.R. This article had its origin in a presentation made to a group of retreat masters by Sister Barbara, a cloistered nun residing in the Redemptoristine Monastery; Liguori. MO 63057. Somewhere in her writings, the great St. Teresa compares the contemplative with the standard-bearer in battle. She says that, because he is the standard-bearer, he is exposed to great danger. He can't defend himself because he carries the standard, of which he must not let go--even if he is to be cut to pieces. "Contemplatives," she says, "have to bear aloft the sign of humility, the Cross. And they must suffer all the blows aimed at them without striking back. Their duty is to suffer as Jesus did." "Let them watch what they are doing," she says again, "for if they let the standard fall, the battle is lost." It isn't the standard-bearer who is important. It is the standard itself which is all important, for it is imprinted with the sign of our salvation: the Cross. Perhaps this is why there are so few contemplatives. Perhaps, too, this is why contempla-tives need all the help they can get just to respond fully to the call of their vocation, to persevere and become fruitful in the Church of today. You Have No Eyes to See The message sent to the Church in Laodicea, in the Book of Revelation, is also a message meant for contemplatives--and for those who guide them. Right after the familiar passage about lukewarmness, we hear the Lord say: "You have no eyes to see that you are wretched, pitiable, poverty-stricken, blind and naked. My advice to you is to buy from me that gold which is purified in the furnace, so that you may be rich, and white garments to wear so that you may hide the shame of your nakedness, and salve to put on your eyes to make you see." That phrase, "You have no eyes to see," is significant for us because ignorance The Needs of Contemplatives in Direction is one of the reasons why relatively few contemplatives ever attain the end for which they were called: union with God. Mystical graces, we are told, are always available. God's goodness and generosity are never lacking. But very few actually arrive at a state of contemplation. Why is this? To answer this question, I would like to tell you a story. Actually, it is a parable which is told in the book of a Carmelite nun, Sister Ruth Burrows. Here is her parable. A Love Story Hidden away in a valley surrounded by high mountains there lived a very primitive tribe. The people of this tribe knew very little of the world outside their valley. Occasionally, they would get a glimpse of a jet streaking across the sky far over their heads, and this, they thought, was one of the gods throwing spears at another. One day a man appeared in the valley, a young anthropologist. He had come to study the tribe at close quarters--if they would have him. But they were a gentle tribe, so they welcomed him. The young man was lodged in the chief's hut and lived there for some years. Eventually he fell in love with the chief's daughter and married her. Hitherto, the girl had thought herself wealthy. Was not her father the most powerful of their people? But the closer she grew to her beloved, the more she saw that her riches--the family cattle, some cooking pots and animal skins--were as nothing compared to the possessions that were her husband's. He had materials, leathers and machines, knives and matches to make fire--riches unimaginable. But the girl saw, too, that her husband's greatest delight was to share his riches with her. Her lack merely aroused his bounty, so she knew her poverty itself primarily as a richness, giving them both pleasure. There came a time when the anthropologist had to leave and, taking his wife with him, he returned to his own civilization. The native girl found this new environment terribly alien. She discovered, to her horror, that her husband's enemies laughed at him behind his back because of his primitive wife. Even his friends pitied him. She didn't know what to do with this bitter knowledge. Some-how she had brought disgrace on her loved one. The girl always knew that her husband loved her. She knew that he longed to share his heart with her, take her completely into his life. But when he tried to speak of so many things closest to him, she would notice his voice falter, for she could not follow even the meaning of his words, let alone the scope of his thoughts and concepts. She was shut off from him by her own limitation and ignorance. That caused her distress almost beyond bearing. The more she realized what her poverty cost her beloved, the more absolute became her will to escape from it for his sake. Equally the more clearly did she see that, of herself, there was no escape. But all was not lost because she also realized that in her husband she had come not only to understand her poverty, but to find an effective and everpresent escape from it. From him she could receive all that his Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 love had prepared for her. So she opened her heart to everything he had to offer her. She found in him the most loving of teachers. Soon she became the echo of his thought. There passed between them intimate glances of complete understanding. She had an intuitive knowledge of how his mind worked, so closely did she grow to him. Yet she bad lost nothing of that natural woman he had first loved. On the contrary, she only now realized her own innate capacity. Her enrichment had brought all that was already there to bloom. But now, more than ever, she knew, too, that this was all his doing. Every perception, every growth, had come from his love and his teaching. Genuine Contemplatives This story, lengthy though it be, brings out so many important points about the contemplative vocation. Years ago, maybe it's different now, one of the phrases we often heard was that "we should strive for perfection." This tended to make us think that we could do it all ourselves. The main idea seemed to be that we were in control of our lives. The success of things depended on our own efforts. And so, many of us thought we could become contemplatives by the things we did. Like the primitive tribe of our story living in their valley, though, our horizons were very limited. We were content with our regulated existence, our own personal riches and the consolations sent us from time to time by a loving God. Much confid~nce was attached to the good things of our little enclosed world. We had no eyes to see beyond our then present peaceful life. But since we are meant to be genuine contemplatives, Jesus began to break through our ignorance and complacency. He asked us to leave our valley of poverty. He invited us to a rich interior world, one we had never dreamed of. These invitations continue to be offered to us in many ways. Perhaps they come in a retreat, in a sermon, in our reading, or through the words of a friend. But the voice is the voice of Jesus, and he invites us over and over again. If the primitive tribe in our story had turned away the young anthropologist when he came among them, he would never have married the chief's daughter. She would never have learned about the larger world; she would have stayed in her ignorance. Think of all the beauty, rich, ness and love of which she would have been deprived. The great St: Teresa was satisfied for a long time with her routine religious exercises, even though in her heart she knew better. We read that she continued to live just over twenty ,years with her heart divided between two extremes: the pleasures, satisfactions and pastimes of her fashionable world, and the spiritual life of a contemplative. How can this happen? How can we contemplatives continue to fool ourselves ---even though we are continually prodded, continually touched by grace? One of the ways we contemplatives have of staying in our valley of poverty is by our attachment to .the Law. We can" fall prey to a sort of fanatical legalism. The Needs of Contemplatives in Direction Most often, it seems, it is the most pious of persons who become rigid and unbending formalists. "Here at last," we say, "is something solid to hang on to." In our own eyes we are in the right. "We are doers of the Law." Any ,doer of the law, however, will also be tempted to live by the law, whereas the true lover of Jesus lives by the spirit. We contemplatives tend to make the Law, and it alone, our security. We never even dream that it is possible to seek a perfection in anything whatever with an intensity of zeal that is in itself imperfect. For instance, often in the past, the cross, austerity, suffering was unthinkingly perverted by us in our zeal. Wehad the idea that, since we were only pleasing God when we were suffering, the more suffering the better. Fearing and hating our bodies, we thought, would make us spiritual people. This, together with the notion that we were redeemed by suffering since Jesus died for us, we pushed .to its logical conclusion, thinking that we could never have too much suffering. It wasn't suffer-ing that redeemed us. It was love.t We contemplatives can develop attachments to just about anything: to prayer and fasting for their own sake; to a pious practice or devotion; to a custom or system of spirituality; to a method of meditation, even to contemplation itself (or to what we think is contemplation.) We can become attached to virtues, to things that, in themselves, are marks of heroism and high sanctity. We religious men and women, called to be saints, can allow ourselves to be blinded by an inordinate love for such things and can remain just as much in darkness and error as those who seem far less perfect than we. Some of us can become gluttons for prayer and for silence and solitude. Silence can become an ultimate. When there is noise we become angry and rebel-lious. If we are required to set aside our solitude for the sake of charity, we fill the air with our complaints. This kind of solitude and silence is false, of course, a refuge for the individualist. Perhaps the deepest attachment of all, the one which keeps us in our valley of poverty the longest, is attachment to ourselves. On this we must keep a fingerhold; we just cannot let go. Self-respect, self-fulfillment, self-satisfaction--we have to look good in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. We worry.about failure because somehow we are not living up to the expectations we have set for our-selves. Only secondly do we consider the expectations of God. In our story the chief's daughter found that her lack aroused her husband's bounty. She knew her poverty primarily as a sweet thing. But covetous as we are, we contemplatives want our hands full. We must have something of our own which we can bestow on God; or at least hold out to him, thinking to win him over with our generosity. When Jesus Touches Us Sooner or later we begin to realize that this way of living does not work; we begin to see that relying on ourselves alone is doomed to failure. When Jesus touches us with his mystical graces, what happens? Our eyes are opened and we are Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 dissatisfied with everything. This overwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction could very well be Jesus' most precious gift of all. But it does not seem so to us~ We look within and discover the same faults and vices we have always been burdened with. Prayer has become almost unbearable. Spiritual things in general lose their familiarity and joy. Panic deepens. Life seems turned upside down and inside out. Above all this, the knowl-edge that we have failed the Lord, that we have dropped the standard, that the battle is being lost--this is our deepest sorrow. But although all seems lost, what we experience in reality is the finding of our true life in Jesus. Like our primitivegirl, we, too, begin to realize, at last, that only in Jesus will we find our ever present redemption from our dreaded poverty. Retreat masters, spiritual directors and confessors will do us the greatest favor if they direct their efforts toward instilling in us an abiding trust in the all-loving Providence of God and in the saving life of Jesus. They should help us to mistrust ourselves and to surrender ourselves into His hands. They should teach us to cling to him no matter how dark things seem to be, teach us to have faith in his love and in his forgiveness no matter what we think we have done; no matter how we think we have failed. Signs of Progress What are the signs by which spiritual directors may gauge for certain real progress in contemplatives? Some of the outward manifestations of an inward mystical encounter or of infused contemplation might be the following: We contemplatives might describe to directors an experience of a deep and painful knowledge of ourselves, for we begin to see ourselves as we truly are. We may say that all our illusions are b~ing shattered, especially our illusions of self-importance. We may tell them that all our cherished ambitions are unmasked for the first time, or that we feel our dignity has been overthrown. We will, perhaps, tell them that we are lost; that we are not sure any more if we are leading dedicated lives at all. We exper!ence a growing sense of insecurity. At the same time, strange as it may seem, we experience at~ acceptance of this state. As our native girl found when she op~ned her heart to everything her husband had to offer her, so we contemplatives begin to see everything in a different light. Our lives of austerity, our efforts at mortification will acquire a deeper significance. We understand that as God is our life, we must let nothing take the edge off our need for him. This is a new way of living out our hunger and thirst, our refusing to be satisfied. We are consenting to have no security and no other satisfaction but God; a God who is unseen and unfelt. So near is he and so awesome, that unless we say "Yes" to him all the time, and accept life as he gives it, we must return to our valley of poverty. The temptation to turn back can be overwhelming. But it is also true that we are given a powerful strength at this time, enabling us to persevere. All this, of course, is an effect of Jesus' lox;e for us. We remember, indeed we cannot for a The Needs of Contemplatives in Direction moment forget, that any enrichment in us is all his doing. Still, this is a time of great struggle and temptation. Perhaps the greatest temptation will be to abandon prayer or at least to try to escape, in some way, the grievous suffering of a deep emptiness and poverty within. This empty prayer, however, has tremendous importance. If we consent to wait humbly for the Lord, we will, all unknowingly, find that it is precisely in this arid waste that Jesus is touching us. At this juncture, the contemplative might tell the director of an experience of being literally undone and remade, for there are no half measures any longer. What is really happening is that our faith is being deepened all the time. A sure sign that we contemplatives have not made progress will be precisely the certainty that we have! Alternatively another certain sign of growth might be the gradual disappearance of a tendency to criticize and find fault. There appears instead, a more gentle outlook; a kinder and more compassionate approach, thanks be to God. Love: Human and Divine Love has been our theme all the way through. But now I would like to be a li'ttle more specific about love, I mean the place of both human and divine love in the contemplative life. I think we will all agree that human affection is probably the most sweeping emotion in us. So, from the outset, we need to keep these two loves, the human and the divine, in order, lest the human sweep us off the foundation of the divine. To feel attraction for another, of course, is not wrong. Yet, for some of us, it can and does become a .dangerous thing. We fear to admit our feelings and to accept them, for the very difficulty in doing so can pose a thousand problems for us. At the same time, we know that this is the only healthy approach. It means we are accepting our sexuality and womanliness. I wonder if any of us ever fully grasps what a block to God's transforming action lies in the refusal to face up to and integrate our sexuality, and live it out continently for the glory of God? The Carmelite, Sr. Ruth Burrows states: "Being sexual means basically that 1 am a half and. not a whole. I am incomplete as I am and I tend, unconsciously, always to seek my other half, even though consciously, ! have renounced my right to marry and have children and be made whole by another. But grace does not work fully in a half person, so I struggle to love purely though it be through a great deal of suffering, because Jesus has promised to fill my emptiness with himself and so take away the ache of loneliness. If I am to become whole it will be in him and I must live in the hope of becoming whole in him and in him alone." The greatest danger is that we will try to get rid of the pain. We will even deny that these desires and attractions exist because they do not fit our stereotypic image of "the holy nun for whom God is enough." When we deny these feelings, the temptation will be to seek compensation for what we have given up. Frustrated longing comes to the surface sooner or later. It shows itself in outward behavior 3tl / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 such as domination of others, maternalism (or paternalism), or a passive or child-ish dependence. Who hasn't encountered these types in religious life? There are the old maids or bachelors. They will avoid personal involvements of every kind. In the name of holy recollection, they "keep their hearts for God alone." They are afraid to make friends and so they play it safe. Then there are the frustrated wives and mothers--and we might add, frus-trated fathers. These have never faced up to the truth of their feelings and desires. So they live on compensations instead of on God. They use their friends selfishly, looking for gratification from them. They dominate.and control other lives for their own ends, thinking all the while that this is "holy freedom" and "human fulfillment." To get back to us women: a woman, by nature, is meant to be selfless, receptive, wholly intent on giving and loving, that others 'might become them-selves. But when we see so many religious women leave their institutes these days, giving up their vocation and going back to secular life, we're not judging them when we ask, "Could it be that they did not get the help they needed in this problem of love?" Perhaps they found no one to understand their problem. Was there anyone to whom they could have gone for guidance amid these conflicting feelings, desires and attractions? I think we all need to know that it's alright to feel attraction and affection for others, especially for those of the opposite sex. I think we need to hear again and again that the feeling of attraction is only one side of love; that it may lead to love but that it is not itself real love but only a feeling. And like any feeling, it will not last thus forever. In the meantime, the tension in which we are caught, between our desires for exclusive love and our commitment to universal love, needs some level-headed self-control. We need someone to encourage us tO effort, watchful-ness and patience, humility and trust in divine grace. The struggle will teach us to rely on a spiritual power higher than our own nature. There is no doubt that we will grow from this struggle, which with God's help will become creative. We will learn to grow up, to take total responsibility for our own lives, their choices and decisions. And we will allow no one and nothing to turn us away from the principles by which we wish to live. The ultimate answer is found only when Jesus is re'peatedly placed before us as the object of our whole desire, and when, by repeated redirection, we are gradually transformed into him. Viva Memoria Finally, there comes a time when the interior rending apart, the anxiety, the sense of terrible absence are no more. The mysteries of Jesus, previously seen as the imitation of Christ giving the external principles by'which we were guided, now become our own mysteries, and we live progressively the life of Jesus; we become literally living memories. All that happens to the "personal me" begins to give joyful insight into the knowledge of Jesus himself. ~ Our venerable foundress, Mother Mary Celeste, has something to tell us about The Needs of Contemplatives in Direction this mystical state of contemplation. In her prayer our Lord speaks to her in these words which she passes on to us: "My spouse, abandon your own free will, your willing and your not willing, and leave all to my Divine Providence and my disposal. Make yourself an echo of my Willing. And if I say to you in my good pleasure: 'A cross,' then in your willing, will the cross. And if I say: 'Humiliation and contempt,' then be my echo and say, 'contempt.' And if I say: 'Kiss me with the kiss of sweet union,' then give me the most sweet echo of love and kiss me. It is in this way that you have no other desire or will than the absolute movement of my Will. Thus while you live, I, too, live as if I alone were alive in your very being, a.nd not you yourself." As with the happy couple in our love story, so it is with us: There begins the passing of those intimate glances of complete spiritual understanding. We might say that our whole occupation is love, or that prayer is our life. Either statement would be equally true. Then there is an awareness of deep contentment. That doesn't mean that growth isn't possible. In fact, it has to happen. The surrender becomes deeper and deeper, letting God do everything, totally sure that he will do so. And so ours becomes a life of deeper and deeper trust. We might end this as we began by saying, once again in the words of Sister Ruth Burrows, "Holiness in the contemplative is not a greatness but a total acceptance of human lowliness and total surrender of it to God in trust." Desert--After Fire Twisted; tortured, Bare black This land. Seared, scarred, What remnants remain. Evening whispers, "All is lost." Night mantles dark Deeper than ever touched This fire-scorched earth before. This land will heal. Soft spring rain Will sift tl~rough ashes. Bring new life to seed Concealed beneath the crusted earth. The cross is fire too And bare its wood Which must be aflame Before the Paschal morning dawns To heal and renew. Sister Miriam John, R.G.S. Patterdell 1820 W. Northern Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85021 Indwelling Prayer: Centering in God, Self, Others David J. Hassel, S.J. This article~ is a chapter from a book, Radical Prayer, which Father Hassel hopes soon to publish. An earlier article, "The Feel of Apostolic Contemplation-in-Action," appeared in the issue of May, 198 I. Father continues to reside at Loyola University of Chicago; 6525 North Sheridan Rd.; Chicago, IL 60626. The most radical of all types of prayer may well be indwelling prayer, for its quiet power pulses the movements of all other types of prayer. Indeed, the praying person, carried along by the seeming passivity of indwelling prayer, drifts closer and closer to the inmost self where the~ majestic God waits to welcome him or her warmly. In the attempt to delineate this deepest prayer, the reader's familiarity with various forms of more active prayer will be used as contrasting background for recognizing and appreciating more passive prayer. Some of these more active types of prayer would be: 1) problematic prayer wherein one reviews personal problems with the Lord while expressing various needs arising from them (e.g., peace in a troubled mar-riage, a job sought in the midst of a depressed economy, success in collegiate studies, mental health for a troubled daughter, good weather for the tourist season); 2) insight prayer (meditation): seeing the spiritual meaning of, e.g., a gospel event, a striking sentence in a saint's biography, a friend's casual but penetrating remark, a shocking event witnessed by chance; 3) spaced vocalprayer in which one spaces out the words of a favorite vocal tThe comments of James F. Maguire, S.J., of Edmund Fortman, S.J., and of Mary Ann Hoope, B.V.M., were especially incisive in revising this article for publication. 36 Indwelling Prayer / 37 prayer like the Our Father in order to discover and to reflect upon the fuller meaning of each phrase; 4) gospel contemplative prayer: seeing, hearing, feeling the gospel event as it unfolds in one's imagination; introducing oneself imaginatively into the scene as a friend of the apostles, as a servant girl, as a sick shepherd; 5) petitionary prayer: asking for God's help, e.g., to bring this person back to church, to relieve this person's mental agony, to be able to handle this court case well; 6) liturgicalprayer: the community finding God together in the sacred event of Eucharist, baptism, marriage, anointing of sick, reconciliation of sinners, and so on; 7) affective prayer: wherein feelings of hope, love, fear, anger, and desire (for God, for various virtues for saving situations, for the saints and for friends) operate. These are, of course, not ~all the forms of more active prayer, but they serve to illustrate the meaning of the term more active prayer for our purposes here. Familiarity with these types of more active prayer will later enable one to recognize, by experiential contrast, more passive prayer, and, hence, indwelling ;prayer, the probable source of all types of more passive prayer. Consequently, our first task is not to define abstractly more active prayer against more passive prayer, but instead, to get the "feel" of each by contrasting their diverse types of presence to God, self, and the world. This demands that, in ~/second step, we explore the experience of "presence" and ~ote the paradoxes arising in the presence constitut-ing more passive prayer. Thirdly, we will investigate whether more active and more passive prayer cancel out or nourish each other. In a fourth step, we note how those entering into more passive types of prayer, often undergo the discouraging feeling of prayerlessness, a purifying experience which paradoxically leads into awareness of the indwelling prayer underlying the more passive forms of prayer. At this point, we are finally ready to enter the life-rhythms of indwelling prayer and to search out the ways of doing this trinitarian prayer at the center of our being. Here, too, it should become clear why trinitarian prayer could be the presence underlying all types of prayer. For it reveals death and resurrection at new depths in our being. But for the present let us begin to deal with the diverse presences of more active and more passive prayer. The Diverse Presences of More Active and More Passive Prayer To distinguish more active prayer from more passive prayer is not to abandon one for the other, not to put a premium on one over the other, nor to deny their need of each other. But it is to see how they promote each other and to note how more passive types of prayer are rooted in indwelling prayer. Here definitions can mean nothing if they do not touch our prayer experience, or if they are ambiguous enough to bag together all types of prayer indiscriminately. Therefore we must distinguish these different types of prayer by describing the diverse experiences in which they occur. Let us begin such a process by first trying to discover the root of 311 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 more active prayer. Seven types (among many) of more active prayer were mentioned earlier. Actually all types of more active prayer seem to burgeon out of a single root, a "stretching out to the Lord." What is this stretch? It may well be an attitude towards others which the average good person has. To illustrate this, answer the following questions, and notice what you discover within yourself: i) Why not sleep later than usual today?--Suppose you do inconvenience some people like those in the car pool, like the spouse waiting at the breakfast table, like the other workers in the ,office or at the assembly line, like the students in the classroom? 2) Why pay attention at breakfast to the kids'chatter and the spouse's com-plaints about the leaking roof when the morning paper would be so much more interesting? 3) Why get to work a little bit early in order to get the jump on things so that the day goes better for everyone? 'Why not let others worry about the day? 4) Why help out at this or that emergency when you've got your own job to get done, too? Why not tell them to do the best they can without you since you're busy? 5) Why break off a lively lunch conversation to answer a telephone call or to listen to Henry's usual request for a loan to tide him over the weekend? 6) Why use your midafternoon break for correcting Jenny's letter to the man-ager protesting his failure to put her in charge of the secretary pool? 7) Why correct the kids at the dinner table when it's so much eas'ier to let things go and pretend you didn't see or hear it? 8) When you're dead tired and comfortably waiting for the T.V. news to come on or when you are just starting to relax with a little hi-fi music, why agree to hear the spelling lesson or arbitrate the latest argument betw, een the ten year old and the eleven year oM? 9) Why end and start your day with prayer at the tioes you're most tired? And why go to early Mass on your golf or hairdresser's day and also on Sunday, the only times you can sleep in? In other words, why keep stretching, stretching, stretching through the day unless there is a person waiting at the end of the stretching~ unless there is the Christ or the Father or the Spirit? This refusal to protect yourself from others and from God is a mysterious attitude.'Could it pbssibly be the lure of your vocation, the strength of your friendship with Christ (and therefore with his people, your people)? Could this attitude even be the taproot of 'all the types of more active prayer in your life? Could it even be the basic source of your contentment with life underneath all its irritations, failures, missed opportunities, and dashed hopes? Of course, this "stretch" attitude underlying more active prayer is. buried within one's consciousness and so it can be discovered only through the type of question-ing just completed. Yet is there riot some single directing lure running like'a golden thread through the "stretch" of the day to gi~,e direction and meaning to one's life? Indwelling Prayer And does this thread not lead eventually to the attractive Christ who alone makes fitting sense out of one's life? How can a person stretch out to all the needy unless first God is stretching out to him or her? .Here active prayer is seen as presence to the world and its needs--a presence inspired by Christ's appealing call. It would seem, then, that we may have tapped the root of more active prayer and are now ready to find the source of more passive prayer. More. passive prayer is often defined as a resting in God or a quiet'alertness to God and to others. Thomas Green describes it as "floating freely in th~ sea of God," as allowing God to direct oneself wherever he wills.2 In common with more active prayer, it is a refusal to protect oneself, it is an availability to God and to others. This common element,,hints at a deeper experience underlying both more active and more passive prayer and uniting them. And yet these two types of. prayers are quite different .since more passive prayer is often like a sinking into one's inner depths to find God; while more active prayer is a stretching out to others and to God in others. Even when more passive prayer is awareness of a God-vibrancy in clouds, trees, animals, and people's faces, voices, gestures, it nevertheless is more a stirring in the depths of one's being than a reaching out to touch. Even when one becomes aware of God somehow speaking and acting through the other person, passive prayer is more an alertness within one's own being than the message in the other's'action. Indeed, more passive prayer is, for the most part, careful listening, long waiting, occasionally a soundless crying out to God in his seeming absence. At other times, it is. allowing the Spirit to pray in me to the Father without my having any control; it is letting Jesus invade me totally,in my powerlessness and then .experiencing the resultant clash of fear and gladness within me. , ~ As more passive prayer progresses in the person, it can distill into a simple presenting of the self to the Lord. It is merely a "wanting to be with God" which is often intensified by Eucharistic presence. It is a wordless, thoughtless, imageless facing to .God. It is almost pure presence at the deepest level of experience; while in the upper levels of experience one can be .simultaneously aware of pain in one's posture, of distracting thoughts and images, of feelings of fatigue or elation. But the latter appear negligible compared to the facing of God. Here the praying person is facir~g not only God but also the mystery of presence itself. Perhaps the feeling and meaning of presence hold the key to understanding more passive prayer~ The Experience of Presence: Its Paradoxes in More Passive Prayer What is the "feel" of presence for us? It can be the invigorating experience of knowing that one's father and mother are listening proudly during one's piano 2Thomas H. Green, S.J., When the Well Runs Dr), (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1978), p. 150. Just as this book is ekcellent for its descriptions of more passive prayer, so his Opening to God (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1977) describes well more active prayer and delineates simply and directly the basic principles of beginners' prayer. tll~ / Review for Relig!ous, Jan.-Feb., 1982 recital~ or watching eagerly from the basketball grandstands for one's next basket. It can also be the sense of depletion, of sinking heart, when one sees the "enemy" coming into the room, hostile and even malevolent, to observe one's expected failure. Presence can be a sustaining strength in the hospital room. No need for words or for the busy alleviating of pain, just the steady touch of being there. Presence is an enriching moment when the vast anonymity of the great airport terminal'is shattered by a familiar voice calling one's name. Sometimes "absence" can sharpen one's awareness of what presence is. One observes two people talking to each other but neither listening, each waiting impatiently for his or her turn to speak. Absence can be the "freeze" where two people working side-by-side in a bakery or in an office, condemn each other heartily and render the eight-hour day coldly miserable for each other. The politi-cal handshake can be an insult when the state's leader has shaken three hands while still talking to the first hand. Here absence hardly makes the heart grow fonder. Presence, at times, seems to grow without any effort on one's part. Old friends go to the concert together. As soon as the music begins, they~are rapt and seem-ingly totally oblivious to the other. But neither would consider for a moment going to the concert alone. Underneath the silent raptness, their friendship continues to grow quietly--a conclusion proven by a new depth of sharing as they return home amid slow, mulling conversation. Not rarely three friends hike the mountain trails for six to eight hours with only an occasional word and: an almost silent midday lunch. Yet the enjoyment of each other is intense and, underneath the quiet calm, intimacy grows. It would seem that the beauty of music and nature mysteriously sensitizes each person to the other instead of distracting each from the other. This sense of the other's person deepens over the years; familiarity does not always breed co.ntempt. The tight-knit family may have more than its share of private squabbles, but its members have a true sixth sense when one of them is in jeopardy or in deep joy and they quickly arrive to rescue or to rejoice. Such a family, over the years, develops a secret language of grimace, wink, smile and code-words which sum up a lifetime of shared sorrows and laughs; the person of each is uniquely appreciated. The lover of many years still feels a _leap of heart when the beloved comes into the room or when the lover hears the beloved's laugh from the far side of the party chatter. The lover's heart affirms the beloved's "simply being there"---apart from what he or she is saying or doing;just as the two concert-goers and the three hikers are doing more than enjoying music and nature. They find in the being of music and mountains a new way in which to resonate to each other's being, i.e., to grow in the intimacy of friendship. For what is intimacy if not this acquired ability to live deeply with each other, to resonate in each other's very being, in such a way that friends can, on occasion, say to each other: "It doesn't really matter much where we go or what we do so long as we are together." Such intimacy, expressed through quick knowing glance, light caress, exuberant play, and the clasp of hand, perdures and grows at the being-level in emergency rooms, during sweaty decision-times about job and fam- Indwelling Prayer ily, on the beach, at the "graduation ceremonies" of the retarded child, at the birthday parties, within the many hasty breakfasts and more leisurely suppers. From all this, could one say that "presence" is intimacy or mutual resonance at the level of being? If so, then this could reveal much about the dynamics between more active and more passive types of prayer. If presence would be deep awareness of the other's very being, then "the prayer of simple presence" to God could be the praying person's affirming of God's being and God's affirming of the praying person's being. In more passive prayer of simple presence, one becomes aware of Christ and of his interests because one now allows him to enter oneself and one's work at the level of one's very being or personhood? In more passive prayer, God becomes more real for the praying person because the latter lets God be more real, i.e., lets God be Being Itself. The praying person does this by refusing to box up God within her or his own ideas, theories, and expectations. Rather, this person allows God to act in him or her: by remaining passive, he or she gives God time to become more present to the self. Paradoxically, then, more passive prayer renders a person more fully present to God and to self than does more active prayer. Through more passive prayer, the person becomes literally a being-for-God. Indeed, the divine name, Yahweh, comes to mean not merely "I am who am" but also "I am the One who will be for you." Is it possible that at this juncture we have reached that basic attitude of prayer which underlies all other attitudes of prayer? Is this the most radical of all prayers? For this basic attitude is the very being of a person as a "being-for-God." At this point, a second paradox comes into view. In more passive prayer, because the praying person is more present to self and to God at the level of being, he or she can now meet others at their being-level, not just humans but also animals, plants, and even non-vital things like mountains, rivers, fire, and stars. For with the experience of God's tender regard for oneself as unique and undying comes the ability to appreciate others as having unique worth and destiny. It is no wonder, then, that through more passive prayer, the praying person paradoxically becomes more actively present to the whole wide world. Even distant horizons are expanded by the intimate depth at which beings resonate with each other. For this reason more passive prayer renders the praying person more active in works for the family, the neighborhood, the Church--and also more hopeful because more trusting of the Holy Spirit's activity in the self and in others. More passive prayer, in making the perso.n less trusting of his or her own activity apart from God, has enabled the person to become more bold for the Church by 3Karl Rahner speaks of this passivity when describing the conditions of transcendence. "[Transcen-dence] may not be understood as an active mastering of the knowledge of God by one's own power, and hence also as a mastery of God himself. By its very nature subjectivity is always a transcendence which listens, which does not control, which is overwhelmed by mystery and opened up by mystery . Transcendence exists only by opening itself beyond itself, and, to put it in biblical languag,e, it is in its origin and from the very beginning the experience of being known by God himself" (Foundations of Christian Faith [New York: Seabury, 1978], p. 58). 42 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1982 allowing God to enter the self and to power the latter's actions. This is where personal vanity becomes reduced and the confidence in self-sacrifice gets increased. Evidently, the more passively praying person is more consciously a "being-for- God" and more clearly sees God as "I am the One who will be for you." The Differences Challenge and Nourish Each Other At this point having described more active and more passive prayer for them-selves, we are now in position to etch out their differences and to discover why these two types of prayer are called "more active" and "more passive" rather than simply active and passive prayer. It would appear that more active prayer is more conceptual than its counterpart, that is, more concerned with ideas and insight. It is also more creatively imaginative as it deals with plans of action, options for decisions, visions for the future, ambitions for the present. Again, more active prayer is more consciously integrative around a central idea or insight: "As 1 see it, the one great value in life is . "or "The central theme in my prayer is . " It is more apt to try to control: "We could set up this system of priorities, then get that done immediately; then . " It is more energetic, that is, more work oriented, more prone to gathering achievements. Finally, it is more bodily, because action in the world is incarnated through the body. On the other hand, more passive prayer is more affective than conceptual, more conscious of feelings for the other and in the other; therefore; it is more value oriented than vision enthralled. It is also more receptive than creative in its use of the imagination; thus, art and nature speak out more clearly and enter more movingly into the person praying more passively. It is more integrative by person or spirit than by idea: "This person loves me and so 1 can take the hard knocks ahead," or "1 don't quite understand her plan, but I trust her and will do what she says," Indeed, more 'passive prayer is, strangely, more spontaneous than con-trolled; it is more disturbing, more surprising, more dangerous to a person's careful selfishness. One says more often: "This happening in prayer wa~ a rather unex-pected revelation for me; I'm not sure 1 like this turn of events." Again, in more passive prayer there is more waiting, more expectancy, more sharp listening: "Nothing seems to be happening for days, and then boom ."Finally, it is more soulful in its reflective sinking into the self to find God. It should be clearer now that one must name these two types of prayer more active and more passive lest we split the personality of prayer. For both types are active and both are passive but with different emphases. For example, both use concepts, imagination, and feelings; but more active prayer is more conceptual than affective and the reverse is true of passive prayer. More active prayer deals more often with the creative imagination and more passive prayer works more often with the receptive imagination; but both types of prayer, working' in one and the same imagination, use not only the creative but also the receptive function of the imagination. All this would seem to point to their radical unity, especially since in both types the praying person has the intent not to prote,ct and to comfort the self but rather Indwelling Prayer / 43 to be available to God and to his people. Indeed, it would appear that either type of prayer would go slack and die without the appropriate challenge of the other type: Without the "stretch" of more active prayer, more passive prayer could wallow deep in the self and even forget God, much more his people. Without the "reflective sinking into being" of more passive prayer, more active prayer can end up in such a welter of action that the "stretch" could one day shred into a thousand loose strands of frenetic, superficial activities having no center of being, no rever-ence for others, no undying future. But actually, both types of prayer can challenge and nourish the other. More active prayer is concerned with "putting it all together," with having the world make final sense, so that the world is somehow under control. More active prayer works that the praying person may "have it all together," may be totally integrated as a wholesome person, not fragmented or tormented, so that the praying person may control her or his destiny. On the other hand, more passive prayer forces the praying person to face the fact that he or she is a being totally dependent on God whom he or she must trust in the midst of personal fragmentation and of a world gone awry~ More active prayer wants the resurrection now and the beatific vision now just as they are promised in every love song; in all ~great poetry and drama, and in the apocalyptic literature of the Bible. In contrast, more passive prayer demands that the praying person wait and listen, become excruciatingly aware of shortcomings and sins within one's being or personhood, know his or her absolute powerlessness to do anything worthwhile apart from God, be content for now with much less than immediate resurrection and beatific vision. Neither prayer denies the truth of the other's intent; neither claims to have all the truth, but each challenges the other to greater realism about self, God, and the world. Each depends on the challenge of the other as more active prayer aims at total wholesomeness of self and world in God and as more passive prayer aims at enduring the fragmentation of self and dislocation of world until God heals them both~ There is, however, more than challenge between the two types of prayer. Each nourishesand promotes the other. The more active forms of prayer (e.g., the seven mentioned earlier) lead into the more passive forms of prayer, which in turn.root more deeply the ensuing more active forms of prayer. For example, meditative or mental prayer focuses the praying person's powers on particular objects such asan event of Christ's life, Mary's motherhood of the Church, the mystery of the Eucharist, God's plan for the individual or gr

Issue 29.6 of the Review for Religious, 1970. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to Rxvmw Fog R~LmtOUS; 6x2 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63xo3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. .Joseph's Church; 32~ Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Lores, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1970 by REVIEW SOR REI, mtOUS. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing offices. Single copies: $1.25. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years; other countries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order paya-ble to REvmw sort RELmmUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REvmw sog RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REVIEW sort RELIGIOUS; P. O. Box l 110; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editorial correspondence, and books for re-view should be sent to REVIEW sog RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. NOVEMBER 1970 VOLUME 29 NUMBER 6 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN, s.J. Spiritual Counseling and Pra er. Fostering an ever deepening relationship with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit constitutes a major objective of the religious life. Traditionally the road to such a relationship has been a formal schedule of prayer. The daily horarium of spiritual exercises has been an essential part of almost every congregation's rule or con-stitutions. During the past decade styles of religious life and prayer have undergone change, especially among younger religious. Emphasis on the relationship with God remains, but the way of achieving this relationship and what it means differ. The new religious is more aware of what he is before God and before others. He is more aware of the Spirit working in the secular world; he recognizes God in himself, in the persons and events of his daily life. He encounters Christ in his contacts with others. Formal prayer, such as meditation, recitation of the Office and rosary, seem less impor.tant to him. In some instances, they have been abandoned in favor of a fre-quently renewed commitment. Flexibility. in Prayer In response to changing attitudes, many congregations have started to experiment with more flexible approaches to prayer. Freedom, previously unheard of, has been ÷ granted. Set periods of obligatory prayer have given way ÷ to approaches geared to unique personalities and temper- ÷ aments and to the dem~inds of a particular apostolate. This change has let a breath of fresh air into many communities, but at the same time it has created a vac-uum. Formal scheduled prayer, while it can and has helped individuals to grow in the likeness of Christ, is subject to the danger of routinism. It is relatively easy for a religious to deceive himself into believing that he is growing in the spiritual life because he spends the time at prayer required by rule, whereas little true prayer is ac- 803 Richard Vaughan, S.J.; P.O. BOX 519; Los Gatos, California 95030; is Provincial for Edu-cation of the Cali-fornia Jesuits . VOLUME 29, 1970 .÷ R. P. Va~ghan, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 804 tually taking place. Some religious have been content to spend the assigned time at daily meditation, Office, or rosary, even though little recognizable benefit resulted, simply because the rule prescribed it. Young religious have come to question such a view. The focus of their religious life is more on the frequently renewed dedica-tion. However, just as the traditional emphasis has its limitations, so too does the recent approach. A spiritual life placing heavy emphasis on seeing God in the world of people and events can gradually give way to a human-ism in which one is no longer actively aware of God and centers rather on the purely human with a subsequent loss of the original commitment. Value of Spiritual Counseling Regular spiritual counseling can counteract this dan-ger, inasmuch as it requires the counselee to face honestly and openly his continuing commitment to the service of God and neighbor and, it might be added, to see the need for some form of regular prayer if an active awareness of God's presence is to continue. The process of spiritual counseling differs radically from psychological counseling and psychotherapy. The latter two are concerned with changes in personality and the reversal of symptoms resulting from the application of psychological techniques, whereas spiritual counseling focuses on the person's life with God. The spiritual coun-selor attempts to help the individual become more aware of his religious experiences. Basically he is trying to assist the counselee in discerning the workings of the spirit, so that he can determine what is the will of God for him in concrete situations. It is true that emotional disorders and faulty attitudes injure this discernment, but chang-ing these personality characteristics is not the spiritual counselor's proper function. Recognizing them, however, and the part they play in blocking discernment is. When personality characteristics are such as to handicap seri-ously any true discernment, then it is the responsibility of the spiritual counselor to direct the religious to a compe-tent professional so that these limitations can be reme-died. Spii'itual counseling serves a number of important functions. First of all, it allows us to have a better under-standing of the nature and quality of our relationship ,with God. It makes us actively aware of our daily reli-gious experiences. In our routine-ridden world, it is very easy to put aside a certain amount of time for prayer but seldom reflect on the efficacy and effectiveness of this prayer. We are apt to gloss over the question: Is my prayer truly prayer? Moreover, spiritual counseling makes us clarify and sharpen our thoughts and feelings about religious experiences in a way we would never do if we settled for a few minutes of self-reflection. When I must explain these experiences to another, I am forced to scrutinize them and then describe them in clear, accurate terms intelligible to my listener, As I talk about such things as the place of Christ in my life, God as a loving Father, prayer, the manifestation of grace, the working of the Holy Spirit, or God's will, I gradually sort out the genuine from the false, and the important from the un-important. I become aware of my openness or.my lack of openness to God. I become aware of the many ways that God is operating in my life--either directly or indirectly. I experience a deeper appreciation for God-'s manifesta- .tions. On the other hand I may well see that a wall seems to exist between God and myself. I may come to the conclusion that I have closed myself off from or denied many of God's manifestations. I may see that I have rejected important graces and c6ncerned myself exces-sively with my own world. If left to myself, it is less likely that I would come to realize my own selfishness and. lack of concern for God and neighbor. Listening Spiritual counseling involves three phases: listening, dialogue, and decision. Listening is an activity .of both the counselee and the .counselor. Even though the coun-selee may never reflect upon the fact, he listens to himself and to the promptings of divine grace within himself. As he talks he becomes aware of God working in and through him. Moreover, it is assumed that previous to the coun-seling session he has listened to God speaking, especially at times of.prayer. These promptings of grace become the subject of discussion. It should be noted that God speaks in many ways: directly through His Spirit, through reve-lation, through others, and through the events 6f everyday life. One 6f the goals of counseling is to determine when God speaks as opposed to the promptings of our sinful nature. Listening is also the work of an effective counselor. It is sometimes falsely considered "lending an ear." If one is present and aware of what is being said, he is thought to be listening. The truth of the matter is that listening is a very active process requiring much concentration and ex-penditure of energy. It demands that the counselor try to be aware of what is taking place within the counselee at each moment he is with him. It also demands that the counselor recognize the various levels of functioning, such as the spiritual, the cognitive, the conative, and the affective, as well as the relationship and integration, or lack of integration, of all of these functions. For instance, the good listener is one who is perceptive enough to see ÷ ÷ ÷ Counseling and Prayer VOLUME 29, 1970 805 ÷ ÷ R. P. Vaughan, S.]. REVIEW "FOR RELIGIOUS 806 when emotions have taken over to the detriment of the Spirit or when habitual attitudes block thoughtful reflec-tion. The good listener hears not only the words but the way the words are expressed. He notes the tone of voice as well as the mode of expression; from these he is able to estimate the emotional involvement. The spiritual coun-selor as listener concentrates on any indication of the Spirit working within the counselee. He notes blocks or hindrances to the promptings of grace. At times, he sees that the counselee has a need to unlSurden himself before he can become aware of God's presence in his life. The counselor listens with empathetic concern. He attempts to discover what God means to the connselee, his reli-gious experiences, the depths of his faith, and his atti-tudes. Frequently all of these can be learned by active and attentive listening with little need for probing or questioning. Before the counselor enters the second phase, namely, the dialogue, he makes sure that he has at least an adequate estimate of the counselee's spiritual state. Dialogue The second phase, the dialogue, presupposes a rapport which allows the counselee to talk freely about his reli-gious experiences. Concerned listening often brings this about, inasmuch as it produces a feeling of acceptance, which permits the counselee to express freely his views without [ear of rejection. A dialogue is a conversation in which two persons reason on a topic, exchanging ideas and opinions. They examine the evidence for and against an action or a position. The initial stance is one of open-ness to all possibilities. When the term is used in relation to spiritual counseling, it implies that the counselor and the counselee examine the latter's spiritual condition, re-flecting upon its state. I[ all is well, they evaluate the signs indicating that the individual is following God's will. If there is a problem, they weigh together possible solutions, considering arguments for and against each. During the first phase the counselee describes his spirit-ual condition, which then becomes the topic of discussion during the second phase. The counselor helps the counse-lee enumerate arguments favorable to and opposed to a particular stance; he helps him evaluate the relative mer-its of each. He assists him to see when and how the Spirit is working in concrete situations. He also helps him to-ward a greater awareness of God's presence. Counseling is a learning situation. It is a time when an individual learns more about himself. Often this is accomplished without giving advice or direction. As the counselee talks about his relationship with God and neighbor, he be-comes more aware of divine intervention in the world of grace. He begins to see on his own what changes should be made and what he should do to bring about improve-ment. However, there is still a place for direction and guidance, especially in counseling younger members of a community. For instance, if a religious has never learned to pray properly, the counseling session c,'in afford an opportunity to teach the fundamentals, followed b3) a period of testing and reassessment. It can also be the occasion for presenting the traditions of a community, a time when the religious can consider whether he is fol-lowing these traditions or whether he really wishes to do so. Whether one makes use of advice and. guidance de-pends upon the needs of the individual counselee. It is the task of the counselor to determine these needs and then proceed accordingly. Decision-making At times, decision-making is part of the counseling process. Frequently, however, the purpose of counseling is simply to help an individual come to a greater aware-ness of God's manifestations and to a better understand-ing how he is or is not following God's will. When there is a need to make a decision, it is hoped that the counsel-ing will result in the counselee arriving at a decision on his own. The function of the counselor is to see that the counselee confronts all the options and weighs their rela-tive merits. Rarely should the counselor force a final deci-sion based on his own evaluation of the situation. If the counseling is truly counseling, most counselees can arrive at a decision without undue influence on the part of the counselor. An inability to do so may signify some kind of a psychological problem. dttributes of the Counselor Who can counsel? What should be the characteristics and abilities of the spiritual counselor? First and fore-most, he or she should be a person of faith, aware of the world of grace and the divine manifestations; one who has personally experienced the presence of God in his own life. He should be a person who can and does love both himself and others. He should be perceptive, with the ability to see below the surface and recognize the depths of personality and spiritual growth. He should also be able to communicate well his thoughts and im-pressions. To be effective, he or she will need adequate training in the theology of the spiritual life and, hope-fully, will have previously sought out a spiritual counse-lor for himself or herself. Psychological training can be helpful inasmuch as it offers some procedures directly or indirectly applicable to spiritual counseling. It should be noted, however, that it Counseling and Prayer VOLUME 29, 1970 807 can also be a handicap if the counselor, as a result of his training, centers most of his attention on personal prob-lems to the neglect of the spiritual. If young religious are to develop a full spiritual li~e, and if older members are to realize the renewal urged by Vatican II, there is a need for an abundance of spiritual counselors--at least one or two for every large commun-ity, It is quite evident there are too few priests with available time. The most logical solution is for congrega-tions to train the members of their own communities as spiritual counselors. They could select those best suited by previous training, experience, and personality, and assign them to this important task. Many orders or con-gregations of men have already inaugurated such a pol-icy, but they find it impossible to supply priests who can devote themselves fully to the counseling of religious women. Conclusion A perusal of the early history of the religious life re-veals a minimum of structure with a great emphasis on regular spiritual direction. Due to the constant effort of a spiritual counselor each monk grew at his own rate in the likeness of Christ. As members increased individual coun-seling became more difficult and was gradually replaced by the ordered daily horarium of spiritual exercises, the goal of both being the deepening of the monk's relation-ship with God. If contemporary religious congregations are to realize the inner renewal sought by Vatican II, they would do well to consider a return to a style of religious life grounded in regularspiritual counseling. ÷ ÷ R. P. Vaughan, REVIEW FOR R~LIGIOU$ SISTER KRISTIN SHRADER, R.S.M. Prayer Is Listening Several years, ago, Karl Rahner began speaking of the "Church of the Diaspora," the Church which had come of age, which had forsaken the trappings of bourgeois collectivism, which had become the standard, of a commit-ted few. If the diaspora has characterized Chrigtianity, it seems even more so to be characterizing contempoi:ary religious" life. The wane of numerical strength has made it clear that convents and seminaries are in the throes of a crisis of vocation and a crisis of belie[. It is within the context of religiotis life in the Church of the diaspora that I would like to discuss the question of contemplative prayer. Our age, engulfed in a deluge of media and messages, has been characterized as one which "has lost the apti-tude for prayer.'.' 1 If prayer is listening not only to the Spirit as He works in our hearts but as He works in the world around us, then perhaps our age has also lost the aptitude' for listening. Perhaps we are deaf to'entire re-gions of ourselves and our world. I shall try to describe these hidden domains, and, in the process, try to l~rovoke us to hear what we have not heard before. Perhaps we are deaf to that part of ourselves and our world which is beyond that which merely performs "actions. This is the self and the world which do not act, but which are the mirrors in which God acts so as to let Himself be known. This is not the self-made self and not the man-made world, but is that which is passive, which is fashioned and illuminated by God. How are we in the last third of the twentieth century to find a new way to pray, a new way to listen? I suggest that we look at our unhearing selves in terms of two new images: that of pilgrim and that of prophet, instead of in terms of the image of professional or of achiever. This means that to listen, to pray, we must not do, achieve, or accomplish anything as the world accomplishes things, but rather that we must learn to listen by holding our- I Wino~ de Broucher, S.J., "Mortification in Prayer," Cross and Crown, March 1963, p. 13. 4- Sister Kristin writes from Lewis Hall (Box 219); University o[ Notre Dame; Notre Dame, Indiana 46556. VOLUME 29, 1970 809 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Kristir~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 810 selves in readiness for something, or rather for someone. This patient readiness is what I think Karl Rahner was describing when he spoke of prayer as "this awful waiting." 2 It is what Augustine meant when he said that the continual desire for God is prayer. I can neither explain nor understand prayer. Perhaps no one can: "There are thresholds which thought alone, left to itself, can never permit us to cross. An experience is required--an experience of poverty and sickness" 3 or, perhaps, of love or of sacrifice. By attempting to describe something, prayer, which I cannot explain, perhaps I can, though, suggest how we "listen." Merton suggests the form that such a preparation for prayer might take: (1) detachment and (2) finding ideas about God in all we do.4 His second suggestion corresponds to what I will describe as living as a prophet, as one who sees the signs of God in all things. His first suggestion, detachment, corresponds to what I have called living as pilgrim, as one who can look inside himself to see that he desires God and God alone, and that this world is b/at one stage of his Godward development. Amid the dissonance of the desires of this world, the pilgrim alone truly knows how to listen. He knows that this world is not his home, that he is journeying to God, and that this very journey is what we call prayer. As Merton says: "The secret of prayer is a hunger for God and for the vision of God, a hunger that lies far deeper than the level of language or affection." ~ Much this same point, that prayer is a desire for God, a consciousness of our being pilgrims, of our listening to what is in, but not of, the world, is made not only by Merton, but also by Teresa of Avila, by Aquinas, by Paul, by Guardini, by John of the Cross, and by Karl Rahner. When John of the Cross wrote that the man of prayer "will desire with all desire to come to that which in this life cannot be known," 6 he was making much the same point as Paul whose prayer was his desire for God: I think that what we suffer in this life can never be compared to the glory, as yet unrevealed, which is waiting for us. The whole creation is eagerly awaiting for God to reveal his sons . Creation still retains the hope of being freed, like us, from its slavery to decadence, to enjoy the same freedom and glory as the children of God. From the beginning until now the entire 2 Encounters With S!lence (Westminster: Newman, 1965), p. 25. a Quoted by Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds o] Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968), p. 56. ~Seeds o[ Contemplation (Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions, 1968), p. 133. ~ Ibid., p. 140. ~ The Complete Works of John of the Cross (Westminster: New-man, 1949), v. 1, p. 76. creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth; and not only creation, but all of us who possess the first fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free. For we must be content to hope that we shall be saved--our salvation is not in sight., it is something we must wait for with patience. The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means.' These are the words of Paul who longed ~o be deliv-ered from this body of death and to be with God, Paul who wrote to his Philippians: "I want to be gone and be with Christ." s Thus, for a man who really desires God, prayer is no longer problematic, because we pray as we live. As Merton puts it: "As a man is, so he prays." 9 Thus the man who listens is he who is able to hear his own deep desire for God. He, the pilgrim, is able to say: "I want God and I want him more than anything else, and I will wait for him." This is what Teresa of Avila meant when she uttered her Deus solus sul~cit. It is this realization which is the substance of prayer. Following along these same lines, Karl Rahner says that the ulti-mate meaning of daily prayer is the awful waiting for the God we desire: "The prayer that You require of me," writes Rahner to God, "must be, ultimately, just a pa-tient waiting for You, a silent standing by until You, who are ever present in the inmost center of my being, open the gate to me from within." 10 For Rahner, being a listener, a pilgrim, was based on the realization that nothing on earth is worth abandon-ing oneself to it. Thus all life is one prayer, one long aspiring for God, like the lives of the wise virgins of the Gospel, si~ch that our eternal possession by God is the answer to our lifelong prayer, a prayer which basically is like that of John of the Cross: I live, yet no true life I know, And living thus expectantly, I die because I do not die Within myself no life I know And without God, I cannot live.n Out of our Augustinian restlessness-~our restless until they rest in thee--and out of our wholeness and for finality is born contemplati Thi~_ pr_~esupposes, of course, that we can hear~ ' Rorn 8:18-27. s Phil 1:23. ~No Man Is an Island (New York: Harcourt, Brace 1955), p. 42. 10 Rahner, Encounters, p. 24. ~ Works of John oI the Cross, v. 2, p. 450. hearts are ~unger for ve prayer. he cries of and World, 4- 4- + Prayer VOLUME 29, 1970 81I Sister Kristin REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 812 our hearts for wholeness. The penalty for failing to artic-ulate our inner longings for God, for failing to risk the often painful encounter with the unseen God within Us, is being doomed to live a boring, supercilious, superficial life. But none of us wants to live a superficial life, just as none of us wants to live a life devoid of prayer. The crucial question, then, is: How do we learn to listen, to live as pilgrims? How do we begin to utter the "I want God" which is the essence of contemplative prayer? Pascal says that we would not seek God unless He had ¯ already found us.12 This suggests that we cannot learn to desire God, because He must find us first. This suggests that John of the Cross was correct when he said thatthe soul that has union with God no longer has any methods of prayer, that within the limits of the supernatural there are no prescribed ways.13 Pascal's remark also suggests that we do not really learn to look for God; rather, we realize He is already within us. Seeking Him should be for us, as it wa~ for Paul, a continual realization that He has already found us, that He dwells within us. "Know you not," Paul virtually shouts out, that "you are the temples of the Spirit?" 14 Paul knew that God had found him, had loved him.15 As John said: "Christ first loved us." i~ Perhaps we do not have a tremendous desire for God because we have not been stripped of all else. That is why we cannot live as listeners, as pilgrims. 1 referred earlier to the necessity of detachment if we were to listen to the cries of our heart for God--lf we were to llve ~'s pilgrims. This emptiness means, I think, that we realize that just as love demands sacrifice, so prayer dhmands discipline, that we cannot live by our feelings and then call it fulfillment, that we cannot live by rationalizing and then call it hearing the Spirit. I think this ~mptiness means, too, that we must bear patiently even our inabil-ity to desire God. Only When we learn to suffer with our own inability to find Christ, only when we discover our own spiritual poverty and our own hunger for God, only when we learn to agonize over the whys of existence and God and self---only then will we have prepared the ground out of which the solitude of contemplation will grow, because on.ly then will we have learned to listen. It is~hard to learn to listen, hard to say "I want God" when we know that the very conditions of our finding God demand sacrifice: the sacrifice of regular, disciplined ~ Quoted by Louis Evely, That Man Is You (Westminster: New-man, 1964), p. 15. ,1, Works o] John oI the Cross, v. 2, p. 76. it Rom 8:9-11; I Cor 3:16. ~ Rom 5:8. 101 Jn 4:19. prayer, the saca-ifice of not trying to rely on an of prayer but only on faith, the sacrifice of "a ihg," as Rahner calls it,17 the sacrifice of reno that we possess, as Luke says,18 the sackifice of o dung what we used to call gain, as Paul says.19 All these forms of sacrifice are" what Cassian "purity of heart," what Christ meant when no man can serve two masters, what Merton using Zen to still the birds of appetite, wh~ Eckhart meant when he said: "To be a proper God and fit for God to act in, a man should a] from all things and actions, both inwardly wardly.20 In saying that detachment and mortification condition for the contemplative prayer ofa li: being a pilgrim, we enunciate the dictum of Jc Cross: Solitude is o;eated by an unsatisfie~ John of the Cross compares wrong desires tc which obstruct the sight of the soul,2~ and says hess that is uncreated cannot enter the soul, not first cast out that other created hunger whk to the desire of the soul; for . two contrari dwell in one person . " Yet, in spite of our knowledge that we will ne union with God in prayer without first emp hearts of other desires, this knowledge does cause us to desire God. On the contrary, it is dous grace, I think, for a person living in th~ lose interest in the things that absorb the discover in his own soul an appetite for po y methods ~vful wait-ancing all )unting as meant by said that meant by it Meister abode for so be fi:ee and out-is the pre- ;tener, for hn of the hunger. cataracts that "ful-l there be h belongs es cannot vet attain Lying our lOt alone a tremen-world to orld and 'erty and. solitude. How can we prepare ourselves to r~ zeive this gift of grace? I think we can begin, as Merton'says, by not trying to understand, explain, or produce a ~lesire for God or for contemplative prayer. Rather, we on ght to .try tq see, to listen . and this seeing and hearin experience, not rationality, out of which pray! How else can we learn to hear the pure ~ which is the threshold for prayer? Paul sugges~ learn to really listen to the Spirit when in th~ chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians, guishes two types of wisdom. The first is a ~ words; it is rational and didlectical. The secon~ dom of the cross; it is experiential and para6 was the second sort of knowledge that Paul kne about Christ. The word of the cross is self-empt Rahner, Encounters, p. 2~. Lk 14:33. Phil 3:7-9. Quoted by Thomas Merton, Zen, p. 9. Works oI John oI the Cross, v. 1, pp. 42-3. Ibid., p. 36. is pure is born. Cperience how we first two .ae distin-isdom of is a wis- ~xical. It w told us ying, and ÷ ÷ Prayer VOLUME 29, 1970 813~ 4, 4. Sister Kristin REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 814 only it enables us to know in the Biblical sense of know-ing as possessing in the act of love. Those who love have a new logic of knowledge and from this new type of wisdom comes the experience which is prayer. But prayer, listening to the reality of all that happens, is not merely being aware of our desire for God and our condition of being pilgrims. Prayer is not only to love God above all things, but it is also to see him everywhere in all things. This was what Teilhard called "purity of heart." 2a That is, prayer also is a type of listening which looks outward and sees the world as filled with signs of God. It is tlfis type of prayer whose exercise demands that we al! be prophets, revealing the hidden things of God out of tangible happenings. This type of prayer is not problematic if one's world is shot through with God. But how do we listen such that our world is seen and heard as permeated with God? One way, I think, is to build on the crucial experiences of life, since prayer operates by means of issues which are ulti-mate in our lives. That is, prayer operates according to our systems of values. Prayer, or the lack of it, affirms what is, or what is not, important to us: That is, the happenings which drive us to the ground ques-tions about human existence and which elicit our deepest self commitments are., good preparations for deep prayer. We find in the profound experiences of love and creativity an in-tensification of our spiritual self-possession, accompanied by a lucid awareness of the contingency of our world, which is already an encounter with God. From such peak experiences we can slowly learn to feel how God is always present to our human action?~ Perhaps we cannot learn to pray because we cannot really see or hear. Perhaps we are too much a part of an age which is activistic rather than prayerful, pragmatic rather than spiritual, anthropocentric rather than theocentric, compromising rather than disciplined. Thomas Merton once wrote that if we were really look-ing for God,. every moment and every event would sow seeds of contemplation in our hearts.2~ That is, if our hearts were ready, we would see that "the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls" as Simon and Garfunkel say. All life would be a sign if we knew how to listen to God. How do we become prophets, so that we can listen to the signs of God that are heard in life? Perhaps one way of listening is conscience. Perhaps another is being aware of a seeking that is unsatisfied by material things. As we =Hymn of the Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 124. -"~ John Carmody, S.J., "Contemporary Faith and Prayer," Sisters Today, November 1967, p. 105. "~ Merton, Seeds, p. 18. passively search, or listen, we become aware of God's work in us and in the world around us and we respond. This response, is prayer, and it was brought about, as Scriptures say, by sleeping with our hearts awake.2~ And our heart is kept awake by love and discipline, by faith- [ulness to the insights of prayer, by watchful attention. This continual search is the 'condition of continued growth, and faith is the condition of continual search.27 For us to be prayerful, then, requires that we learn to see the world as prophets, as full of signs of God, and this requires faith. But what is the object of our faith and how is it attained? Jesus told us to seek and we would find, and yet He did not tell us what we would find. In fact He said there were no close directives for discovering His kingdom. It would come unawares; it was within . His coming would be like a lJlghtning flash.-~s If this is so, then perhaps all we can do is to be like watchful virgins, ready for the hour when His light and His prayer comes. Another way of being "ready" is, I think, to eliminate the defensivensss and self-protectiveness of our words, by opening ourselves to understand, by giving up the secu-rity of set words or positions. If we know how to listen, then a person who confronts us with angxy words is really saying he is afraid to love us. A person who says God does not exist is really saying no one ever made God meaning-ful to him. Listening this way means hearing God. And after all, (lid not God know how to listen? He loved us first, as John says.29 He became a slave so that we could be saved, as Paul says, and He loved us while we were yet sinners.~0 Why is it that we cannot see signs of God, that we do not know how to listen and to pray? Perhaps it is because Christ is not real enough for us . but how is he made real? One way, I think is by the way in which He gives shape to our lives by the vocation that we, with the Spirit, choose. This is because, for the Christian, love is the only absolute, and' our vocational dhoice and our prayer are both concrete ways of expressing this love. When Jesus prayed, it was always in response to His vocation; He prayed before choosing His Apostles, and before His passion and death. To pray in this way, as Christ prayed, demands that we listen to the signs of God in our vocational call. We pray for much ~he same rea-sons that we want to be religious: we want to preach God and to praise Him and to help bring forth His kingdom. ~ Canticle of Canticles 5:2. ~ See Rosemary Haughton, On Trying to Be Human (Springfield, Illinois: Templegate, 1966), p. 42. = Lk 17:24. .o0 1 Jn 4:19. ~o Phil 2:7; Rom 5:9. ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 815 Si~ter Kristin REVIEW FOR,RELIGIOUS 816 We want to find Him. For these reasons we pray. For these reasons we are celibates living in community. Thus the surrender to God's will which characterizes listening prayer seems, identical with a resolve to go ahead vocationally with what we know we must do. And what we must do is necessitating precisely because it is a faithful expression of who we are. Prayer and vocation both say who we are; they constitute our identity, and they are both linked together. If we are faithful to who we a~e, then we listen. Then we do not have to run around trying to fill up people with. God, because we know He is already there, that we have already been redeemed. Then we are abl~ to make visible, in daily events, the fact that behind the anxious sincerity and idealism and capacity to love of most people is the face of Christ who loved us so much that He came to liye among us, that behind the dirty curtain of Viet-nam, and racial hatred, and all the ways in which we are insensitive to those with whom we live, is the face of the crucified Christ. This is the raw material of prayer, and knowing how to listen refines it into prayer. If we know how to listen, then we do not have to look at the world as if it were built in two stories: the first floor, the natural level, the second floor, the supernatural level. If we know how to listen, we do not have to try to depend upon laws or habits or practices or veils to speak, of God. Our love will do it for us. Instead, we can take the world as it is, lavished by God's love and our poor attempts to love, and see it as holy. I do not think the person of prayer, as prophet, is pietistic.or aloof or unapproachable; I think he or she is One who is able to recognize in all men the face of the Messiah, the one who, as prophet, is able to make visible what is hidden and hopeful the one who was without hope. Such a person is compassionate and merciful; he realizes that nothing human is alien, that something looks profane only because his eye is not sacred. Out of this human compassion, the heart of a true prophet is opened not only to his sisters and brothers, but to God. In listening to them, he can listen to the man of Galilee who called illiterate fishermen, who talked with learned Pharisees, who wept over Jerusalem, and who, finally,. had nowhere to lay His head. Jesu.s redeemed us, and if we listen, we know that. When we listen, we will become aware of all that is beautiful, that is one, that is in pain and anguish, of all that is holy, in the Body of Christ. With this awareness-- and we have to be aware--we go to the Father in the Spirit, and we praise Him and reverence Him and lift up to Him the suffering members of His Body. It is this awareness which is the door to deep personal prayer. In fact, contemplative prayer is a witness to a special type of awareness: that of faith. Here:, God is present to the self and the contemplative listener is called to live in a more intimate communication with that mystery. Just as de-tachment was the precondition for the prayer which was desire for God, so faith is the precondition for the prayer which sees God in all things. When we can live these two types of prayer, when we are both pilgrim and prophet, we can listen, and we hear precisely because we have stilled our own murmurings and hear Christ in others. When we are all this, we have, as John of the Cross says, both entered upon the road and left the road at the same time.al At this point we will have given God, not our feelings, not even our thoughts, but ourselves. And when we have done this, we can say with Rahner: "Your commission has become my very life. It ruthlessly claims all my energies for itself; it lives from my own life." az We can say with Paul: I am not my own any longer,as At this point, our prayer will be the utterly simple prayer of listening because we will be living and moving and having being in God. Prayer will happen because we pray as we live, and we must live as pilgrims and proph-ets. In the end, all I have said comes down to our living with the unshakable conviction, of those who wait, that now we see a dim reflection in a mirror, but that one day, one day, as Paul says?4 we will see face to face. Works ol John oI the Gross, v. 2, p. 70. Rahner, Encounters, p. 72. Philem I:10; Phil 3:12. 1 Cor 15:12. Prayer. VOLUME 29, 1970 817 JOHN O. MEANY AND SISTER MARJORIE CAREY, B.V.M. Psychology and "The Prayer of the Heart" J. O. Meany is as-sociate professor of. education and Sis-ter Marjorie teaches Russian at the Uni-versity of Notre Dame; Notre Dame, Indiana 48556; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Incredible as it may seem, there is an ancient Christian tradition of prayer which seems to be almost unknown to Christians in the West. How many Western Christians, for example, have heard of "The Prayer of the Heart"? This Eastern tradition of prayer, sometimes called "Hesy-chasm," may play an increasingly important role in the personal and interior "reformation" which is, hopefully, now taking place in the Roman Catholic Church in the West. There are changes emerging in the Western ap-proaches to prayer and to spiritual formation: a return to a more interior life of prayer and a personalistic and psychologically-conscious spirituality. In order to return to what is more basic and funda-mental in the psychology of prayer, it is essential that we distinguish between those particular aspects of Western Christianity which have been determined by our own unique culture(s) and traditions and, on the other hand, those aspects of prayer and spirituality which are, in an anthropological sense, relatively "culture-free," or more universal and fundamental. It may be difficult to com-pare. our own familiar forms of prayer and spirituality with those which are relatively more independent of our own experience and traditions, but only in this way can we obtain a new view of the primary sources of the basic Christian spirit. There are, of course, as many approaches to G6d as there are (from the human point of view) facets of His Being; and there are as many paths to Him as there are individuals whom He guides along these paths. For God is not limited by our limitations. He draws each individ-ual to Him in a unique way. Yet it seems that, however unique the way, God usually draws a person to Him by using that person's cultural and socio-economic back-ground. Eastern and Western traditions and personality characteristics differ; thus the mode of prayer of an East-ern Christian may seem to be radically different in ap-pearance, if not in reality, from that of a Western Chris-tian. In recent years, however, many young Westerners have turned to the East for new approaches to spirituality; they have found in some forms of Eastern spirituality-- particularly in Zen Buddhism and Yoga--new insights into themselves. Similarly, we, too, may come to see more clearly our own sources of spirituality, through an at-tempt to understand a different Christian tradition. In-deed, one seldom understands his own country until he has left it to travel abroad. | Historically, the Prayer of the Heart d~tes back to the fourth-century desert fathers of Egypt wh~ insisted on the ideal of continual prayer. The Prayer of/he Heart, often called the Jesus Prayer today, began to e~nerge in recog-nizable form during the fifth century; and the full text of the prayer can be found in the life of tl~e sixth-century Egyptian hermit, Abba Philemon. A coln~non~ expression of the Jesus Prayer, rhythmically said froth the heart, has bee,n,: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. This form of prayer can be descr!,b~d as: "Standing before God with the mind in the heart. | The roots of the Jesus Prayer are to belfound in Scrip-ture itself. The Jews of the Old Testarpent so revered Yahweh that His name was considered to [be an extension of His Person, a revelation of His Being.I This reverence for the name of God continues throughout the New Tes-tament: "At the na,m,,e of Jesus every kne~ should bow, in heaven and on earth (Phil 2:10). Indeed, lthe entire Jesus Prayer is existentially, as well as Biblically, oriented. Its similarity to two other Scriptural prayers is apparent: the prayer of the blind man, "Jesus, Son ~f David, have mercy on me" (Lk 18:38); and that of the [publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner" (Lk 18:13). In t!me, a body ,o,f traditio,n, al teachin~ c,a, lled "Hesy-chasm;' meaning quietness' or "reppse, grew up around the Jesus Prayer; and at least 'since the sixth century the tradition of the Jesus Prayer has influenced the spirituality of Eastern Christians. During three peri-ods of history the Jesus Prayer has been particularly in-fluential in the East: during the Golden Age of Hesy-chasm in fourteenth-century Byzantium .under the great theologian,. St. Gregory Palamas; during the Hesychast renaissance in Greece in the eighteenth century when the great anthology of Eastern spirituality, the Philokalia (love of the beautiful), was written; and during nine-teenth century Russia under Theophan the Recluse. To understand better how the Hesychast approach could contribute to the West, one might examine how it ÷ ÷ ÷ Prayer o] the Heart VOLUME 29, 1970 819 4. 4. 4. I. O. Meany and St. Marjmle REVJEW FOR REL]GIO0$ 82O has already contributed to the East; for example, how it has contributed to Russian spirituality, as that spirit has grown out of the environment and "national" character of the Russian people. The Russians are predominantly a silent people; this is evident in an old Russian custom: traditionally, whenever a member of an old Orthodox Russian family leaves on a journey, the entire family gathers in silence to pray. The family remains silent for several minutes; then the father rises to bless the family and each member of the family silently traces the Sign of the Cross on his forehead while facing the. family icon. Afte~ this paternal blessing, mutual blessings are ex-changed. This love of silence may also have led many Russian Christians to a contemplative life. There is also in the soul of the Russian people a primitive, almost naive simplicity; yet in this simplicity profound depths may be fathomed. Russian spirituality has been imbued with this simplicity which is so characteristic of the spirit of the Gospel. Their prayer life, too, has always been simple, without a complicated rational (or discursive) for-mula. Still another characteristic of the Russian peasant is his love of the rhythmic beauty of life--the" rhythm found in the cycles of nature and family life. This is especially apparent in the works of Tolstoy, who so com-pellingly depicted these cycles in his great epics, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This love of rhythm, found also in Russian music, is clearly reflected in the rhythmic breathing of the "Jesus Prayer." One of the most obvious characteristics of the Russian peasant is his yearning for open and unlimited stretches of land. The geography of the land, therefore, influences the national character ofthe people, which in turn, af-fects the forms of their spirituality. The vast open areas of Siberia, the immense forests of the country, seems to have evoked a response to the Infinite which is reflected in personal religious experience. Because of this yearning for space, the Russian peasant has also been somewhat of a pilgrim. This, of c6urse, is true of many cultures and personalities; indeed, the whole history of man can be seen as a journey. Yet as Nicolas. Berdyaev points out, this spirit of the wanderer seems particularly characteristic of the Russian people. Through the centuries Russian pil-grims have traveled from afar in search of peace and spiritual renewal, visiting the famous cathedrals of Kiev, Novgorod, and other places of pilgrimage. They have traveled especially to those places where a "staretz," a man of God, prayer, and discernment, was still to be found. Thus, the innate yearning of the Russians for vast unlimited space has made them a nomadic people. This spirit of the wanderer, in search of truth, is .underscored in The VCay of a Pilgrim, a story of a Russian pilgrim who journeys forth, continually repeating the Jesus Prayer. This unknown Russian pilgrim has made the Eastern mode of prayer more available to Westerners through his personal religious experiences which are de-scribed in The Way o[ a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim ,Con-tinues His Way. The Jesus Prayer is a prayer that comes from the heart. It differs from the current Western and, perhaps, more cognitive approach to prayer; yet as St. Teresa of Avila points out, the important thing is not to have m~ny thoughts, but to have great love. Eastern Christians seem to have preserved the idea of the whole man: body and heart as well as mind and soul. This more total approach to "spirituality" seems to be meaningful for modern Westerners, as can be seen in the new orientation of such books as Harvey Cox's The Feast o[ Fools, Dechanet's Christian Yoga, Dom Aelred Graham's Zen Catholicism and Norman Brown's Love's Body. The difference in modes of prayer, then, between the East and the West is based not only on cultural and personality characteristics, but also on the different atti-. tudes toward man which are prevalent in the East and in the West. For centuries. Europeans and Americans have tended to emphasize man's rational nature; and since the Counter-Reformation, this emphasis has found expression not only in Western scientific methodology but also in various discursive "methods" of prayer, such as the Igna-tian, Sulpician, Salesian, and Ligourian. Descartes' dualism, or Western rationalism, has failed, however, to create in the (non-Westernized) East the head/heart dichotomy that it has fostered in the West. The traditional Russian peasant seems never to have lost his sense of wholeness. Eastern Christians seem to have preserved that broad perspective of "the whole man," an integrated body-heart-mind-soul. Perhaps the Zen scholar Daisetz T. Suzuki was right in contending that Western thought has erected barriers be-tween man and reality; barriers of concepts, imagery, cas-uistry, and reasoning. Consequently, instead of bringing us closer to reality, language has frequently separated us from it. For example, if a person rigidly decides not'to think about sex, he often finds himself unconscio~usly in-volved in it. There is a story of a Western theologian who decided to marry just after writing an elaborate treatise on celibacy; the theologian admitted that all his former theories had been "mental constructs." In terms of depth psychology, this type of theological "construct" might be seen as an intellectual defense, a defense which .broke down under the pressure of previously-denied (emotional and sense) experience. Repression fosters "acting out.:' Similarly, current Western existential "philosophy" can the Heart ,. VOLUME' 29,. 1970 :~" 82L ~. O. Meany and Sr. Mar]orie REVIEW FOR RELiGiOUS 822 be seen as an attempt to break through (defensive) logical constructs in order to come closer to the "living reality." The East, however, is in a sense, already "existential" and has been throughout its long history. Though recent Western theology has tended to be Cartesian or dualistic, the Russian has always been more at home with an existential or phenomenological ap-proach to God and prayer. The writings of Dostoevsky were influenced by Orthodox spirituality; this approach is often viewed as both intriguing and somewhat threat-ening to a Westerner, whose spiritual formation has o.ften been unconsciously conditioned by abstract ideals and logical categories. However, existeritialism and phenom-enology are beginning to have an impact in the West, through such Christian authors as Dietrich von Hilder-brand, Hubert Dom, Adrian Van Kaam, Gabriel Marcel, and Simone Weil. The existential and direct approach to God, although it is found in the prayers of the liturgies of the West, has always been a more living part of the consciousness of the Russian. The best aspects of tradi-tional Russian spirituality would not be interested in a rationalism or nominalism which would tend to separate love from human physical experience. But the worst in Russian Marxism might attempt to separate love from the physical world. Even as the human body can be seen as the outward expression of the inner soul, so also can icons, images, and incense be seen as an expression of the Church's inner spirituality. Thus the Russian prays with a pro-found sense of reverence; he seems to have a deep sense of ritual. In the Orthodox religion there is no Western-like sepa-ration between the liturgy and private prayer; no such Cartesian-like distinctions are made. This ancient Eastern tradition is similar to a relatively new trend in the West-ern liturgical movement which stresses the use of public liturgical prayers for private prayer. The scholarly jour-nal, Worship, has long stressed the value of liturgical meditations. We are not always conscious of the fact that much of our Western liturgy is an existential prayer, existential because it addresses God in the "here-and-now." For. Orthodox Christians there are no logical dis-tinctions between private and public prayer, just as for them there are no class or caste distinctions between monks and laymen. Husbands and wives, monks and nuns, all follow the same traditional and existential way of prayer. Love, not rules, is the focal point. Orthodox Christians do not feel that reading the Bible reflectively is a prayer, though they do not deny its value. Reflective reading often is predominantly a cognitive process unless the words are related to the feelings, fanta-sies, and senses of the "heart." Orthodox Christians re-gard their prayer as more of a total personal relationship to God, by praying "with the mind in the heart." At the risk of imposing Western categories on Ortho-dox spirituality, one might distinguish three forms of Orthodox prayer. First, bodily prayer which uses the pos-ture and the senses of the body. For example, one might bend his head so that his eyes can look at the place of the heart; he may try to become aware of his breathing in order to use its natural rhythm as an aid to concentration as he prays to God. Secondly, mental prayer in which the mind holds the "Word" in inward prayer, so that con-sciousness is expanded; thus one tries to center one's whole being on the "Word of God." And thirdly, there is the Prayer of the Heart. This last form of prayer is for Eastern Christians the highest form of prayer because in this way of praying the mind descends to the heart as it stands before God. The Orthodox feel that it is essential that the mind descend into the feelings and images of the heart during prayer although they realize that the heart, without the attention of the intellect, is blind. As St. Makarios of Egypt (4th century) said: "Descend into thy heart and there do battle with Satan." Thus the mind of the person descends into his heart to view his feelings, fantasies, and sensual experiences in order to choose those which are truly good and oppose those which are not. This process is different from that advocated by some western writers like Tanquerey. This process also pre-supposes a deep psychological openness to oneself, a non-defensive consciousness. Unlike many Westerners, the Eastern Christian does not try to use his intellectual constructs to keep the mind from the heart. Rather, he worships God with his heart and feelings which are, hope-fully, known by his mind. Thus the body and the inter-nal senses play a positive role in prayer, as it can in higher forms of Yoga. The conscious use of the body, as in dancing, could play a more important role in prayer and in the liturgy of the West. The purpose of the Jesus Prayer is to fill one's whole consciousness with the name of Jesus, just as St. Francis of Assisi spent a whole night in prayer rqpeating ever more deeply the Lord's name. Ideally, the head and the heart are thus united; conscious unity in the person is the goal of some modern psychologists and theologians. For example, the psychologist Carl Rogers describes the ide-ally "fully functioning person" as one who knows, exis-tentially, what his "heart" (or organism) is saying, and he can talk about his inner experience if he chooses to do so. The theologian, John S. Dunne, in his A Search [or God Prayer of the Heart VOLUME 29, 1970 823 ~. O. Mean~ and St. Mar]orie~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in Tim.~ and Memory also stresses the value of a unity of thought, feeling a.nd action in the person, " ' .~ Through the centuries physical~ "exercise~ ~ind disci-plines such as fasting have been used to affect one's sciousness. In prayer, exercises and inner discipli.nes can" be used. to concentrate, one's being on the n.ame of. Jesus. But. one great danger in "prayer" is that words, or thoughts can be compulsively repeated, being motivated by unconscibus inner conflicts;, thus "prayer" could, be used defensively to avoid an inner growth of. conscious-ness and love. As in some forms of Yoga, the Jesus Prayer can be associated with the natural rhythm of breathing. Thus, this Hesychast"method of prayer uses the natural, not [orced rhythm of breathing or the .heartbeat to aid total intellectual and emotional conceritration on the name of Jesus; just.as a Westerner might use the beads of'a rosary ti~ c0ncefitrate on a mystery. By using his breathing to concentrate on the name of Jesus, the person may thus bring prayer more deeply into his ~hole being. Sponta-neous and relaxed breathing is used to bring one's atten-tion repeatedly back to the name of Jesus, which is then psychologically associated with the breath (and life) of the person. It is important to realize that these physical exercises are regarded as an aid to, not~ an obligation of, prhy'er. The Orthodox know well that there can be no physical or mechanical means of acquiring grace. No bod' ily nor physical techniques can be an automatic method of obtaining grace. Furthermore, they do not recommend the use of this form of prayer without proper guidance, or Spiritual direction, because it can cause sexual arousal, or it could possibly damage the lungs or body, if forced o~ used incorrectly. Associating one's prayers with the natural easy flow of one's breathing, however, is'a way of aiding the mind to descend into the body and the heart,' in an attempt to offer lovingly to God one's whole being (emotions, will, and attention) in the name of Jesus. Some practical applications of processes similar to this way of prayer are described in J. M. Dechanet's Christian Yoga. This book is one example of a modern application of "ancient wisdom to prayer. He includes a discussion of practical techniques for the "Prayer of the Heart." "On the Three Methods of Attention and Prayer"'is a treatise often attributed to St. Simon the New Theolo-gian. It makes clear that .there are three ways of prayer. The first way of prayer, used by an emotional person, would stress primarily the feeling approach to God with-out much stress on reason. A second ,,~ay of,prayer would stress the intellectual approach with thoughts-fighting-. thoughts because that person is relatively unaware of his emotions. The third and preferable way is an integration which would have the mind consciously descend into the heart so that the person takes a conscious position toward his own internal emotions and fantasies in order to love God with his whole mind, his whole heart, and his whole soul In recent years many young Americans--like Franny in Salinger's Franny and Zooey---have come to know some-thing of the Jesus Prayer, although it may easily be mis-interpreted as a mechanical spirituality. Its appeal for modern people may be due to several factors: its Christo-centric theme, its Scriptural base, its simplicity. Many may find in this way of prayer a human expression of their adoration and love of God. Others may find in its rhythmic breathing a meaningful way of "physically ex-pressing" their spirit. So, like Yoga, Zen, and other modes of Eastern spirituality, Orthodoxy may offer to the West another approach to prayer, perhaps another way of help-ing us to find our way back to the Christian Spirit. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES Arseniev, Nicolas. Russian Piety. London: Faith Press, 1964. Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Prayer. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961. Berdiaev, Nicolas. The Russian Idea. New York: Macmillan, 1948. Chariton of Valamo, Igumen. The Art of Prayer. London: Faber and Faber, 1966. Dechanet, Jean Marie. Christian Yoga. New York: Harper and Row, 1960. Delmage, L. Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. New York: Wagner, 1968. Diahonia, a journal edited by George Maloney, S.J. New York: Fordham University. Dunne, John S. A Search for God in Time and Memory. Toronto: Macmillan, 1969. Fedotov, George P. A Treasury of Russian Spirituality. London: Sheed and Ward, 1952. Hausherr, Iren~e. "La m~thode d'oraison h~sychaste," Orien-talia christiana, 1927. Loyola, Ignatius de. The Autobiography of St. Ignatius. New York: Benziger, 1900. Johnston, S.J., William. "Dialogue with Zen," Concilium, November 1969. Jung, Carl G. The Collected Worhs of Carl Jung, volumes 5 and 9. Princeton: Princeton University, 1968. Kadloubovsky, E. and Palmer, G. E. H. Early Fathers from the Philokalia. London: Faber and Faber, 1952. Kadloubovsky, E. and Palmer, G. E. H. Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart. London: Faber and Faber, 1951. Mason, R.ussell E. Internal Perceptions and Bodily Function-ing. New York: International Universities Press, 1961. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain. Unseen Warfare. London: Faber and Faber, 1952. Philips, Dewi Z. The Concept of Prayer. New York: Schocken, 1966. Prayer " o] the Heart VOLUME 2% 1970 825 Richardson, A. Mental Imagery. New York: Springer, 1969. Sofrony, Archimandrite. The Undistorted Image. London: Faith Press, 1958. Stolz, Karl R. The Psychology of Prayer. New York: Abingdon, 1923. Ware, Timothy. The Orthodox Church. Baltimore: Pelican, 1964. .~. O. Meany and St. Mar]orle REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS JONATHAN FOSTER, O.F.M. Some Notes on Hostility and Fidelity: The Religious Presence One of the most masterful and insightful commentaries on human aggression dates from the years immediately following World War I--Edna St. Vincent Millay's poign-ant little play, Aria da Capo. In the work's "play within a play," two friendly and unsophisticated shepherds under the direction of a stern stage manager set out to play a game in which they innocently build a wall between them and say "that over there belongs to me and over here to you." The game soon becomes deadly serious, however, and their friendship quickly deteriorates into suspicion and mistrust. At one point in the game, Thyrsis has a moment of sanity and beseeches Corydon.: "It is an ugly game. I hated it from the first. How did it start?" To which Corydon replies: "I do not know . I do not know. I think I am afraid of you! You are a strangerl I never set eyes on you before." Their fearful insight into the tragedy of their situation does not hinder them, how-ever, from plunging head-long into the "game" which ends in their mutual killing of each other for what the other has. The essence of the tragedy of human existence there-fore, as seen by Miss Millay, is the deterioration of trust. When man do not deliberately break trust with each other, society can be sweet and peaceful, as the shepherds in the play experienced it. For in the beginning, before the "game," they agreed in simple joy to "make a song about a lamb that thought himself a shepherd." But when .the wall goes up--and in the play it is only a streamer of tissue paper that Corydon cannot even find when he staggers toward his dead friend in his death agony--ignorance and misunderstanding build large, + + 4. Jonathan Foster is a member of St. Joseph's Franciscan Seminary; P.O. Box 449; Oak Brook; Il-linois 60521. VOLUME 29, 1970 827. ]. Foster,~ O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 828 tricksome images that cast dark and suspicious shadows over the land. And it is when we encounter these suspi-cious shadows that:we begin to experience hostility, and too frequeritly this hostility bristles into violence. I would like to suggest here that the situation dramati-cally Conceived in Aria da Capo is .r~pidly coming to characterize the whole of American society and that the current easy attitude toward vows in religious life is con-tributing to this situation. ¯ There is an unease in the land, an .unease that increas-ingly expresses itself in polarized movements, bristles with hostility for its counterparts, and, with a regularity t.ha.t is ~c~asing to. ast.onish; b.reaks out into violence. The reason for this is hardly a simple onE;°but one of the most important factors, I believe, is the demise of trust under-lined by Miss Millay. It has long been known that violence, especially as carried out by children, is the mindless response to a betrayal of trust by those who should above all have been trustworthy--parents, brothers, sisters, friends. Most psy-chotic violence among grown-ups too is explainable in terms of betrayal and subsequent alienation. It is.not too much to suggest that the unease drifting through our country, the. increasing prickle of hostility, the growing threat of mass violence is largely a projection on a na-tional scale of this same betrayal o~ trust. There certainly has been such a betrayal in our public institutions. Our government and political leaders have been. found to be insincere so often and so damagingly that they, have generated powerful counter-political movements based on an-idealism that seeks to actually do that which government and presen( politics only profess tostand for. Business and labor time and.time again have been found out to be playing dirty games behind the bright chintz of public relations, advertising; and noble sentiments. The curtains have been jerked back a few times too often on all levels of education, to reveal admin-istrators and teachers .with their thumbs stuck in a few unsuspected pies. Even the hallowed judicial system has been seen to be as petty and partial as ward-heeling poli-ticians. Bishops and religious leaders with almost monot-onous regularity put on masks in the same dressing rooms with government,, and more and more of their subjects are sbe, ing under the make-up. ¯ Perhaps all this insincerity is not as new as it seems. But what is certainly new is the great number of people who know: about it. Mass journalism and historical schol-arship have had much to do with this public breast-bar-ing, "telling, it like it is," debunking and stripping down even ou~ heroes. And so, I suggest, the great question that expresses the malaise of. our society is: "Who ;can you trhst?" Th~ cynical crack is mor~ and more the language of the land. More and more like-minded'groups, search-ing for trust, turn within and band together. The result is fraCtionalization, polarization, hostility, violence. "I do not know you" becomes "I do not trust you." But this is hardly the whole story. As if it were not engugh that the public institutions of our, society are found not to wash under their public robes, we are facing now the deterioration of trust in the private institutions of our society. Personal rel~itionships 'of all kinds ,have B~en affected by the erosion of trust. The vows of mar-riage, "till death do us part,"'ard taken with increasingly l~gs seriousness. In the steady-dating relationship, too, boys and girls enter into quasi-matrimonial and even Sex-ual relationships, the basis of which is not ~rust, but usefulness ~ind convenience. But where this relationship is easi!y deceived into thinking itself meaningful, the no-torious "Playboy" relationship cynically strips away all pretense and encourages partners to enter the most trust-oriented of all relationships with the most callow mo-tives. And the infamous generation gap is not created just by misttnderstanding. It is created as much by the parents using this deepest and most responsibility-bearing rela-tionship as a means for their own advancement. Finally, there are religious vows. In the past history of religious life, the value of the vow for. society was preemi-nent. Today what is becoming of supreme value is the relevance of the vo;v for the individual religious. And if the taking of the vow, or the keeping of it even for a specified time much less for life, is similarly restricting, then it is not taken, or it is broken in view of some other commitment. The priority of the individual in the reli-gious taking of vows has become paramount in our day. What we are failing to understand at this point in the pendulum swing of religious commitment is that reli-gious life is perhaps the last social institution in which fidelity and trust are basic and honored, and that this perhaps says something about the witness of religious life in contemporary society. The absolute centrality of promises to the preservat~ion of the quality of human existence has been strongly stressed b);' various authors, bi~t none has made the case more' strongly than the philosopher, Hannah Arendt; In her book, The Human Condition, Miss Arendt pinpoints two factors essential to the preservation of~ life from chaos. The first is forgiveness, or the undoing of mistakes of the past. The second is the faculty to make and keep promises. The first obviously deals with the past. The second concerns the future. The ability to make promises and keep them builds on the reality.of forgiveness, and Mi~s Arendt always keeps the two together. But for our VOLUME 29; "1970 ' "" 829 ]. Foster, O.F.~I. ~EVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 830 purposes here, we must look especially close at what she says about promise. The making of promises is an expression of one of the most ancient needs of man. In fact the two great institu-tions of western society were built on promises. The Jew-ish- Christian religion grew out of the covenants of Abra-ham with God. And the Roman empire built a legal system on the inviolability of agreements and treaties. This is not surprising. For man's experience of himself in history has revealed a twofold "darkness." The first is his inability to rely on or have complete faith in himself: The second is the unpredictability of human events. And so man, both to insure his own survival and to make his society an increasingly hospitable one, from the very be-ginning has gone out to his fellowman in promise and covenant. He has come to rely on and count on his fel-lows. Promise is what holds society together and staves off barbarity, barbarity both in the forms of totalitarian domination and in the unstructured freedom of anarchy. Although Miss Arendt's primary purpose in treating the faculty of promise is to show that it lies at the very foundation of society, she does not ignore its value for the growth of the individual, which she sees in the con-text of the preservation of one's integrity: Without being bound in the fulfilment of promises, we would never be able to keep our identities; we would be con-demned to wander helplessly and without direction in the darkness of each man's lonely heart, caught in its contradic-tions and equivocalities--a darkness which only the light shed over the public realm through the presence of others, who con-firm the identity between the one who promises and the one who. fulfils can dispel" (The Human Condition, Doubleday Anchor Books, p. 21B). Promise combines with forgiveness, as Miss Arendt sees it, to form the basis of morality. For "these moral pre-cepts [forgiveness and promise] arise . directly out of the will to live together with others., and thus they are like control mechanisms built into the very faculty to start new and unending processes" (p. 221). It is here also that she stresses the creative and life-sustaining force of forgiveness and promise. For if we could not forgive mis-takes and if we could not re-establish firm bonds through promise, then society would be trapped by the "law of mortality" and would steadily wind itself down to death. Forgiveness and promise together make newness con-stantly possible. And as such they are the foundations for the Christian view of life--faith and hope: faith that is fidelity to the convenant, and hope that is created both in this fidelity and in forgiveness. What is important, I think, about Miss Arendt's com-ments is that they place the taking and keeping of vows not in the context of what it can do for the individual but rather of how the taking of vows enters into the very bloodstream of human society. She speaks eloquently of promise as confronting the "darkness" of human exist-ence, of staving off "ruin and destruction," of the "mira-cle that saves the world." She also cites Nietzsche's com-ment that promise is the very distinction which marks off human from animal life. It is precisely to this larger context therefore that we must shift some of our discus-sion of religious vows. Far from being an anachronistic kind of slavery exercised by religious orders to maintain their survival, religious vows must be seen, in Miss Arendt's perspective, as an expression of man's striving not only for survival, but for dignity as well. To further emphasize this perspective, we must focus very precisely on the kind of promises religious make. It is not a promise to complete the transaction of a deal, to run a hospital, to cook forever, or just to do anything. It is a promise to be, and as such a deep commitment and trust. We can forgive someone who does not keep a prom-ise to do something, and we can perhaps survive in a society in which this failure to deliver is relatively fre-quent. But how much can we tolerate of a society that ¯ does not keep its promises to be? When people make great commitments of personal loyalty and then opt out in large numbers, what effect, we must ask, does this have on society at large? And when they go a step further, frequently in justification, and refuse promise at all, or make expressions of loyalty that are weak, decidedly ter-minal and often vague and open-ended, what, we must fnrther ask, effect does this have on society? Does it weaken the ties between men? Is this abandonment of covenant intensifying in a' way that has not occurred to us at all the increasing lack of trust and rising hostility in our society? Does it raise again on a new front, and per-haps the last one, the question: "~¥ho can you connt on?" I suggest that religious have a serious responsibility to raise these issues. They are perhaps the last people in the world in which the free offering of total loyalty has been taken for granted as a matter of policy. Because of this professed commitment, they have been witnessing some-thing to the world, namely, that it is possible to be loyal and trustworthy on a grand scale. They have advanced the ideals of mankind a great milestone. And now sud-denly they have reversed this witness, first in practice, now in theory. The anger and resentment, shock and frustration of many people over the vast exodus from vows, now settling into a flat cynicism, comes as no sur-prise. Religious cannot simply dismiss this anger and cy-nicism with the comment: "They'll get used to it." This may very well be the tragedy we can least afford~that men should get used to it. ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 831 ¯ Perhaps then if there is any validity tO these questions another dimension must be added to the mission of reli-gious today. If, as Miss Arendt suggests, the power of making and keeping promises is our bulwark against chaos or repression, if, as Nietszche asserts, fidelity is what distinguishes us from animals, then the question of vows is not merel.y a question of the internal life of a particu-lar community or of individual religious. It is joined to the very issue of human survival. My suggestion, then, is that as religious weigh' the relevance of taking of not taking vows, of their leaving or dissolution, to the per-sonal fulfilment of the individual religious, they also seri-ously discuss again the impact this same taking or aban-doning of vows has for society at large. The problems of the individual religious in an institute that he or she feels is inhibiting or irrelevant or itself unfaithful to its own profession are real eno.ugh to us. They have preoccupied religious for the past several years. But what about this same religious in relationship to a world in which indi-viduals and groups are drifting further and further apart 'because of the decay of trust and faithfulness? Do not religious perhaps have a mission here too? Today most religious orders, in their renewal, are concerned about "going out to the ~orld," trying to be relevant. It would be most ironic, not to say tragic, if what the world most needs, trust and loyalty, were precisely what religious are s'o busily unpacking and heaving overboard. ]. Foster,~O~F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 832 KATHRYN LINDEMANN, O.P. Toward a Definition of "Communi " The problem. During the past few years there has been much debate among American religious concerning "community." "What is community?" and "What do you mean by community?" are two frequently heard ques-tions. This article does not attempt to totally resolve these questions since any further "total solutions" would only add to the present confusion. This paper does attempt to disentangle the discussion and to introduce clarifications which, will make resolu-tion possibl~. To this end it begins with a consideration of the present state of the issue. Then there is a non-po-lemic exposition of the meaning of "community" as found in current literature. Finally there is an indication of some still unanswered questions concerning "commun-ity" which seem important for continued progress toward a clear definition of "community." ¯ .4 first inquiry and a prol~ered solution. The fact that American religious are asking about "community" seems to indicate that they are aware of confusion and are seek-ing to remedy it. Confronted by this confusion, a normal query is: Why such a difficulty concerning "community"? One proffered solution has been to postulate something about the word itself~some attribute which defies defini-tion. "Community," like patriotism, becomes a Wittgen-steinian "slogan word" which is too ambiguous for defini-tion. Such a proposal is both logically unsound and a breeder of irrationality. If one analyzes it, one finds: 1. It accepts the generalization: "If x is a slogan word, then x precludes definition." 2. The postulation is then argued: since the definition of 'community' engenders much confusion, "com-munity" must be a slogan word. Since slogan words are indefinable, then "community" must be indefin-able. This is viciously circular. It assumes what it claims to ÷ Kathryn Linde-mann, O.P., lives at Mr. St. Mary Col-lege' in .,Newburgh, N.Y. 12550. VOLUME',29, '1970 . ~ ÷ ÷ Kathryn Linde- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 834 prove. The statement of the generalization only acts as camouflage. If one wants to conclude that a slogan word is not definable, one cannot assume it is a slogan word because it is indefinable. In the practical order, the proposal leads to subjectiv: ism and a canonization of irrationality. If "community" is indefinable, then there is no procedure for discussing: what it is; what engenders it; what destroys it. Two indi-viduals have no way of ascertaining if they use the term with the same meaning. They are condemned to unknow-ing or subjectivism. Since rationality depends on com-monness, no rational procedures of discussion or decision are possible. Thus all those groups of American religious now committed to the conscious renewal of community can have no use for rationality in their endeavors. At best, community renewal needs to be relegated to some irrational force. A second proposal. The above is not the only possible explanation for the confusion concerning "community." There is also an explanatory avenue opened by the no-tion of the theory laden texture of terms. In Patterns of Discovery, Norman l~ussell Hanson explores the relation between theory and particular observations, facts, and terms. He contends that scientific observation, fact, and meaning are only possible within the context of a theory. Further, he holds that each of these three are theory determined. Thus, two men experiencing the same sense data of orange color patch moving upward through an orange tinted visual field at 6:50 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in Newburgh, New York, might observe two dif-ferent things. One operating in a Ptolemaic framework observes the sun rising. The other operating in a Coper-nican framework observes the earth turning. If each spoke of the "morning event," "morning event" would have, in a certain sense, a different meaning for each.1 Hanson often cites such theory determination of termi-nological meaning: If, in the blank pages of a next year's diary, we find the word 'fire' in the place reserved for St. Valentine's day, no action would suggest itself. Consider another man shouting 'Fire'; but now he is in uniform, hovering over a busy gun crew. Were we members of that crew, our response would be automatic . In other contexts 'fire' might herald a worker's dismissal, or the entrance of a Wagnerian soprano amid pyro-technics. It can signal a phase in the making of pottery, de-scribe how an actress reads her part, or designate some primi-tive rite . 'Fire' has, in each situation, a propositional force; it is shorthand for complex statements whose nature is clear from the contexts of utterance. We are not born able to recog-nize such contexts., for that we need education.2 X Norman Russell Hanson, Patterns o] Discovery (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1965), pp. 7-8. 2 Ibid., p. 63. And again: When the youngster says 'lightning and thunder' he prob-ably means 'flash and rumble.' Again, a lot may follow, but what follows for him is different from what follows for the meteorologist--for whom 'lightning and thunder' probably means 'electrical discharge and aerial disturbance.' 8 ~lpplication to the question of community. In order to see the relation of this theory laden texture of terms to the present confusion among American religious, one needs to know something of the recent intellectual his-tory of religious groups. Since 1949 there has been what Thomas Kuhn would call a "paradigm shift" in religious life.4 Any comparative study of congregational constitu-tions of 1949 and 1969, of the 1949 and 1969 issues of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, or of books dealing with the theory of religious life from that span of years, gives multitudinous evidence of this paradigm change. In this paradigm shift, the term "community" is one which has been strongly affected. It has moved from a peripheral to a central position and has acquired a new extension. This change in "community" cannot be considered in isolation from the total theory of religious life. The change in meaning actually occurred as a result of changes in other areas of the theoretic system. A change of perception concerning certain areas made for new ways of seeing many other areas. And as the whole theory changed, each specific term was affected. Having noted the theory-laden-texture of terms and the fact of paradigm change in religious life, one can now locate reasons for the present confusion concerning "com-munity." These reasons are embedded in two specific fea-tures of the theoretical change among American religious. First, the change has not been a single-stroke event. Sec-ond, the "new theory~' has not yet reached stasis. First, the change in the religious life paradigm has not been a single stroke event. It is a process event whose history can be mapped. See Figure I. Given Theory A (the paradigm at n) and the innovations (I . I5), one finds a transformation in theory during stages n+l. n+5. The first outlines of Theory B become evident at stage n+5. Most often, one thinks of the theory only at stage n (theory A) or stage n+5 (theory B) since at these stages the theory is in stasis. These two stages represent "para-digms" as Kuhn refers to them and the change from paradigm A to parad@n B is a "revolution" in the Kuhnian sense. It is a fact, however, and one at which ~ Ibid., p. 61. 'Thomas Kuhn, The Structure o] Scientific Revolutions (Chi-cago: University of Chicago, 1962), pp. 43ff. ÷ ÷ + "Community" VOLUME 29, :970 835 Theory elements oO OoOo oo\o o\ o o -o n n-'l-1 n÷2 n+3 n÷4 n-~-5 Figure ] 4. 4. 4- Kathryn Linde. mann REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Kuhn hints several times, that the intermediary stages exist.5 Now, as is normal in the innovation and diffusion o[ ideas, all members o[ religious congregations do not ac-cept theoretic innovation or revision at the same rate.e Since the acceptance of theoretical innovations is not simultaneous and universal, different individuals within the total population o[ religious may be in different ~tages of theory revision at any given time (n+l. n+5). Since terms are theory determined, such members, being at different theoretic stages, mean different things by " com~munity." Since the dynamics of any change are seldom pondered at the same time as the change is occurring, given reli-gious are usually unaware of the specific theoretic stage they are in. Further, they may not realize that theirs is one stage in a process continuing toward a new paradigm and stasis.7 Thus, one has the situation in which individ-uals will notice that there .are apparent differences in meaning concerning "community" (or a number of other ~ Ibid., pp. 84-7, 89, 128-9. e Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York: Free Press, 1968). ~Note, for example, the many expressions of conviction among religious that there will never again be a stasis in religious life or theory. terms such as prayer, apostolate, or common life) but will be at a loss to either: articulate the differences with any precision, or to explain the differences through an enun-ciation of the theory which determines their meanings. This is a major source of the confitsion concerning "com-munity" at the present time. . Second, it is not until a theory approaches stasis that all the relations among particular elements are enunci-ated with any precision. To the extent that this precision is absent, there is an inescapable vagueness about any term endemic to the theory. Most congregations have enunciated the major outlines of the new paradigm in their constitutions. Yet all refer to their constitutional documents as interim or experi-mental, and all expect to produce a more finished prod-uct in a few years. Congregations have built in a time span for working out the practical and theoretic interre-lations among various elements,s The new paradigm is not yet articulated with full precision, and so a certain vagueness concerning a key term such as "community" is inescapable. Until this full precision is reached, a certain confusion will remain in the meaning and use of "com-munity." Summary. The theory laden texture of terms proposal succeeds in answering the first query concerning the why of the present confusion about "community," whereas the indefinability proposal did not. This theory laden texture notion indicates a double source of confusion: the simul-taneous operation of multiple versions of theories within the groups and the lack of precision in the newest theory because it has not yet reached stasis. Having dealt with the first query, the study needs to move on to the next: "How is 'community' defined in the new paradigm among religious?" ~ What Is "Community"? Method. To avoid arguing some of the philosophical issues attendant upon "meaning," "definition," or "expli-cation" this paper will approach the problem a poste-riori. There will be an examination of the literature for religious to see what meaning is already established in relation to "community." From this information, there will be an attempt at precise definition or explication. The two paradigms. The general accounts of "com- S As established in Ecclesiae sanctae, au apostolic letter issued on August 6, 1966, by Pope Paul VI (reprinted iu REVIEW FOR REL~CIoUS, V. 25 (1966), pp. 939--70. ~The meaning of "community" in the old paradigm has re-ceived adequate treatment by sociologists, historians, and theo-logians. The elements of the new paradigm, however, have seldo~n been subject to collection and analysis. ÷ ÷ ÷ "Community" VOLUME 29, 1970 - 837 + ÷ ÷ Kath~ Linde- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS munity" diverge gr~eatly between the old (1949) and the new (1969) paradigms of religious life. Since a contrast often helps specify a complicated term, a general account of "community" as it appears in each of these basic theo-ries is presented first. When one studies old constitutions, those in effect in the forties and fifties, one finds: 1. The term "community" is rarely used. 2. When it is used it is capitalized as a proper noun-- denoting a particular (person, place or thing). 3. It seems to have a non-personal, "thing-like" quality common to collective nouns used in the "otherness" of the third person. 4. Sometimes the word designates a local group, while at other times it refers to an entire group. In the lat-ter instances, one mentally substitutes the word, "Congregation" or "Institute," both of which occur far more frequently in these early documents. Point four seems to strike the terminological core, for the meaning of "community" is primarily that of a hier-archical organization. Almost every sentence utilizing the Word "community" would retain its meaning if "organi-zation" were substituted. Further, the literary structure of these constitutions of the forties and fifties seems domi-nated by the organizational model. They set out goals; they cite organizational procedures for attaining the goals; and they define each person in terms of her role in the organization. They state the duties of the role (posi-tion in the organization), the prerequisites for possessing this role (be it that of an ordinary member or an officer), and the privileges of the role. The documents join a second model to that of hierar-chical organization. There is an interpersonal ideal of a familial society which is most compatible with that of a hierarcical organizational model. Officers are compared to parent figures. As such they ought to give and receive love and concern in a way which officers of an organiza-tion usually do not. Thus, in a unified model of hierar-chical- organization-family one provides an ideal for the lived situation of religious life. Newer constitutions, those of the sixties, present dif-ferent features: 1. "Community" is a common word; it appears time after time. 2. In most documents there is a definite distinction between community-as-organization and communi-ty- as-people. 3. Most, at least implicitly, deny "community" of the hierarchical organization model. "Community" de-notes, a primary group with strong interpersonal ties. This interpersonal notion is often extended to the congregation-as-community or the larger, civic, community. Although texts vary, the following is typical: Religious life is a loving community of free consecrated persons, sharing their lives, their worship, their service and their celibacy. A distinctive mark of the religious life is to be found in the fact that this living of Christ's life, this witnessing to His values, is lived corporately?° The function of a religious community is twofold. The first is to provide the climate for its members to grow to full stature as free persons in an ever deepening union with Christ, and for the sake of His Kingdom to be available to serve individually and corporately the needs of men. The second is to present a threefold witness in the eyes of the persons it serves: a living witness to Christ and His values, a sacrament of Christ's continued presence among men, and a sign of hope that community, which is the only mode of existence proper to men, can be a reality?1 When one looks for a model to explain this use of "community," one tends toward the community of scholars or St. Paul's my.stical body model. Religious community is the union of equals through interpersonal relationships. Each individual gives some service to the group: the serv-ice of authority, of information, of support, and so forth. Further the community itself is situated in relation to other communities. Religious community is always seen as a microcosm of the larger community of the Church and as such the religious community has an intimate re-lation to the People of God (Church) and the world com-munity.~ 2 Distinction. in terminology. Hence forward this paper will speak of the general account of community as found in the 1949 paradigm as "community1" and that in the 1969 paradigm as "community2". At present few religious make such an explicit distinc-tion. A single term, "community," is used for both mean-ings, although some religious are beginning to say that although both are called "community" only the 1969 paradigm expresses real community. Toward a Definition of "Community2" The term. In analyzing the common use of "community,;', one finds a distinction clearly made be-tween "having community2" and "being a community,". The latter is a wider term which necessarily includes the former. 10Sisters of the Third Order of St. Dominic of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Religious Lile: Lived Reality (Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1969), p. 4. n Ibid., p. 10. ~ Yves M. J. Congar, o.P., "The Theology of Religious Women," REv~w for RELIGIOUS, V. 19 (1960), p. 26. ÷ ÷ ÷ " ommunity" VOLUME 29, 1970 859 ÷ + + Kathryn Linde. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Having community,". The instances in which the term "having community2" is clearly applied reveal three nec-essary elements: a group of persons, united in sharing "goods," and either a resulting witness to Christian values or personal growth of some members. First, intuitions may indicate the last (witness or growth) as non-necessary, but when one discusses specific examples with members of religious congregations, one finds a hesitancy to apply "community2" to anything lack-ing a result in witness or personal growth. Confronted by an example exhibiting the first two characteristics of (1) a group and (2) sharing goods, which lacks, however, the third characteristic of witness or growth, members tend to say: "Maybe the witness or growth was really there but you didn't notice it"; or: "If there was no witness or growth you only thought you had community, but you really didn't." Hence this third characteristic is included as a necessary element for "having community2",is In pressing for precision, one finds that each of these characteristics is a term with its own range or extension: I. group of persons--extends to all persons united in groups, ranging from the smallest group of three to the largdst number so designatable. 2. sharing goods--extends to all goods, both internal and external, which can be shared by humans. In the context of "having community2" at least one internal good must be present, but any number of additional internal or external goods may be present also. 3. witness or personal growth extends to (1) all witness to Christian values and (2) all growth in personal maturity. "Having community2" is the term applied to the event which occurs when all three of these characteristics inter-sect. More formally. One may say that "x has community," if and only if: x is a group of persons; and there exists at least one y such that y is an internal good and x shares y; and either x gives witness to Christian values, or there is at least one z such that z is a member of the group's union in sharing and z grows in maturity as a result of this mem-bership. "Being a community2". When one examines the use of "being a community2" by religious, several crucial cases reveal themselves: 1. If a group "has community.o" frequently for several 18One is struck by the difficulty of making empirical observa-tions of personal growth or witness to othe,~. Yet this is how the term is used by religious. This study proposes to describe, to cite extension of terms, not to evaluate them as "true to reality," "false to reality," and so forth. weeks but then illness or work prohibits this "hav-ing community2" for awhile, no one denies the .group still is a community. All consider the non-hav-ang of community as a temporary condition which does not destroy the being-a-communi.ty of the group. On the othei: hand, all agree that an absence of "having community2" continued for a long enough period, would negate the gr9up's being a community. 2. If a group lives together for some time but shares little more than their domicile, no one designates them as "being a community2". 3. Groups experiencing two or three instances of in-tense "having-community2" are assigned a status of "being a community2" equivalent to other groups which have eight or nine experiences of community on a much lower level of intensity. To preserve these designations of being a community, this researcher proposes a function, C: frequency of having community X intensity of having communityt4 the total duration (or proposed duration) of the group All items having a C result of at least 0.3 are described as "being a community2". They fall in the extension of the tenn. Thus one can replace the externally vague term "being a community2" with the clearly defined one of "any x, where x is an item having a C function of at least 0.3." Some criticisms o[ the above analysis. There is much lacking in this whole analysis. This lack extends both to the theological and to the empirical dimensions of the discussion. First, theological aspects, for example, the cen-trality of Christ in community, are not explored in this rather philosophical approach. Yet these aspects are most important parts of the notion of community. Second, em-pirical aspects are incomplete. The method of finding the intensity of community noted in footnote 14 is inade-quate. Also, there have been no empirical studies to jus-tify, for example, the choice of 0.3 as the limit for "being a community2". Indeed, there is a lack of precise data for much of this discussion. The Task Remaining ÷+ American religious need to continue to explore this + notion of "community." They need to listen carefully to 1, The intensity of community is a function obtained by assign-ing positive integers to the elements contained in the range of each characteristic necessary for "having community.". The product of these integers indicates the level of intensity of "having com-munity.'. VOLUME 29, 1970 841 what others are saying about community and to note exactly where their statements agree and where they dif-fer. And when they find that they differ, religious need to be willing to continue the discussion. They need to find the reason for the differences. Sometimes it will be a false difference caused by incomplete communication of mean-ing. in other cases there may be a real difference. When religious reach the point of finding the exact differences, they are then keady to begin the honest dialogue common to every discipline which is alive and healthy. Out of such dialogue can come a truer understanding of '~com-munity" and perhaps a revitalization of their communal living. Perhaps, too, such dialogue will result in the reali-zation that although "community1" and "community2" have appeared as opposing theories, they are not antitheti-cal notions. They describe two different aspects of the same phenomenon. The above is an ambitious plan for religious. It is also difficult. Yet real analysis, the foe of polemic, is not only difficult it is very necessary. Emotivity makes poor theo-retic justification, and no theory can claim reasoned alle-giance if its advocates are not willing to utilize the pro-cessses of reason. Kathryn Lind¢- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS RICHARD M. McKEON, S.J. Retirement Policy for Religious With an increasing number of people enjoying a longer span of life many religious should be alert to the fact that they too will hit the retiring age before they realize it. Yes, retirement for older religious is finally being recognized formally. To many retirement will come as a shock. They will think that they have reached tlae end of the line and that they will drift rapidly into the hereafter. It is time that all religious orders wake up to this new problem. They must have programs to acquaint their older members with all facets of what retirement means. In this respect a great deal can be learned from the world of industry where programs have been in effect for many years. Later we shall discuss some of these and try to apply their wisdom to our older religious. Superiors who are formulating programs must face this issue squarely. Why should the accumulated experience and developed talent be lost to apostolic endeavors merely because a certain age for retirement is at hand? Here is capital which should be yielding dividends. If older religious are forced to coast along waiting for Ga-briel's horn to summon them to give an account of their stewardship, that accounting will be harder to make. Time has value. Time lost is never regained: "Some secrets of the well-rounded retired life are these: make the most of what you have; wherever you are, go with your whole heart; keep your eye on what's coming up, not on what's slipping by; play your role with comeliness; do not let the minutes rust away" (Bank of Canada Monthly Letter, December 1967). It is presumed after long years in religion one has a true sense of values. Before retirement each one should assess his own possibilities and plan to achieve new goals. Many opportunities will arise to afford an active life within one's mental and physical condition. What do older religious in good health want? They Richard McKeon, S.J., teaches at Le Moyne College; Syr-acuse, N.Y. 13214. VOLUME 29, 1970 8~5 ÷ R. M. McKeon; Sd. REVIEW FOR REI~?IOU~S want to remain active and to do good as long as possible; to utilize their special talents; to receive the same respect they commanded in middle age. Rightfully they expect the functional policies and the traditions of religious life to be practiced in their regard. The older religious must be convinced of being heart-edly in earnest in what he can still do. Discouragement and difficulties will be challenges. He must have a firm resolve to carry on. If he has a reputation for special gifts, rightly may he expect others to approach him. To quote the Talmud: "If you see a man of understanding, get you betimes to him, and let your foot wear out the steps of his door." At least once a year, usually during retreat, he should make an honest appraisal of himself: "How is my health? Have I checked with a doctor? Have I reviewed my work of the past year to see what I have done well? What mistakes .have been made? What are my plans for the coming year? Have I determined to keep my mind alert, to keep feeding my mind by study so as to contribute to my up-to-dateness and the germination of ideas?" Richard Butler, O.P., warns: "Those approaching old age should prepare themselves for the trial ahead by strengthening their faith, patching up the holes in their characters, stiffening their self-reliance, developing new and sustaining interests, discovering orientations of ac-tivity that will endure and will provide some amount of satisfaction for them" (America, November 19, 1966). Good ideas can be picked up from ordinary literature on retirement. For men and women who have been highly educated and employed in apostolic work it would be better to study what is going on in the field of indus-try and business. Special research studies on retirement have been made at the California Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago. The Caltech report suggests "a model program and a variety of ways in which it can be adapted to different company situa-tions." These studies are recommended to religious orders which are preparing programs. A digest of the program at Esso will afford some help-ful suggestions. First, changes in life expectancy are ex-plained. Then it tells how millions in the over 65 age group are non-productive but still consumers. In a word, when a worker retires, he is no longer productive to the country, profitable to the company, and useful to himself. Compulsory retirement is explained together with the benefits offered through social security and pensions. But more accent is placed on the sociological problem--how the retiree can be active, fruitful, and constructive. Esso offers help and counsel to each worker to think through his new situation. The company "feels that retirement is something earned by faithful service, a form of 'graduation' into a new phase of life rather than a 'casting out' process. Re-tirement should be the opportunity for the employee to enjoy the fruits of his labors in freedom, leisure and relaxation as well as an opportunity to serve himself, his family and his community in ways not open to him dur-ing his working career." A year before the set date group discussions are held covering topics such as health, planning for the future, what has been done, and so on. Plenty of appropriate literature is available. Each prospective retiree is pre-sented with a copy of How to Retire and Enjoy It by Ray Giles (McGraw-Hill). The Wall Street Journal frequently publishes articles on how retired executives keep busy, Their prime motiva-tion is not to make money for themselves, but to help others in trouble. Although some go into real estate and others start small businesses, many of the best become consultants as a challenging occupation. They form com-panies to give their specialized skills to small firms which need professional advice. The Mohawk Development Service of Schenectady, New York, has an excellent record of over twenty-five years. It is composed of former General Electric Company executives who have pooled their talent and experience. At Wilmington, Delaware, a similar group of Du Pont managers is engaged in a variety of projects. Charles H. Kellstadt retired as chairman of Sears, Roe-buck in 1962. At 72 in 1970 he is chairman and president of the General Development Corporation, one of Flori-da's largest land companies. He took over when things were in very bad shape. Today the corporation is most prosperous. His goal is to do a $250-million business a year. Religious orders should become a, cquainted with the International Executive Service Corps. Here is a magnifi-cent contribution which American executives are making in helping developing nations to help themselves. Its work should inspire qualified older religious to do some-thing similar to aid the foreign missions. The ISEC is a non-profit organization with headquar-ters in New York. It sends seasoned executives to counsel companies in the poorer lands. There is no salary but travel and living expenses are assured. Within the past five years a total of 1244 projects have been successfully completed in 45 countries. Optimism and the challenge of difficult problems have ÷ ÷ ÷ R. M. McKeon, $.l. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 846 given these men a new interest in life. They work with the native managers, not over them. Their know-how is eagerly sought. Using tact and patience they guide local managers to realize their own great potential Helping others to help themselves, who in turn will help thou-sands more, is certainly a high type of social action. Sylvia Porter in her column for December 16, 1969 paid tribute to the IESC and then put the question which might be put to older religious: "Why couldn't the con-cept be brought back home so that men and women in this age bracket work as volunteers in the ghetto and rural poverty areas of our own land?'" Our religious could make a great contribution here. "Life is only exciting when you are contributing in the mainstream." Keeping in mind what retired executives have done, let us make application to religious. First of all, those who have been superiors for a long time are still human. With a fair record of successful management, there is danger that many will regard themselves as indispensable. Every undertaker will contradict this statement. They have bur-ied too many. But to former superiors retirement does come as a shock. In industry it is maintained that compulsory retire-ment is the only way to clear out executive deadwood. Many of us know that it is a very touchy to mention possible retirement to an old superior: "Top manage-ment generally considers the subject as unmentionable as bereavement." Older religious might take a hint from the remark of a wise judge: "Retirement implies at least part of the motive power must originate in the person whose status is to be changed. Children are put to bed---adults retire." They should also remember that once the tension of their past job is over, arteriosclerosis might hit them with a stroke. Older religious should find comfort of mind if they have done their work faithfully in the past. As the time for retirement approaches, there should be no real repug-nance in letting quaIified younger people take over. If those in authority had signaled out men with executive ability and given them opportunity for training, there would be less trouble. Let us be blunt. Formerly, older people were respected, their advice was sought for, younger folk delighted to learn of their experiences. No longer in positions of au-thority, they soon find they are being ignored. Take a retiree who is removed from apostolic action which domi-nated his past life. Now assign him to a house for retirees as has been suggested. His health is still good. His mind is alert. But there is nothing to challenge it. He begins to feel unwanted, morose, and he gradually loses interest in things with which he was formerly associated. In such a state of mind death is bound to come more rapidly. In many universities and colleges religious teachers must retire when they reach the same age as set for lay teachers. Without a proper program they may be placed in isolation, as just noted, with no demand for their services. Edward F. Heenan, S.J., has written that many religious groups "have been increasingly enticed to adopt the bureaucratic business model in an effort to more effectively operationalize their goals." Retirement need not mean the end of the road. It should be accepted as a challenge. It means an awareness of the personal ability of the religious to perform, to continue .productively, and to make older life worth the living for one's self and others. Longfellow has put this Challenge attractively: For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And, as the evening twilight fades away, The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. In the past a religious, like any other active person, got recognition and identity for the work he was doing. He could possess a just pride in his accomplishments. By the same token, when he does special work as a retiree, he should receive due praise. Many religious are truly hum-ble. Nevertheless all men appreciate recognition for any job well done. It does boost morale. On the other hand, there is the problem of rejection. To feel rejected, especially by those with whom one was closely associated, often causes a heavy strain on the nerves. It can easily make an older religious irritable and upset his health. We maintain it is a fatal mistake to put a healthy, older religious in a home for retirees. It will depress him. With nothing to challenge a once busy person he will rapidly decline in health, mental and physical. For example, if a religious has been at a college for the past ten or more years before retirement age, then we hold there is really a moral obligation to keep him as a member of the community as long as his health holds up. Why? Because to separate him from the familiar atmos-phere where he knows his fellow religious and they know him, from his friends on the faculty and from people in the local community would be dreadful in its conse-quences. It is here that he can continue to do more good than elsewhere: "Familiar things and places are priceless as we grow older--make no mistake about that." Dr. Edmund V. Cowdry, Washington University, St. Louis, an authority on gerontology, states: "More impor-tant than any other single factor is the old person's need Retirement VOLUME 29, 1970 for a community of interests. Nature seems to have or-dained that those who abdicate from life socially will soon abdicate from life physically." Where should there be a better community of interests than in the house where the religious has been living for years? Father Heenan remarks: "The closer the community approaches the communal idea of integrating and providing for the needs of every member, the more successful the aging process." A bureaucracy might be more efficient but it would tend to depersonalize and estrange the members. A mature religious should know that leisure for pleas-ure's sake alone will not bring happiness. But there is that approved pleasure which comes from doing good to others, especially the less fortunate. Instead of the deceits of idleness there can be a modified form of asceticism. There can be early rising with sincere attention to reli-gious duties. Planning for and being prudently busy with the needs of others will improve health. Two qualities will help the retirees: "They do enthusiastically .what-ever they are doing, and they get deepdown joy out of very simple things." Accordingly it is very foolish to think that retirement means the cessation of activities and merely a vegetating process. Retirement should be dynamic. One must beware of tyrannical trifles which can enslave. Too much televi-sion with its many insipid programs can mark a mental decline. In the 1955 Governor's Conference on the Aging in New York it was held that "religion is the key to a happy old age because man is essentially a spiritual and social bbing. The aged turn to religion even if they have been lax in their youth." What, then, Of men and women dedicated to God, who now have the time and conveni-ence to make up for past neglect because of distraction in the workingday world? There can be a renewal of spirit-ual life and a practice of reparation to gain grace to face bravely the reality of their new status. Since Vatican Council II changes in training have been made to meet the needs of younger religious. They have been very frank about what they need to be effective in a challenging new world. By the same token, older reli-gious should be outspoken in presenting their needs and claims. That is why at the young age of seventy-three I am writing this defense. R. M. McKeon, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELI{;IOUS 848 SISTER DOROTHY COONS, B.V.M. Life Style Study: Convent Li g This study of the pattern of religious living as it is carried out in the various convents of the Sisters of Char-ity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was undertaken as a part of a series of such studies of modern religious living that have been made in the past five years (see l~vmw for I~LIG~OUS, March 1970). The instrument used was constructed by Sister Cather-ine Leonard with the help of the other members of the Commission on Experimentation and Research, espe-cially Sister Helen Thompson and Sister Mary Kenneth Keller. The latter was responsible for processing the data on the computer. Questions Examined Four major questions gave direction to this study: To what extent do the sisters living in the traditional con-vent life style feel that this is providing them with necessary support in community living? What are the topics of concern in these convents? ¯ To what extent is there satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the life style, and what changes would be desirable in the cases where there is dissatisfaction? What are some of the general characteristics of the local communities in the areas of common liturgical experiences, in living arrangements, and in financial arrangements? Group Studied The questionnaires were sent to approximately 1800 sisters living in 153 convents. Those living in apartments and the patients in Marian Hall were not included. A total of almost 1300 sisters from 151 convents responded. According to the number of years in the congregation, the respondents fell into the following categories: ÷ Sister Dorothy Coom, BN.M., is chairman of [BVM] Commission on Ex-perimentation and Research at Clarke College; Dubuque, Iowa 52001. VOLUME 29, 1970' 849 Years in the Congregstion Number Percent 0-4 23 1.7 6.6 10-19 953 19.6 20-29 231 17.9 30-39 273 21.2 Over 40 415 32.1 $i~t~r D~rothy REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 850 This distribution is similar to that of the entire congre-gation with the exception of the oldest group who num-ber approximately 42% of the total. To a lesser degree the groups in the 5-10+ years differ from the general distri-bution because it is in these age groups that most of those living in apartments fall. In 49 of the 151 houses 100% of the sisters living there responded; 136 houses sent responses from more than half of the sisters; 15 houses were represented by less than half; and two did not return any of the questionnaires. Support in Community Provided by Convent Life Style Certain items on the questionnaire were included to bring out the general characteristics of "community," es-pecially those which provide mutual support for those living together. These questions and the results for both the congregation as a whole and when subdivided accord-ing to years in the congregation are given in Table I. While there are differences in the percentage responses to the positive questions, on the whole they are clearly above the 50% levels, ranging from 91.3% agreement with "Sisters seem concerned for one another" to 73.9% agreement with "Sisters like to be together" and "Com-munication among the sisters in our house is good." There is a similar picture shown by the disagreement with such negative items as "Money is a source of ten-sion" and "Communi.ty life suffers because the sisters are out doing other things." There is a surprising degree of agreement on the items that reflect a supportive atmos-phere among the various age groups. Figure 1, for exam-ple, shows that there is a high degree of agreement among all age categories on the item, "Communication is good," and that the disagreement is slightly higher among those in the 5-9 and 10-19 year group. There is also a slightly higher rate of disagreement on the part of the sisters in the 5-9 years in the congregation on the item: "Sisters plan together or in groups things that the whole house will enjoy," as shown in Figure 2. On the other hand, one of the most significant items, "Sisters in the house seem concerned for one another," shows fairly uniform agree-ment and disagreement in all age groups. See Figure 3. On a somewhat similar item: "Sisters like to be together," the pattern of responses is different. See Figure 4. + + + % 100 75 50 25 0 [] Agree [] Disagree O- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Figure 1. Communication is Eood. % 100 75 5O 25 O, 0- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Figure 2. Sisters plan to-gether. % lOO 75 50 25 o 0- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Figure 3. Sisters seem con-cerned for one another. % lOOI 75 5O 25 0- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Figure 4. Sisters like to be together. + + + Sister Dorothy REVIEW.FOR RELIGIOUS 852 The two items that would ideally be answered by disa-greement, "Money is a source of tension," and "Commun-ity life suffers because the sisters are out so often doing other.things," showed unexpected results. The similarity of the results for both agreement and disagreement as shown in Figure 5 suggests that, at least among those responding to the questionnaire, money is not the prob-lem that it is generally thought to be. Figure 6 shows a higher percentage of agreement on the item, "Commun-ity life suffers because the sisters are out so often doing other things," among the older age groups. While this might have been expected, the actual difference is not as great as could have been predicted. Topics of Concern It was hoped that areas of concern could be identified by the items that are frequently topics of discussion. These were found to cover the whole range of those sug-gested, with the following results according to frequency: % 100 75 5O 25 0 % 1 O0I 75' O- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over O- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Years in the Community Figure 5. Money is a source of tension. Figure 6. Community life suffers because sisters are out so often doing other things. religious life (72%), world news (68%), house problems (68%), the Church (67%), problems of the larger BVM congregation (67%), students and their families (57%), peace and war (56%), and U.S. political issues (53%). Others were indicated as being topics of discussion by fewer than half of the respondents, with hair and clothes being in lower positions than the items of general con-cern in the world, in the country, and in the congrega-tion. Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction The question, "Given your preference, and the absence of any practical consideration that would require other-wise, would you continue to live next year under the same life style," was answered "Yes" by 947 sisters (73%) and "No" by 259 or 20%. Those who answered "No" were asked to check the form of living that they would prefer and the item most often checked was "More regu-lar daily schedule of prayer and house activity." This preference was indicated by. 138 or 10.7% of those an-swering, while the second highest condition checked was "With persons who are more congenial." The results of this section of the questionnaire were broken down in a comparison with the items that were thought to reflect "community" and the results seemed somewhat indefinite. In general, those who would prefer to remain in the same life style had higher "Agree" scores on the positive items and lower "Disagree" scores on those that were negative, and the opposite was true of those who wished to change life styles. For example, on the question, "Communication among the sisters is good," of those who would remain in the same life style, 77% agreed to the statement and 12% disagreed, while among those who would change to another life style 36% -I. + + VOLUME 29, 1970 853 ÷ .÷ ÷ Sister Dorothy REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 854 agreed to the statement and 54% disagreed. There were similar combinations of "agreement" and "disagreement" in the breakdowns of this item with "The sisters often plan together or in groups things that the whole house will enjoy," "Sisters in the house seem concerned for one another," and "Sisters in the house seem ~o like to be together." It is not clear to what extent these differences provide explanations for the desire to change life styles. There may be other explanations not touched upon by tl~is study. Characteristics of Local Communities Part I of the instrument was completed by the Com-munity Representative in each of the convents. No pat-tern of common prayer and liturgical experiences emerged. This might be due to the large number of un-answered items and to uncertainty in interpreting them. The most frequently checked item was "Celebration of the Eucharist" but the range of responses suggests that there were different interpretations to the question; for example, 25 Community Representatives checked "Sel-dom or never." This seems to indicate that there was uncertainty about whether it meant convent chapel or parish church, fora response of 100% daily celebration the Eucharist might have been expected. The rosary is still recited daily in 48 houses with an indication in 24 of them that most of the sisters attend. Vespers is said daily in 43 houses with 23 reporting that most attend. The changing pattern of prayer in the congregation is shown in Table II. Responses on the items concerning financial arrange-ments show the greatest possible variation in meeting most of the ordinary expenses. The sources include com-mon funds, personal stipend, parish, and school, and there were few items that did not fall into each of these. See Table III for items that are included, for the most part, in the three most general categories. Discussion--Interpretative Summary The study of the foregoing material and other details that were not included in the present report seem to provide a message of encouragement. It is evident that those who answered this questionnaire are, in large meas-ure, content in the convent living life style and that they feel their living situation provides them with the condi-tions for personal support that are necessary for Christian community living. A further reason for encouragement lies in the fact that, with few exceptions in the 5-19 year groups, there is no marked disagreement among the var-ious age groups in the congregation. Examination of the results of individual convents TABLE II Frequency and Attendance of Rosary and of Communal Prayer as Reported by Comraunity Representatives k,- Occ~-[Se)do=/ ~ost ~ ] Pew "__._~_~" ~ '_____~_~ s ionMl~y N eve_~_r A tten~ A tten~ 2tte2d Communal Prayerl~l~l~[~l~l~[- ~ TABLE III Methods of Meeting Ordinary Expenses as Shown by Responses of Community Representatives Common Fund Personal Stipend Both Common Fund and Personal Stipend Board/room Per capita Cook Mass stipends Gifts Insurance Spiritual reading books Household expenses Education Medical and dental Clothing Personal travel Entertainment Toll/long dis-tance telephone calls Non-prescription drugs Home visits Memberships/dues Refreshments other than meals Books other than spir-itual Carfare Use of car Professional travel showed great variation in tendencies toward general posi-tive and negative impressions. At this time, no definite score for rati

Issue 35.2 of the Review for Religious, 1976. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Louis Umvers~ty, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 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 (~) 1976 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor March 1976 Volume 35 Number 2 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. Mary, Model of the Church Paul VI December 8, 1975, marked not only the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception but also the tenth anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. This is the text of the Pope's homily in St. Peter's on that occasion.* Venerable Brothers and Beloved Sons! and all of you, special guests at this pious ceremony, Teachers, Research workers and Students of the Pontifical Roman Universities, you P~upils in our seminaries, you Members of the Ecclesiastical and Religious Colleges of the City, or associhtes of the Secular Institutes. And you, beloved Daughters in Christ, Religious, Novices, Probationers and Pupils of the Houses of formation for women in Rome. And then you, too, our Roman faithful, and you pilgrims of the Holy Year and visitors to this holy City. And finally you (we wish to gather everyone in the multiple value of the rite we are celebrating), you, we say, former members and protagonists 'of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, convened here to commemo-rate with us the tenth anniversary, which falls today, of those great ec-clesiastical sessions! Listen to us, all of you! and let us invite you to a moment of contem-plation, spiritual and almost visual, as if the appearance of her whose ex-traordinary feast we are celebrating today were present in the background of this Basilica, as if-hovering in the unique splendour, proper to herself (even if reflected from the divine source of light); and we were to see her with the prophetic eyes of the evangelist of the Apocalypse: *Abstracted from Osservatore Romano, 12/18/75, pp. 6-7. 161 162 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Behold! "A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (Apoc 12, 1; cf. Cant 6, 4 ft.). What is it? Who is it? We are amazed and absorbed by the Bible vision; and in our dazzled astonishment we lose the sense of reality. We do not forgo expressing as best we can the value of that mysterious image; and without continuing, for the present, with the scene in the Apocalypse, we are satisfied to know the double name that has been superimposed on that heavenly figure by the masters of Holy Scripture, as if exclaiming, in an-swer to our anxious curiosity: it is Mary, it is Mary, that Woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and the mysterious crown of stars on her head! It is the Church, it is the Church! the scholars inform us, studying the secrets of the figurative and symbolical language of the world of the Apocalypse. Perhaps they are right. As for us, we are happy to honour Mary and the Church, the first the Mother of Christ in the flesh; the second the .Mother of his Mystical Body, and she herself part of that Mystical Body. All Brothers and Sons! For a moment let us fix our thought, dazzled and happy, on the first meaning of the bewildering vision; and let us say to ourselves, with the intention of celebrating the mystery of the Immaculate Conception: that is what Mary is like! Her aspect is heavenly and tri-umphal~ but if closely observed, it is that of a Woman "humble and lofty more than a creature" (Par 33, 2). So humble, in fact, that she banishes all our respectful trepidation (cf. Lk 1, 48), and almost invites us to see in her a beloved Sister. At the very moment that we dare to address to her a trusting word, no other words come to our lips than those of the Gospel: Blessed art thou! (Lk 1, 45 and 48). Yes, blessed! And for how many reasons! One among the many we are celebrating today, and we would like to put it at the peak of our devotion to Mary: her Immaculate Conception! That is, God's preferential thought for this creature of his; the intention to 'see in her again the original innocence of a being conceived "in the. image and likeness" of himself, God (Gen 1, 26-27), not disturbed, not contaminated by any stain, by any imperfection, as are all the children Of Eve, all mankind, except Christ and except her, the Blessed Virgin. An idea; a divine dream] a masterpiece of human beauty, not sought in the formal model only, but realized in the intrinsic and incomparable capacity of ex-pressing the Spirit in the flesh, the divine likenes~ in the human countenance, invisible Beauty in the physical figure. Mary, All Beauty Tota pulchra es, Maria.t You are beauty, real, pure, holy beauty, oh Mary! This should be the real and ideal image of the Blessed Virgin, re-flected, luminous and illuminating, in Our individual souls, today, oh Faith- Mary, Model o] the Church / 163 ful; as the synthesis of our admiration and devotion to the Blessed Virgin, whose feast, eminently theological and eminently ecclesial, we are celebrat-ing. Theological, because we deduce it from revelation and from the most vigilant and loving reflection, with which the most candid and virginal piety dared, certainly with her assistance, to fix an enraptured and exPloring gaze on her pure, humble face, the perfect face of sacred and human beauty~ Ecclesial, because from being a mirror of divine perfection, speculum iusti-tiae, she offers herself to us as a mirror of human perfection, in which the Church, venerating the Blessed Virgin, "joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless model (it is the Council speaking; Sacr. Cone., n. 103), that which she herself wholly desires and hopes to be"; a nuptial beauty which St. Paul, as we all remember, describes in a stupendous way: "in all its splen-dour, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph 5, 27). The Church's holiness, in its state of becoming, has its model, its "typus" in Mary, as St. Ambrose will say (in Lucam, II-7), and St. Augustine will comment: "figuram in se sanctae Ecclesiae demonstravit" (De Symbolo, I; P.L. 40, 661), Mary represented in herself the figure of the Holy Church. ¯ A model, a specimen, an ideal figure of the Church; is that enough? The theological truth goes further, and enters the frontiers of that subordinate causality, which in the divine plan of salvation inseparably associates the creature, Mary, the Handmaid of the "Fiat," with the mystery of the In-carnation, and makes her,: St. Irenaeus writes, "a cause of,this salvation for herself and for the whole of mankind" (Adv. haereses, III, 22, 4). "Mother of the Church" We will rejoice, then, to have in St. Augustine the conclusion which at the end of the III section of the Council we made our own, explicitly recog-nizing the unquestionable right of the Blessed Virgin to the title of "Mother of the Church." If, in fact, Mary is the mother of Christ in the flesh, and Christ is the head of the Church, his Mystical Body, Mary' is spiritually the Mother of this Body, to which she herself belongs, at an eminent level, as daughter and sister (cf. St. Augustine, de Sancta Virginitate, V and VI; P, L. 40, 339; and cf, H. De Lubac, Mdd. sur l'Eglise, c. IX) . To you, Teachers, Research workers and Students of our Rbman Uniz versities; to you, young Seminarian~, to you, Religious men and women, goes particularly a cry from our heart: love, invoke and imitate Mary Immaculate, the Mother of Christ and the Mother of the Ctiurch, and make good use, for the present and for future generations, of the treasure of wisdom that the second Vatican Ecumenical Council was and is. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? Thomas Dubay, S.M. Father Dubay, a frequent contributor to our journal, is engaged full time in lecturing and writing in the area of religious life. His home address is: Marist Seminary; 220 Taylor Street, N.E.; Washington, DC 20017 "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 Kgs 3:10). ¯ One need not emphasize the point that a vibrant sector of Christian life at this point of history is the sector of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The charismatic renewal has been promoting with no little success a whole life-style patterned on and growing out of a program centered in the Spirit's activity in the midst of God's people. This renewal is by no means restricted to "the release of the Spirit'? or the gift of tongues or the healing ministry. It is felt that the Holy Spirit is speaking today not only to saints but to sinners, not only to officialdom but to the lowly placed. To some considerable extent, but not with an entire coincidence with the charismatic movement, the Spirit movement' has been prominent in renewal efforts carried on in religious life. Books, articles, lectures, chapter documents often refer to the Holy Spirit, especially under the rubric of openness to Him, listening to Him. The central thrust here is not so much prayer experience, speaking in tongues or engaging in a healing ministry as it is in detecting what God is saying to us, both to the individual and to the community. This thrust toward listening to the Spirit is readily noted in the popularity of discernment methods, techniques, processes~ Although one begins to sense an incipient, weariness with discernment talk, the interest remains noteworthy. The reality surely is of crucial importance in an age struggling to find the mind of God and to read the signs of the times. If God does speak to His people--and Scripture insists that He does--it can never be unimportant to listen. 164 The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 165 An Anomalous Situation But this ."listening" is where .our problems begin, problems that press for solution. Before we can intelligently explain how one listens to the indwell-ing God, we should first understand something of how He speaks. The literature of our day, issuing both from the charismatic renewal and from religious life circles, says almost nothing on this subject. As a matter of fact, I must. candidly add that while speculative theologians often refer to the activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church, they seldom discuss how He acts and enlightens the individual through a personal contact. They do, of course, rightly point out that God speaks to His people through Scripture and through the representatives He has established in His Church: "he who hears you, hears Me" (Lk 10:16).1 But this is not the question at hand. People both in the Pentecostal movement and in religious life have in mind a personal (individual and!or communal) encounter with the Holy Spirit, and in this encounter they "listen to Him." Our situation, therefore, is odd. On the one hand many persons rou-tinely speak of "listening to the Spirit" as though He were as familiar as a friend speaking over one's right shoulder. Yet on the other hand almost no one explains how He speaks--even though we all know He does not speak in sound waves. Nor are we told how one can be so sure it is the Spirit speaking. Until we provide satisfactory answers to the question, "How does the Spirit speak?" we are left with some embarrassing problems. How can anyone be so sure he is listening to the Spirit and not to his own desires? We hardly need to debate the observation of Aldous Huxley: "The untutored egoist merely wants. Give him a religious education, and it becomes obvious to him, it becomes axiomatic, that what he wants is what God wants.'"-' Does God speak in diverse ways? If He does, how can we know the differences? What are we to think of,serious and sincere people who are convinced that they are receiving special messages from the Holy Spirit? Is good will enough to insure "listening to the Spirit"? Who Can Answer Our Questions? If it is true that the popular and theological literature on the con-temporary scene seldom discusses the title questign of this article, one may rightly wonder who can answer it? I know of two sources: Scripture and the mystics? We shall in this article explore both of these sources that we may discover on solid grounds when and how the Holy Spirit speaks in our own day. ~See also Jn 13:20; Jn 21:15-17; Lk 22:31-32; Tt 1:7; 1 Tm 3:15; 2Tin 3:14-16 and many other like texts. ~The Devils o] Loudun, p. 18. ZBy "mystics" here I do not refer to the recipients of extraordinary phenomena such as levitation or the stigmata. The word in Catholic theology indicates those men and women who have a deep experiential encounter with God. 166 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Scripture on the Experience og God ~ ~ We may acknowledge at the outset~ ~that the Lord God did speak to select representatives in biblical times~ and in :extraordinary ways (Heb l:l ). However, we shall not be primarily concerned here with the divine messages addressed to public personages, to a Moses or to a Paul. Rather we shall direct our attention to the usual, frequent, routine ways God speaks to the inner heart of anyone close to Him. Our tasks will be three: a) Introductory observations b) What does one experience when he experiences God? c) Implications of the .biblical account. When we complete our biblical study, we shall~ investigate the mystics' message. They have a great deal to say about listening to God: when and how it happens and does not happen. a) Introductory observations Just what is experience? We use the word constantly both in popular speech and in scholarly articles, but seldom does .anyone .suggest its mean-ing. The best synonym I can think of is awareness, Without awareness one cannot experience. A genuine experience is an awareness of something, even if that awareness focuses on one's self. An illusory experience is subjectively real but it has no objective correlative. Experience for human being .implies a passivity, a being affected by the object (tapioca, .coldness). In sensory experiences affectivity (pleasant, unpleasant, cold-hot, smooth-rough, sweet-sour) predominates over knowl-edge, whereas in intellectual experience the cognitive and the affective are closer to,.being equal partners because they more intimately interpenetrate each other. - Although it is obvious on ~a moment's reflection that ,19od cannot be experienced as though He were a material object somehow palpable, some seem to assume that He must be absent if.He does not manifest His pres-ence in human ways. He is God, and we should be .content to allow Him to operate in a divine manner. We may speak of an experience-of-God continuum tl~at runs from reasoned conclusions about Him (the weak. end of the continuum or spec-trum) ~,to the face'to,face vision of Him in. glory (the strong end). In be-tween we can locate the poetic, ,artistic and infused mystical experi~n(es, In this article I shall be concerned chiefly with the last, the divinely originated, mystical encounters with our God revealed in Christ. We need to emphasize that the experience of which we speak here comes from God, not from what we do or feel or will. It is not our idea which we like and and then baptize as being His idea. When God speaks, it is God who speaks. b) What does one experience when he experiences God? ~ Divine ~xperience is not one sole awareness. The reality is rich and is expressed in many ways, each of which brings out an element or emphasis found in the whole. I wiil distinguish and number these elements not to The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 167 separate them but to clarify the richness. Our usual human way of under-standing is through concepts ,and distinctions. One who is impatient with reasonable distinctions does not understand that he could not utter his sentence of objection except by distinguishing each word of it from every other word. In what follows, however, we must understand that the reality is not a series of chopped up pieces but a flowing whole of diverse strands and richness. 1) PRESENCE-AWARENESS. The experience oLGod includes an aware-ness, a sense of His divine presence. One is aware that God is with him, be-fore him, at his'right hand (Ps 16:8). The Holy Spirit is given to "be with" the disciple of the Lord (Jn 14:15-17), and Jesus' name is Emmanuel, God-with-us (Mt 1:23). He promises to be with His disciples all days, even to the end of the world (Mt 28:20). One who loves possesses an abiding presence of God within himself (I Jn 4:16). We shall see further on how the mystics elaborate on this presence-awareness. 2) ~ SPIRITUAL AWARENESS: SENSE-LIKE BUT NOT SENSE-LIKE. Because God is purest Spirit no .one can attain Him through sense knowledge. Yet Scripture is not reluctant to use sense knowing to bring out the reality and richness of a divine-human encounter. We are to taste and see for ourselves the goodness of God (Ps 23:8). Jeremiah felt an inner touch, a burning in his being (Jer 20:9). Paul speaks of the fragrance of Jesus' offering (Eph 5:2). The Song of Songs refers to the hearing of a voice (Song 2:14). The mystics repeatedly refer to the five senses to explain a deep meeting with God. St.-Augustine,~offers a classical example when in the Conjessions he brilliantly denies that a profound experience of,God is sense-like but then immediately turns around and affirms that there is a sense-likeness in it: ~' Not with doubtful but with sure knowledge do 1 love you, O Lord. By your Word you have transfixed hay heart, and I have loved you . What is it then that I love when I love you?'Not bodily beauty, and not temporal glory, 'not the clear shining light, lovely as it is to our eyes, not the sweet melodies of 0many-moded songs, not the soft smell of flowers and: ointments, and per-fumes, not manna and honey, not limbs made for the body's embrace, not these do I love when I love my God. Yet 1 do love a certain light, a certain voice, a certain odor, a certain food, a certain embrace when I love my God: a light, a voice, an odor, a food, an embrace for the man within me, where his light, which no place can contain, floods into my soul; where he utters words~that time does not speed away; where he sends forth an aroma that no wind can scatter; where he provides food that no eating can lessen; where he so clings that satiety does not sunder us. This is what I love when I love my God.4 St. John of the Cross at one time uses music to suggest how a person can "hear" God in His creation: "Creatures will be for the soul a-harmonious 4Con[essions, Ryan translation, Image edition, Bk 10, c. 6. 168 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 symphony of sublime music surpassing all concerts . She calls this music 'silent' because it is tranquil and quiet . There is in it the sweetness of music and the quietude of silence.'''~ At another~ time the saint describes the experience of God as a fragrance: "Sometimes the fragrance is so abundant that it seems to the soul she is clothed with delight and bathed in inestimable glory.'''~ While both the biblical writers and the. later mystics know well that God is infinitely beyond our realm of sensation, yet they speak in this fashion in order to bring out the reality of the experience of God and the richness of it. 3) NEW K.NOWINO, D.IVINE AND DARK. When one advances into a depth relationship with God he grows in knowing his Lord without knowing how he knows. He perceives this hidden God in darkness (Is 45:15), and yet the Son manifests Himself to the person who loves and keeps His word (Jn 14:21). The Father, says St. Paul, radiates in our minds His own glory, the glory that shines on the face of Jesus (2 Co 4:6). Angela of Foligno observed that the more the supreme Good is seen in darkness the more does one know He surpasses all goods~ Listening to the Spirit, there-fore, does not usually mean listening to a clear message. God does not dictate idle details about one's friends, family, enemies, oneself. The man or woman listening to the Holy Spirit is learning most of all about the three divine persons, darkly beautiful. 4) YEARNING FOR GOD. God often speaks a thirsting for Himself into the human person. It is a thirsting that purifies the recipient for deeper union and love, a thirsting that widens capacity and "bestows humilityi The psalmist seeks and thirsts like parched earth (Ps 63:1) or like the deer panting after the running waters (P~ 42:1-2). Isaiah longs for his Lord and keeps vigil for Him through the night (Is 26:8-9). St. Augustine sighs for God day and night,r All available evidence indicates that the Holy Spirit communicates this divine thirst far more frequently than He does concrete messages that satisfy curious eyes and itching ears. God. has nothing better to say than Himself. That is why in the incarnation the Father spoke His Word into the world of human flesh. When one listens to the Father, he hears mostly the Son. 5) PEACE AND COMFORTING. Our God is a healing God, a God who l(~ves and therefore comforts us in~ all our sorrows (2 Co 1:3-4), a God who gives a peace that surpasses understanding (Ph 4:7), a G~)d who re-freshes the wearied soul and gives rest (Jr 31 ~25-26; Mt 11:28). While our own selfishness begets conflict and factions (Ga 5:19-21), what the Spirit r'Spiritual .Canticle, Stanzas 14-15, #25; I am using here The Collected Works o[ St, John o] the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavan~augh, O.C;D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D., New York, 1964, p. 472. ~lbid., Stanza 17, #7; p. 480. rConfessions, Bk 7, c. 10. The Spirit Speaks." When and How? / 169 brings.is very different: love, peace, harmony. (Ga 5:22). The Hebrew shalom was not a mere absence of conflict. It implied a fullness, a rich integrity, something akin to our word, prosperity. God speaks peace, shalom, to his people. His word makes individuals and communities inte-gral, whole, loving. 6) INPOURED LOVE. The divine gift par excellence is love: "the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (Rm 5:5) Those who divide the community into factions, who disregard their leaders are not listening to the Spirit who brings unity (1 Co 12:12-13; Ep 4:3-6) and an obedience to those overseers whom he Himself has placed to rule the Church of God (Ac 20:28). This love is a sign of the genuine disciple, one who loves as the Lord Himself loves (Jn 13:34-35). The Spirit speaks love (Ga 5:22). 7) UNION-POSSESSION-BURNING. This love of the Holy Spirit centers especially.on the three divine persons and it grows to a point where it can overwhelm one (2 Co 5: 14). It.can make one's heart.burn: "there seemed-to be a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones," said Jeremiah. "The effort to restrain it wearied me, I could not bear it." (Jr 20:9) The disciples on the road to Emmaus felt this burning as they listened to the word of the risen Kyrios (Lk 24:32), and the mystics commonly speak of it. Augustine~could write of being set. on fire for God by the psalms and of burning to repeat them.s Further on he declared that love was his gravity: "By your gift we are enkindled, and we are borne upwards. We glow with inward fire, and we go on. We asc(nd steps within the heart, and we sing a gradual psalm. By Your fire, by. Your good fire, we glow with inward fire:'''~ St. John of the Cross could speak simply of the perfect "who burn gently in God.''1" Once again we emphasize that when God speaks it is not a narration of idle details that satisfy curious expectations. God mostly speaks love. ~ 8) BEAUTY OF GOD AND JOY IN HIM. The experience of God is a growing perception of His goodness and beauty. We are to taste and see for ourselves how good He is (Ps 34:8). The one thing, the top-priority sought by the psalmist is to°dwell in the Lord's house all the days Of his life and thus to "gaze on the beauty of the Lord" (Ps 27:4). Augustine puts this in his own inimitable language: "All things are beautiful because You made them, but You who made all things are inexpressibly more beautiful . Too late have I loved You, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved You!TM Our joy is to become so deep that it is radiant (Ps 34:5), complete (Jn 15:11), unending (Jn 16:22),.always and every- 81bid., Bk 9, c. 4. '°1bid., Bk 13, c. 9. 1°Dark Night of the Soul, Bk 2, c. 20, :~4; p. 337. 11Confessions, Bk 13, c. 20 and Bk 10, c. 27. 170 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 where (Ph 4:4), beyond description (I P 1:8). This, too, the Bishop of Hippo heard from the indwelling Lord: ",Sometimes You admit me," he said, "in my innermost being into a most extraordinary affection, mounting within me to an indescribable delight, If this is perfected in me, it will be something, I know not what, that will not belong to this slife.''r-' This'is what the Lord God especially speaks, and this is what they hear who deeply listen. 9) POWER, STRENGTH, FREEDOM. God speaks 'not only words but power itself.-It would seem correct to say that worded communications from Him are~comparatively rare, while bestowals of power and freedom . are comm.on, common that is to people who are mature in prayer. Paul came to the Corinthians not with human philosophy but with the power of God (1 Co 2:5). He explains that God,s kingdom.does not consist only of words--it~is power (1 Co 4:20). The apostle himself experiences "an overwhelming power" from the Father (2 Co 4:7). All he wants to know is Christ and the power of His resurrection (Ph 3:10). This power is a liberating dynamism: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom" (2 Co 3:|7). c) Implications of the biblical account. Perhaps the most striking note of this New Testament picture of how God speaks is that He does not ordinarily speak specifics. It is true that public persons or those closely related to them do occasionally receive particularized directions. This is true, for example, of Peter (Ac 10:9-16), Cornelius (Ac 1'0:3-6), the "Council of Jerusalem" (Ac 15:28), Paul (Ac 9:3-6: Ga 2:2; 2 Co 12:8-9), Ananias (Ac 9:10-16). In the Christic economy when specific divine messages are given, they must be submitted to human authorities. This has long been the practice of spiritual directors and it is rooted in revelation itself. Even St~ Paul sought the .approval of the "leading men" in Jerusalem for the mission he had received directly from the risen Jesus (Ga 2:2, 6, 10). The New Testament gives no. com-fort to visionaries who deem themselves exempt from any structural guidance. What God usually does speak to the ordinary person is inner trans-formation. He speaks goodness in a general manner. He speaks his pres-ence ~. spiritual awareness., divine-dark knowing of himself., yearn-ing for his presence . . . peace and comfort . . , inpoured love . . . union-possession- burning., beauty and joy . . . power and freedom. This may come as a ,surprise to devotees of private revelations~ but it does not surprise experienced spiritual directors. Those who listen to God most genuinely are not those who believe they have received many detailed messages, but rather those whose minds have been fillhd with everything true, noble, good, pure, virtuous, worthy of praise (Ph 4:8). r"Ibid,, Bk 10, c. 40. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 171 Further Development, s: St. ~Iohn of the Cross While Sacred Scripture is rich in its variegated ways of dealing with the experience of God, it does leave, us with the need to unfold the richness further. We ,may therefore ask several qi~estions. Does the Holy Spirit speak in varying degrees of intensity? If so, what are they like? Does He add His own peculiar light to our human reasonings and searchings? If so, how does this happen? Can we know when it .happens? Is it possible to be mistaken regarding a genuine communication from ,13od? Were the saints ever mistaken? What does one do if he thinks (or is even convinced) that God has enlightened him in some specific way? In looking through a considerfible amount of the literature produced on these questions rI can think of no one more competent to respond to our questions than St. John of the Cross. That this Carmelite saint experienced the deepest, most magnificent encounters with the ,living God is beyond debate. If anyone~ has known what knowledge through infused love is all about, John has. If anyone has been capable of analyzing and synthesizing the sundry, elements in the experience of God:in all their varieties and de-grees, John has. If any mere man or woman has listened to the Spirit, John has. We shall, therefore, take this theologian of mysticism as our guide. In an area in which the Spirit-structure tension in the Church occupies center stage we need a master. "' Types of Communication God does not speak to,man as man speaks to man. He speaks as God; and consequently we should be wary Of our preconceived ideas as to how the communication ought to be carried: off. Moreover, He does not speak in one way only. Nor should we assume that His speaking is always unmis-takable: The indwelling God leads us into all truth (Jn 14:26; 16:13) in diverse ways and degrees. St. John.~of the Cross discusses these ways and degrees under the caption of what he calls supernatural locutions.13 It seems to me that this expression, "supernatural ,locution," is equivalent to what we mean in saying that the Holy Spirit speaks to us. John's'"locution" is a type of "apprehension," a knowing.It is a type that is "produced in the souls of spiritual persons without the use of :the bodily senses as means."14~,These are not sensory orqmaginary visions. They are "produced," that is, received from God. One does not originate the locution. God speaks and enlightens. Man receives. The saint reduces the many ways in which God speaks to three types. There are, in order of ascending value (and using the saint's terminology), a.~See Ascent o] Mt Carmel, Bk 2, cc. 28-31. 141bid., c. 28; p. 203. 172 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 successive locutions, formal locutions and substantial locutions. I will speak of them in my own language as well as John's. a) Assisting enlightenment (successive locutions). This .first type of divine speaking always occurs when one is "recollected and attentively absorbed" in some thought process. The.,enlightenment al-ways concerns the subject on which one is meditating?~' During this time, says John, the person is united with the truth and with 'the Holy Spirit who is in every truth, and yet he is thinking, reasoning in the usual, human man-ner. The Spirit aids him in forming his concepts and judgments. There is so great a clarity and ease in this activity thatqt seems another is teaching him, as indeed is the case. In this communion with :the. indwelling Spirit about a particular matter the person goes on to "form interiorly and suc-cessively other truths.''1' John supposes that this enlightenment occurs dur-ing prayer, that is, while one "is '!recollected" and "communing with the. divine Spirit?' It seems, therefore, that this type of speaking does not usually occur in dialogue sessions but in the midst of prayerful communion. The recipient of this assisting enlightenment "is unable to believe" that it originates with himself, but he has the awareness that it derives from another. And yet the knowledge received (it cannot be. attained by personal industry) is so delicate that the natural intellect by its own activity "easily disturbs and undoes" it.lr This point is important. Even when God does speak in this manner, he does not exclude our human activities with all their limitations, preconceptions, biases, errors. Even when he enlightens, he' permits men and women to be what they as a matter of fact are, fallen men and women--redeemed, yes, but still wounded and. deficient. We may conclude that this assisting enlightenment is not merely human reason proceeding under its own steam and deriving from the Holy Spirit only in the sense that anything true and good derives from him. The divine speaking is something over and above the gift ,of native intelligence, even though in the successive locution lit works closely with that intelligence, b) Independent-ideational speaking (formal locutions). Whereas the assisting enlightment occurs only when one. is prayerfully meditative, this divine speaking can happen at any time. In the first the locution accompanies human activity, while in the second it is uttered in-dependently of what the recipient is doing: "They are received as though one person were speaking to another.'''8 One may receive this locution while he is working, conversing; playing or praying. "Sometimes these words are very explicit and at other times not. They are like ideas spoken to the l~'lbid;, c. 30, #1; p. 208. ae'lbid., c. 29, #1; p. 204. ~rlbid., c. 32, #4; p. 213. aSlbid,, c. 30, #2; p. 208. The Spirit Speaks." When and How? / 173 spirit. At times only one word is spoken, and then again more than one; . . .-19 Although the recipient is clearly aware that this locution comes from another and thus has no reasonable doubt abou~ the otherness of origin, he can only too easily be deceived aSotO who this other is. It may be God or it may be the devil,o-" and the discernment is not always easy. Of this I shall speak later. c) Dynamic-effective speaking (substantial locution). It is now well known that the Hebrew idea of word, dabar, was not a mere intellectual representation of reality but a dynamic power. Just as the rain and snows come down from the heavens and produce food, so God's word comes down and achieves its effects (Is 55:10-11)~ The divine ~ord acts; it does things. It is like fire and a hammer that sunders rocks (Jr ,23:29). It is active, alive; it judges, divides and cuts like a two-edged sword (Heb 4: 12). Yahweh's word alone caused all creation to be (Gn 1 and 2). Jesus' words are spirit and life (Jn 6:63). This dynamic-effective speaking (substantial locution) is not merely an assisting enlightenment (the first manner) nor an ideational speaking (~the second manner). It is a powerful producing-in-the-soul of what it says. St. John of the Cross calls this communication substantial because it im-presses its meaning in the very substance of the recipient's being. The word does what it says. "For example," notes the saint, "if our Lord should say formally to the soul: 'Be good,'oit would immediately be substantially good; or if He should say: 'Love Me,' it would:at once have and experience. within itself the substance of the love of God; or if He should say to a soul in great fear: 'Do not fear,, it would without delay feel ample fortitude and tranquillity.''zx These dynamic~effective communications are the most excellent for several .reasons. One is that deceit, is impossible, since the devil cannot pro-duce this .goodness within one. Another is that these locutions impart "incomparable blessings" of life and goodness to the person who receives them. There is consequently nothing to fear or to reject. The recipient need do nothing about them "because God never grants them for that purpose, but He bestows them in order to accomplish Himself what they express.'':2 Divine Message and Human Fallibility We approach now a problem whose solution is anything but apparent. As a matter of fact it appears on the surface that the union of two factual 191bid. o-°ibid., c. 30, #3-5. °-1Ibid., c. 31, #1; p. 210. °'°'Ibid., c. 31, #2; p. 210. 174 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 premises is impossible. Fact number one: God does speak to certain men and women and He speaks with unfailing truth. Fact number two: these same men and women are often (not just rarely) mistaken in what they hear or think they hear or in what ihey conclude from what they hear, We immediately wonder what the sense of fact number one would' be, given the existence of fact number two. Why would or should God speak to people who often are mistaken in what they hear? One answer to this question is obvious on a momentrs reflection. A fruitful source of error in this area is a simple mistaking of the source of the locution. People often think they are listening to the Spirit when lie is .not speaking at all--or at least He is not saying what they think He is saying. We may not hold God responsible for what He did not say. Yet a problem remains: even when God does speak, the r.ecipient may either not hear or distort what~ he did hear or conclude invalidly from it. Why, then, should God speak when this may be the likely result? One response is identical to what we would say about any human speaking to a fellow human: failure to hear or distortion of the statement or invalid conclusion are always possible. Anyone who has lectured knows this from personal experience. It is remarkable how many people do not hear what you have said (or read what you have written). Yet we do not for that reason cease :speaking or writing. God .speaks to His people for the same reason we do: many do hear, and hear rightly. A lecturer or writer admit-_ tedly takes risks in sharing his thoughts publicly. He knows some will miss the message, while others wittingly or unwittingly will twist it. Yet he also knows that others will hear rightly. God loves us so much that He 'al-lows some to distort His word so that He may communicate intimately with those who will not. There are two reasons according to St. John of the Cross why a divine communication, even when perfectly authentic, can be the occasion for the recipient to be misled regarding it. The first reason is our crude way of understanding the divine mind. Explaining why not all revelations turn out as we expect them to turn out, that is, in their literal sense, the saint notes one reason to be that "since God is immense and profound, He usually embodies in His prophecies, locutions, and revelations other ways, con-cepts and ideas remarkably different from the meaning we generally find in them. And the surer and more truthful they are, the less they seem so to us."'-'~ The saint goes on to illustrate our usual "extremely literal method" with biblical examples. In making His covenant with Abram the Lord God promised that he would give the patriarch a new land. The latter understood this literally of his own personal possession and inquired what the sign of it would be (Gn 15:7-8). However, Abram died before .his possessing the land and "~.~lbid., c. 19, #1; p. 163. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 175 so one might have supposed' the divine promise mistaken. But it is the supposition that was mistaken .because it was based on a literal under-standing. Abram was given this land in his descendants as was explained a few verses further on (vv. 18-19). When God's people read that the Messiah was to rule from sea to sea, that His foes would bow down before him and lick the dust of the earth (Ps 72:8-9), they had a true prophecy but they misunderstood His rule to be temporal, whereas it was inner and eternal. So also the disciples on the road to Emmaus were reproved by the risen Lord for being dull and slow in failing to understand what the prophets had announced concerning the Messiah (Lk 24:25). St. John of the Cross concludes~ that "evidently, then, ~even though the words and revelations be from God, we cannot find assurance in them, since in our understanding of. them we can easily be deluded, and extremely so.''24 If this could happen in biblical times with genuine divine communications, it surely can happen in our times. The Carmelite points out that in divine words "God always refers to the more important and profitable meaning,'''5 whereas we tend to see in those same words something less important,' something perhaps merely temporal, even trivial or selfish. This is why the man of the flesh, to use Pauline terminology, the worldly man, cannot (not simply, does not) understand the things of God.(1 Co 2:14). He is too materialistic, too crass, too literal to grasp the divine meaning. One must undergo a con-version, get rid of his worldliness, says Paul, in order to come to know the perfect will of God (Rm 12:2). The second reason why an authentic divine communication can be mis-applied by the recipient is that God's judgment may be~conditional, and that without the knowledge of the human person. God's word or promise may so depend on some contingent event that when that event does or does not occur, so also the divine degree does or does not take~ effect. John cites Jonah's proclamation that Nineveh shall be destroyed in forty days (Jon 3:4). Yet the city was not destroyed because the people repented and did penance: The cause of the decree, human sin, was removed by penitence and so was the decree itself. They especially who do not understand the unfathomable abysses of the divine mind easily suppose they do understand. John of the Cross, who surely experienced God as few others have, supposed otherwise: "Be-lieve me," he concluded, "a person cannot completely grasp the meaning of God's locutions and deeds, nor can he determine this by appearances without extreme error and bewilderment.~''z5 Z4lbid., c. 19, #10; p. 167. God does not necessarily prevent even a genuine mystic from being mistaken in his understanding of an authentic communication. z~Ibid., c. 19, # 12; p. 168. ~ Z~lbid., c. 20, #6; p. 171. 176 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Assisting Enlightenment and Human Fallibility What we have thus far considered regarding the divine message and human fallibility St. John of the Cross applies to visions as well as to locu-tions. We may now turn our attention specifically to what he calls suc-cessive locutions and I have termed God's assisting enlightenments. When the Holy Spirit aids us in prayerful pondering, is it likely that we can be mistaken in our conclusions? In itself the light of the Spirit can never be mistaken. He who is the tyuth can do nothing but illumine with the truth. However, the light He bestows is often so delicate and lofty that it leaves considerable room for human activity. And when we have room for human activity, we have room for error--unless there be a special divine intervention as is the case with the charism of infallibility given to the Church herself. The possibility of error is present especially in what we deduce and conclude from the divine enlightenment. The light of the Holy Spirit, says John, "is often so delicate and spiritual that the intellect does not succeed in ~being completely in-formed by it; and it is the intellect that of its own power, as we stated, forms the propositions. Consequently the statements are often false, or only apparent, or defective.'':~ This is important. Many of us seem to assume that "listening to the SpirW' means listening to neat, specific conclusions that God somehow inserts into the mind. And we further assume that if we have .an idea we think good it must be He who inserted it. Not so. That sort of neat "formu-lation- insertion" I would call an extraordinary private revelation, not a usual assisting enlightenment. In the latter case it is we who draw the conclusion, and it may be true or untrue, wise or unwise, loving or unloving. History bears out the solidity of this analysis. All through the ages there have been men and women who have expressed a profound conviction that their messages, even the most bizarre and untenable messages, have been spoken by God Himself. They seem not to suspect that they have them-selves contributed anything to their conclusions. John was able to write of this problem in terms that may startle us by their relevance: "I greatly fear what is happening in these times of ours: If any soul whatever after a bit. of meditation has in its recollection one of these locutions (succes-sive), it will immediately baptize all as coming from God and with such a supposition say, 'God told me,' 'God answered me.' Yet this is not so, but, as we pointed out, these persons themselves are more often the origin of their locution.''-~ P. de Letter is of the same mind. Remarking that even genuine charismatics can add human particulars of time and place to an authentic divine message, he notes that "they themselves are generally ~-Tlbid., c. 29, #3; p. 204. '-'Slbid., c. 29, #4; p. 204. The Spirit Speaks." When and How? / 177 unable to make a distinction between the divine and human elements."~"' A. Poulain and K. Rahner speak of the commonness of,human errors added to divine communications.:'" At this point one may ask how our intellect may be more completely informed by the light of God and thus be less subject to its proclivity to adulterate the delicate divine light with its own human shortsightedness. The answer is gospel goodness in general and the light of deep ., faith in particular. According to St. Paul the only way to attain to God's mind and know His perfect will is to put aside worldliness and.undergo conversion (Rm 12:2). The judgment of St. John of the Cross is the same: "The purer and.more refined a soul is in faith, the more infused .charity it possesses, and the more charity it has the more'the Holy Spirit illumines it and com-municates His gifts, because charity is the means by which they are com-municated,'''~' We see the truth of this in everyday life. Simple people of much love far surpass unloving intellectuals in basic wisdom. Diverse Origins of "Inner Lighls" There is yet another aspect to our problem, namely the origin of the enlightenment. Thus far we have supposed the light to come from God. Our theology of discernment of spirits speaks in the plural: spirits. St. John is of like mind. "Manifestly, then, these successive locutions can originate in the intellect from any of three causes: the divine Spirit, Who moves and illumines the intellect; the natural light of the intellect; and the devil who can speak to it through suggestion.":"-' While ~most people are willing to grant that .their own biases and preferences may suggest ideas to their minds, a goodly number may me~ely smile at the suggestion that the devil may be their origin. Even though this is not the place to adduce the ample biblical and magisterial evidences for diabolical reality and activity, it may be useful to point out that we do not pick and choose among, the data of divine revelation. Sound exegesis by all means. But nonetheless one accepts the whole Christ message or he shows that his criterion of acceptance or not is his own judgment rather than the divine word. After a review of biblical evidences, the Scripture scholar, Leopold Sabourin, concludes that "whoever reads"the New Testament with-out pr.econceptions or myth phobia should easily agree" that there is clear evidence of the existence of a personal hostile power and that this is an essential element in New Testament teaching. Sabourin also refers to e:,p. de Letter, New Catho'lic Encyclopedia, 12:446-447. .~oSee their works~ respectively Graces o[ Interior Prayer and Visions attd Prophecies. I also have touched on this point in "The Problematics of Discernment," Spiritual Li[e, Summer, 1974, pp. 135-147. .~lSt. John of the Cross, Ascent o] Mt Carmel, Bk 2, c. 29, #6; p. 205. .~-lbid., c. 29, :~ 11; p; 206. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Lyonnet's judgment regarding St. Paul's assertions on the devil: "To con-clude from these passages that Satan is for the Apostle a pure personifica-tion of the forces of evil would be to contradict as a whole the biblical and Pauline doctrine.''33 Our best theologians'write in the same vein. "The existence of angels," observes Karl Rahner, "cannot be disputed in view of the conciliar declarations (D 428, 1783). Consequently it will be firmly maintained that the existence of angels and demons is affirmed in Scripture and not merely assumed as a hypothesis which we could drop today.''34 If inner enlightenment may originate in other than divine sources, the question of discernment immediately arises. Can we know in a trustworthy manner the origin of our inner lights? Does the Spirit make Himself known? How do we detect Him? Whaf would be the signs of His activity as dis-tingnished from diabolical ,activity? Scripture, and especially the New Testa-ment, says so much about these questions that a mere article could not be adequate to report it all. Even less can a part of this article suffice. I may touch, however, only briefly on a number of considerations. Testing of the Spirits Jesus Himself leads the way to the later New Testament insistence that the spirits must be tested by the structural elements in the Chui'ch. The signal importance of this testing occurs, for example, in His prayer for Simon Peter. Significantly, this prayer centers on disturbances among the faithful caused by Satan. And the disturbances occur in the area of faith commit-ment. Jesus prays that after Peter's conversion he will strengthen his brothers and keep them firm despite satanic influences: "Simon, Simon! Remember that Satan has asked for you, to sift you all like wheat. But have prayed for you that your faith may n~ver fail. You in turn must strengthen your brothers" (Lk 22:31-32 NAB).3~ Jesus' prayer is always efficacious: what he prays for happens. Thus Peter's service in the Church is an effective faith service. While the devil does his best to disturb and dis-rupt, Peter tests him, unmasks him, overcomes him, protects the brothers and sisters in: their commitment to the Lord. It is obvious that Peter can confirm and strengthen in the faith only those who accept and listen to him. God forces no one. This is why St. Ignatius of Loyola, a leading figure in the history of discernment practice, considered the Successor of Peter the first tester of spirits and thus the last word on earth. This is why Ignatius (and other saints are of like mind) did not consider an important ~aLeopold Sabourin, "The Miracles of Jesus (II). Jesus and the Evil Powers," Biblical Theology Bulletin, June, 1974, p. 153. 34"Angels," Sacramentum Mundi, I : 32. aSSee Raymond E. Brownl Karl P. Donfried and John Reumann, editors, Peter in the New Testament, pp. 119-125. The Spirit Speaks." When and How? / 179 discernment process c.omplete until the Holy Father had approved the communal decision Ignatius and his companions had reached. St. Paul himself who received a direct commission from the risen Jesus nonetheless submitted his work to "the leading men" in Jerusalem to obtain their approval (Ga 2:2). Outer testing of the inner spirits is absolutely crucial if authentic enlight-enment is to be kept free of illuminist counterfeits and their bizarre conse-quences. o~Whatever else may be said about the illuminist, there is no doubt that no one can correct him. He is so sure of his privileged access to the mind of God that no other, not even Peter, can successfully point out to him that he is straying. Yet the very Spirit who speaks in our inner hearts has Himself established the outer structure to test the inner message. "Keep watch over yourselves," said Paul to the overseer-bishops of Ephesus, "and over the whole flock the Holy Spirit has given you to guard.' Shepherd the Church of God . . ." (Ac-20:28). The saints instinctively live this principle. St. Teresa of Avila, for example, a woman clearly led by the Spirit, strongly desired that, her works be examined and corrected and approved. Reaction Patterns It is interesting to observe the widely differing reactions people preseiat to the allegations that the Holy Spirit has spoken to someone or that He commonly enlightens from.within. We can speak of a reaction spectrum. At one end of it are those who ridicule the whole idea. They may be theists;~' but they just do not accept that God says anything particular to anyone. The objectivity of divine revelation is enough for them (though they may forget that the prophets and apostles had subjective experiences of God), .and so they look upon the charismatic renewal as a subjective enthusiasm. These people would probably pass up the present article because the title of-it indicates that the Holy Spirit does speak to men and women today. At the other end of the spectrum are those who readily believe that the Holy Spirit speaks. The~e people believe that ,He speaks often and that it is easy. to be in touch with Him. They tend to be uncritical and so are easily persuaded that their thoughts and desires and aspirations derive from God Himself. They would probably be attracted b3~ the title of this article but would tend to reject what I have said about the errors and illusions that abound in much of alleged "listening to God." Thus our subject is a touchy one. The Church's position lies somewhere in the midst of the two extremes of nothing or all. There are valid experi-ences of God and they are to be valued. He does enlighten those who are purified sufficiently to perceive His light. But there are also illusory experi-ences that are nothing more than unfounded persuasions. These can be found among people who are convinced that God is speaking to them, when as a matter of fact nothing of the sort is happening. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Practical Suggestions Supposing then that they are sons of God who are led by the Spirit of God (Rm 8:14), and yet that all things are to, be tested (1 Th 5:19-22), we may ask what this biblical position requires in everyday life. How does one tread the path of the golden mean between two extremes? 1 ) Hard-nosed evidence. While we should value the divine interven-tions in everyday life, we should not suppose them unless the biblical con-ditions are fulfilled. We do not presume, for example, that a proud or vain person is listening to the Spirit. Jesus has made it clear that the Father does not reveal His mysteries to the conceited but only to the little ones (Lk 10:21). A competent spiritual director looks for gospel holiness before he accepts that his client is "listening to the Spirit." This is why for centuries knowledgeable priests have discounted alleged divine phenomena in proud or disobedient people. Those who reject the outer word cannot be hearing the inner word. God does not contradict Himself. 2) No finite idea expresses God adequately and "thus we ought not to cling to it. One of the most valuable contributions offered by St. John of the Cross to this question of listening to God's voice can be missed even in a careful study of his work. It is that the most important element in most di-vine communications is not the clear idea, the detailed course of action to be followed. It is the love-penetrated touch of the divine in dark faith, a touch that itself communicates humility, love, prayer, strength, peace, joy. The most valuable gift God can communiqate to anyone is Himself, and He is no thing, no idea, no pattern of action. The Love Who is God is poured out0into our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who is given to us (Rm 5:5). Once we understand this we have gone a long way in understanding .John's severity in making so little of locutions and visions. The~saint recommends that the recipient of divine communications pay little attention to them, because if he gets attached to them, he feeds on them rather than on God.36 One likewise' begins to consider himself especially favored by God and,to look down on others who, in his opinion, do not enjoy this same enlighten-ing by the Spirit. The attachment can become a stubborn refusal to listen to anyone who may disagree because "I am listening to God." Clinging .to a finite communication, this person fails "to soar to the heights of dark faith.''3~ And in pilgrimage it is only in faith that we journey to the father-land (Heb 11"13-16). 3) Little attention is to be given to inner communications. I suspect that many people are surprised if not shocked at the attitude St. John of .~6The total renunciation demanded by Jesus is applicable here: "Unless a man re-nounce all he possesses he cannot be My disciple." (Lk 14".33) Even an idea about God is not God. '~rSt. John of the Cross, Ascent o] Mt Carmel, Bk 2, c. 18, #2; p. 160. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 181 the Cross takes toward inner enlightenments. He repeatedly advises the recipient to pay little attention, even no attention to them. The saint is so strong on this point that unless one is well acquainted with his whole teaching and life, he might conclude that John scarcely believed that God does communicate with the human person. Yet the saint, deeply believed in this .communication and in his own person enjoyed the very loftiest favors. Because his teaching is surprising to many of us, it may be well to offer here"a summation of it. We may first see two examples typical of the saint's statements of rejection, and then we will consider several reasons for the advice. Speaking of imaginative visions or "other supernatural communi-cations" received by the senses and independent of one's free will, John asserts 'q affirm that at whatever time or season (in the state of perfection or one less perfect) an individual must not desire to give them admittance, even though they.come from.God.''~s Later on in the same work as he discusses successive locutions the saint again says that "we should pay no heed to them, but be . . . content with knowing the mysteries and truths in~- the simplicity and verity~ with which the Church proposes them.'':''' This advice admittedly runs counter to what most of us. would expect. We would think that if God speaks,, we should pay attention, close atten-~ tion. We would consider a rejection of.the communication an insult to the speaker of it. Why is ~John (and other saints) of this mind? The first reason is the likelihood of illusion, deception. St. John o[ the Cross would surely agree that when God speaks, we listen carefully. This is precisely why the saint clings so tenaciously to Scripture and the teaching Church. Public revelation is sure and free from illusion and so is the teach-ing of the divinely commissioned Church, pillar of truth (l Tm 3:15). Private revelation is often not sure, that is, what is commonly thought to be revealed by God is not revealed at all. St. Paul was of this mind. He told the Galatians in no uncertain terms that even if .an.angel from heaven were to teach them something contrary to what they learned from human lips, they were to reject it (Ga 1:6-9). In other words, Paul was saying that such private "~revelation" was not revelation from God at all. When one pays much attention to "communications" he leaves the sure path of faith for the unsure path of "what 1 heard, what I received, what I see." History tells a 10ng and sad tale of the illusions that abound in this second path. Secondly, p,eop.le who are much concerned with God speaking within tend to neglect clear duties without. "On judgment day," says our Carmelite guide, "God will punish the faults and sins of many with whom He com-muned familiarly here below and to whom He imparted much light and 3Slbid., c. 17, #7; p. 158.- :~.~lbid., c. 29, -#:12; p. 207. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 power. For they neglected their obligations and trusted in their converse with Him.''.'° John then illustrates his idea with. the words of Jesus, "When that day comes, many will plead with Me, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name? Have we not exorcised demons by its power? Did we not do many miracles in Your name as well?' Then I will declare to them solemnly, 'I never knew you. Out of my sight, you evildoers!' " (Mt 7:22~23). Doing the Father's will (Mt 7:21) is more important than receiving special .favors from God. St. Paul repeats this truth when he tells the Corinthians that their most marvelous charisms (including the gifts of healing, miracles, tongues) are of,no value without love (1 Co 13:1-3). The Carmelite explains how spiritual directors shouldguide people in faith, not in supposed special communications. These directors "should explain how one act done in charity is more precious in God's sight than all the visions and communications possible--since they imply n~ither m~rit nor demerit--and how many who have not received these experiences are in-comparably .more advanced than others who have had many.''~1 This last remark is both sobering and comforting. A third reason is a core reason. I have said above that the deepest value in a. divine communication does not lie in clear concepts or blueprints for future action. It lies in a deeper drinking of the divine, a drinking that is general, dark, non-ceptual, love-immersed. If a person pays much atten-tion to the clear words or ideas he has "heard" at prayer, he is absorbed in finite particulars rather than with the God who ,is infinitely beyond even the best concept. In pilgrimage we' journey to God best not in clear ideas but .in dark faith; Paying little attention to "communications" is wise, fourthly, because a subtle vanity easily seeps into persons preoccupied with "listening to the Spirit" in a self-conscious way. Like the pharisee in the parabl.e (Lk 18: 9-14) they may begin to consider themselves unlike the rest of men. Need-less to say, this attitude is not one conducive to growth in love.'~ Fifthly, giving attention to inner communications carries with it the need to discern their origin, whether they come from God, the' devil, or' one's own unrealized desires.":' While the work of discernment is. advisable for important matters, one can hardly seek out a spiritual, guide and/or engage in long prayerful study for routine everyday affairs. If one is an avid "listener to messages,", the alternatives are a preoccupation with analysis or ¯ ~Olbid., c. 22, #!5; p. 185. ~'lbid., c. 22, # 19; p. 187. ~ '~-°"They think something e~traordinary has occurred and that God his spoken, whereas in reality little more than nothing will have happened, or nothing at all, or even less than nothing. If an experience fails to engender humility, charity, mortification, holy simplicity, and silence, etc., of what value is it?" Ibid., c. 29, .#5; pp. 204-205; "albid., c. 17, #7; p. 158. ' The Spirit Speaks: When and How? an unfounded assumption that "it all comes from the Lord." Even a saint does not assume the latter. Finally, the recipient of an.authentic communication from God does not need to pay attention to it in order to derive its benefits. This many people do not realize. God produces the good effects of His communication with-out the recipient being able to prevent it. "A person," says John, "cannot hinder the goods God desires to impart, nor in fact does he do so, except by some imperfection or possessiveness.''44 By renouncing all divine communications° (and John includes visions, locutions, fragrances, pleasures, words) "a. person takes from these apprehensions only what God wants him*to take, that is, the spirit of devotion, since God gives them for no other principal reason.''4'~ The same is true of the lesser assisting enlightenment.4~ Paying little attention to inner enlightenments' is for all these reasons a sensible reaction that combines a vivid faith in the indwelling Trinity with a sober refusal to succumb to a credulous illuminism. These reasons also explain the remaining bits of practical advice. 4) Use of reason as a source ~of light. God expects us to use ordinary means~ to achieve ordinary ends. If I break a leg, he expects me to get it set by a doctor. I may pray for divine healing but not at the expense of refusing ordinary medical help. We should surely pray for divine enlightenment but not at the expense of refusing to study and consult. Where .human reason is sufficient to solve problems "usually God does not manifest such matters through visions, revelations, and locutions, because He is ever desirous that man insofar as possible take advantage of his own reasoning powers. All matters must be regulated by reason save those of faith, which though not contrary to reason transcend it.''47 This is a mystic with his feet on planet earth. 5) A divine Message needs human approval. This advice is shocking. It seems the reversal of the truth: a human message needs divine approval. A distinction is in order. When the divine message° is public, it needs no approval other than that~ required by Christ Himself. That is, it needs the acceptance of no merely human court. St. Paul explicitly declared that it made not the slightest difference to him whether any human tribunal found him worthy or not (1 Co 4:3). Yet the same apostle submits his divinely received commission from the risen Lord to the authorities in Jerusalem (Ga 2:2, 6, 10). All the more when a divine message is a private revelation must it be approved by due authority. 441bid. "t51bid., c, 17, #9; p. 159. 46"The profit produced by a successive locution will not be received from focusing one's attention on it. Through such behavior a person instead would be driving away the locution." Ibid., c. 29, #7; p. 205. ~ ~ 4"rlbid., c. 22, #13; p. 184. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 The New Testament.consistently requires supposedly divine communi-cations to be submitted to the approval of the Lord's representatives. This we already find in the earliest,New Testament document. The gifts of the Spirit are not to be suppressed but they are to be tested (1 Th 5:1.9-22). They who want to hear Jesus must be prepared to hear~His representatives; otherwise they are rejecting Him (Lk 10:16; Jn 13:20). The heretics at the close of the first century are known to be false prophets because they refuse to listen to the leaders of the ekklesia ( 1 Jn 4: 1, 6). St. John of the Cross, therefore, is asking no more than the New Testa-ment when he teaches that one ought not to do what a locution tells him un-less he receives a human approval. The saint does not tire of insisting on this biblical point: "We must be guided humanly and visibly in all by the law of Christ the man and that of His Church and of His ministers. This is the method .of remedying our spiritual ignorances and weaknesses. One should disbelieve anything coming in a supernatural way, and believe only the teaching of Christ, the man,~as I say, and of His ministers who are men . (In the Old Testament) the people were to believe that God spoke to them through the mouth of these prophets and priests and not through their own opinion.'''s John supports his teaching from St. Paul who demanded that the Galatians set aside whatever they think an angel from heaven might say in favor of what human teachers have taught (Ga 1:6-9). In tile. work of spiritual direction I consistently find that persons who give every sign of genuine prayer development and authentic holiness in-stinctively follow this practice, The Holy Spirit gives them the inner in-clination, even a felt need to submit the apparently divine communication to a priest in whom they can confide.4'~ This inclination may be taken as a sign of a genuine communication from God, whereas its absence suggests otherwise?° This advice is, of course, consistent with all else we h~ve studied above. Christ did not establish an angelism, an invisible Church. He takes our "bodyliness". seriously. He operates now both immediately through His Holy Spirit working invisibly and mediately through His human representatives ¯ ~Slbid., c. 22, #7, 8; pp. 181-182. ~.'~"God is so content that the rule and direction of man be ihrough other men, and that a person be governed by natural reason, that He definitely does not want us to bestow entire credence upon His supernatural communications, nor be confirmed in their strength and security until they pass through this human channel of the mouth of man. As often as He reveals something to a person, He confers upon his soul a kind of inclination to manifest this to the appropriate person." Ibid., c. 22, #9; p. 1.82. .~0The saint connects this'trait with humility: "This is the trait of a humble person: he does not dare deal with God independently, nor can he be completely~ satisfied without human counsel and direction." Ibid., c. 22, :~11; p. 183. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 1:85 worki.ng visibly. So great is the likelihood of illusion and misinterpretation in the subjective realm that an objective evaluation is indispensable. What should be done when a competent guide is not available we consider next. 6) Competent spiritual direction. A qualified and experienced guide when faced with alleged divine communications sees them, of course, in their context. He considers the recipient's lifestyle, whether it is character-ized by love, joy, humility, detachment, obedience. The Father and the Son do not reveal themselves to the unloving and the proud (Jn 14:21; Lk 10:21). St. Paul told the Galatians that what the Spirit brings to His own is not self-indulgence or temper or fa~ctions or impurity but rather love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, self-control (Ga 5: 19-22). I find repeatedly in spiritual direction that a deep prayer life, a genuine communion with God indwelling, is invariably.accompanied by these New Testament criteria. The spiritual director usually does well not to make much of the com-munication reported to him (although he belittles neither the person nor the report). If the communication is from God, its chief good effects are already achieved. If it is not from God, the less attention paid to it the better. Religious still complain, as did St. Teresa of Avila four centuries ago, of the lack of knowledgeable spiritual directors. What should one do if he cannot find a competent guide? It is my opinion that in the area of advanc-ing prayer as also in this matter of alleged communications, no direction is preferable to probably incompetent direction. A great deal of damage can be done by well-intentioned but faulty guidance. St. John of the Cross seems to have been of the same mind. After advising that formal locutions should be manifested to "an experienced confessor or to a discreet and wise person," he adds that "if such an expert person cannot be found, it is better not to speak of these locutions to anyone, but simply pay no attention to them, for a soul can easily fall into the hands of some persons who will tear it down rather than build it up. Souls should not.discuss these locutions with just anyone, since in so serious a matter being right or wrong is of such importance.TM 7) Growth in ]aith. A pilgrimage people travels not by vison but by faith (Heb 11:13-16; 1 Co 13:12). Toward the beginning of this article we considered that when God deals with private persons (as distinguished from the publicly commissioned heralds of His revelation), He usually com-municates with them in the general know!edge of dark faith. Even when He may offer a specific message, He wants it confirmed by the appropriate human authority. The proximate means by which we are united to God is nothing finite and created. It is the adherence to God Himself revealed in His Word. The 51Ibid., c. 30, :~5; p. 209. 186 / Review lor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 stronger this clinging to Him, the more readily He communicates with the one clinging?-~ For St. Paul only the converted, the holy can detect the mind of God and know His perfect will (Rm 12:2). The more one is transformed by faith andlove the more God can pour out' additional light and love into his heart and mind. In this way we are transformed from one glory to an-other by the indwelling Spirit (2 Co 3:18). r"-"'The Holy Spirit illumines the intellect that is recollected," says John, "and He illumines it according to the mode of its recollection, and the intellect can find no better recollectt0n than in faith, and thus the Ho.ly Spirit wili not illumine it in any othei" recollection more than'in faith. The purer and more refined a soul is in faith, the more infused charity it possesses, and the more charity it has the more the Holy Spirit illumine it and communicates His gifts."lbid., c. 29, #6; p. 205. To A Benedictine Were you a dawn-rising monk in a black-robed hood Meditating in a Kansas winter wood? As you shuffled to chapel in bare, black sandals Lighting beeswax tapered candles-- Did you gaze into Christ's~bleeding eyes On His altar crucifix? And soul-long as all souls long for an unearthly Paradise As your hand touched His candlesticks? Later in your journeys all around the U.S.A.-- Did you study, thought-penetrate all people's problemed way? Did you want to reach the people when the people turned away? Did you find it very difficult sometimes to even pray? For God is ~never lost or ever far away . " But sometimes our paths seem hid and crossed, With clouds hiding tomorrowt darkening our future's way. Yet we know Redempti,on's garment must be woven By our own hands this very day, woven in Christ's design and way. Christ has a certain design, one that's yours, one that's mine, With His holy gift of time, He'll teach us to weave His way. If we don't forget to love Him, listen to what,His voice will say, He'll lift us up, overflow our cup. We'll find a brighter day. Mary Ann Putman 4422~.42nd Ave., S. West Seattle, WA 98116 Reflections on Our Congregation Sister Cecilia Murphy~ R.S.M. Sister Cecilia is Director General of the Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh. On the oc-casion of last All Souls~ Day, she reflected with her sisters on the "'many saints of our Congregation" and on the meaning of the Congregation itself. She resides at 3333 Fifth Ave.; Pittsburgh, PA 15213. We as a Congregation have some penetrating questions to answer. Among these questions are: What are we as a religious Congregation? What are we to each other? What is-our Congregational apostolic presence? What witness do we give as Sisters of Mercy? Does our life style reflect that of Christians who believe in the beatitudes and who strive, to live lives of ~simplicity? Do we feel the cost of being consecrated to God or do we dilute the suffering in our lives by compromises? Are ,we joyful people who live other-centered lives? Do we wish to grow and attracL new members? My most vital concerns about the Cqngregation center around questions like these. We must answer these questions as individuals and as a Congrega-tion. No General Director, no Council, no Policy,.Board can answer these questions. Each of us must assume the responsibility ,, to answer these ques-tions. ~ Our Decrees acknowledge the primacy of interior renewal. Are we really attentive to interior renewal? Our focus on external renewal is evident. Our external appearance,, our life style, our behavior patterns have changed greatly since 1966. What has happened to us interiorly? During the past nine years, many of us have suffered intensely from change. Through this suffering we have grown individually and as a Congregation. But, we now need to focus on some aspects~of our lives which need attention from each one of us. Personal prayer, without question, is an absolute necessity for each Sister. Never in our history .has the need for personal prayer been greater, 187 Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 and never have our distractions from prayer been greater. Prayer, as we all know, is not an obligation that we clock of[ at one-half hour periods; it is a way of life; it is a giving of ourselves to the Lord day by day despite the noises of our work and our relaxations. Why did we come to religious life? We must constantly seek to answer this question--not for some other Sister, but for ourselves. Do we as a Congregation witness to the value of prayer in our lives? Do people sense in me, an individual Sister of Mercy, that prayer is a priority? Do I ever take time for a day of retreat? Con-sidering the challenges to our life and to our spirit, these are not questions we can afford to ignore. These are questions that each of us must answer. I am firmly convinced that if we as a Congregation renew ourselves in-teriorly and face the question of personal prayer, we will not be predicting a rate of growth of one new member each year. We must be renewed in our commitment to personal prayer. Prayer presupposes some time for quiet. We live in a noisy world of TV, chatter, and many other noises, but we must remember that we need time and space for prayer. External stillness can help dispose us to God. This quiet cannot be imposed, but I ask eacfi Sister to contribute to a spirit of quiet and calm in her living situation. Thr6ugh this we can better stand before God, be ready for His word, and become more attuned to Him, more in touch with ourselves, our strengths, weaknesses, and potentialities. While we must pray alone, we must also pray together. Communal prayer t~or many Sisters is a source of concern and a disappointment. That in itself is a hopeful sign. I feel that there is a growing concern within us as a Congregation that we want and need to pray together: No one form of prayer will satisfy every Sister at all times~ But we have a right to expect communal prayer from each other. Each group of Sisters living together must continue to'be concerned and to make serious'efforts to pray together. It has been frequently said that communal prayer cannot be a forced situation, in which those who seldom communicate meet to*recite the same words. Prayer requires some union of mind and heart among its partici-pants. Thus, the need for rehewal in prayer touches on vital questions of community, of what we are to each other. By membership in the Congregation we share a bond of religious dedi-cation and a commitment to common ideals~ Sisters of our Congregation should be "special" to us even though we may not share their life Style or dress. We MUST be kind to one another. We cannot destroy each other. We must begin to 'realize that our conversations, our attitudes of hopeful-ness and joy or of complaint and negativism can cause 6thers to be strength-ened and rejoice in their vocations or to lose heart 'and wonder what re-ligious life has done for us. Our attitudes are conveyed in subtle 'ways; our words also tell others how we feel about them and what our values are. We must, if we'are to survive or deserve to survive as a Congregation, take careful account of our attitudes toward each other and toward the Congre~- Reflections on.Our Congregation / 189 gation. Catherine McAuley gave us a legacy of union and charity.Thus, we cannot spend our waking hours, our phone and table conversations gather-ing information ,about other Sisters, judging each other, and using leisure time in pettiness. There is NO time for this. We have;been called to be apostles, to spread, the "good news," to be "good news" to others. None of us, regardless of age or occupation, is exempt from this responsibility. Each of us needs to ask herself: Am I good news to others? Do Sisters consider me a strengthening factor in Congregational life? None of us has a perfect record in this regard. But let us begin again. Let us try to be more aware of our words and attitudes, more supportive of each other, not just as we do so well in times of death and sickness, but every day. Let us likewise reflect upon our attitudes to others outside the Congregation. Are we prejudiced? Are we concerned about others who lack the necessities of life? Are our values really Christian? Living religious life is not easy. It costs a great price. In the New Testa-ment we learn from Christ the cost of discipleship. He was hated, con-fronted, and crucified. He was, for all human purposes, the greatest failure the world has ever known. He did not come to bring us suffering but to teach us how to live with it. To His~ disciples He said: "Take up your cross and follow me". "Unless the seed die, it remains alone". "Un-less you deny yourself . . . " Christ did not igreach an easy message. He did not call His disciples to a life of comfort and security. He said: "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head". "the servant is not greater than his Master." It is never easy to be a disciple. It we are comfortable, satisfied and complacent, we have great cause for concern about our Con-gregation. No one who tried to fulfill the will of God did so with comfort and satisfaction. I see in our Congregation some need for each of us to reflect on the meaning of the cost of discipleship. Have I personally lost sight of who I am called to be? Have I compromised and rationalized so that I can have the best of two worlds? I cannot look at another Sister and judge what she has done. I must look at myself. When the Church abrogated the Lenten fast, she intended that we impose new personal penance upon our-selves. Do we do this? The human condition has not changed, nor has our need for self-denial. Each of us is, a sinner and the more we know of God, the more we know how sinful we are. None of us is perfect nor can we forget that we need to make conscious responses in self-denial. Catherine McAuley founded her Congregation on Calvary to serve a crucified Master. Each of us has a share in that mission by our member-ship in this Congregation. Catherine McAuley held ideals of service like: "God knows I would rather be cold and hungry than that His poor should be deprived of any consolation in our power to afford." Is this a reality in my life? Am I willing to be hungry, even occasionally, that others may eat? These are the kinds of questions we must face if we are to be true to the 190 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 spirit of Catherine McAuley. We need God desperately and we need each other desperately. We need to 'be willing to experience conversion personally and as a Congrega-tion. We must be willing to pay the price for this conversion. ~ We can and must be a tremendous potential for good in the Church and the world. We can and we must witness to each other and the world that material goods are NOT the source of our joy nor the values on which we spend our "energies. We need to reflect simplicity--not in a judgmental or self-righteous way but in a spirit of who we are called to be. We can~and we need to reflect a joy'that comes from living with Sisters of joy who belong to God and who are free to be faithful in celibate love. We must focus on what we are to each other in community, We must share not only our goods but ourselves. If we have any struggles today and. are to attract new members to our Congregation, I am convinced we must experience interior renewal and unity of purpose. We know that God is faithful and that He will help us in this. Let us unite together as a Congregation, renewed in our purpose to pursue conversion. May God grant each of us light, strength, patience, and courage so that individually and corporately we will be strengthened to spread the good news, to further God's Kingdom, to be vital Sisters of Mercy. A More Authentic Poverty Horacio de la Costa, S.J. At the time of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, Ft. de la Costa was one of~the four General Assistants to Fr. Arrupe. Subsequent to the Con-gregation, he was able to return to his beloved historical studies and writing, center-ing on the history of the Church in the Philippines. He resides at Xavier House; P.O. Box 2722; Manila 2801; Philippines. A consideration of the D~cree on Poverty of the 32nd. General Congrega-tion of the Society of Jesus must begin with a word about its background. The General Congregation immediately preceding, the 31st, decided that Jesuit legislation on poverty should be brought into conformity with the dispositions of. Vatican II, but at the same time perceived that this would be better done not by itself but by experts reflecting on the matter over a period of time. It therefore elected what are called definitores to draw up Statutes on Poverty which would become Society law, on the authority of the General Congregation itself, upon approval of the. Superior General. In 1967¢ Father General Arrupe approved these Statutes. The 31st General Congregation had provided, further, that the 'Statutes thus adopted be submitted for review to the next General Congregation. Ac-cordingly, Father General Arrupe, having decided after the Congregation of Procurators of 1970 to convene the 32nd General Congregation, ap-pointed a study commission to go over the Statutes and ~:ecommend possi-ble improvements. Some of the delinitores sat in this commission also. Most of its members were moral theologians, jurists, or administrators. Some months before the Congregation convened, Father General expanded the *This article is :being published simultaneously in the current issue of Jesuit Studies (The American Assistancy Seminar in Jesuit Spirituality) entitled: "On Becoming Poor: A Symposium on Evangelical Poverty." 191 Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 membership of tffe commission to include experts from other disciplines and areas of experience. The 32nd General Congregation constituted from among its member-ship its own Commission on Poverty: Commission III. Some of the mem-bers of the pre-Congregation commission, being also congregati, were elected to Commission Ili. Very broadly speaking, it can be said that for the jurid-ical aspects of the' present Decree, the Congregation relied chiefly on the work of the pre-Congregation commission; for its pastoral aspects, on its own Commission III. The Decree itself is divided into three sections. Section A is a declara-tion of what Jesuit poverty should be today in the light of prevailing con-ditions in the Church and in the world. This declaration sets forth the as-cetical and pastoral principles on which is based the dispositive part of the Decree, Sections B-F. Section B, "Norms," gives the prescriptive guidelines for a revision of the Statutes on Poverty, to be undertaken by a commis-sion appointed by Father General, who is to approve and promulgate the revised Statutes. Sections C-F are supplementary provisions concerning certain aspects of the new juridical structure which is being given to the Jesuit practice of poverty. A prinCipal objective which the pre-Congregation commission set for itself was to simplify Jesuit legislation on poverty. It was observed that over the years numerous alterations had been introduced into the primitive legis-lation of the Ignatian Constitutions, usually by obtaining an indult, that is, an exception to the law, from the Holy See; for instance, the indult whereby Jesuits are enabled to accept Mass stipends. Another~ kind- of deviation from the primitive legislation was that of certain accepted anomalies; for :instance, houses of writers.: A house of writers is not, strictly speaking, a "college" in the sense of the Constitu-tions. It is not a house of formation, the only Jesuit institution to which St. Ignatius allowed fixed revenues. Later, however, houses of writers were also permitted fixed revenues, on the grounds that they cannot otherwise carry on their valuable apostolate, since the kind of books Jesuits write are very seldom best-sellers. Similarly, there was no provision in the primitive legislation for the care of the sick and the aged. These were therefore assigned to the same juridical category as the Jesuit seminarians ("scholastics") supported by the colleges. In effect, those retired from the active apostolate were equated with those who had ~not yet begun it, and the arca seminarii, or formation fund, did double-duty as a social-security fund. . There were also accepted ambiguities which amounted to legal fictions. For instance, missionary priests in the Spanish colonies--at least up to the time the Jesuits were expelled therefrom (1767)--received fixed yearly stipends from the government. In the Philippines, this stipend was 100 silver pesos and 100 [anegas (bushels) of rice a year. This was by no means A More Authentic Poverty / 193 a pittance. A silver peso in those days was really made of silver, and its purchasing power was probably a hundred times that of the present metal-alloy peso. At any rate, each missionary priest was able to support with his stipend a missionary ~brother,~and still have something left over toward building a parish church and a parish, house. Now then: this stipend can, with a little stretching of meaning, be called an alms. But the government, and almost everybody else, considered it a salary--so.mething which the Constitutions did not allow for, especially with reference to spiritual min, istries, the normative maxim for which was. to "give freely what you have freely received." A more recent example of ~this ambiguity is the~ salary received by military and hospital chaplains. Military and hospital chaplaincies are certainly valuable, even necessary apostolates, But in many countries of the world, 'the civil law does not allow anyone to become a military or hos-pital chaplain unless he accepts a salary. It does not allow him to give freely what he has freely received. Finally, there was what looked like downright violations of th~ law to those Who ttid not understand or appreciate the need from which they arose. How, ,for instance, was the glorious Japanese mission of the Old SoCiety, founded, by Xavier himself and so fruitful in martyrs, supported?~:Why, by the fantastically .lucrative Macao,Nagasaki silk trade. ,.Portuguese inv~estors in the trade would invest sums for, or on behalf of, the Jesuit Provin(~'of Japan, and the profits from these investments were. what supported' the Province's catechumena~es, houses of formation, mission station~, printing press. Were they alms? Were they fixed revenues? Or were they negotiatio vetita, commerce forbidden to clerics? All these complexities seemed to arise from the fact that thoroughly ~alid and even absolutely essential apostolates could not be undertaken or main-tained without such departures from the primitive legislation. And 'the reason for this was the difference in economic, social, and juridical struc-tures between the modern world, the world that emerged from the Indus-trial Revolution, and the late-medieval world, the world of St. Ignatius. There are all-pervading socioeconomic realities we must take into account today which St. Ignatius and his first companions almost certainly did not foresee. Here are some of them. In many parts of the world, Western and non-Western, capitalist and socialist, there is a decline in the witness value of mendicancy. Living on aims is rarely if at all considered an effective witness to iapostolic fi'eedom and trust in divine Providence, Accompanying this decline is a correspond-ing appreciation of the ethical and social value of work, and of wh.a.t are generally considered to be the natural adjuncts of working for a living, such as the provident setting aside of savings for the future, and the invest-ment of such savings in economic enterprises that generate income. Another difference to be noted between St. Ignatius' time and ours is 194 / Review lor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 the decline in the modern world of the temporal power .and wealth of the Church,-and the dissolution of medieval forms of union of Church and State. It is no longer possible,for large-scale apostolic enterprises to be financed by endowments granted by pope or prince, by cardinal or'con-quistador. How are large-scale apostolic, :enterprises financed today? Mostly by smal! private donations derived chiefly from the middle class: the people; neither rich nor poor, who enable o religious institutes to train,their seminarians and establish foreign missions. It is a fact, to be acknowledged with gratitude, that in the world as it now is we, depend almost entirely on the bourgeoisie for the financial viability of our apostolic enterprises. On the other hand, we r~eligious are called to live not precisely as bourgeois but as poor men and women. How do we do this, in the world as it now is? How do we set up a structure~for our poverty that will be simple enough and practical enough to enable us to carry on our ministries effectively, and yet live poor? ~ ~ The pre-Congregation commission on poverty mentioned earlier pro-posed that one way of doing this was to accept the basic distinction be-tween communities and apostolic institutes, .a distinction already Sketched out by the definitores of the Statuta of 1967. The 32nd General Congrega-tion ac6epted the :distinction, along with the juridical implications spelled out by'the commission.1 In fact, the Congregation made that distinction the "keystone" of its "reform of the structure of temporal administration.":-' There are, of course, preblems raised by this revision of structure, or foreseen as'following upon it. That is why the Holy Father directs that the Decree be put into practice ad experimentum, so that the. next General Congregation "can re-examine the entire question on the basis of the .experi-ence acquired in the years to come.''3 But ~where the religious life is.con-cerned, juridical structure is usually consequent on a spiritual discernment. In the present case, that discernment is set forth in the expository portion of the Decree (Section A), to which we now turn. The 32nd General. Congregation confirms the findings °of its predecessor on the basis of a review of the Societyrs experience during the decade inter-t" By the law of ~the Society there is to be established a distinction between com-munities and apostolic institutes, at least with regard to the destinatibn and usu-fruct of 'their goods and between the financial accounts of each."--Decree of Poverty B III 1. Apostolic institutes are defined as "those institutions or works .belonging to the Society which~ have a certain permanent unity and organization for apostolic pu,rposes, such as universities, colleges, retreat houses, and other such in which Ours cai'ry on their apostqlic work."--ibid. B I 2. "Th~ goods of apostolic institutes of the Society may not be diverted to the use or profit of Ours except for a suitabl~ remuneration, to be approved by the Provincial, for work in such institutes or for services rendered to the same."--ibid: B IV. ~-lbid. A IV I 1. '~Jean Cardinal Villot to Father General Arrupe, 2 May 1975, n. 5. A More Authenti¢ Poverty / 195 v~ening between them. These findings are chiefly three. First, that our pres-ent pra~ctice of evangelical poverty, falls short of. the norms .established by St. Ignatius and the first companions, and hence, that we must resolutely and perseveringly undertake a renewal of the spirit of poverty according to the specifically Ignatian inspiration. Second, that while we must~ by all means keep the primal norms of~.our poverty intact as far as their substantive de-mands are concerned, we must also adapt them to,the socioeconomic and juridical conditions of our time, very different from those of the time when St. Ignatius and the first companions established them. In other Words, our renewal of the spirit of poverty must be accompanied by a certain adaptation of structures and procedures; it must be a renovatio accoramodata. Third, that in the matter Qf poverty, as in other matters, ,spirit and structure are intimately interdependent; that while the spirit of poverty needs a structure to support it, safeguard it, and make it operative, the structure wilPnot work, will become dead-weight and dead-letter, unless those involved in the structure are imbued with the spirit of poverty and are resolved to make the structure work. The determination of the surplus income of 'a community might serve to illustrate this third finding, namely, the interdependence of spirit~and structure. The surplus income of a Jesuit community cannot be retained. It must be disposed of annually.4, By surplus income iS o meant what is over and-above the expenses and the contingency fund. provided for in the annual budget of the communit~y as determined by its "responsible administrator" with the appr.ovai of the provincial superior.~ The norm for estimating the annual budget is a community style of.life "removed .as far as possible from all infection of avarice and as like as possible to evan-gelical poverty.''6 Ultimately, therefore, this whole rrgime of placing the community on a budget and disposing of annual surpluses will depend on the style of life adopted by the community. It will depend oi~ how seriously the community tries to live up to the norm set by the Congregation, namely, that "the standard of living of our houses should not.be higher than that of a family of slender means whose providers must ,work. hard for its support.''r In a word, it will depend on how much alive the spirit of poverty is among us. For, as the Congregation. says; "While law can support spirit, no legal re-form will profit anything unless all, .our members elect evangelical poverty with courage at the invitation of .the Eternal King, Christ our Lord.,8 , 4Decree on Poverty B VII 1. 51bid. B VI. ~Ibid. B VII 1. rlbid. A llI 7. 8Ibid. A V 13. 196 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 The norm for our standard of living just ~ited may in ~turn serve to illus-trate the second 'of the findings mentioned above, namely, the need for adaptation. It is stated that our standard of living can be lower, but not higher than that of "a family of slender means." Yes; but what are "slender means"? What does "slender" mean? One particularization of the term follows immediately: a family of slender means is one whose providers must work hard for its support. This would seem to exclude unearned in-come, that is, income from'invested funds, at least as a principal source of support for our communities. It would seem to imply that our communities should derive their day-to-day support from the earnings of the day-to-day work of their members. Here is one example of the adaptation to the changed conditions of the times noted earlier. The Congregation itself calls attention to it: "For cen-turies, the perfection of religious poverty was found in mendicancy . He was .counted poor who lived on alms, placing all his hopes in the provi-dence of God operative through benefactors. With growing clarity the Church invites religious to submit to the common law .of labor. 'Earning your own living and that of your brothers and sisters, helping the poor by your work--these are the duties incumbent upon you.' '''~ This may possibly explain why the Congregation does not have'recourse to the gauges or measuring rods of religious poverty devised in times past. Such ~as, that religious poverty is a poverty of dependence~. dependence, in the first instance, on the superior, but through him, dependence on the providence of God "operative through benefactors,'--that is, dependence on alms. The emphasis today is not on alms but on work. Or again, that our poverty should be assimilated to that of honesti sacerdotes, reputable secular priests; for while the reputable secular priests of former times did live very slenderly, they were nevertheless supported by "livings,~' that ig, stable revenue derived chiefly from landed property. However, it must not be thought that the Congregation excluded mendi-cancy-~ dependence on alms for support--altogether. Neither did it sup-pose that religious who live on alms do not work. We should give it credit for a certain measure of realism. It is a fact that many of our, hardest work-ers are dependent~ on alms for their support; for instance, missionaries. It is also a fact that in certain regions of the world today, for instance, in those countries behind the Iron Curtain where the Church is permitted tO exist~ Jesuits can live and work only i~ supported by free-will offerings. And it is equally a fact that even in those regions of the world where the right of the Church to exist is recognized, much of the work we have to do as ministers of the Gospel does not have a financial remuneration attached to it. Thus, while we should by all means adapt ourselves to the work-ethic of our time, we should guard against pressing too closely the work-income ~'lbid. A II 4, citing Vat. II, PC n. 13, ET n. 20. A More Authentic Poverty / '197 nexus. It is my impression~ that the Congregation was fully .aware of the dangers of doing so; fully aware that it could introduce among us what usually accompanies the work ethic, namely the market orientation. It is not too far-fetched to foresee an evolution of attitude after this fashion: One begins by looking around for compensated.work in order to be able to contribute to the support of .one's community. One goes on to. prefer compensated to non-compensated work, the apostolic value of the Works being roughly ~equal. A gradual, perhaps a very gradual, an almost imper-ceptible reversal of values then takes place, whereby the value of apostolicity becomes Jsecondary to the value of marketability. Such a process might even end up with an alternative version of Surplus Value, namely, that wages represent an apostolic "surplus" over and above the apostolic value of the work itself, and hence that the better compensated work is the more apostolic work. Besides vitally affecting our choice of ministries, a too rigid interpreta-tion of the duty of ~"earning your.own' living and that of your brothers and sisters" could introduce in the Society--int~ormally, to be sure, but palpably another system of grades, one based not on presbyteral function but on earning capacity. Those engaged in gainful employment and thus con-tribute to the,support of the community would, for all practical purposes, be the professed; those not thus engaged, and hence are supported by the community, °would be the coadjutors. Such a stratification would tend to bring our c"0mmunity life down to a purelyhuman level, and may well have disastrous consequences: assumption of privilege by the ~gainful workers, frustration and resentment on the part of the "unprofitabl~ servants." Are these purely conjectural hypotheses, or do we perceive them even now, in certain parts of the Society, as a~ cloud no bigger than a man's hand? At any rate, we have from the'Congregation a reminder that the adoption of the work ethic--as, indeed, the adoption of any valid principle of action--involves risk. "The frequent engagement of Ours in professions and salaried offices it not without dangers, not only for the spirit of gratu-ity, but even, for the observance of common life itself. SuCh work is to be chosen only as a more effective means to the communication of faith, with-out thought of remuneration or of the privileges attached'to an office.''1° But to get back to the slender-means norm. Besides the fact that it.is means acquired by work, present hard work, rather than a stable income from invested funds, what other nuances can give it sharper definition? Perhaps this, that it should be a deliberate renunciatibn of consumerism, of "the appetite for enjoyment and consumptign of material goods" which, as the Congregation points out, "spreads everywhere and verges on a prac-tical atheism.''11 At least that. "At the very least, religious poverty should lOlbid. A III 8. 111bid. A II 3. 198 / Review ]or Religious,~ Volume 35, 1976/2 try hard to limit rather than:, to expand consumption,!~ :says. the Congrega-tion. 1-° ,.~ Another. nuance of the :slender,means norm is that our style Of life should be pitched at a level which enables and encourages us not only to work for t.h.e, poor but with ithe poor. In order to do that~ we need to i"acquire some experience of their condition;" and even of their "miseries and distress." This, the Congregation says, is a necessary consequence of the basic option we have made regarding our apostolate today, namely, "comniitment to the cause of justice and to the service of the poor.''13 It is with this nuance that the Congregation repeats ,St, 'Ignatius' injunction "to love poverty as a mother and, within the measure of holy discretion, experience some of its effects as occasions arise. Here, then, are some of the specifications that might make the slender-means norm of our voluntary poverty less abstract, more applicable to real, life .situations: Our style of life should be that of the worker rather than the rentier;.it should put out: of our reach the open-ended self-indulgence of . the consumer society; it should afford us some~direct experience of what the involuntarily poor of today have to put up with, so that we can the more realistically and effectively help them to help themselves. I must con-fess, however, that even so, for me personally, the slender-means norm remains somewhat 'fuzzy around the edges. And I think I see:the reason why in ~a statement in obliquo of the Congregation itself. It expresses regret that we have no other word.to designate the poverty of ~the.~)religous life except the word "poverty." This is regrettable ~because "poverty means very different things to different people.''.~ Indeed it does. Not only that; different people (and therefore different Jesuits) can hold their different views of poverty honestly and sincerely, without hy-pocrisy or cynicism. Further: the reasons why they hold these different views are not always myths but often realities. Thus, a Jesuit style of life really and truly considered poor in Australia or West Germany may well be considered really and truly :affluent in Ecuador or Indonesia; not neces-sarily because Ecuadorian and Indonesian Jesuits are religious of strict ob: servance, while Australian. and West-German Jesuits are religious ~ of lax observance; but simply because of~ the .difference between "a family of slen-der means" in the developed world and the corresponding family in the underdeveloped world. ~ Consider, too, the fact, or at least the possibility, that the type of apos-tolate to which a Jesuit is sent has, perhaps should have, an influence on his style of life; an influence that leads, perhaps inevitably, to a difference ~Z.lbid. A III 7. ~. ~'~lbid. A II 5, A III 10. ~Const. [287]. ~SDecree on Poverty A I11 7. A More Authentic Poverty / 19,9 in standard of living. Thus~ it might be asked whether the:style of life of Jesuits teaching in the Gregorian University~ in Rome should be, or can be exactly that of Jesuits working among the marginados in Venezuela. The classical.: precedents invoked by those who favor a difference are will known. Among ~he missionaries of the Old Society in India, was there not a sign~ificant difference in style of life between those who worked among the brahmins and those who Worked-among the pariahs? And what about the drastic change in style of life adopted by Xavier in Japan, when .he learned that the Japanese paid scant attention to mendicants but might possibly give a hearing to an hidalgo? Equally-familiar are the precedents brought forward by those opposed to recognizing such differences. Ignatius' instructions to Lainez and Salmer6n, papal theologians at the Council of Tre~nt, that they should not follow th.e life style of the Council Fathers, but should work in ,hosEitals as orderlies, preach in city squares without a Stipend, and beg their meals fromo, door. to. door. The example of Ignatius, himself, when, he returned to Loyola from Paris: refusing to stay in?.the ancestral castle with his brother, he chose to dodge in the town infirmary, considering it a better platform from which to. persuade his fellow citizens to the service of faith and~ the promotion of justice. There is, then, an ambiguity--a necessary ambiguity, as ,iLseems--in the general norms proposed .by the Congregation; and the Congregation. admits it. Not only does it recognize that poverty can mean different things. to different people, but in ;recommending "the insertion of communities among the poor" as '.'a testimony of love of the poor and of poverty to which the Church encourages religious," it calls attention to the fact that "implehae.ntation of this proposal will have to be different in our widely. diff,ering circumstances.''I~ What it is saying, in effect, is that the slender-means~ norm can mea.n different things to different communities., o Thp practical conclusign that follows from this is that it is up t'o the discernment of local and provincial_ communities to ensure that, taking into account differences in socio-economic context and apostolic commit-ment, our poverty is, and is .seen to be, the poverty of Christ. It is to the same practical conclusion that the Congregation comes in the other major areas of our life and apostolate.17.The crucial role which the Congregation assigns to discernment, personal, and communitarian, in the process of translating its decrees from paper to practice,~, clearly appears in that it recognizes discernment as an, ingredient of Jesuit identity,18 _.and giyes,~ex~, t.ended treatment to it as a feature of our community life.1:' ~ This brings us to what was mentioned earlier, as the first of the~ findings ~lbid. AIlI 10. ~TGC 32, "Our Mission Today," n. 71; "The Formation of Jesuits," n. 22. lsGC 32, "Jesuits Today," n. 19. ~ ~:~GC 32, "Union of Minds and Hearts," nn. 21-24. ~ 200 / Review 1or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 of the Congregation on Jesuit poverty, namely, the need for a renewal of the spirit of our poverty as conceived by St. Ignatius. A first observation and an Obvious one is that we h~ave vowed ourselves as religious to evangelical poverty, that is, the poverty proposed by the Gos-pel as a counsel of perfection~ and adopted by Christ~ himself. Hence, a first distinction, equally obvious, must be made between our voluntary poverty and the involuntary poverty that afflicts so large a portion of the human race. This inhuman and dehumanizing poverty, frequently imposed by in-justice, is an evil. It cannot be the object of a vow. It is not the poverty we embrace, it is the poverty, we must fight. Religous poverty is evangelical, not necessarily sociological. Not necessarily; which leads to a second observation. All religious in-stitutes are followings of Christ, but each religious institute follow~ Christ in its own way, according to the charism of its founder. Of St. Ignatius it may be said that his way of following Christ is pre-eminently the way of service, of apostolic service. We belong to a Society which~"'is founded for this purpose above all . the defense and propagation of the faith" :and any kind of ministry whatgoever that shall be "for the glory of God and the common good.''~° Our poverty, then, as everything about us, is-~or is meant to be apostolic. We embrace poverty not for its own sake, as another religious institute well might, but in function of the apostolate. St. Ignatius' phrase praedicare in paupertate--to preach in poverty--must, I think, be ~understood in this sense. We are to be poor that we may all the more effectively preach. The images in which St. Ignatius embodies his notion bf poverty seem to suggest as much. For Francis of Assisi, poverty is the Lady Poverty, the lady of a troubadour, a loveliness to be loved for itself alone. For Ignatius of Loyola, on the other hand, it is "the firm wall of rrligion"; fortifications designed to defend an intra muros, an area of peace in which to build the City of God. And we must love poverty, ~ertainly; but "as a mother": a mother who gives birth to a .life, nurtures and trains it, not to keep for herself but to send forth: a life that will be something of value in the world of me'n.21 In the world of men today, that something of value is, for us Jesuits, a commitment to "the service of faith, of whii~h the promotion of justice is an absolute, requirement.''z2 Hence, if the promotion of justice should i'equire in-some place, at some time, the "insertion of communitiesamong the poor," if it should summon us "to live among the poor, serving them and sharing something of their experience," something of their "miseries and Z°Form. Inst. n. 1. 21Cf: Const. [287], [553]. Z2GC 32, "Our Mission Today," n. 2. A More Authentic Poverty / 20_1 distress,'''-''~ then we .must. by all means do so, but with a clear understand-ing that such poverty is a degradation not an enhancement of the"human condition, and that we embrace it for the sole purpose of h.elping our fellow-men to free,themselve.s from it. In a word, ev.angelical poverty is not neces-sarily sociological poverty, but may demand acceptance of it in.function.of the apostolate. This brings us to a third observation, na~mely, that if our poverty is in function of the apos_tolate, then it is what might be called a "functional?' poverty. It is, in level, form and style the poverty that best serves our apos-tolic ends. Its measure is the tantum-quantum of the Exercises.-"4 That is why the Congregation begins its declaration on poverty with a "reflection on the Gospel in the light of the signs of our times"; or so it seems to me. It seems to me that the Congregation, faced with the task passed on to it by its predecessor of answering "the demands of a real and not pretended poverty," did not begin by asking the question "What should our poverty be?" but by asking the question "What should our poverty be ]or?'''~'' From its reading of the signs of the times, the Congregation brings for-ward certain apostolic objectives which our poverty should by preference bear witness to or serve. At a time when nations, groups, and individuals ha~,e come to realize that .the material resources of this planet.are limited, and have reacted to that realization by accepting as a fact of life that the race is only to the swift and the devil takes the hindmost, vowed poverty should be, and be a witness to, sharing. "On fill sides there is felt a desire to discover new com-munities which favor a more intimate interpersonal communication, com-munities of true sharing and communion, concerned for the integral human development of their members. Our lives, our communities, our very poverty can and should .have a meaning for such a world.'''-''~ That meaning and message will be effectively conveyed by "a poverty pro~foundly re~ newed . . . happy to share with each other and with ,all.'''7 In fact, "our communities will have no meaning or sign value for our tim.es, unless by their sharing of themselves and all they possess, they are clearly seen. to.be communities of charity ,and~ of concern for each other, and all others.''-~ Secondly, at a time when human .fulfillment tends to be equated with the possession, enjoyment, and consumption of material goods, vowed poverty should point in the opposite direction. It should point to. simplicity: :.~Decree on Poverty A II 5, A III 10. :4Cf. 'Spir. Ex. [23]. '-"~Cf. Decree on Poverty A 1I 3-5, A III 7. '-'Olbid. AlI 3. "-'Zlbid. A V 14. "-'Slbid, A II 5. 202 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 a "simpler way of 'life," ~"simple in community expression and joyous in the following of Christ," and by this witness openin~ up to men "a new liberty and another happiness.''-~'~ Finally, at a time when the struggle for justice often means a~ struggle against unjust establishments, a disengagement from the affluent and power-ful elites from which we have received, and perhaps continue to°receive beriefacti6ns, vowed i56verty must have and be-seen to have a detachment that makes it credible. "It will be difficult for the Society everywhere to forward :effectively the cause of justic~ and human dignity if the greater part of her ministry identifies her with the rich and powerffil.'''~'~ That most be the touchstone of our credibility: detachment. "The attitude of the So-ciety should b~ that of the Third Class of Men. fully as ready to abahdon as to retain, to the greater service of God,''3~ manifest' in a povei'ty that is "apostolic in its~active indifference and readiness for any service; in-spiring our selection of ministries and turning us to those most in need?':~°- In sum: the,selfless sharing of a simplicity of life that leads to integral human developm6nt and, by its realism, gives credibility to our efforts to remove the obstacles tO that development--this is what the Congregation proposes our poverty should be today, as discerned frorri the Signs of the times: ~But in qchat'~sense is this a renewal, a making,new again, a return to what the Society was when it was new? This brings us back to'a point which came up earlier: the crucial role given by'this Congregati~on to discernment. For if it 0is admitted that ours is a functional poverty, a poverty in function oLthe apostolate,~then the authentic practii:e of that~poverty will depend at any given moment on what we discern to be,the Conc?ete objectives~of our apostolate at that moment; in short, on "our mission today." And this adap-tation is truly a renewal--so, at least, it is argued because it is precisely what St. Ignatius did. ~ ~. What Ignatius did was to giv meaning and structure to" the practice of' voweff poverty which was in function of what he discerned: to be the apos-tolic needs Of his time. He then wrote Constitutions which not-only do not forbid but demand that we practice our poverty in the light of a' similar discernment. What was his discernment? We might illustrate how concrete it was by its apparent c6ntradictions, for it is a'well-known fact that the concrete and its demands do not always meet the requirements of abstract logic. Ignatius made Jesuits in professed houses live from day to day and "-'albid. A II 3, A V 14. :~°Ibid. A II 5. 3~Ibid. AIII 9; cf. Spir. Ex. [155]. :*°-Ibid. A V 14; A More Authentic Poverty / 203, even beg from door to door; but he allowed fixed revenues for colleges, that is, the houses where Jesuits were being trained to live from day to day and beg from door to door. He would not permit the sacristies of our churches to be supported by such revenues, but-the churches themselves, Works of art which might be considered verging on the lavish,.he accepted from, or consented to be constructed by, benefactors belonging to the affluent establishments of his time. He did not favor our men going on horseback, even if they were on a mission and in somewhat of a hurry; yet he decided that professed houses should have a garden for our men to walk in. A garden! Why, certainly; a garden in cities where the ordinary citizen took the air in open sewers 'which, by an exaggeration of courtesy, were called streets. But, after all, was not Ignatius following in this matter the example of Christ himself? Christ, who regularly skipped meals because of the poor, the sick, and the bedevilled who pressed around him, but who told treed Zacheus to come down from his perch and give hil~ lunch in his house, the ~ather well provided house of an officer,of the internal revenue. Christ, who did not even have a foxhole or a bird's nest where to lay his head, but who, on his way to or from Jerusalem, regularly stopped_ at Bethany, in the house of the opulent Lazarus; who did this at lehst once with his entire entourage, seemingly unannounced, for he sent Mhrtha into a tizzy trying to figure out how may courses to lay on for dinner. Christ, who told the Seventy-two he was sending out on mission not to bring a purse or an extra pair of sandals, but who also told them that wherever they found accep-tance they should eat and drink what was put before them, because the laborer is worthy of his hire. Christ, who had a rather expensive robe, woven without seam from top to bottom, as the soldiers gambling for it immediately recognized; but who died naked on the cross. What then? Is there a fixed poverty line calculable in currency values,~ valid for all times and seasohs, to which we must keep? It ~ems not. But~ in that case how do we make, how can we be sure that we are making our poverty authentic? It would Seem that our po~verty is~authentic in the hi'eaT sure that it is really and truly in function of our apostolate--as it was in the case of Ignatius, as it was in-the case of Christ. And because it is in func-tion of the apostolate, our poverty, is, in sum, a basic insecurity: the basic insecurity of men who can.be sent and are willing to. be sent on any mission, even without provision for the jou~rney and with no assurance of provision at the end of it. Our poverty level is the minimum required to enable a Jesuit theologian to enlarge the frontiers ~of~ theology. It is also the maximum allowable "~for a Jesuit engaged in~ the "lSedagogy of the oppressed" to.be credible to. the oppressed. And it is a willingness on the part of the theologian to be sent to the oppressed, and a corresponding willingness ~n the part Of the peda-gogue of the oppressed to join a theological faculty. ,Let u,s, g~ve the last w~rd 204 / Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/2 to the 32nd,General Congregation: "The authenticity of our poverty, after all, does not consist so much in the lack of temporal goods, as in the fact that we live and are seen to live from God and for God, sincerely striving for the perfection of that ideal which is the goal of the spiritual journey of the Exercises: 'Give me only a love of you with your grace and I am ~rich enough, nor do I ask anything more.' ":"~ a31bid. AV 14; Spir. Ex. [23~,].' * * Saint Louis University Accent '76 Summer offerings of The Department of Theological Studies, Saint Louis University June 22 - July 30 Accent: Spirituality Continuing SLU's tradition of summer institutes in Spiritu~ality, . Institutes: The~ New Testament and Traditions of Spirituality; Assimilating the LitUrgical Reform: Pastoral Ministry in Th, eological Focus Inaugural Institute: June 7 - June 17 Toward An American Spirituality (Herbert W. Richardson) Accent: °Religious Studies Continuing SLU's on-g0ing M.A. Program in Religious Studies. 12 Courses: Contemporary Doctrihe, Biblical Studies, 'Theology of Religious Life. Accent: Religion arid American Culture Continuing SLU's tradition of exploring the relationship between religion and culture. Workshops: Alternate Futures For Religious Education In The United States; New Interpretations of American Catholicism. Plus: Study Tour To lsrael All institutes and workshops can be separated into two-week segments. For complete information write: Department of Theological Studies Attn: Director of Summer Programs Saint Louis University 3634 Lindell Blvd; ' Saint Louis, Missouri 63108 Our Servant Song to Yahweh: The Radical Yes Sister Mary Catherine Barron, C.S.J. Sister Mary Catherine is an English teacher at Rome Catholic High School. She had p~blished earlier, in the November, 1975 issue. Sister resides at 808 Cypre.ss St.; Rome; NY 13440. In a poem of soul-shattering dimension, D. H. Lawrence, a very ~sensual man, poses a series of very spiritual questions.,He asks: Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled, ~ made nothing? Are you willing to be made nothing? dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change.1 His interrogation embodies the central Christological inquiry asked long before Jesus answered with His life. For throughout the centuries of salva-tion history it has been the haunting refrain of all who embrace the reality of the Servant Song. No matter where we turn in the Old Testament or the New, we find ourselves faced with its harsh delineations. ,Abraham must go through the annihilation Of family ties and holdings in order to found a nation from the child he nearly slays. Moses suffers privation, loneliness, and betrayal as he leads Yahweh's people to a land he never enters. David bears for-ever the searing knowledge of his sin as he witnesses its effects' upon his household and his kingdom. Hosea suffers the painfilled prostitution of his love; Jeremiah preaches renewal amid interior desolation; Isaiah witnesses 1D. H. Lawrence, "The Phoenix," The Complete Poems o[ D. H. Lawrence (New York: Viking Press. 1964). 205 206 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 to the emptiness of the Servant Who is to come. John the Baptist loses his disciples; Mary loses her Son; Jesus loses His life. What do we lose? In a past issue of Bible Today, Father Stuhlmueller reflects on the two-fold aspec't of vocation. He says: "Every vocation has an occasion, that which gets it started. Every vocation has a long search for the deeper mean-ing of what one started out to do.'' Somewhere between the ~'starting oc-casion" and the "deeper meaning" resides a radical "yes" on the part of the servant to what is so graphically outlined in the "Phoenix" poem. How do we say it--that radical "yes"? How did Jesus utter it? Through a total rendering of Himself, in faith, to His Father. He tells us: "Whatever the Father does the Son does too" (Jn 5:19). The Father's "radical yes" to His creation is manifested through the gift of His Son. The Son's "radi-cal yes" to His Father is manifested through the gift of Himself. There was nothing glorious about the human life of Christ. He paid dearly for every sign of spiritual power shown. He labored long and hard for infinitesimally small results. He traversed the length and breadth of His country only to learn that a prophet is never accepted by His own. He was condemned by leaders of the religion He fulfilled. And He

Issue 41.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1982. ; The Jesuit's Fourth Vow The Post-Charismatic The Changing Role of Brothers Volume 41 Number 2 March/April, 1982 Rev~t-:w Eor REI.~GIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:.~601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. REVIEW For RELIGIOU,':, is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis, MO. © 1982 by REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOIJS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years. Other countries: $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write: Rt:vlt:w v'or Rt:LWaot~s: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor March/April, 1982 Volume 41 Number 2 Manuscripls, books for review and correspondence wilh Ihe editor should be sent to Rl.:VlEW E(m Rl-:i.l(;Iou.~; Rnom 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. I.ouis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be senl to Joseph F. Gallen. S.J.; Jesuit Communily; St. Joseph's University; (Sity Avenue al 541h St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~-:v~-:w ~-ox R~-:LI(;~OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms Internationah 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Principles of Discernment Robert F. Morneau The last article of Bishop Morneau to appear in these pages was "'Dives in Misericordia: Themes and Theses," which appeared in the September issue. Bishop Morneau may be addressed care of the Ministry to Priests Program; 1016 N. Broadway; De Pere, WI 54115. The journey of life is filled with many choices, the consequences of which can be far-reaching. But as we enter into the decision-making process we are not necessar-ily alone. Friends and counselors frequently give helpful advice. Also we have the advantage of both personal and collective experience from which we can extract patterns and principles that provide guidance and wisdom. This essay spells out ten such principles that can help us discern God'svoice and respond to the Lord's call with generosity and courage. A basic belief underlies this endeavor: growth is much more likely to happen when we critically reflect upon our experience and watch for reoccurring patterns than when we simply move from one spontaneous experience to another without~explicitly dealing with any of them. Reflection, done in prayer and with serious ii~tent, provides insight and energy for spiritual development. Growth in the Lord is greatly impeded when reflection and articula-tion are absent. A three-fold method will be used: l) the articulation of ten principles of discernment; 2) a series of quotations from various authors who reflect some dimension of the basic principle; 3) a tripartite commentary which includes a reference to Scripture, an image illustrating the principle and an example from literature providing a case study of our theme. Discernment is a gift to be exercised; principles are abstractions offering mean-ing. Both are significant for human and spiritual growth. This essay presents the principles; the reader brings the gift and the experience. The hope is that the roads intersect rather than run parallel. 1. Discernment is a prayerful process by which ~xperiences are interpreted in faith. 161 162 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 By discernment of spirits is meant the process by which we examine, in the light of faith and in the connaturality of love, the nature of the spiritual states we experience in ourselves and in others. The purpose of such examination is to decide, as far as possible, which of the movements we experience lead to the Lord and to a more perfect service of him and our brothers, and which deflect us from this goal.~ Basically, as I see it, Discernment may be defined as the meeting point of prayer and action. That is, discernment is the art of recognizing what God is asking of us--what he would like us to do with our lives, how he wishes us to respond to the concrete life-situations which we encounter in following our vocation? The Christian who reflects on his own experience and on that of the community, who seeks to discern in these the divine voice, and who wants to respond to it by redirecting his life, is--theologically speaking--engaged in prayer.3 "Then he (Jesus) bent down and wrote on the ground again.TM The adulterous woman stood before him; the scribes and pharisees made their accusation; the people observed with keen curiosity. We do not know exactly what happened in the mind and heart of Jesus as he leaned forward and wrote in the sand with his finger. We do know that this immediate experience needed an interpretation. Jesus was a prayerful person; his bending forward in silence may well have been a deep moment of communion with the Father. The Gospel records the Lord's response to the situation: the accusers could silently withdraw, the accused could depart without condemnation. This is but one example of Jesus' ministry. Many other times he also turned to the Father for guidance: the prayer on the mountain before choosing the disciples, the garden prayer before his passion and death, the prayer in the desert when tempted to infidelity. The n~cessity for discernment is the experience at a crossroads; the standard for discernment is whether or not the decision leads to God and more complete service; the act of discernment requires a posture of contemplative faith. The combine used in harvesting and threshing grain has given tremendous help to the farmer. It separates the grain from the straw, retaining the former for winter feeding and discharging the latter in neat rows. The wheat and the chaff, the good and the evil, the true and the false, the beautiful and the ugly--throughout history the human spirit has been challenged to distinguish one from the other. This is no simple process. The grey areas are vast, time is often needed and not available, the multiplicity of experiences tends to clog up the task. Even with these obstacles, the spiritual combine of a discerning heart must perform its duty as well as it can. Grounded in prayer and nourished with learning, the spirits of good and evil can ~Discernment of Spirits, introd, by Edward Malatesta (Collegeville, M N: The Liturgical Press, 1970), p. 9. 2Thomas H. Green, S.J., Darkness in the Marketplace (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Mafia Press, 1982), p. 69. 3Gregory Baum, Man Becoming INew York: Herder and Herder, 1970), p. 256. *See Jn 8:8. Principles of Discernment be sorted out and properly responded to. Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory is a story about spiritual discern-ment, its successes and its failures. The "whiskey priest" must constantly make decisions concerning his person and his ministry as he is confronted with the Mexican religious persecution. The failures of discernment may well be grounded in the reflection: "a prayer demanded an act and he had no intention of acting." His success would demand courage and sanctity; the vision is given but not its reality: He felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all. It seemed to him at that moment that it would have been quite easy to have been a saint. It would only have needed a little self-restraint and a little courage. He felt like someone who has missed happiness'by seconds at an appointed place. He knew now that at the end there was only one thing that counted--to be a saint) Discernment is that prayerful process allowing each individual and the larger community to move in the direction of sanctity. 2. Discernment must deal with many voices seeking to capture our minds, hearts and energies. Since the mysterious voice of the Spirit is not the only voice we hear but comes to us accompanied by the tumultuous sounds of our own conflicting impulses and the clamorings of the entire creation, it is essential for us to be able to discern the presence of the Spirit in order to choose to say "yes" to him.6 So the soul that waits in silence must learn to disentangle the voice of God from the net of other voices--the ghostly whisperings of the subconscious self, the luring voices of the world, the hindering voices of misguided friendship, the clamor of personal ambition and vanity, the murmur of self-will, the song of unbridled imagination, the thrilling note of religious romance. To learn to keep one's ear true to so subtle a labyrinth of spiritual sound is indeed at once a great adventure and a liberal education. One hour of such listening may give us a deeper insight into the mysteries of human nature, and surer instinct for divine values, than a year's hard study or external intercourse with men.7 While his mind had been pursuing its intangible phantoms, and turning in irresolution from such pursuit, he had heard about him the constant voices of his father and of his masters, urging him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good Catholic above all things. These voices had 9ow come to hollow sounding in his ears. When the gymnasium had been opened he had heard another voice urging him to be strong and manly and healthy and when the movement towards national revival had begun to be felt in the college, yet another voice had bidden him to be true to his country and help to raise up her language and tradition. in the profane world, as he foresaw, a worldly voice would bid him raise up his father's fallen state by his labors and, meanwhile, the voice of his school comrades urged him to be a decent fellow, to shield others from blame or to beg them off and to do his best to get free days for the school. And it was the din of all these hollow sounding voices that made him halt irresolutely in the pursuit of phantoms. He gave them ear only for a time but he was happy SGraham Greene, /Tie Power and the Glory (New York: The Viking Press, 1940), p. 284. 6Discernment of Spirits, p. 9. 7Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), p. 43. 164 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 only when he was far from them, beyond their call, alone or in the company of phantasmal comrades.S The parable of the good shepherd stresses the importance of recognizing the voice of the master.9 Eternal life depends on this; only those who hear and respond enter into the fullness of life. But Jesus' voice was one among many. Competition for the sheep was great and, given the gift of freedom, there could be no forcing of individual liberty. Though Jesus called some directly, they refused to listen: the rich young man, Judas, the scribes and pharisees. Others, men like John, Stephen and Paul, heard the loving call and became committed disciples. The voice of the risen Lord continues to compete with the sounds of our times. He can be heard in our sacraments of faith, in the sights and sounds of nature, in the revelation of Scripture, in the community of believers, in the words and deeds of our fellow pilgrims. Life itself is a summons to reach out and fulfill our task of becoming fully human in order that we might glorify our God. Radios have a selective apparatus called a tuner through which we can choose the station that pleases us. Many excellent possibilities are available: beautiful music, intelligent conversation, educational programs. Other options expose us to dissonant sounds, inane banality, devious propaganda. With a twist of the dial we have the power to position ourselves in any one of these environments and thus grant permission to certain ideas and images to enter and shape our perspective. In the spiritual realm, discernment tunes itself to God's message of love and forgive-ness in Jesus and lives this deep mystery in word and deed. A novel by Chaim Potok entitled My Name is Asher Lev presents an artisti-cally gifted young man who has to discern among many voices. Early in life Asher Lev recognizes that his ability to draw had not only the potential for self-fulfillment but also the possibility of a serious rupture with his parents and the Jewish community at large. In anger and confusion he argues with God: You don't want me to use the gift; why did you give it to me? Or did it come to me from the Other Side? it was horrifying to think my gift may have been given to me by the source of evil and ugliness. How can evil and ugliness make a gift of beauty?~0 The pressure from the leaders of the community, the warnings of frie,nds, the intrinsic urgings of the gift, the delicate relationship with his parents were all voices seeking attention and action. Would the gift be heard and exercised regardless of the cost? Discernment calls for radical fidelity to God, self and others. Wisdom and courage are needed to hear the truth and implement it in our personal history. 3. Discernment is cultivated in listening love that allows one to hear the .felt-experience of good and evil movements within oneself, others and society. a James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York: Colonial Press Inc., 1944), pp. 83-84. 9Jn 10: I-5. ~°Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev (New York: Fawcett Crest Books, 1972), p. 116. Principles of Discernment / 165 For these souls, their hearts tell them what God desires. They have only to listen to the promptings of their hearts to interpret his will in the existing circumstances. God's plans, disguised ,as they are, reveal themselves to us through our intuition rather than through our rea.son. I I Love gives freedom. Love accepts another person as he is, and discerns in the other person hidden strength. Love communicates to the other a new kind of self-possession, and enables the other to act with self-confidence.~2 Only by the supernatural working of grace can a soul pass through its own annihilation to the place where alone it can get the sort of attention which can attend to truth and to affliction. It is the same attention which listens to both of them. The name of this intense, pure, disinter-ested, gratuitous, generous attention is love.~ It is not blind love that is the enduring love, the love that God himself is. It is a seeing love, a knowing love, a love that looks through into the depth of the heart of God, and into the depth of our hearts. There is no strangeness to love; love knows; it is the only power to complete and lasting knowledge?4 Jesus was a listener and a lover. In a powerful exchange with Peter,15 Jesus listens to Peter's profession that his master is indeed Messiah; Jesus also hears Peter's unwillingness to embrace the fact that the Messiah must suffer and die. As he listens with love Jesus discerns the first response of Peter as coming from the Father and the second movement and response as coming from mere human standards. This beautiful example of double discernment resonates with many of our own experiences in which we act out of mixed motives and according to diverse and sometimes contradictory criteria. Authentic discernment is possible only when one has the graced ability to listen in love to the deepest impulses, urges and longings of the human heart with great care and exquisite respect. Jesus models for us the very essence of discernment. The sunflower delights both our eye and our imagination. In the morning it faces the east awaiting the dawn; by evening it gazes to the west as though pursuing its god. Two qualities are evident in this docile plant: the "listening" power ena-bling it to take in the sun's warm rays and its ability to respond to the flight of the sun in loving fidelity. This image highlights the importance of sensitivity in the discernment process. The slightest, impulse, urging and prompting must be absorbed and responded to if we are to faithfully follow the call of the Master. Such listening and responding is grounded in love. Love pulls us out of self-preoccupation and the parochialism of our narrow lives. The sunflower images a type of listening and love characteristic of a discerning heart. Would that the simplicity, spontaneity and flexibility of the sunflower were ours! ~Jean Pierre De Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence (New York: Doubleday Image Book, 1975), p. 105. ~2Man Becoming. p. 50. ~The Simone Weil Reader, p. 333. ~'~Paul Tillich. The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948), p. II0. ~SMt. 16:13-23. 166 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 The movie, Ordinary People, presented a scene in which an emotionally dis-turbed young man reached out to a psychiatrist for help: Initially the relationship did not go well. Later, with time and patience, the deep loving concern and listening skills of the doctor won out. The boy revealed his story and partial healing took place. More than simple listening'happened here: a deep discernment of the movements of the heart surfaced, were owned and dealt with. More than superficial concern was demonstrated here: a profound, radical trust resulted in giving life and well-being. In such instances heart speaks to heart (cot ad cot) and even though religious language is not used nor God mentioned explicitly, a person of faith can recognize his presence in such an encounter and appreciate the exercise of the gift of discernment. 4. Discernment relies on two mirrors: Jesus and revelation. The disciple living today.does possess one ultimate criterion for correct discernment: i.e., Jesus himself.~6 With the help of the Holy Spirit, it is the task of the entire People of God, especially pastors and theologians, to hear, distinguish and interpret the many voices of our age, and to judge them in the light of the divine Word. In this way, revealed truth can always be more deeply penetrated, better understood, and set forth to greater advantage,t7 Jesus is our m~.ster to whom we do not pay enough attention. He speaks to every heart and utters the word of life, the essential word for each one of us, but we do not hear it. We would like to know what he has said to other people, yet we do not listen to what he says to us.~ The miracle of the loaves as presented in John's Gospel~9 involves an example of discernment. Many of the disciples who had followed Jesus up to this point now walked away, finding incredible the claim that Jesus himself was the bread of life. The Lord turned to the Twelve and asked if they too would go away. Simon Peter's. response: "Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life.'~0 The specific choice that was made was based on a person and his word. No abstract philosophy here; no esoteric theology; no subtle psychology. Discernment and decision flowed from a relationship of trust and faith. Implicit in such a discernment process is fidelity: decisions are made in terms of personal commit-ment. Such fidelity secures personal identity because in such an exercise of free-dom we protect both the reality of the Creator and the creature. No lies are possible with authentic discernment. The keystone of an arch is in a precarious position. Its presence makes the arch integral, but it is dependent on the two columns which it unites. If either column is missing there simply is no arch and the stone meant to be a key remains just an ~6Jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads. trans. John Drury (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1978), p. 129. ~TThe Documents of Vatican IL Gaudium et Spes New York: Herder and Herder, 1966), p. 246. taAbandonment to Divine Providence. p. 53. ~'~Jn 6:1-71. Principles of Discernment ] 167 ordinary stone. Discernment rests on the personal column of Jesus Christ: his values and affections are the very substance we use in sorting out the many options of life. Discernment also rests on Sacred Scripture which provides a vision of salvation history and the backdrop for measuring what is spiritual and what is not. Blessed are the poor, the peacemakers, the ones who hunger and thirst for justice; ungodly are the self-indulgent, the self-serving, the lukewarm. Revelation clarifies those actions which are life-giving and those which are death-dealing. The person of Jesus leaves unambiguous the path we are to follow. Such lights as Jesus and Scripture are rich and necessary graces for our journey. The Confessions of Augustine of Hippo reveal a man for whom the word of God and the person of Jesus were vital sources of power. It was in St. Paul's letter to the Romans that God's word overwhelmed the struggling Augustine; it was in personal relationship with Christ that he perceived reality from a faith perspective. Augustine's hunger for the truth, nourished for years by the classic philosophers, now found sustenance from Scripture. Augustine's deep affectivity, once franti-cally seeking fulfillment in an unbridled sensuous life, found its home in the Lord. With these two resources it is no wonder that the bishop of Hippo is noted for his keen, incisive decisions. Both as a judge of human affairs and as an exegete of Scripture, he brought much life to many because his process of discernment was rooted in the Lord and in biblical faith. 5. Discernment assumes that God is continually working in the depth of every individual and community. He (God) revealed himself several times reigning, as is said before, but principally in man's soul; he has taken there his resting place and his honorable city. Out of this honorable throne he will never rise or depart without end. Marvelous and splendid is the place where the Lord dwells; and therefore he wants us promptly to attend to the touching of his.grace, rejoicing more in his unbroken love than sorrowing over our frequent failings.2~ But whatever we do, we do it because we are diawn to this particular acti6n without knowing why. All we can say can be reduced to this: ~'1 feel drawn to write, to read, to question and examine. I obey this feeling, and God, who is responsible for it, thus builds up within me a kind of spiritual store which, in the future, will develop into a Sore of usefulness for myself and for others." This is what makes it essential for us to be simple-hearted, gentle, compliant and sensitive to the slightest breath of these almost imperceptible promptings.22 Ah, but it is hard to find this track of the divine in the midst of this life we lead, in this besotted humdrum age of spiritual blindness, with its architecture, its business, its politics, its men!2J The realization that God is active in all that happens at every moment is the deepest knowl-edge we can have in this life of the things of God?4 ~°Jn 6:68. 2~Julian of Norwich: Showings. trans. Edmond Colledge, O.S.A., and James Walsh, S.J., Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1978). p. 337. 2~Abandonment to Divine Providence, p. 81. ~Steppenwolf, p. 35. 24Abandonment to Divine Providence, p. 117. 1611 / Review for Religious, March-Apri!, 1982 Creation is God's presence to us in beauty; the cross is God's presence to us in our brokenness and twistedness.2~ God's creative and redemptive power is at work wherever there is life. Whether or not a given individual responds to that presence is dependent upon the working of grace and freedom. The point is that God is always working. John's Gospel drives this fact home.26 Accepting this in faith, we. are challenged to become increasingly conscious of divine stirrings deep within our individual lives as well as our communities. Focal awareness, a high intensity consciousness, may not be that frequent, but subsidiary awareness, a sense of a background presence, can become a way of life.27 As our faith deepens we become ever more sensitive to the working of God's Spirit in our minds and hearts. The life story of the grape can provide an image of the discernment captured by the vines and their energy transformed into grapes. Upon. beir~g harvested and crushed, the grape enters into a fermentation process. Through the hidden work-ings of bacteria surrounded by proper temperatures, darkness and sugars, the grapes are converted into wine. So, too, in our spiritual journey, the need for ongoing conversion is a constant call and is made possible through the perennial movements of God in our innermost being. The sourness of the unredeemed areas of our inner life are turned into the succulent sweetness of a life of union. In her sensitive allegory Hinds' Feet on High Places, Hannah Hurnard has us journey with the main character Much-Afraid through a fermentation process that eventually results in "much-trust." At first our heroine is enslaved by fear, oppressed by human respect, devoid of joy. Gradually she begins to sense the stirrings of grace within her soul. God's promptings lead Much-Afraid into free, dom and then on to acts of courage. Her story is symbolic of all those enslaved by fear. Her liberation in grace is greatly aided by an exercise that could well become the model for many: To this place she was in the habit of going very early every morning to meet Him and learn His wishes and commands for the day, and again in the evening to give her report on the day's work.28 Such conversation and accountability enrich the discerning heart. 2~John Shea, Stories of God: An Unauthorized Biography (Chicago, II1.: Thomas More Association, 1978), p. 152. ~Jn 6. 271n an essay entitled "The study of Man," Michael Polanyi writes: "We may say that when we com-prehend a particular set of items as parts of a whole, the focus of our attention is shifted from the hitherto uncomprehended particulars to the understanding of their joint meaning. This shift of attention does not make us lose sight of the particulars, since one can see a whole only by seeing its parts, but it changes altogether the manner in which we are aware of the particulars. We become aware of them now in terms of the whole on which we have fixed our attention. I shall call this a subsidiary awareness of the particulars, by contrast to a focal awareness which would fix attention on the particulars in themselves, and not as parts of a whole. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 29-30. 28Hannah Hurnard, Hinds' Feet on High Places (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Com-pany, 1973), p. 13. Principles of Discernment / 169 6. Discernment respects the nature of time and is willing to wait freely for a decision that has need of clarification, detachment and magnanimity. Ligfitning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard,z9 Simply by making us wait he increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul,/naking it able to receive what is to be given usP0 The poet contrasts us in our waiting and in our going ahead. For those who take initiative into their own hands, either in the atheism of pride or in the atheism of despair, the words are weary, faint, and exhausted. The inverse comes with waiting: renewed strength, mounting up, running, walking. But that is in waiting. It is in receiving not grasping, in inheriting and not possessing, in praising and not seizing. It is in knowing that initiative has passed from our hands and we are safer for it.3~ Many of the Lord's parables deal with the notions of time and waiting. One of these tells of the necessity of being ready for the master's return from the wedding feast.32 Happy for those who are awake and prepared for the unexpected. Fear, weariness and even impatience are moods that threaten our call to decide to respond to God's call. Milton's "they also serve who. only stand and wait" expresses a situation that only the most courageous can accept. Timing in decision-making is most subtle; in'deed, God's time (kairos) is often not our time (chronos). A basic guideline in the spiritual life is that we "act on our clarities." When things are too muddy we wait, however painful that may be. Without expecting a certi-tude or clarity that is unrealistic, we gradually 'become comfortable with that faith fact that seeking and waiting can be as meritorious and grace-filled as finding. The important thing is that God's will be done.33 Telephone companies provide a service by which a person can find out the correct time by dialing a certain number. Wo~uld that our inner seasons were as clear as our chronological time frame! It is hard to discern in winter when dor-mancy and coldness immobilize our hearts. People are counseled never to make decisions of major import when depressed; it is simply the wrong time. No~" should decisions be made when romanticism sweeps through the heart blinding the indi-vidual to the shadow side of life. We discern on level ground, not on the peaks nor in the valleys. The correct time is known more through intuition than rational deduction--we sense discernment more than figure it out. The phone number locates us and orientates us according to the sun; discernment provides bearings in reference to a much brighter Light. Shakespeare's King Lear provides an excellent example of timing and dis-cernment. The king was aging and decided to distribute his property and wealth among his daughters, each being given a share in proportion to her profession of mPeter Berger, A Rumor of Angels (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1969), p. I I. 3°Thomas H. Green. S.J., When the Well Runs Dry (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1979), p. 113. 3*Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1978), pp. 78-79. J~Lk 12:35-40. 17t) / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 love for her father. Not only was Lear unwise in his standard of division, he was misguided in his time. The consequence was eventual insanity and death. Dis-cernment demands a standard, one based on knowledge of reality and deep faith. Discernment demands awareness of the Lord's timing. Until that surfaces we wait, trusting that the Lord will show us his plan. Detachment allows us to accept whatever is asked; magnanimity provides room to welcome whatever is given. Discernment needs much grace and graciousness. 7. Discernment is a gift which comes to those who are properly attuned through obedience and surrender. In everything else, this soul will preserve a perfect liberty, always ready to obey the stirrings of grace the moment it becomes aware of them, and to surrender itself to the care of providence.34 When a soul has reached the third stage, the love of friendship and filial love, her love is no longer mercenary. Rather she does as very close friends do when one receives a gift from the other. The receiver does not just look at the gift, but at the heart and the love of the giver, and accepts and treasures the gift only because of the friend's affectionate IoveP~ The hearing of God's Word requires complete self-surrender.36 The Annunciation narrative in Luke's GospeP7 presents Mary in a perplexing situation. Her future with Joseph had been determined; plans were made; impor-tant decisions were set in motion. Suddenly God breaks into the "best-laid schemes o' mice an' men." What is to be done? To whom does one listen? What price the surrender of one's will to the call of God? This biblical account gives us a classic example of discernment. The divine will summons and history hangs in balance. Though struggling with fear and the unknown, Mary discerns the voice of the Lord and in prompt obedience and generous surrender commits her life to the providence of her God. That gift of discernment was rooted in her identity as the handmaid of the Lord. Mary knew who she was and it was from that giftedness of her graced filled life that such an extravagant and total response poured forth from her heart. A hearing aid is a grea't blessing for those individuals for whom deafness is an encroaching reality. This technical device helps restore the precious gift 6f hearing. One can once again listen to a variety of sounds and calls and through surrender render personal obedience. Physical listening has its counterpart in the spiritual realm, as does deafness. Often we do not hear. Sometimes this is a matter of choice, sometimes a matter of circumstance. Regardless, we fail to discern the words and movements of the Lord because the gift of discernment has not been activated. Hearing aids can be adjusted, even turned off. When God asks what is a~Julian of Norwich: Showings. pp. 195-196. ~Abandonment to Divine Providence, p. 88. J~Catherine of Siena, The Dialogues, trans, and introd. Suzanne Noffke, O.P., Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), p. 134. ~6Meister Eckhart, t~ans. Raymond B. Blakney INew York: Harper Torchbooks, 1941), p. 33. ~TLk 1:26-38. Principles of Discernment / 171 demanding or unpleasant we can unconsciously or blatantly turn from his sum-mons and fail to respond. Here we see that the discernment process has'high mutuality: the call and gift from God, thefree response of obedience and surrender from the human person. God respects our freedom too much to force a response. Gradually it becomes evident that discernment isnot just one gift among many: it is a crucial gift determining~destinies. Story of a Soul, the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, is a candid revelation of a deep love relationship. Surrender and obedience were qualities that gave constant direction to the saint's life; these dispositions opened her to the gift of discernment. Therese realized that Christian living demanded not only recogni-tion of what is to be done but also the actual doing: As little birds learn to sing by listening to their parents, so children learn the science of the virtues, the sublime song of Divine Love from souls responsible for forming them.3~ Authentic discernment moves from listening to virtue. God uses many interme-diaries (parents, teachers, friends, "enemies") to both proclaim his message and model a response. In this environment the gift of~ discernment takes root. Therese's being was receptive to the stirrings of grace. The song of divine love was. heard, the r~esponding melody was also one of deep love. 8. Discernment happily blends faith and pragmatism: it searches out God's will in radical trust and does it. The People of God believes that it is led by the Spirit of the Lord. who fills the earth. Motivated by this faith, it labors to decipher authentic signs of God's presence and purpose in the happenings, needs, and desires in which this People has a part along with other men of our age. For faith throws a new light on everything, manifests God's design for man's total vocation, and thus directs the mind to solutions which are fully human)9 The will certainly seems to me to be united ir~ some way with the will of God; but it is by the effects of this prayer and the actions which follow it that the genuineness of the experience must be tested and there is no better crucible for doing so than this.'~ Every activity is related to good and evil twice over: by its performance and by its principle.4~ While teaching one day,~2 Jesus was interrupted when some men, carrying their paralyzed friend and lowering him through the roof, ingeniously got' ev-eryone's attention. The story is familiar; two things ~hould be noted for ohr pur-pose. These men had a deep faith in Jesus. They truly believed that this teacher had power and concern. Second!y,~their faith was active. They expended much energy JsStor), of a Soul." the Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux. trans. John Clarke, O.C.D. (Washing-ton, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1975), p. 113. 3gThe Documents of Vatican II, p. 209. 4°The Complete Works of St. Theresa of Jesus. ed. and trans. E. Allison Peers (London: Sheed & Ward, 1944), 2:238. 4~ The Simone Well Reader, p. 292. 42Lk 5:17-26. 172 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 and subtle creativity.in allowing t.heir faith,filled hearts to be nourished by divine healing. Both their trust and activity were rewarded in the cure of their friend. Discernment is both relational and functional; it is contemplative and active; it is faith-filled and pragmatic. The contemporary concern for integration is similar to the ever present call to discernment. A person of true discernment is integral. No false dichotomy here: action must be consequent to principle. Grounded in deep faith discernment pushes from below; drawn into active response discernment calls us forth to be agents of change. ¯ H20 is the chemical formula describing our precious gift of water. The blend-ing of these two elements produces a substance necessary for life. Hydrogen without oxygen fails to give us our refreshing liquid and vice versa. So in the spiritual domain: faith without action is dead; action without faith loses its ulti-mate significance. The water of the spiritual life is the grace of discernment; its basic elements are faith and deed. Depending upon the developmental phases of the community or individual, the w~ight will shift more towards faith, more towards action according to the level of maturity and the needs of the people. Here we realize that. spiritual laws are much more subtle than those of nature. In his journal entitled Markings, Dag Hammarskjold records the diverse movements of his inner life. We come to realize that this inter:national figure, busy with multiple responsibilities of the United Nations, had a very well developed and nurtured spiritual life. He speaks often of faith; he notes the importance of action. One passage will suffice: We act in faith--and miracles occur. In consequence, we are tempted to make the miracles the ground for our faith. The cost of such weakness is that we lose the confidence of faith, Faith is. faith creates, faith carries. It is not derived from, nor created, nor carried by anything except it~ own reality.4J The mixture is right; the roots of the tree blossom forth through the branches carrying and bringing much life. Discernment makes this possible. 9. Discernment looks to consequences for its authenticity: decisions are of God if ultimately leading to life and love. I am quite sure that no one will be deceived in this way for long if he has a gift for the discernment of spirits and if the Lord has given him true humility: such a person will judge the~e spirits by their fruits and their resolutions and their love.'~ To estimate the worth of a spiritual decision, we thus have three criteria at our disposal: the authenticity of our union with God, the unity of the different elements of our being, the cohesion which our action assumes in relation to ourselves, .to others and to the world,aS The work of love not only heals the roots of sin, but nurtures practical goodness. When it is authentic you will be sensitive to every need and respond with a generosity unspoiled by 4~Dag Hammarskjold, Markings (N~w York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1966), p. 145. ~The Complete Works of St. Theresa of Jesus, 1:378. 4SFrancois Roustang, S.J., Growth in the Spirit. trans. Kathleen Pond (New York: Sheed & Ward. 1966), p. 122. Principles of Discernment / 173 selfish intent. Anything you attempt to do without this love will certainly be imperfect, for it is sure to be marred by ulterior motives.46 Authentic Christian living results in action and explicit concern. Jesus draws our attention to the fig tree that is rich in foliage but devoid of fruit.47 For a hungry person the fruitless fig tree is worthless, we discern its worth in this case by whether or not it achieves its essential destiny. In our spiritual journey discernment is tested by the effects of our action and the concomitant affectivity. Does our activity give life, i.e., does it foster an increase of love, joy and peace? Or do our actions lead to death, i.e., apathy, sadness and anxiety? Discernment registers at the deepest level of our humanity--in our guts! We come to sequester that which nurtures from that which enervates. As in economic affairs so in spiritual matter we come to the bottom line: the financial world looks to profit/loss and the spiritual world looks to life/death. The stethoscope allows medical personnel to become attuned to the inner physiological movements of the patient. The trained ear can evaluate the proper functionings or pathological stirrings of vital organs. What the naked eye has no way of knowing, the ear with the aid of the stethoscope can easily ascertain, Discernment is a process of listening to the stirrings of the many different spirits constantly at work within the complexity of our lives. A good spiritual director intuitively senses how our life-style and motivational field is impacting on the inner terrain. If congruence is sensed, then God's word is tak~ing root and bearing proper fruit. If there is dissonance, then dialogue is in order to understand where it is coming from. This is no easy task. The movements of the spirit are mixed and often ambiguous. At times God's word will cause dissonance while the work of the evil spirit causes apparent harmony. These uncharted waters make us hesitate and call out for help from a good spiritual navigator! Sophie's Choice, a novel by Willim Styron, narrates the many decisions thata young woman had to make in very dire circumstances. The choice of letting either her son or daughter be sent to the gas chambers is symbolic of the horrendous decisions that confront the human spirit~ Throughout ttiis novel we witness people making choices and dealing with the powerful effects that shape their destinies. These effects basically fall on one or other side of the line: life or death. Sad to say, most of the decisions were not life-affirming~ Any good novel is essentially a study of discernment from an experiential point of view. Situations arise, choices are made, life or death follows. No one is exempt from dealing with the script of his or her own life. The process is universal. Grace is necessary if we are to discern wisely and act with courage. 10. Discernment leads to truth and, through truth, into freedom. The very word "truth" filled my heart with enthusiasm. The beauty of the word shone in my 46The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling. ed. William Johnston (New York: Doubleday Image Book, 1973). p. 64. "1"/4 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 eyes like a spiritual sun dispelling all shadows--those of ignorance, of error, of deceit, even those of iniquity, which is an error of measure and a lie. "Knowing the truth"--a pleonasm. With truth there is already knowing, as there is reality and being. To think the word "truth" is to assume a spiritual faculty, in which alone truth can be found. It is to assume the capacity of such a spiritual faculty to conform itself to being, to reality, in order within itself to produce the truth. It is also to raise the question of knowing whether such a faculty exists,as And ira will of iron represents one aspect of the liberated soul, flexibility and detachment of spirit represent a complementary aspect. To obey the inspirations of grace moment by moment, t9 adjust oneself readily to the promptings of a living Master, is a task which demands the glorious liberty that is the high prerogative of the sons of God.49 But at this moment I came upon myself. Previously I had existed, too, but everything had merely happened to me. Now I happened to myself~ Now I knew: I am myself now, now I exist. Previ~ausly I had been willed to do this and that; now I willed.~° God's w~)rd calls us to truth and freedom. Mary Magdalene wandered in the garden in deep dejection because her master and friend was dead.5~ Death appeared to have had the final say and such news caused enslavement to fear and depression. Then the experience of the Lord! The truth is exposed: sin and death are overcome by the cross and resurrection. God's fidelity and power are everlast-ing. The bond of sin is broken; the sting of death destroyed. With this truth came freedom, a freedom overflowing into joy. Mary sees and is able to act. This narrative helps us to see that the gift of discernment brings vision and responsibil-ity. In recognizing the risen Lord we contact reality; in being graced, we become gracious. Through the word of God we deepen our sense of identity and mission. This process allows us to find meaning which allows for motivation, enabling us to risk the use of time and energy in new and creative ways.'For Mary, Jesus was the truth that leads to freedom; for Mary, his person allowed proper discernment. Scientists use two instruments in their work of discovery and invention that are, by nature, tools of discernment, the microscope and telescope. With awe and wonder, we use the microscope to probe cellular structures revealing the deep patterns of life; with anticipation and excitement; we find the telescope pulling us into galaxies undreamt of by our ancestors. Gifted with such tools we come to know invisible worlds and incredible spaces. The spiritual realm is no less astound-ing. With the tools of subtle interior silence and perceptive wisdom we scan the vast plan of God's creative love. Such dispositions are crucial in coming to know truth and to exercise our freedom. Discernment falters amidst noises; it is blinded and cannot know what is pleasing to God. Discernment is seeing, a seeing that leads to freely doing the truth in love. Lavrans Bjorgulfson, speaking to his wife, says: "I know not. You are so strange--and all you have said tonight. 1 was afraid, Ragnfrid. Like enough 1 47Mk I 1:12-14. ~8Raissa Maritain, We Have Been Friends Together (New York: Green and Co., 1942), p. 80. agE. Herman. Creative Prayer (Cincinnati. Ohio: Forward Movement Publications, n.d.), p. 79. 50C. G. Jung, Memories. Dreams. Reflections. ed. by Aniela Jaffe and trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage Books, 1965). pp. 32-33. ~Jn 20:11-18. Principles of Discernment / 175 understand not the hearts of women."~2 In Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter, we witness the tragedy of ignorance and the paralyzing power of fear that follows. Lavrans, a good man, does not understand the heart of his wife, Ragnfrid, nor that of his daughter, Kristin. Their loves were mysteries to him and, lacking proper discernment of the movements of their hearts, the tortuous pain of misunderstand-ing was bound to follow. The truth of the heart is a special knowledge all its own. Only when the heart is "informed" and well-known do the waters of freedom flow. Principles clash with the particulars of life. Helpful as they might be, life is lived in experience, not reflection. Yet we need to step back ever so ~ften for perspective and meaning. Hopefully this essay has fulfilled that task. My only hope is that these pages have realized the mandate oncegivEn by Emily Dickinson: Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-- Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind-- ~2Sigrid Undset, Kristin La,;ransdatter, I The Bridal Wreath, trans. Charles Archer and J. C. Scott (New York: Bantam Books; 1976); p. 232. Pope John Paul II to Jesuit Superiors, February 27, 1982i In fact, a special bond binds your Society to the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ oft earth . St. Ignatius and his companions., attached capital importance to this bond of love and service to the Roman Pontiff, so much so that they wished this "special vow" to be a characteristic: element of the Society . It is evident that here we are touching upon the essence of the lgnatian charism and upon that which lies at the very heart of your order. And it is to this that you must always always remain faithful. Prayer and Regression John O'Regan, O.M.I. Father O'Regan's "Unavailability as Poverty" appeared in the issue of July, 1981. His address is: 37 Woniora Road; P.O. Box 70; Hurstville, Australia 2220. i~|he~' wish to return to childhood is, in most instances, a regressive wish--a desire to abrogate adult responsibilities, and to return to a.state of dependence. But this wish may also have another aspect. To seek after the spontaneity and freedom of the secure child is a different matter and may, perhaps, be what is meant by the saying of Christ: 'Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' This is no regression to childishness, but rather, an advance to such security and freedom with our fellowmen that we can be whatever we are and allow them to be the same."~ Scripture scholars may disagree with psychiatrist Storr's understanding of Matthew 18, but the general drift of his meaning is clear and points to an under-standing of scriptural childness that may assist us in our understanding of prayer~ Of course it is quite possible to have regressive prayer and it shows up in many subtle ways. The prayer of the "good Lord" who is a distant, benign, undemanding and wholly pardoning God is surely a childish way of boxing God into a conve-nient category. The prayer that makes one feel good and somehow seals out the rough and tumble of life is also a childish thing, for it is based on the pleasure principle and we asgume it is good because it makes us feel good, An altogether inistaken notion of spiritual consolation can easily have us thinking that good prayer is always less than painful. There are many variants of regressive prayer that one may use: here we have a general look at the possibility of regression and the proper form of childness that makes prayer authentic. ~The Integrity of Personality. A. Storr (Pelican: Middlesex, 1970), pp, 60-61. Prayer and Regression / 177 Time and Timing Many state that prayer cannot be programmed--that it arises spontaneously and when we feel we need it, we need it. Much can be said in praise of this as long as it is properly understood. Prayer as a habitual state of dependence on God and prayer as the more privileged moments of closeness to God--irrelevant prayer as Father Green calls it2--must be distinguished. The religious whose life is fully given over to God will surely see the need for stated times for formal prayer. Such prayer is often called lower case prayer, while the lifelong attitude of being given over to God gets a capitalized P for Prayer. The reverse may equally be the case, but for the purpose of this article we will stay with this distinction. Thus the religious whose prayer is clear will be bound to find times for prayer and these times will surely manage to have their own rhythm. And we, being creatures ofhabit, will find that such rhythms will be predictable. So that some form of programming will assert itself. Some of us are morning people and like to start the day with a stretch of prolonged prayer. Others are night people and feel more at home with God at that time. Each one to one's own preference here. The point at issue is that the natural rhythm of life itself will surely dictate a style and timing of prayer that will not be left to chance, still less to mood. Thus to pray when one "feels like it" may lead us into strife if that is the only criterion for prayer. Ruysbroeck, the Flemish mystic, has the idea of the indrawing and outpouring of God's grace in us: the same imagery may be applied to prayer. We indraw in prayer and we outpour in prayer. This means the withdrawal-involvement rhythm, while not needing the regularity of a metronome, will have its own inner impera-tive and clock for each of us. The harmony between contemplation and apostolic love (Perfectae caritatis n. 5) is still a task for all of us and we must always work at it. It seems to at least imply that this task (and gift) cannot be left to whim or mood: such a standard would indeed be childish. This of course is not to say that some people may find a long weekend of prayer somehow manages to suit them: all of this is assuredly matter for honest discernment. The well. may run dry rather easily and the land may become parched. For those o~" us whose moods have a sudden~and broad swing, the well and land may easily run dry or parched almost unknown to us. The length of time and the actual time for prayer are important factors when we take our religious commitment seriously. Time Spent At times there may be a veritable fissure in our lives: what we declare we are and what we in fact are, are often light years apart. We may have a fundamental falseness running right through our lives and manage to survive some way or another. Thus we may spend long hours at prayer and not have its influence felt in 2Opening to God. T.H. Green (Ave. Maria Press, IN, 1977). 1711 / Review for Religious, March-ApriL 1982 our lives or at best allow its impact to be unhealthily muffled. Father Maurice Lefebre, killed in Boliva in the service of the poor, said that "because we live a lie, the truths we bring make no headway." This division between prayer and life--between prayer and Prayer--is surely a result of seeing prayer as a regressive retreat from the harsh and dreadful things that living for love of God and others really means. It is a womblike withdrawal that marks the overdone need for security from the cross that life is bound to hew for each of us who claims to be a follower of Christ. We all know of the piously impatient religious who brooks no interruption of his prayer, no matter what the demands may be from those he is serving. Fair enough: we should try to set up a little poustinia for our prayer-time but to see every interruption on this chosen retreat as an encroachment on our time "with God" is not an adult response, but a petulant reaction. Such a prayer has all the marks of childishness. One is here reminded of Jose Ortega y Gasser3 when he ponders on Commander Peary's day's polar trek with his team of dogs. After a hard day's mushing towards the north, he found at evening that he was much further south than when he started off in the morning! He has been working all day northwards on an immense iceberg being taken to the south by a strong ocean current. Hard times and long hours at prayer that are effectively isolated from life may give the impression of much progress. But the context of this kind of prayer must be taken into account lest we have a disconnected life of prayer, removed from the prayer of life. Like Peary's hard day's toil on the iceberg, much movement did not mean any progress at all -- even the reverse! The child is very much his or her own person with a great deal of emphasis on how he sees life. His childish optics give reality meaning that is not always geared to the givenness of reality itself. His childish templet thrown over reality effectively screens out some of its harsher aspects and amplifies its more congenial qualities so that much of his little life is essentially idiosyncratic. Much of his reality lacks consensual validation---effective checking out by way of feedback is too much bother for him. So that a prayer life that is removed too comfortably from the painful course of life is a childish kind of demiolife. As Augustine put it:: we may make many strides, but all outside the course. Dabar This prayer/life dichotomy is always with us. Only in Jesus were word and deed perfectly and positively corelated and all we do is strive to lessen the abyss that exists for us between what we profess we are and we in fact live. Herbert, the English poet, caught the idea beautifully when he wrote Doctrine and life--colors and light in one, When they combine and mingle, bring A strong regard and awe: JMeditations on Quixote, .I. OrtEga y Gasser (Norton: New York. 1961). p. 104. Prayer and Regression But speech alone doth vanish like a flaring thing, And in the ears, not conscience ring. Doctrine--what we believe and say we are, and life--how we actually incarnate this--must be together, like colors and light. Speech alone, outward show and mere protestation, means little and touches no one's conscience. So that while we try to bridge the gap between doctrine and life, we must be ever aware that it is all too easy to allow the gap to widen. Being Christlike, adopting the mind and heart of Christ will always be an imperative for us, and we must ever be ready to "live the truth in love" (Ep 4:15). This living, or "truthing"--- making word and deed more closely aligned in our lives, is an adult task. It is not for children--they must come a long way to be able to shoulder this project. In us adults, this cleavage between word and deed keeps us humbly on our toes and saves us from arrogance. It is only when we become unaware of this split-level living that we have cause for alarm. Filial Posture Prayer's paradigm has been given us once and for all by Jesus when in response to a disciple's request, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples," he said to them, "When you pray, say: Father." (Lk 11:i-4). It need hardly be said that the assumption is that the disciple was inspired when he saw Jesus praying "in a certain place." This anonymous disciple, seeing Jesus praying nowhere in particular, may be seen archetypically: we are that disciple and the nameless place may just as easily be seen in the same light, for we have to pray always and everywhere (see Ep 5:20; 6:18-19). Jesus is a model of prayer for us not just because he prayed regularly or had an unwavering prayer schedule. In Luke's gospel, he prays in practically every third chapter~ but in Mark's gospel, as scholars tell us, his early morning rising for prayer (i:35) is a typical day in the life of Jesus. But such visible expressions of prayer are but the observable expression of the inner disposition of a Man whose whole being is given over to God. He was not just driven to his knees as in the Mount of Olives (Lk 24:41-44) when the pressure was on: he prayed always and prayed formally on regular occasions. It was the inner oblation of his whole being that gave rise to these intense moments of close union with the Father. He was always addressing the Father and he here tells us that we must have the same filial posture when we come to pray. When we come before God for the more privileged moments of closeness to him (despite the apparent absence we may experience in these moments of apparent closeness) we must come with the filial gesture of "Abba," Father. This cordial posture must be the basis and ground of our prayer, giving it its tone, direction and content. In this word of daring intimacy, "Abba," we come to God with all the confidence of a child and the undeviating trust shown by God's Son. "Abba" Some writers have almost drooled over this term of piety and have given it a "11~1~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 sentimental flavoring that does no justice to the deep connotation it is meant to have. Terms like "Pappa," "Dad" and the like have been suggested. But the term refuses to bear this lightweight meaning. Apart from familiar uses of the word children use to address their fathers, and beneath it all, there is the deep sense of dependence and trust that gives rise to the closeness of the bond binding child and father. A father may engage in rough and tumble fun with his children, and the little ones delight in it. In the process they may get bumps and even scratches and there is not even a whimper. If these "wounds" were sustained in play with siblings, there would often be a far different reaction--tears and tantrums and the need for succor. But the child's utter trust in the goodness of the father is ,the rubric under which little aches and pains don't matter much, for the little one's unbounded trust makes all safe and sound in the affectionate ambience of a father's loving care. It is interesting to note that the child has been seen in different ways over the centuries. Time was when he was viewed as a miniature adult, and not a growing person in his own right. He was an adult-in-the-making, so what was good for the adult was good for the child. This gave rise to the assumption that the child saw, felt and judged as did the adult, so that education was getting him to sit still while adults instilled adult lore into his little head. Again the child was (and possibly still is) viewed as born in utter innocence and is tainted by contact with adults. This romantic anthropology seems to have a second inning in transactional analysis with its grossly overrated "child" state. This idyllic state seems at the mercy of interfering and imperious "adult" states. The truth of the child, like the truth of adults, is light and shade. Children are far from being only the cuddlesome angels of nappie commercials, and the endless and undiluted joy they appear to give to adoring mothers is plainly fiction. A child with its bundle of impulses with monumental rages can terrify even a hardy mother, who may easily want to vent her frustration on this demanding little tyrant who is so messily incontinent so much of the time. The incessant demands for neverending attention--the price of survival for the little one, makes life for the dedicated mother quite hectic for most of the time. For dependency is the hallmark of the little child, and his attachment to his mother for all his needs is close to being a symbiotic relationship. Apart from the child's survival, the groundwork for its wholesome sense of worth and goodness about himself is laid in this period of utter dependence: Not only the quantity of time and output of nurturing love but the very quality of this loving attention has so much to do with the kind of person the child will grow up to be. Childhood thus at this stage, is a state of absolute and almost one-way dependency, with little or no effective control or management on the child's part. Surely this image of the child has little to do with the childness that is meant to be our basic praying posture. The wish to return to childhood and to alleged lost innocence is surely a regressive wish and a desire to escape adult responsibilities in an effort to reestab-lish utter dependence. Such a desire, while not always on the level of full aware-ness, is fraught with secret urges to get back to a stage when all was well and no Prayer and Regression / 1111 pressm:es were experienced. In a deep symbolic manner, this is a wish to reenter the womb with its safe and secure amniotic protection. It is a yearning for a prepersonal stage where relationships do not need to be worked at and where needs were superabundantly granted in immediate supplies. It may be likened to a wish to become absolutely recipient to all desires and wants--to be the more or less content receiver of a bountiful providence. The kind of struggle that Paul says must attend our prayer, is anathema to this mentality and the perceptive notion of St. Thomas--that we are non solum provisi sed providentes, is rejected out of hand. St. Thomas was saying that God's fatherly care is so good that he invites us to share in his providential care: we are, he states, not just provided for; we are, in fact, coproviders. Father A certain style of diction in spirituality easily lends itself to this kind of regres-sive attitude. The "Good Lord" address-system to God fosters (wittingly or no) this kind of misplaced benevolence: he looks conveniently the other way from our aberrations and closes a grandfatherly eye when we sin. This is a God Who is not supposed to make demands and offers discipleship on the cheap. It is a God whose Son was not wholly in earnest when he laid down the cost of discipleship in totally inconvenient, uncompromising and uncomfortable terms (see Mk 8:31-38; 9:30-32; 10:32-45) and made stern demands of those who answered his call. Following him meant much more than the immediate disciples were ready to pay for they latched on to the "glory" aspect of the Messiah and refused to face the cross: be delivered, condemned, delivered to the Gentiles, mocked, spat upon, scourged, killed. Self-denial, taking up one's cross and follow-ing him are not exertions one expects of a child. They are adult commands and Christianity is for adults. While all of these directives come from a God who is love and who loves us without measure, he does not love us out of, but into suffering or pain or dilemmas. His attitude is a far cry from the "Good Lord" spirituality who gives all but expects nothing in return. Such an undisturbing deity makes for fascinating study of the adult who would want such a convenient Father. Other such possibly misleading ideas come from a notion of a God who holds us in the palm of his hand and whose massive palm cradles a sleeping babe. Such kitsch theology and art may serve a purpose and does have some merit', but it also fosters a kind of childishness that is not helpful in our faithgrowth. Isaiah 49 does speak of being held in his hand, and such an image has powerful evocations. But the infant in the palm goes a little much in the "childish" direction. Paul's "strain-ing forward" (Ph 3:13) and Ephesians' final admonition with its strongly martial tone (Ep 6:10-20) makes unrelenting effort the mark of the true disciple. "To that end keep alert with all perseverance," having on the breastplate, feet shod with the gospel of peace~ the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit. (Ep 4:14-18). This is the opposite direction to regression, in fact an honest progres-sion to a more mature humanity (Ep 4:13) that leaves behind the things of a child (1 Co 13:il). 1~1~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 Childhood: Recovery? In what sense then may we see childness as a faithful image or symbol for prayer? Surely the sense of dependency must enter as well as the sense of freedom. Anthony Storr (op. cir.) says that: "To seek after the spontaneity and freedom of the secure child is a different matter (from regression) and may perhaps be what is meant in the saying of Christ: 'Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven' "(Mt 18:3). Storr sees the freedom and spontaneity of childhood as a decided advance rather than a stepping back. But this is hardly enough. The scriptural idea of freedom is, as are many scriptural themes, set in paradox. "Live as free men," we read in I P 2:16, "yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil: but live as servants of God." If freedom is a keynote of Christianity, then we would have to understand it aright. In Christ and in Paul, freedom and bondage are reconciled. Jesus is seen as the self-emptying servant, whose utter abasement was the occasion and condition of his abiding freedom in unique exaltation. Kolb notes that Certain aspects of the personality may be arrested in their maturing process, with the result that a full and harmonious development never occurs. By.an anxiety-evading mechanism known as regression, the personality may suffer loss of some development already retained and reverting to a lower level of integration, adaption and expression. The retreat to a lower level of personality development is characterized by immature patterns of thought, emotion or behavior? It is not an uncommon happening that when a child gets a new baby brother or sister, and sees all attention of parents leave him for the new arrival he may begin to baby talk all over again and even wet the bed. He regresses to these earlier developmental stages so as to endeavor to recover the attention he had before the birth of his sibling. This is not necessarily pathological and in fact we all resort to nightly regres-sion when we sleep and dream. We let go of our hold on reality, bypass the world of logic, cause-and-effect, space and time and drift into a world of unrealistic ~antasy. This nightly spell of regression is a refreshing and even essential pause to enable us to face the morrow with a fair amount of poise.5 Most of the so-called mental illnesses include more or less severe regression but regression in itself is not an illness. When it goes beyond the level of efficiency and hinders effective relations with others, it is presumed to be unusual. The point of all this is to ask ourselves the question on prayer: is it possible to see ourselves in some regressed childish state when we say "Abba" to God? Before ~3od we may at times feel utterly useless and worthless. Our utter helplessness may even create the impression that once again we are back to a stage of childhood that 4Modern Clinical Psychology. Laurence C. Kolb (W.B. Saunders Company: Phil. 1977). p. 110. ~Personality Development and Psychopathology: Norman Cameron (Houghton Mifflin Co.: Boston. 1963), passim. Ch. 6. Prayer and Regression can in fact be childishness. God is a loving Father, to be sure, but an omnipotent God as well. Jesus is the Father's love made flesh for us, but he is Jesus just the same and our best efforts to "put him on" fall pitifully short. Faced with this kind of relationship, it is not possible to see a childish posture as somehow appealing. We may somehow cringe into littleness and close to nothingness and this is surely a childish regression. If we are to grow in moral reasoning and faith-living, then regression seems out. It is possible that our religious "life" lags painfully behind our general personality growth and thus makes for a stunted growth all round. Does it not seem better to see our religion as one for adults and only inchoa-tively for children? Is the Father-child paradigm used misleadingly, or is it a fact that we are simply engaged in child-talk when we come to pray? These are serious questions. I wish here to offer an understanding of childness that includes regres-sion but in a wholesome manner. Growing Regression In regression, the bonds with reality are loosened and we are in a world where logic and reason as we know them do not hold sway. Time and space evaporate, so we in fantasy flit from Disneyland to Shangri La and back again in a trice. Logical connections no longer bind and we are in a Walter Mitty world of make-believe. This kind of thinking and fantasying is called "primary process thinking" by Freud. One of his pupils, Ernst Kris6 followed up this idea and noted the intrusion of primary process thinking in art, humor and other creative mental functionings. Kris called this ego-controlled regression, or regression in the service of the ego, Kris noted that such regression has two phases: first, a rather passive phase when "the subjective experience is that of a flow of thought and images driving towards expression" (p. 59). He was careful to state that we must distinguish this from the second phase--creativity, "in which the ego controls the primary process and puts it into its service." This is clearly not the psychotic condition in which the ego is overwhelmed by the primary process. Prayer as Regression Kris says the inspirational and elaborational phases are part of the single process that comprises this adaptive regression. In the first stage the person is rather passive while in the second he takes charge and ideas are deliberately worked out and the secondary process involving logic and reality testing predominates. Applying this theory to the childness attitude in prayer, we may see that the beginning phase is one in which we are purely receivers. Prayer, as we know, is gift and all we do is to receive it. But this "regression" stage is but a preliminary one. It is a necessary but surely not sufficient cause for the posture of prayer. For prayer is never a nirvanic thing and demands effort on our part. Here is where phase two ~Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art. Ernst Kris (International Universities Press, N.Y. 1952). 184 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 emerges: having been passive to the grace of prayer we now respond more actively and strivingly. Paul stresses the earnestness and effortful response one must make in prayer when he states in I Th 3:10 that he "offers his prayer to God as earnestly as possible." The intensity of Paul's supplications are underlined to indicate that his is no mere quietistic slumbering in his prayers for those to whom he ministers. (see also 2 Th 5:!3; Rm 15:30-32; Col 4:12). Kecharitomen~ The posture of Mary as outlined in Luke offers a prime example of this two-fold phase in "regressive" prayer. When Mary has been given some clarifica-tion about her mission from the Angel, she said: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord" (Lk l:38)--"let it be to me according to your word." She had been given the title Kecharitornenb ("having-been-favored One") indicating that all she was and is now being done to her is grace or gift. Nothing she has done has merited this special visitation and unique grace. The humble virgin bethrothed to a man named Joseph was content to be quietly anonymous and was addressed by the messenger as one to whom all is done. She is purely receptive. She ratifies all this when she states that she is the handmaid (slave) of the Lord, She, the epitome of the Poor of Yahweh, was indeed a child, a helpless one, but God did mighty things to and through her. For all that mighty uplifting she calls herself a "slave." She is ready to receive the word and will of God. Yet that is not all. The way Luke would have us understand the response of Mary removes forever the almost inert caricature of a passive woman--an image the late Paul VI was at pains to dispel in Marialis Cultus~ From the receptive posture of receiving God's word, she is energetically and deliberately poised to do God's bidding. The "let it be to me according to your word" is an anemic rendition of the mind of Luke, It would be better to say that Mary's mind was that her most ardent desire was to seek and do his word. We often forget that the "with haste" of Lk 1:39 used to describe Mary's immediate departure to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, may also be translated as "with deep pondering." In some way we may see Mary as harmonizing her contemplation and apostolic love (Perfectae Caritatis n. 5). Childness in Prayer This article sought to seek some insights on childhood as a prayer posture that would-,safeguard the maturity of the praying person. Some overenthusiastic preachers in speaking of the "Abba" with which Jewish children address their father, speak of an overdone sentimentalism that does little good for prayer. The notion of childhood evokes many elements in a child that are not in any way appealing. To suggest that we revert to a childhood innocence when we come to pray might seem to .foster an infantilism that inhibits true communion with God and does little to promote our prayer life. The threadbare "where we are shibboleth seems to lose any respectability it ever had as in such a case we have to go back to where we were to pray in this childish manner. The conception of Prayer and Regression / 185 "regression in the service of ego" seems to help here with its two-fold phasing of letting-go and becoming more passive or receptive and then responding in a practical manner by praying earnestly. This kind of "regression" in no way bespeaks immaturity or illness but is the kind of process used by artists in their creative work. Prayer is a work in which we are cocreators with God--we are allowed to share with him in his own inner life and in such a way we are cocreators with him. But this is not an effortless ex nihilo gesture; it is more often than pot hard work. Here is where we work as though it all depended on us. But all the while he is the one who inspired the beginning of the creative effort of prayer and it is due to his prevenient grace that we even dream of praying at all. Today God Spoke to Me Today God spoke to me. He didn't say it was God; I didn't see him; I heard him. It was God. I will never forget what he said-- It was something quietly enormous-- Wait till I tell you. Think of a powerful current on the sea floor. A burst of all-encompassing light shot beyond Jupiter. Music in which I was afloat and wholly dissolved. But that's only what it was like. I want to tell you just what he said. What he said was.was. Oh, the words. I can't remember them, none at all, Except one that swept up all the others in everlasting arms. It said everything. It was Love, Love, Love. Louis Hasley 3128 Wilder Drive South Bend, IN 46615 Currents in Spirituality Trends and Issues in a Secularizing World George Ashenbrenner, S.J. For the third year, Father Aschenbrenner offers a survey of the year in matters spiritual. He continues his apostolate on a national scale, while residing at the University of Scranton; Scranton, PA 18510. This article is the third in a series.1 The first, two years ago, looked at th6 spiritual profile of a decade in a highly summary way, while both last year's article and this present one, less so but still very summarily and selectively, each sketch the landscape of a single year. I owe much to the editor of this journal, for the opportunity of this assignment. The focused effort to observe, to reflect upon and to articulate some of the developing trends and issues in American spirituality has been instructive and rewarding. A word of thanks, too, to some of my readers. 1 have seriously benefited from reactions and suggestions I have received. When you think of it, the year past, even viewed coldly, has been startling. And yet, how fearfully accustomed, and how quickly forgetful, we become. We heard-- and saw--assassination attempts on President Reagan and Pope John Paul 11; the ecstasy, after 444 days of agony, of the freeing of the hostages from Tehran; the ongoing murders in Central America; the endless floods of refugees throughout the world, in Central America, Africa, Thailand; the persistent "small-scale wars," ~See Review for Religious, March, 1980, "Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade." pp. 196-218; and March, 1981, "Trends of 1980: Some Themes and a Few Specifics," pp. 234-51. 186 Trends and Issues in a Secularizing Worm fully sufficient to keep alive the fear and plausibility of World War 111: the contin-ually escalating number of divorces and abortions across this land of ours; and those few, terrifying nuclear missile mistakes that accompanied the deliberate, quite unmistaken increase of nuclear armaments on the part of the major world powers, and minor powers, too. These events warn both author and reader of an article such as this that life is fragile, and that it may be viewed as very cheap; that evil is very real, and that we may easily get numb to its great, dark mystery; and that faith in God as a search for meaning and as love of the reality of our world is not easy--not easy at all. Obviously this article, following so closely upon two other similar surveys, does a good deal of repeating, presupposing, overlapping because spiritual trends and issues ordinarily do not simply appear and vanish within the narrow purview of a single year. Furthermore, the observing and the commenting remain distinctly the~ perspective and the insight of just one single person's opinion and point of view. And certainly, for this reader of the signs of the times, the four fundamental concerns of last year's article continue to be of paramount importance for all personal and communal spiritual life in the Church today: concern for the possibil-ity of a profound and faithful love, in the face of our culture's penchant for sensational, dramatic, immediate (and short-lived) sensual stimulation; concern for a more refined, a more other-centered, Christian personalism; concern for a shared companionship in faith; and concern for the paschal character and quality of faith, a paschal faith requisite to sustain, for the long haul, realistic, apostolic enthusi-asm.~ Indeed, because the cultural influences at work in these four areas of concern are still very strong, this present article will relate to them in many ways. In coming toward the close of these introductory comments, I would like to relate and distinguish two words of the title: trends and issues. A trend, here, speaks to a pattern of thought or behavior, the evidence for which would be sufficiently widespread to make it more than a local or exceptional occurrence. Whereas, an issue poses alternatives that, ur~less dodged, invite and eventually even demand a choice. And the choice, of course, often incarnates a whole series of values that relate to and reveal the meaning and un.derstanding of the trend. Often, it is through reflection on the trend that issues are discovered. The more valuable work, I feel, is to look as deeply as possible into current trends in American spirituality, with confidence that this exercise will be of assistance to us in facing issues that surface. Many of these issues, it seems to me, do and will continue to need further recognition and clarification before any firm resolution of them is either possible or suitable. Occasionally, however, an issue is so basic, and where one stands on it, where one shouM stand on it, becomes, even early on, so clear and so fundamental to Christian life, that I have not held back from making a clear judgment about the matter in question. And now to some trends and issues at hand. As 1 have traveled about, con- 2See ibid., March, 1981, pp. 235-243. 11111 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 suited, read, given workshops, courses, retreats and spiritual direction this past year, a very dominant, overarching preoccupation and theme, as I reflect on my own experience and listen to the experience of others, is secularity, secularization, secularism. Humfin spiritual life exists only in a world where ongoing pressures come at us, from every side, to secularize all our experience: of ourselves, of one another, and of all aspects of our world. Certainly, there is nothing new about this observation. The matter has been with us for a century, and more. And in very current forms, it has been an overt preoccupation of the religious community in this country at least since Vatican 11. But I believe that its strength as a trend in serious spiritual life continues very much to grow. And so, after looking about me, 1 have chosen to reflect here, at considerable length, on this tendency toward secularization. Following that, I will, more briefly, discuss a number of trends and issues which, whether implicitly or explicitly, whether as cause or consequence or corollary, relate to this central trend of secularization. In general, as I treat these other trends and issues, 1 will leave to the reflection of the reader their precise relationship to the general theme of secularization. Secularization It is not uncommon to divide reality into the sacred and the secular. And though this distinction and its significance can be of immense subtlety and compli-cation, with serious traps for the unwary, we can attempt a simple, hopefully usable description here of these two aspects of reality. John Coleman, using Huston Smith, makes the distinction for us: By the "secular" I mean "regions of life that man understands and controls, not necessarily completely but., for all practical purposes." These are regions toward which humans adopt a basically utilitarian attitude of mastery and control, making judgments on the basis of the technical adequacy of means to achieve stipulated goals) "Secular," then, speaks to a world of human domination, understanding and "control without, at least, any necessary reference to God or appeal to, or nourish-ment from, the experience of faith or of religious affections. Coleman then de-scribes the sacred: By the "sacred" I mean the area of mystery--the incomprehensible, indomitable, and seriously and supremely important; for "the sacred exceeds not only our control but our comprehen-sion." Our characteristic attitudes toward the sacred are all celebration, participatory contem-plation, and gratitude rather than mastery.4 "Sacred," then, points to the reverently mysterious, the awesomely (not problemat-ically) uncontrollable and, for articulated Christian belief, to a living, personal, experienced relationship with God in faith and hope and love. ~John A. Coleman, S.J., Theological Studies, December, 1978, "The Situation for Modern Faith," p. 604, citing Huston Smith, "Secularization and the Sacred,~ in Donald Cutler, ed., The Religious Situation 1969, Boston, 1969, p. 583. 4Coleman, Ioc. cit. citing Huston, art. cit., p. 587. Trends and Issues in a Secularizing Worm / 1119 The tendency toward secularization in a world of human believers is inevitable. It may foster religious faith, or it may corrupt it. The human heart, in this world, however lofty and transcendent its desires may be, is, ought to be, always histori-cal, definite, incarnational. However much travel and communication have mobil-ized us, limitations of space and time still shape our identity. These limits can seem very restrictive and confining. To live in America or Poland or lran as the twen-tieth century closes may seem a paltry destiny, when compared with the space address that may well be among the options of our twenty-third century descen-dants. But these temporal and spatial limits do identify us now and, rather than confining us, can call forth those precise creative responses which will bring about the reality of space living in the future. As human realities, faith and religion must be planted and grow within this world. And so, they, too, are susceptible to time/space limitations. Though faith will always call us beyond the world, its healthy development always lies in vigorous interaction with the world and its daily round of activities. Spirituality is never simply faith; but rather, it is faith's interaction with culture. It therefore grows and incarnates itself precisely through a secularizing process and trend. With its central focus on Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore on incarnation, Christian spirituality not only tolerates but embraces, for the sake of its own existence and development, this secularizing interaction with the culture of a specific people and time. And this secularizing process can positively foster faith, because the kingdom of his Father which Jesus preached and lived, for the people of first century Palestine, was meant to be lived in the world. In his parables, Jesus took illustra-tions from the culture of ordinary people, and he challenged everyone to a whole new way of imagining !ife in this universe. Granted that the fullness of his Father's kingdom beckoned beyond all this here and now, still the kingdom became an illusion if it did not take flesh in the daily circumstances of a specific culture. Over these twenty centuries, the continually limited situation of human faith has succes-sively called for multiple creative responses in the spirit-responses that lead to developments of both dogma and Christian life and that transform aspects of cultures, as each response incarnates, just a bit more, that loving reign of his Father which Jesus so desired for all. Though it is not always easy to interpret what is or is not providential, history is of course also dotted with instances of mistaken, or at least very tardy, responses of the Church to certain cultural challenges. Speaking summarily, then, we must be careful not to interpret the inevitable trend toward secularization as, of itself, destructive or weakening of Christian faith and witness. There is a healthy, permanent, indispensable secularity to Jesus' vision of loving and trusting his Father. However, having spoken to the essential character of its positive meaning and purpose, we must frankly notice that this inevitable secularizing tendency, when not carefully purified and focused, can be dangerously corrupting of the life of faith. And we are speaking here of no mere danger, it seems to me, but of an actual 190 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 trend of significant strength. The secularizing tendency of life in our world can and does easily, both consciously and unconsciously, settle into secularism, as an overall view of reality. John Coleman helps us again, this time quoting Guy Swanson: Secularism is the "denial that sacred order exists, the conviction that the universe is in no meaningful sense an expression or embodiment of purpose, the belief that it is unreasonable, other than anthropomorphically, to have toward the universe or its 'ground" a relationship mediated by communication or by any other interchange of meanings--to have toward it a relationship in any sense interpersonal."~ In this view, the world has become all, has become the ultimate: it has become God. Here we are entirely beyond any secularity, any inevitable and useful ten-dency toward secularization. As a vision of all reality, secularism has no time for faith, no basis for faith, much less for the intimacy of all true religion's interper-sonal relationship with God. In any explicit debate about secularism, of course, this corrupting danger for faith can be clearly percdived, and so the option to reject it is very available. But even at the theoretical, or notional level, rejection is not so easy, When the inroads are far advanced. However, it is at the operative level, the lived level, the level of heart and eyes and hands, where the danger is especially insidious, and much less detectable--in the midst of our busy, unreflecting life. The human heart, 1 believe, is essentially religious, with desires and Iongings for an interpersonal intimacy that far exceed anything and everything that is of this world. And often, by God's grace, a resentful, depressing frustration results when our hearts' settle for less than all that they are made for. But the sensationally sensual immediacy of much of the affective revolution occt~rring in our world can fixate our hearts and distract them from a reverential love of God.6 As the techno-logical explosion more and more shapes our world, and as we, often rightly, professionally train for work that is more secular, there can be less talk and reference to what should also be religious, even overtly religious. Letters, conversa-tions, sometimes, even, participation in religious ceremonies cease to involve any personal religious expression. 1 do not mean to imply here that religious faith is adequately, or even chiefly, measured by overt God-talk. But to keep the basic faith relationship of our hearts alive and growing, we surely need more than academic precision and culturally sophisticated reserve whenexpressing our faith. Faith, as a deep vision of heart, must be regularly expressed with appropriate personal devotion and affection. Otherwise, the vision and personal relationship of faith will, at minimum, lose any serious motivational force for our lives. It may even become something we are actually ashamed of. And when this happens, when our life of faith and devotion becomes entirely privatized, it can escape into a ~Coleman, art. cir. p. 605, citing Guy E. Swanson, "Modern Secularity," in Cutler, op. cir., pp. 803.-04. 6See Review for Religious, March, 1981, my article referred to above (footnote I), pp. 235-238. Trends and Issues in a Secularizing World childish, uncritical pietism, because so rarely shared with anyone. But there is a third, more ominous possibility, Our faith, from lack of expres-sion, from lack of embodiment, may actually die. This is obviously serious, ,and it is often final, when a person's love relationship with God in Jesus loses all power, all effect in furthering a Father's loving justice in our oppressively unjust world. And there is nothing theoretical in this very inadequate thumbnail sketch. Are there readers who have not watched, in themselves or in a friend, as faith weak-ened, the movement from a growing silence regarding faith to an indifference or even an aggressive criticism, until every expression of faith has become uncomfort-able and unwelcome? Then, faith no longer plays a role either in choosing or in evaluating action. In a rapidly secularizing world, the possibility is very real that faith may harden into a cold, polite, sophisticated, professional stance to life, with very little warmly affective religious expression. But we always need to talk about our beloved with others, to keep the love affair alive and growing and to let it influence others. Appropriate personal expressions of our faith will usually serve the Holy Spirit's inspiration of others. And therefore Christian communities of every kind, whether in religious life, or the family, or the parish, become increasingly more valuable as supports of shared religious vision and experience within a world tending more and more to secularism. How can we avoid the ultimate denial of Christian faith that secularism is? One terribly important means is surely that ongoing faith experience which knows, and seeks to experience God as beyond and greater than all the world. We who can so easily shrink God and conveniently fit him into our small universe have Jesus himself, in his experience of his Father, as our example in this matter. As he came to know Yahweh of the Old Testament in his own growing Abba experience, Jesus related most personally to a God whose life and love neither depended on nor were equal to this world, though (and here is the adventure of it) Jesus himself was that Father's inextricable involvement in love with this world. His commitment to a God so far transcending, though intimately involved within, this world is dramati-cally revealed in Jesus' Calvary experience of finding a resurrection of lif~ and love (his Father) in his very worldly, earthly dying. There was Someone worth dying for. And so, a cruelly absurd death is rendered beautiful to us and encouraging for our own life and death in this world, in what it reveals of a fullness and presence of life and love that is, in a sense, beyond any experience here and now, but yet which is finally available to all of us in Jesus, our Father's kept promise of intimate hope. But how do we experience, before death, the Father of Jesus in his transcend-ence beyond this world?For some, it is available in the dramatic, peak experience of crisis, when choice is both forced and offered between the consolation of a God greater than this world's absurdity and--nothing. In the critical moment when all of this world seems absurd and inimical, loving surrender to a God greater than all of this and whose love conquers all averts ultimate despair and destruction. People led through this experience learn to root their faith more deeply in God than ever before. Born again, they learn to see the world very seriously, and as much more 19~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 valuable and precious than ever before, because it is the stuff of a beloved Father's kingdom. Not all are called to, or allowed, such a crisis. But this fundamental and essential experience of God is not available only through crisis. It is, at base, a contemplative experience, a conversion experience, of God which is available to every believer. Nevertheless, as Paul describes in Rm 6: I-I I, and whether it occurs in a resounding'crisis or in a quiet, secret, outwardly ordinary transformation, it does involve sharing Jesus' death to this world, in order to live for God. There is a choice. And we do make it, whether suddenly or over time~ Either God, or the world~ In being attracted to the choice of God above the world, one then', of course, can find and live with God, and for God, within the world.7 And then. the apostle is in sight: the one who, having chosen God and not the world, is now available to be called by God, sent by God. to serve the world. God's world, the world God loved so much he sent his only Son. Through this experience, then, whether critically peak or not, but genuinely assimilated, we learn neither to take the world too seriously nor to take it lightly, either. A heart stretched by such an experience of God is simply not susceptible to an involvement in this world such that this world seems to be its own and our ultimate meaning and justification. For this is secularism pure and simple: no God, really: but if acknowledged at all. a God locked into this world. Jesus in all his serious concern for this world was never involved as though it were all he had. His identity center was never in this world, but in his Father: in his dear Father, whose love was greater than life itself/This was what kept Jesus energetically free in his life in this world, for this world. And so, too, for any disciple of Jesus. This experience of God beyond this world, which is meant to identify all of us in baptism, also prevents a seriously unchristian making light of this world. An excessive dichotomy between heaven and earth can lead people to long for the former and tend almost to view this earth as valueless, or, at best, as dangerous distraction. Such a lack of serious concern for this world can never result from an authentic experience of Jesus' Father, but only from a failure to appreciate another aspect of Jesus' Calvary experience--his own embodiment of his Father's love and care for us sinners in this, however sinful, immensely beautiful and precious world. Jesus is not someone irresponsibly unconcerned with this world, but neither is he someone so in love with this world that his freedom and ultimate identity are limited to it. Rather, his centeris always a dear Father who is a source of all his worldly love and life. This special religious experience, of having our identity in a God beyond the world while being actively involved in it, is no once-in-a-lifetime experience. It is 7To speak of God above the world is, of course, not to make a spatial delineation. Rather, it is to speak of a God whose being and love isfar greater than this world. In .In 12:3Z .Iesus's words remind us that ultimately we are attracted ("seduced~ is the Old Testament word) to this experience of God. it is not simply our own, Pelagian choice. 8Ps 63:3. Trends and Issues in a Secularizing Worm / 193 rather a lifetime process renewing, deepening, remembering and repeating our God-in-Christ experience. We must recognize the means God sends into our lives to renew this central, identifying experience. We must also find regular (daily?) habits that assist to renew this central focus of our heart's vision. Together with many service situations each day, liturgy, a healthy practice of mortification, and formal praye'r can be regular reminders of a Father whose love and care for all of us point far beyond'the transitory world to a fullness of Spirit still gifting a dying Son's trust. The final beauty for us and for our world, God himself, not only shatters any narrow secularism, but invests our proper apostolic concern and action in the world with a paschal force which labors joyfully that everything may belong to Christ, who shall hand all things over to the Father, that God may be all in all? Against this background of a strong secularizing tendency in our world today, I will now treat a number of other trends and issues on the American spiritual scene. Some of these concerns are more directly affected than others by our secularizing world; But all of them, in my judgment, are susceptible to its influence. Related Trends and Issues 1. A Sacred-Secular Split A division of our world into sacred and secular is one of the chief tendencies of secularization. Father Philip Murnibn recently told the Catholic Theological Society of America that "we are experiencing (a) disaffection from faith and Church and a separation of private Church life from public social life that is the main feature of secularization."~° Many call for a political theology which would heal this split and bring the gospel more to bear on the persons and institutions of our unjust, sinful world. Such a view rightly understands that to theologize and to practice spirituality without a passionate concern for the specifics of our world only exacerbates the sacred-secular split and that the approach is, in any event, unchristian. But conversely, any merely external activity, however much on behalf of justice, is equally insufficient to heal this split wherever it exists, whether within an individual person or within a community. Any attempt at healing which ne-glects the split at the level of interior experience risks a fragile solution that will quickly slip into an unrooted, social externalism. Evangelization must aim deeply and broadly: it must essay healing the split deep within the individual human heart even as it confronts the systemic injustice in our society. Liberation theology needs to be rooted in a liberation spirituality for the individual believer.~l The silence and solitude, the healing purification and conversion of the encounter with God cannot be bypassed. Segundo Galilea articulates it exactly: '~See I Co 15:22-8. ~01n Origins, August 13, 1981, "The Unmet Challenges of Vatican I1," p. 148. ~Segundo Galilea, ~Liberation as an Encounter with Politics and Contemplation," in Claude Geffr6 and Gustavo Guttii:rez, eds., The Mystical and Political Dimension of the Christian Faith, New York, 1974, p. 20. 194 / Review for Religious, March-ApriL 1982 Authentic Christian contemplation, passing through the desert, transforms contemplatives into prophets and heroes of commitment and militants into mystics. Christianity achieves the synthesis of the politician and the mystic, the militant and the contemplative, and abolishes the false antithesis between the religious-contemplatives and the militantly committed.~-' The ~bility to deal in faith with a wide range of inner affective experiences in our hearts makes possible finding God in every inner experience. In this way all human experience gradually becomes religious experience and culminates some-how in God, thus healing the split between experiences which are either overtly religious or secular. Without this inner integration in faith of a person's ongoing experience, political theology and spirituality are both Unroofed, just as the inner faith integration, if left to itself and without the outer word and action, becomes unreal and, finally impossible. A careful discernment of heart expressed in a passionate concern for individual evangelical issues and in a courageous loving presence to the.serious social issues of our world will avoid any unjust, unfaithful, secularistic dichotomy 2. Global Societal Values As we look to the future, there is an urgent summons to transcend overly personalistic, or, perhaps better, individualistic values. In the midst of a growing, democratic stress on the value of each human person, Vatican 11 took as one of its central foci the value of the person. In last year's survey, while affirming this value as utterly central to the Christian mystery, I nevertheless treated the danger to personalism of a subtle self-centeredness. And 1 suggested we might be ready for a more refined Christian personalism.~3 As we look forward now to the year 2.000, when global and societal problems will be, even more than today, an inescapable reality, our education and religious formation must be founded on global, on societal, values rather than on simply personalistic ones. Learning to cooperate, throughout both national and international society, will become, will have to become, more and more the truest meaning of personal fulfillment. And questions such as these will face us if we take such a global perspective: How do we take account of the millions of poor starving people in our world as we arbitrate labor disputes for excessively high salaries, whether we are talking of air-controllers or of baseball players? How do we overcome the natural tendency to get as much as one can for oneself, rather than to think of sharing with millions upon millions who have much less? We have a long way to go in this shift of value perspective before the year 2000. The heavily personalistic approach (really, it is better to say. individualistic) with its stress on self-fulfillment, will not convert and develop easily~to a global perspec-tive. The conversion involved here will be a new way of thinking. But it must go beyond that, to a change of heart. This global view will finally be shaped in experiences, carefully planned and reflected upon, as a complement to serious ~21bid. p. 28. ~3See art. cit. pp. 238-39. Trends and Issues in a Secularizing World / 195 study. True Christian personalism, of course, which is not narrowly individualistic, has no need to renounce any of itself, but will find a ready ally and field for service in global, societal concerns. Indeed, Christian personalism will become fully itself only in a communal, universal perspective which incarnates that justice, love and peace which mark the kingdom of Jesus' Father. For most of us, the shift we speak of calls for a change of heart that must run deep, get radical and become a revolution in our sensibility. 3. Unity and Diversity On April 8, 1979, at an academic convocation in Cambridge, MA, Karl Rahner, attempting a theological interpretation of Vatican 11, claimed that this Council "is.the Church's first official gelf-actualization as a world Church."~4 And Rahner claims that as the Church takes this revelation of her global nature ever more seriously, there will necessarily develop a pluralism of proclamations of the one Good News for many new cultures in Asia, Africa, and other places. How shall we find a true unity of faith within such a pluralism, and without again reducing it to a Western, Roman, overly centralized uniformity? Philip Murnion, in commenting on the unmet challenges of Vatican 11, feels that: "It is now the basic ecclesiology of Vatican 11 that confronts us as we grow weary and dissatisfied with so many superficial expressions of this ecclesiology."~5 As this basic ecclesiology of a "world Church" begins to be realized in practice, the pluralis~m which we know already can only radically increase. And as we are very well aware, such rapidly growing diversification often brings in its wake confounding disorientation, highstrung tension, and even hostile, angry charges of disloyalty. The problem is, and will be faith: to seek, and to learn to recognize unity of faith within diversity. That said, however, we cannot simply float with an almost infinite variety, as though diversity, in and of itself, were pure value. Finally, both human intelligibility and Christian faith require a unity. But a unity underneath and within diversity is not always easy to perceive, especially when diversification is rapid and recent. In a time of great diversity, before a clear, profound and pervasive unity has been found, we must learn to live both honestly and charitably, and with inevitable tensions. But even as we are patient, we must also continue to search for, we must ambition and work for, that unity which wiil help us understand how diversity is a blessin~ how it enriches and does not enervate. Simply to settle for a tolerance of plurality is not healthy pluralism. Whether it be a matter of the forms of ministry or orders, or of women priests, of religious garb, of doctrinal expression, or of forms of Church membership, we must continue to grow toward a "coherent consensus that can serve as a basis for common and confident Catholic identity."16 t4Karl Rahner, S.J., Theological Studies, December, 1979, "Towards a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II~ (Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J., tr.). p. 717. ~Murnion, Origins, August 13, 1981, loc. cit. ~61bid. p. 147. ~TSee Jn 17:22. 196 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 As we search for a deeper coherence and discerningly reflect on much experimen-tation, we must reverence one another and the intricacies of ecclesial authority and development. And the best way we reverence both one another and the issues is by sharing our beliefs as best we can, from deep within our hearts, in the confident hope that a God who is so joyously one, precisely in terms of his own lovely diversity, will guide us together and will help us to see the extent and limit of diversity so that we may be one even as Father, Son, and Spirit are one.~7 When looked at institutionally, the area of ministry may especially seem to reveal a diversifying revolution that verges on the chaotic.J8 We speak of"ministry" now, where before we would have said "apostolate" or, simply~ "work." Many believers, especially tho~e professionally trained, now speak of having a ministry. This explosion of ministries has unhooked the word, and permanently so, I should think, from a past, unambiguous relationship to ordination. Now, in word also, as always before in fact, it is not only priests who minister. And this great multiplica-tion of ministries through the 1970's is no mere matter of a word. It signals an underlying ideological shift regarding ministry in the Church.J9 Various studies are trying to expose this ideological shift,' so that it can be seen for all that it may mean for the future, then discussed and carefully experimented with~ before any long-term decisions are made. This development in ministry is very complicated and needs to be studied from many perspectives. Perhaps serious consideration of the renewed ecclesiology of Vatican II will help us appreciate the theological source for much of the develol~men~t regarding ministry in the Church. For if the Church is seriously perceived as mystery and not just as institution, as community and not only, or even primarily, as hierarchy, as mission and not just as haven of the saved, then much of the ministerial multiplication becomes not only intelligible, but rich and welcome.20 Hopefully, then, such study will gradually expose the underlying issue here, so that we can choose our future in a diversity expressive of a profound, commonly shared faith-unity, rather than be trapped in a future diversity which is only the bitter sign of the disunity of unconcerned or warring parties. 4. Spiritual Witness of Religious Life Part of the explanation of the great expansion of,ministries is the urgent sense of the countless challenges with which the modern world confronts the Church. There are so many opportunities, and there is so much to be done. And we have not the leisure to wait; time is runnin.g out. This urgent sense of ministerial opportunity and challenge is affecting religious Congregations in at least two different ways. Some groups, over the past few years, ~sSandra M. Schneiders, I.H.M., The Way, October, 1980, "Theological Trends: Ministry and Ordina-tion I." p. 291. ~gSee John A. Coleman, S.J., America. March 28, 1981, "The Future of Ministry,~ pp. 243-49. 20Schneiders, art. cir., pp. 290-299. Trends and Issues in a Secularizing World / "197 have learned the futility of furious and relentless activity and are now involved in a serious, mature, realistic program of spiritual renewal. And they are doing this without any unrealistic or self-centered withdrawal from apostolic activity. But rather than trying to do as much as they "can," members are taking means and time to improve the prayerful quality of their presence and action in the world. Some leisure, to keep personal spirituality and humanity alive, is not seen as time wasted or selfishly spent, but is encouraged to provide the spiritual, faith motiva-tion requisite for a courageously loving and enlightened presence in the critical situations of our world. There are other religious congregations that would almost certainly not explicit-ly deny the necessity of serious spirituality to root serious ministry. But at the operative level, they at least seem so taken up with their difficult ministries that fatigue, often verging on burnout, prevents serious growth in prayer and in the inner resources for that personal love relationship with God which alone can motivate authentic apostolic service. In such Congregations, often there is not much specific encouragement from superiors and other leaders for prayer, for careful spiritual reflection, or for time taken for serious retreats alone with God. Members of these congregations sometimes look in vain for such encouragement, and they wonder at an apparent lack of appreciation for ongoing spiritual renewal. These groups are frequently grappling with the crucial issues of our age, and often with great courage. But they are also doing so, often, with an apparent lack of any realistic, informed and detailed concern for that inner life of the Spirit which keeps apostolic life prayerfully focused on Jesus' revelation of the kingdom of his Father. Within this significant, contemporary trend of religious congregations moving, not theoretically, but operatively, in two different directions, the issue is the subtle integration of the inner and outer, of prayer and ministry. I certainly have no wish or competence to sit in judgment on who attains this integration and who does not. Either of these two directions I have described can be exaggerated. Excessive care of spiritual practices can produce a "hothouse" pietism unconcerned with major issues in our world. And excessively busy activity in our secular world, without sufficient spiritual resources--and taking the time for this---can burn out faith and a prayerful spirit, in a way that does not further the kingdom. As we confront the fact that ministry is not a matter of staying as busy as possible, we can be led to the deeper~ more subtle issue of a careful concern for the quality of our action, a quality determined by the graced availability of our hearts and wills to God in all we do. We will struggle with the fluctuating mixture in our conscious-ness of grace and sinfulness, of consolation and desolation, and see how seriously related it all is to our service. An actively apostolic spirituality, never a matter of simple busy activity, is as much a matter of this inner quality of heart expressed in a special human faith presence as it is a matter of courageous activity and service for God's people. As this is more appreciated, the groups now moving in the two directions I've sketched above will not judge or belittle one another. No, the3/will increasingly cooperate in diverse ministries, through a shared and prayerful faith. A related trend here concerns the role and understanding of formal prayer in 1911 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 serious spiritual growth and in mature ministry. Obviously, mature ministry is impossible without mature prayer. Here, I do not simply equate formal prayer and mature prayer. By no means. The latter term stretches far beyond the practice of formal prayer, into a whole life of prayer, but only so, 1 suspect~ because of an appropriately regular practice of formal contemplation. Without regular, formal contemplation, a mature, prayerful life in ministry does not seem possible. Most serious believers 1 consult and listen to, in the course of many travels and work-shops, would readily agree with this. But many would then squirm a bit, perhaps, as they reflect on their own practice of formal prayer. 1 sense some widely divergent understandings today of"regular formal prayer." Without wanting to suggest any uniformity for all, let me pose some questions that may help us candidly face the issues in this trend. To practice regular formal prayer, does a person need a specific, daily expectation of length and time, rather than leaving it simply to daily spontaneity? Does this daily expectation or ideal then leave one open to days when God "excuses" one for various reasons (his), thus preventing the ideal from becoming ironclad and causing guilt? ls formal prayer always somehow a withdrawal from activity into the intimate solitude of our hearts to be with God there? Is praying formally once or twice a week what is usually meant by "regular" for a mature believer? Is it a different type and quality of prayer that one is capable of when one prays for thirty rather than ten minutes (without letting prayer become too, clock-oriented, like a prayerwheel)? Even in the case of quite advanced spiritual persons, is the disappearance of regular formal prayer, for at least thirty minutes, a bad, or at least very questionable, sign? I think individuals and whole religious communities must give serious thought to ques-tions such as these before they too hastily agree again, even in very beautiful words, how important formal prayer is for busy apostolic lives. I am not entirely sure what reaction these questions may call forth from various people. But 1 do sense a growing desire among religious and others to be more prayerful and to be more honest about the whole question of what it means to pray, and of the necessity of praying if one wishes to be prayerful. Many look for clear, specific guidance and encouragement in this matter. And this desire to grow in the practice of formal prayer, as a means toa life of prayer and service, is no monastic aberration for an active person. I sense we can be carefully more demanding of one i~nother in this area, after a period of vague, rather general guidelines which reacted to some past inflexible, detailed programs of prayer. How these questions about regular formal prayer can be answered by busy parents with small children at home must also be investigated. Though in general their spiritual ideal and program must be different from that of religious and priests, it is still not at all clear that they are incapable of some realistic, regular practice of formal prayer. Without proposing any seminary or convent style of spirituality for busy parents, we must not downplay either their desire for prayer, even at the cost of sacrifice, or the necessary interplay of protracted regular prayer and a developing life of prayer. But much more experimentation and study must be done on the adaptations appropriate to these people, but adaptations which will Trends and Issues in a Secularizing World / 199 not trivialize the often significant spiritual capabilities and desires of these lay men and women. 5. Religious Life: Life in Community Another trend seems also to be moving the understanding of religious life in two quite different directions. Is religious life now, and will it continue to be, life lived in community? Once again, more operatively than theoretically, there seem to be congregations that respond yes to the question, though they may understand "living in community" in various ways. And there are certainly congregations that, at least in the way they act, would clearly seem to be answering no to community life as a necessary element of religious life. Some congregations see the profound unity of the whole group as springing essentially from that shared experience of "being sent" which integrates religious authority, obedience and mission into one life and call.2~ This profound sense of community in mission is then incarnated in each and every person's living some-how as a member of a local community, with exceptions occurring only because of the necessities of geography or the nature of the particular ministry. In this way there is a clear incarnation of the belief that a member's heart is given over completely to God and his people, but it is given to God and it is given apostoli-cally precisely through belonging fully to this specific congregation. In this under-standing, apostolic community is not an end in itself, but it certainly is a continually essential means to ministry and service and thus is an essential aspect both of religious identity and of apostolic action. In other congregations, life in community seems experienced and desired and chosen as much less essential and pervasive in the group. And these groups are often composed of competently trained, talented, generous people. But their apos-tolic service seems more an individual concern. They are often found either living alone or, when they live together, they seem to do so more as a matter of conven-ience and/or compatibility than as anything required to express their identity. They often live the vows seriously and carefully, though where ministry is not an experience of "being sent," there would seem to be difficult questions about genuine religious obedience.22 Operatively, whatever the theoretieal aspects may be, there seems to be a different view of religious life here--something more akin to what we have traditionally understood a secular institute to be. The issue, it seems to me, is whether these two clearly differing developments are also contradictory and therefore unable to be seen as authentic variants of one reality: religious life as understood and lived in the Church. Will we continue to see religious life as life in community, which has seemed to be one of its essentials since :~See my article. "Prayer. Mission and Obedience." The Way Supplement, No. 37. Spring. 1980. pp. 50-57. 221bid., p. 55. 20{I / Review for Religious, March-April, 1982 Pachomius organized eastern monasticism? It is important not to see community here as simply a geographical, local matter. That is an important meaning, but it is not the first nor is it the essential meaning of religious community life. Rather, vowed community life is fundamentally a profound union and communion in mission, a sense of the corporate, which indeed ordinarily is incarnated in a shared local setting of life and faith. Even now there can be tension and friction between groups of these two very diffe~'ent understandings of religious commitment. And I am not sure that the issue would not become serious enough in the future to cause a break and division in our understanding of religious life. A major superior recently told me that she expected, after the relative peace and the low number of departures during the end of the 70's, that the early 80's would bring more upheaval and departures--but all leading to something deep and good, something more gospel-based. So there may be radical purification again! And a sizable part of this upheaval may well concern the precisely com-munal dimension of our lives as religious. People may leave either because of a desire for more shared life and faith than a particular group has to offer, or conversely, they may leave because of a loss of aptitude or affection for celibate religious living after years of individualistic living and working. In congregations committed to a healthy, contemporary sense of communal living, there is another issue developing: a growing need for leadership on the local level. Groups, in and of themselves, still seem to find it very difficult to make decisions. Rather, they often haggle over each side of a question and often cannot move ahead. Beyond the role of a provincial superior and counselor, a local leader seems needed, a leader who listens, who values the communal and the collegial, but one who is able also compassionately to confront and to call individual members to be honest and prayerfully discerning about their lives, ministries and vocations. Leaders, then, are needed who are willing to accept the burden and service of authority. Without the encouragement of such a leader on the scene, honest, prayerful discernment about serious issues frequently does not happen. Provincials know how often they are confronted with the fair accompli in serious vocational decisions that have had very little consultation and prayerful discern-ment behind them. Mature, competent, professional adults, overly involved in our secular world, often need this careful but honest dialogue, if they are to stay in touch with, and live out, their_deepest, truest desires in faith. But as provincials know, it is very difficult to find men and women of this leadership caliber, mefi and women both suited and willing to be facilitators and leaders of local community life. And of course there remain in some members authoritarian hangovers which militate against this move toward better community living. Another angle of this issue concerns younger members' entering religious life. Because of the serious decrease of members in the past decade, there is generally a real age gap developing between members who are about ten years professed and novices or temporary professed, who now face the prospect of joining for life. Can such young persons live and serve with members decidedly older than themselves? Can they live without much peer support? This is an issue which, in its detail and Trends and Issues in a Secularizing World developments and implications, is quite different from anything most of us had to face years ago as we entered religious life. Today, the decision for final profession, for such young religious, will require a strong sense of vocation indeed, a sense of vocation that is rooted in a special inner psychic strength and in a quite different type of trust in God than was asked for in the past. This sense of vocation and commitment must, finally, be rooted deeply in the inner solitude of the individual heart, where God's call continues to resonate deeply and very lovingly. Now the motivation must run palpably deeper than any horizontal peer support. The com-munity dimension of our vocation, important as it is, can never replace the unique-ness of a vocation rooted in the experience of solitude alone with God in one's heart. In many ways, today we are being called back to this rooting of the religious vocation in God--in and through, of course, but also far beyond the personal fulfillment of shared support and affirmation. As Ps 73 says of him: "you are.the future that waits for me.ms All these different aspects of this trend concerning community and religious life finally issue forth with decided impact on the level of felt membership. Today, unless one is a major superior or has been chosen for some other special responsi-bility in the congregation, the felt sense of belonging may grow dim. So many religious today, whether it be their own responsibility or that of others, fe~l dis-connected, left out. In past times, th

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

Issue 35.6 of the Review for Religious, 1976. ; ,,,,llllili,,,~,iililli REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is edited by faculty members of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 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 © 1976 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor November 1976 Volume 35 Number 6 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVXEW 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 REvmw voa RELICIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, SJ.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at $4th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. Catholic Schools in a Declining Church: A Theological Reflection Donald J. Keefe, S.J. Father Keefe, on the faculty of the Department of Theological Studies; St. Louis University; St. Louis, MO 63103, has been a frequent reviewer in these pages. Presently he is on sabbatical leave and is residing in the Jesuit Community; Fordham Univer-sity; Bronx, NY 10458. Catholic Schools in a Declining Church, co-authored by Andrew Greeley, William McCready and Kathleen McCourt (Sheed and Ward, 1976) has attained a prominence in religious publication ,which is perhaps comparable to that of Hans~ Kiing's In[allible? An Inquiry. Their common success fol-lows a common formula: each purports to present a scholarly basis for a radical criticism of the institutional Church. Each is underwritten by a prominent figure in the Catholic world, Consequently, each has~a political significance which is independent of the intrinsic merits of its critique. Each has been given instant notoriety in th.e popular press and each, in its fashion, is symptomatic of what seems to be a pervasive dissatisfaction within Cath-olic academic circles regarding what are felt to be inappropriate responses of the Church to the contemporary world. Finally, each reflects a similar impatience with the "official" ecclesiology, one which understands the Church as "the sacramental sign of the Kingdom of God: KiJng's rejection of this ecclesiology, long since explicitl does not concern us here. Rather we are coficerned with the ecclesiology implicit in Catholic Schools in a De- ,clining Church, particularly insofar as this bears upon Greeley's judgment that the encyclical,.Humanae Vitae, is simply a disaster. Greeley's salient theological conclusion is that, by reason of a funda-mental failure in communication, the official Church, though, revivified by the reforms of Vatican II, has, in the publication of Humanae Vitae, entered 801 802 / Review ]or Religious,: Volume 35, 1976/6 upon a suicidal rejection of 'its own reality-in-history by rejecting the morality of artificial contraception; and this despite the fact that~ the greater part of the Catholi6 people find no impropriety in such practices. Certain normative presuppositions undergird Greeley's conclusion: .1 ) The Catholic Church is as fit a subject for sociological analysis as any other social .entity. It is quite as permeable to this kind of scrutiny'as, for example, would be the Democratic Party. 2) The actual meaning of events, as these occur in the history of the Church, is that meaning which this kind of investigation reveals. Thus, for example, an event is "disastrous" when its effects, as measured by sociolog-ical criteria, are found to be destructive. These presuppositions are merely expressions of the demand for auton-omy which every intellectual inquiry, regardless of its object, makes as a matter of course. Every science is in search of the unity of truth. The syn-thetic or conclusion-reaching aspect of any science is no more than an expression of confidence in the power of its own method to integrate into a comprehensive understanding all the scattered data which its inquiry un-covers. There.is a kind of arrogance associated with any disciplined attempt to understand, for it supposes an ability to transcend, to dominate, ultimately to comprehend its object. Such intellectual self-sufficiency at a naive level raises no particular theological difficulties. But when it is given sophisticated expression as a method O[ knowledge, it can become an ideology, one which would pretend to offer a comprehensive criterion of truth and reality that would be analogous to, and necessarily competitive with the Christian faith itself. Such methodologies in fact become ideological when they refuse to admit the existence of any truth, of any reality beyond their grasp. They become ideological when they place prior limits upon-what can be "known," upon what can be "true." Over the centuries of the Church's history, such ideological convictions have continually troubled the faith of its community. Such convictions have been woven out of the tangled threads of rabbinical Judaism, of the Medi-terranean mystery religions, of the He~llenistic philogophies which were contemporaneous with the early Church. With the dawn of the Middle Ages, the first introduction of Aristotle)~ logic prbvided a new challenge to the faith. In the late Renaissance, there was a c~omparableenthu~iasm for yet another powerful intellectual resource: "scientific method," with its ac-companying mathematics, began to be exalted as the ~nique mode of .access to certitude. By the end o~ the eighteenth century, this confidence had waned. The Romantic period then found in the humanistic study of history and in nascent sociology a new key to the human enigma. Truth is no longer to be r~garded as something "out there." Rather it is seen as the proper Catholic Schools in a Declining Church: A Reflection / 1~03 achievement of human societies in history--a history which is fundamentally in human hands, open to human analysis and exhaustive comprehension. This, too, fed the formation of ideologies. Common to all such ways of knowing iS the problem of their "conver-sion." The value ofthese works of human intelligence is enormous, in-dispensable. How can they be conformed to the Catholic faith, enter into a Catholic intellectuality? The claim that they cannot be. so conformed is still heard, both from those who too much love and from those who too much fear the new learning. For those who love too much, such a conversion would put an end to the "autonomy of science." For those who "too much fear," such a conVersion would end by relativizing the faith. Perhaps the simplest reply to such claims is to point out their futility. The objection that the "conversion" of an otherwise autonomous method of scientific inquiry would write finis to its independence rests upon an outdated notion of scientific method, the philosophical roots of which were undercut by Kant.~The intrinsic dilemmas of this method were demon-strated half a century ago by Heisenberg's0principle of indetermination. In point of fact, Descartes' dream of a universal science remains a dream, a dream tied to a time now remote. In our day, it survives only as an ideology of a peculiarly old-fashioned sort, kept alive' largely by social engineers' such as B. F. Skinner with his form of determinism. In such hands, this ideology becomes a kind of salvation, scheme by which the unpredictability, the enigmatic character of historical humanity is remedied by the elimina-tion of those human attributes which permit the emergence of historical' novelty: freedom and personal responsibility. The reduction of humanity to fungible integers thus finally makes possible a mathematically accurate calculus and control of the human. Such an ideology is really nothing more than eighteenth-century,Enlight-enment optimism, which wasn't even taken seriously by its own proponents. They wouldn't dream of submitting themselves to this~kind of salvation-scheme. Yet it is precisely in the. proliferation of ~such salvation-schemes that there comes,to be most clearly evident scientific method's need for a radication in a faith which transcends it. On the other hand, the point of view we indicated above as that which fears the relativizing of faith by any application to it of a free inquiry has its exemplars in the long line of rigofists who have always been present in the,Church. First there were the Judaizers of whom Paul complains. There was Marcion in the next century, Tertullian in the third. There have been the ever-present battalions of "hypertraditionalists," those who fear that a free future must :be open to~ sin and corruption, and would, on that account, foreclose the.History of Salvation in the name of salvation itself, 'quite as would their counterparts, the social, engineers. But their historical pessimism is the less excusable because the faith they are zealous to defend 804 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 is precisely a faith in the Lord of History whose creation is good and whose presence in. the world makes its history to be salvific. It is then as illusory for the scientist to fear the conversion of his methodology to the service of the Catholic faith as it is perverse for the committed Cathblic unduly to°fear the scientific inquiry which such a .con-version would unleash. Still, the mutuality of science and. of the Catholic faith is easier to envisage than it is to achieve. While the sunny confidence in a salvation-to- be-wrought-by-reason has waned somewhat since the age of optimism that was' ended in the blo~d,soaked fields at Verdun and. the Somme in World War ~, the practitioners of the social sciences, however mindful they ¯ be of the oft-cited perils of "Helleriization," still tend, to be less than troubled by the demonic potential of~their own saeculum, by the resistance of their own cultural commonplace--scientific method t6 conVersion. Not a little of this resistance is the fruit of the recognition by Vatican II that the world is not alienated from the concerns of the Church. Indeed, the autonomy of the secular in its own realm is there explicitly stated, bring-ing with it the enfranchisement of the scholar to do his work without con-cern for received opinions among churchme.n in regard to matters which are properly within his province. In Vatican II, historical and social re-search were liberated from all pious dishonesty. Catholic confidence in the ultimate goodness of fallen historicity required no less. " Since that time, Catholics have become accustomed, as they were not before the Council, to a view of an historical Church "with warts on." For many, perhaps for most,~ this new outlook was traumatic. Accustomed hitherto to think of the Church in terms of such attributes as militancy, witness, inerrancy, historical unity and the like, they were suddenly con-fronted by the countering of these commonplaces with other assertions of the Church's' documented cowardliness, conformism, error, division and so on. Indeed, these wer, e not seldom presented as conclusive refutations of the traditional faith in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church: More, and worse, these charges had a kind of ecclesial warrant--the "spirit of Vatican II." This spirit more and more often found expression in terms, of an active antagonism to the Catholic past. In particular, the validity of tradition and of the authority of the Church were challenged in the heretofore sacrosanct realm of sexuality. In this realm scarcely any element of the Church's faith or practice was without its learned opposition. In its opposition, argument rested not on historical research--for the.con-stancy of the moral tradition was quite clear--but upon what was con-sidered to be "the religious insignificance" of sexuality. From the vantage point of modern psychology and sociology, Catholic emphasis upon the sacramentality of sex, which found expression in the condemnation of certain sexual practices as being immoral, in the prohibition of clerical marriage, Catholic Schools in a Declining Church." A Reflection / 805 and of the ordination of women, was viewed as simply mistaken. Sociology and psychology were thought to provide a sufficient explanation for the origin of these, rules and 'condemmitions, while at the same time, these same disciplines,seemedzunable to find any present justification for con-tinuing such norms. Underlying such. conclusions was the presupposition that "whatever can be given a secular explanation must be so explained." Of course, this is a denial of the sacramental'significance of historical humanity. It represents a retrogression to thht .primitive mentality which .identifies religion~ with magic. In this' way,~, all holiness, all religious value~in the everyday, non-marvelous, commonplace human life in the world comes to be ignored. In such a circumstance, the Church has nothing to say to this~world; for the Church is seen to exist ,only~to provide :illusion for a dwindling clientele. Whoever would challenge the Churchqn such terms really cannot expect a heating' .The Church must~refuse the postulates of.iany science-become-idei~ logy. (3riticis .ms of the Church based on the validity-of such postulates do not bear upon reality. ,They leave .no common ground fore discussion. The authenticity of the Church's teaching and practice does not--and can~ notqwait upon certification from any secular tribunal. Greeley, oin his critique, like Kting, fo~-gets ,this, ~though not to, the point of the latter's explicit denial of the Church's sacramental and causal' relationship to the fulfilled Kingdom of God., Rather, Greeley~ simply does not advert to it. Still, the net effect'is the same.~When the Church is treated for purposes of the laboratory as' merely*an empirical datum, its sacramental character is ignored. The laboratory is not concerned with the truth and effectiveness of a sacramental sign. Yet the Chur~h,~can be understooddn her reality only insofar as he'r history is aqknowledged to, be the~uniquely effective sacra-mental instrument through which humanity, regardless of its historical di-versity, its contention and sin, is~ ultimately redeemed from its fallenness and raised to fulfillment by the.Lord of History.°tf this sacramental reality is not admitted at the outset, the,~Church becomes something debatable, a matter for dispute,, bringing us back to the format of what is, .after all, an obsolete apologetic: a profitless debate over the Church"s worthiness and/or unworthiness. In Catholic'. Schools in a De'clining Church, the worthiness/ finworthiness preoccupation is' mdni[est: the-Church-as-worthy is~,seen to be the-Church-as-popular. ,: ¯ ~- And yet, if it qs right to be wary of an ecclesiology which w~ould, sub-mit the Church to some .sup'erior academic wisdom, it would be quite an-other thing to conclude that the., Church need not respond .to criticisms which the academy cannot but, offer it. Conversation _between the two, however, can take place only where there is a foreswearing of,funda-mentalism On the one hand_and of doctrinaire scientism on the other. Only thus could there, come" into being a common universe of discourse. Necessarily~,ifivolved in this is a recognition by the Church that its doc- 806 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 trine is given historical utterance for the sake of beginning new discussion quite as much as for the sake of punctuating an antecedent one. Necessarily involved is a recognition by the scientist that, when .all his data are collated, the inferences they support must be_ framed as questions, and as problems, not as doctrine in competition with the faith. It is by no means easy to preserve the conditions for such an exchange. Good will is, only the first of these. Ultimately the demand of such condi-tions is met by the recognition of what is actually taking place in such_a conversatibn. It represents an interchange between the faith of the Church and the questing reason of its members '(,which is called theology). It repre-sents the transformation of an otherwise purely secular scientific interest, a transformation imperated by its application to the Revelation.which is given in Christ.In this application, a given discipline accepts as the object of its inquiry a reality whose truth cannot be utterly controlled by its methodology, which it can only approach in a posture which is fundamentally one of worship. When .this attitude of worship fails, the exaggerated claim bf autonomy is thereby taken up again, and the transcendence~ of the Church's truth, of its faith, is rejected out of hand for the sake of "truly scientific objectivity." When such a rejection is misunderstood by'th~ Catholic faithful, when it is presumed to be normative for the scholarly enterprise, the opposite extreme becomes unavoidable: the sacramental holiness of the world and the historical character of the worship of the Church are equally sup: pressed. And the conversation which was originally ambitioned disintegrates into mutual recrimination. The changes rung on this theme are indefinitely numerous. In sum,. they preface and. finally constitute an aversion for the historical faith of the Catholic community in favor of those alternatives whose name is legion. All of this has been remarked sufficiently over the centuries. In the abstract, it is easy enough to see the need for a mutuality between Church and academy, but the realization of such a mutuality is continually im-peded byo the fallenness which mars us all. We are, all and. always in the sway of the~emptation to revert to a pessimistic status quo ante in terms of which the revealed compatibility of God and man, of the Church and the world; of faith and reason can be shown to be absurd, a fiction that is unworthy of man and derisory of God. Thisois a universal failing: It is no more characteristic of the academy than 'of the cloister, of the chancery than of the market. In either case, reductively we are seeking to denature God's good creation by rationalizing and objectifying its sacramental truth and unity.~By such devices we frag-ment our world: We trivialize and compartmentalize our world into isolated bits. And this becomes prelude for dismissing from our lives~ actual his-torical meaning, its sacramentality, the holiness of its totality. Whether done in the name of an ecclesial or a secular piety, what is Catholic Schools in a Declining Church: A Reflection / 807 achieved is a flight from the threatening mystery of our historical existence, from our need to be sustained in it by the Lord of History, and from our share in the crucifixion by which it is redeemed. Thus is worked out some very bad theolggy--and not only by theologians, but by anyone who pre-scinds, from the sacramental structure of reality for the sake of judging reality. A sociological examination 6f the Church simply cannot avoid at least an implicit theological component. If, .supposing it to have been clearly affirmed, an equation were to be drawn between the Catholic Church and the Aristotelian "perfect society," an explicit ecclesiology--however wrong-headed--- necessarily follows. If, on the other hand, one omits any definition of the Church, but then proceeds to analyze it precisely in the same way as one would analyze the United Mine Workers or ,the Democratic Party or the Marine Corps, in other words as an empirical organization of people, a group adequately understood as responsive to the laws which govern all social organization-- then the ecclesiology involved is. perhaps less explicit, but no less operative. In either case, the Church is measured by categories which are quite extrinsic to the worship which gives it its structure. The result for that older theology was a Church whose "perfection" was in contradiction to its involvement in the fallenness of history resulting in an antiseptic notion of a Church apparently immune to history. Comparable (if inverted) distortions in our own time profess to find the Church's patent~involvement in sin a fact entirely incompatible with its claim to transcendent sacramental stature. The contemporary excesses of this "low" ecclesiology are quite as responsive to the'preoccupations of its own day as had been the earlier baroque triumphalism--and with as little profit. The living Church cannot be understood by the use of devices which would separate its history from its meaning thiough a denial of either part of its reality. It is of course possible to concede these truisms and still resist their corollary: that the Church of .our daily encounter, with its monumental confusion, cowardice, ignorance and complacency--in sum, with all the ills the spirit is heir :to--can be and is the earthly community in which the risen Christ is present and active in the outpouring of his Spirit. Surely one may attend with sympathy Dr. Robinson's "but I can't be-lieve that!" Particularly is.it hard to give to such a.Church a cash value by admitting, even demanding, an infallible Magisterium'. Such notions, it may seem, were perhaps credible before the dawn of historical consciousness. But they can hardly survive our contemporary understanding of the social and historical conditioning of the Church. This~is indeed a very possible conclusion--especially if we forget that it is precisely from this kind of despair of the temporal and human as being the medium bf God's presence that humanity was lifted by the faith, first Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 of the Jews, and then of ourselves who are their heirs, in theJdord of History who is present to hiss, people. He is present to his people not as a timeless and universal principle,, but in his Covenant, by which alone time has unity and significance, and thus is history: sacramental time. The salvific content of the events of which we are a part is quite as hard to accept today as it was at Meribah. It is indeed hard to believe that the concrete deeds and words of the Church across the .ages constitute the unique mediation of the risen Lord, for the Church is so obviously trapped, blinded, sullied and fragmented by its own historicity, by its own involve-ment in Sin. But precisely such a belief is integral with the Catholic faith. It is simply not negotiable. It is no news that there has been a developing reluctance within Catholic academic circles to give full value to the ecclesial-historical character of our redemption in Christ. This hesitation on the part of the acaderhy had focused on the Church's assertion of ,doctrinal unity and authority. But it has since broadened its front to the. extent that tradition itself is held to be discon~ tinuous within its own history, whether we are dealing with the. historical unity of the Church's doctrine or its moral or liturgical tradition. Thus it is deemed to be discontinuous within its own history, intrinsically incoherent, without value or~significance~ for the present time. In,sum, the unity of the Church has no historical expression, according to this view. Consequently the historical record, whether doctrinal, moral 'or liturgical~ is of purely academic interest. It lacks the necessary unity to support its claim to sacra-mental significance. The heart of this argument, of course, is the ancient conviction of the incompatibil.ity of'~God and man, heaven and earth, the present time and the egchatological golden age of fulfillment. Its pseudo-Christian version, Gnostic in its roots, denies that the community Of sinners; which constitutes the Church, can be the effedtive symbol, the sacrament of the fulfilled King-dom of God. This denial relies upon the perceived incongruity between the sacramental sign, whichLis ~the historical Church, .,and the effect claimed for it: the completed and fulfilled redemption of humanity in Christ. It was the mistake of' the Counter-Reformation apologetic to contest this visible incongruity, even though it is simply indisputable. To pretend the contrary leaves the apologete open to all the sacred dishonesty which characterizes a triumphalist reading of Church history. It is .not.because the Church is Worthy that she is "the sacrament of our encounter with God." It is by virtue of the presence of the risen Christ in her historical worship that the Church has her reality and her mission, not by virtue of her own probity, nor by any "works" of her own devising. It is this insight, fundamental to any valid ecclesiology, which demands Of the Catholic scholar a subordination, of his critical method to~the prior truth of his faith together with~ a surrender o of an~y delusory intellectual Catholic Sch~ools in a Declining Church." ,4 Reflection / 809, autonomy. In this 'way, while maintaining as its object, the full sacramental reality of the historical Church, the scholar's inquiry also retains intact its full integrity. The radical consequence of a refusal or of a failure in this subordina~ tion of method is the equivalent methodological reduction of the ev~nt~ of the Church's history to merely empirical significance, and the: dissolu-tion of ~the sacramental value of these events. ,At such a point, any. re, sistance to this dissolution ~must then be accounted unscientific, irrational, unrealistic, benighted. Such resistance fails to justify itself before the court of scientific reason whose writ runs as ,.far as the mind may range. In such a context, when the Church, as the object of this kind of "scien-tific" scrutiny, claims, e.g., for its traditional sexual morality a trans-empirical and sacramental value, it is challenged to make manifest the .worthiness of its doctrine for the salvific role asserted for it~and,.of course, cannot do so. Its claim is then held .to be out of court, and. if it.is a~cepted at all, this is deemed a matter of private idiosyncracy, an affair de gustibus, not "really" true . ° In the criticism ,of Humanae l/itae presented in .:Catholic Schools in a Declining Church there is more thana little of this rationalist obscurantism. ~Instead of attempting to construct the sociological o theology which ,only Catholic.-sociologists 'are equipped to' offers,, this book provides merely a secular object of sociological investigation, a pseudo-church, one with which a secular methodology,~:may be entirely comfortable~ ~i~ This pseudo-church is' fashioned from., atoms oLempirical information gathered according to the canons of .that secular methodology. The struc-ture w~hich emerges from these atrms in their collectivity is entirely em-pirical. The resulting picture of the "church" is found, to no one's amaze-ment, to Square rather badly with the Church of Catholic tradition ~enunci-ated,, for example, in Lumen Gentium or Gaudium et Spes, and particularly with thb tradition repeated affew years later in Humanae Vitae. Among the particularly prominent discrepancies between the official Church of these documents~.and the empirical "c~hurch;' described by Greeley's team is the disrrgard on the part of.the latter of the sexual, moral, ity .~which was recently reatiirmed by Rome,. to which the Catholic hierarchy has subscribed. This, in its turn, must lead to; a dilution of that respect in which the teaching authority of the Church must'be held. ~ Greeley considers this .situation to be the result of a massive failure in communication in the. institutional Church. By reason of this, a badly informed pope came to insist, disastrously, upon a morality long since abandoned by his subjects. ~ . ~ Doubtless experts in the~fieid of his methodology will find reason to contest the adequacy of Greeiey's sampling~and analytical techniques. Per-haps they will reject the evidence of "decline" which this book infers. Review tor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 Whether or not such deficiencies exist is not finally very important. No doubt a further examination of the data will contribute to the clarification of the structure revealed by the study and perhaps even require a recasting of previous inferences, thereby contributing to the accuracy of Greeley's findings. But no refinement of this methodology can bring it to bear upon more than an empirical entity. And when that entity is identified with the visible Church, a fundamental mistake has been made. If this mistake is insisted upon, it must lead to a rejection of the Catholic doctrine that the Church is a sacramental sign, having a significance which entirely transcends the empirical. This sign-visibility is the visibility of worship; ultimately, it is Eucharistic, the concrete historical actuality of the Eucharistic community, the visible structure of which is constituted by the sacraments of its worship. This c~mmunity, the Church, can no more be identified with the "church"~ discovered in Greeley's research than can th6 Eucharistic Lord be identified with the merely surface phenomena of the Eucharistic celebration. Such a refusal of this Catholic dbctrine of Church need be neither ex-plicit nor deliberate. In fact, this kind of rejection most frequently occurs inadvertently, when, for instance, a powerful new intellectual tool permits the achievement of results so impressive that its adepts forget that the faith transcends it, that the faith cannot be contained within it or be controlled by it. In the controversy which is bound to follow, a similar forgetfulness just as frequently afflicts their theological opponents. These, in rejecting the dominion of the new learning, tend also to ignore the possibility of its con-version, and so they, in their turn, underwrite the isolation of the Church from history. For a clear example of this, one need only recall the dispute between, the "old" theology and the "new" logic in the early Middle Ages. Such mistakes find their corrective in the conversion of the new device to the perennial task of theology, a process which, like all conversions, is always incomplete. While the sociological construct which emerges in Catholic Schools in a Declining Church' cannot be identified with the Church, it remains ~true that the people who responded to the questions of the study did so in the con-text of their actual involvement with Catholicism. If their response is to be given the kind of theological value and weight that Greeley suggests, it mtist be because the attitudes and opinions which~this survey reveals are under-stood as entering into the sign-which-is-the-Church, and therefore as an element of the visibility of the Eucharistic community and of its worship. In this c~ntext of Eucharistic worship, the reaction which Catholic Schools in a Declining Church has registered, whether .in regard to the value of°Catholic schools, to the changes introduced by Vatican II, or to Humanae Vitae, cannot be identified simply as the kind of Church consensus that Catholic Schools in a Declining Church: A Reflection constitutes the sensus fidelium, the living faith of the People of God. This is because the sacramental Church is a s.ign which is contradicted. Our living of the faith is not a clear and obvious thing, but rather is rendered obscure and enigmatic by the fallenness of humanity and of the world. We daily refuse the truth of the "good" creation; and that refusal continually finds its historical expression in the community of the Church in a failure of Worship. The Church's worship has its prior antecedent structure in the sacra7 ments. These are the form of authentic human existence in fallen history, and in their unity they constitute the sole criteria of visible membership in the Church. Their truth is that of mystery, i.e., it can be appropriated only through worship. ~But by this worship it is appropriated. And over the centuries, this appropriation emerges historically in the doctrinal, moral and liturgical tradition of the Church. This appropriation is also a continual conversion and enfranchisement of the People of God. That it does not fail is due to no excellence of the Church's members, but only to the promise and presence of Christ among them, by which they continue to be the Body of Christ, one flesh with their risen Lord~ That this union does not fail is therefore a matter of faith: neither its existence, its quality, or its extension can be verified empirically. Its worship is that of a community of sinners. Essential to it is that sacra-ment of repentance and reconciliation by which sin, as a personal concrete failure of worship, is acknowledged in an~act of worship by which 'personal solidarity with the Eucharistic community is given again. ~ The fortunes of this sacrament of reconciliation over the nearly two millennia of its history record the enormous resistance offered the Christian notion of personal moral responsibility. The primitive identification of "sin" and "crime" required centuries to reform.~The subsequent' privatizing of confession and penance began so to obscure the public aspect of sin as to reduce public morality once more to a mere obedience to law. In some Catholic circles, this tendency is now .so far advanced as to include the despotic proposition that "the law to be obeyed" is simply the public law of the civil society. In this view, the Church has nothing to say in re morali beyond a loving endorsement of ~the reigning pluralistic consensus. ~ Yet it is only through an existential familarity with the antecedent, mean-ing of-the holy that sin is recognized and acknowledged to be a violation of the human, of the sacramental existence which is structured by the Church's worship. This holiness, this human integrity is sustained and measured by this worship, and 'not otherwise. Only here does a valid consensus emerge as to the meaning of good and evil. This consensus, this discovery, keeps pace with the slow, reluctant response of the People of God, of the Church in its members, to its Lord and his Gift--which is to live in Christ, in light rather than in an undemanding darkness, in freedom rather than in a comfortable 1112 / R'eview ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 conformity, in history rather than without. significance. And finally, it is to live responsibly, rather than to abdicate that honor and burden in favor of a false transcendence which knows no .crucifixion and offers rio redemption. The pace of this pilgrimage is impeded by our straggling, by our desertion, our defection toward one or other mirage.~ This history of Exodus is our history--together with its' pain. All of us who think ourselves Catholic must hope to be within that his-tory, undergoing that reformation and salvation. But we cannot guarantee ourselves to be so, whether as individualS'or as representatives of the whole. We cannot suppose our personal assessm6nt of moral right and wrong to be definitive and assured. Particularly is this the case when.the mass of Catholic Christians have not yet come to terms with the Christian meaning of free-dom; when they tend still to'suppose that whatever is not forbidden by Church law or tradition is thereby moral, or at least morally indifferent. It is only when adult Catholics recognize, their responsibility for the realization into history of the truth of Christ and consequently acknowledge in prayer the possibility of their own wilfull violation of their own human symbolism, their own sacramental and historical reality, their~own inescapably sexual existence--it is only in this circumstance that they can form a Eucharistic_ consensus on this now excruciating question of' the consistency of the sacra-mental symbolism of marriage with that symbolism which is inseparable from artificial contraception, and upon a complexus of other questions of only lesser urgency which bear upon the sacramental truth~of human sex-uality. This condition is not now met. Only when it is met can the Church speak confidently 'upon these newly disputed points. The obstacle to such utterance .now is not that the twenty years since the discovery of "the pill'-', is insufficient for mature judgment, but that even now the basis for making the judgment is not clear--as Catholic Schools in a Declining Church makes very evident~ The Second Vatican Council indeed introduced changes in the Church. But the greatest of these is the most ignored: the quiet dropping of .the obediential "morality which was typical of Catholic moralists before the Council--and which, unfortunately, remains typical~ for many of them to this day~ Conformi~, rather than responsible personal participation in the worship of the Church, is still proposed as the basis for moral decision. The book under consideration~only joins a chorus long since formed. But it is still from the authentic experience of free Eucharistic worship and its achievement of ~free historical.truth that the Church must teach; the truth of Christ is available, on no other basis. This is the only information system there is. It falters always~ but it does not fail. ~ The Small Group in Religious Life William Barber, Ph.D. Dr. Barber is Professor of. Psychology at Eastern. Washington State College in Cheney, WA 99004. He also is a consulting psychologist with ot~ces in Spokane. Earlier drafts of this article were helpfully reviewed by Paul Fitter, S.J.~ Ellen Monsees, R.S.C.J., Henri Nouwen and Leo Rock, S.J. Introduction This paper analyzes religious community groups from a behavioral science perspective. "Commu.nity" here refers to a face-to-face living group, usually comprised of fewer than a dozen persons, whose members may ormay not include co-workers in one,s ministry: The attempt is to show how a group's psychological developmeiat, as a community relates to and interacts with the work of members in their apostolic ministries. There exists a ~vell-established theological basis for "church as com-munity,".~ much of which has. developed since Vatican 11,1 and a detailed historical and sociologi.cal rationale calling for intensive, committed com-munity group relationships has been presented recently by Fitz and Cada.z Leaders of. religious communities know about and agree attitudinally with the need for establishing strong and deep group relationships. . o It is the experience of the writer in providing consultation to leaders of religious orders and to particular groups of religious, that what is not known is how to integrate into religious life the concepts and skills needed to est~ib-lish strong, dynamic groups of religious. It is hoped that What follows~offers some goidelines, drawn from the be-havioral sciences, for bridging the gap between the theoretical and "the practical aspects of group development in religious life. 1Dulles, A., Models oi the Church (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974). -"Fitz, R. L., & Cada, L. J., "The Recovery of Religious Life," REVIEW FOR RELI~OUS, 34, September, 1975. 813 814 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 The approach will be to describe ways in which groups differ from col-lections of individual persons, to distinguish religious communities from other kinds of groups, and to show how a religious community becomes an organi-zation for meeting the personal needs and at the same time the apostolic purposes of its members. A psychological rationale for community life is offered along with concrete suggestions for effective religious community life. Assumptions A group becomes more than a collection of individuals when all mem-bers need one another to accomplish a common task or goal. A dozen persons sunbathing near each other on a sunny beach are not a group in this sense; but if together they respond to a cry for help from a sinking swimmer they become a group as they work together on their shared.task of rescue. Once their task is completed, the group ceases to exist as a group, unless the members should decide to form an association to provide beach safety, in which case they would continue to be a group. Thus, being together doesn't define a group, even though all members have the same objective (in° this example to acquire suntans). It is when members need each other for some collective purpose; it is when they become interdependent, that they become a group? A community, such as a religious community is a special kind of: group in that it attempts to provide for more than support for the accomplishment of external tasks. A community~ is a group which attempts to meet the human and personal needs of its members as well: physical needs for food and shelter, social needs for recognition and friendship, and what Maslow calls the "ego needs''~ for meaning, and self-actualization as persons? Thus, a collectivity of individuals may become a group: a group may become a community for meeting physical, social and ego needs of members. At this highest level of motivation--the ego needs for actualization and fulfillment~it seems a religious community as a group attempts to meet another nee.d, the idiosyncratic need to develop its own "identity." And a re-ligious community's identity must be considered in relation to its ministry. Identity and ministry are like horizontal and vertical aspects of a group's religious life. The Vertical Dimension As a person needs to grow in self-knowledge, so a group becoming a community is drawn towards a deeper, more complete sense of identity. This is like a "vertical" dimension of growth--reaching down inside to ex-plore, to observe and to reflect upon the sense of '"~who we .are," and then aBass, B. M., & Nord, W., Leadership, Psychology and Organizational Behavior (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 39. ¯ ~Maslow, A. H., Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954). The, Small Group in Religious LiIe / 815 to come back up to the surface to test and to listen to what is being said in response. What do we mean by the discovery of identity? We mean finding out., real desires and characteristics . . . and being able to live in a way that expresses them. You learn to be authentic, to be honest in the sense of allowing your behavior and your speech to be the true and spontaneous expression of your inner feelings.~ Community identity then becomes established through sharing informa-tio~ n" in response to the question 'Who are we'?" More specifically this means generating information from the senses, the emotions, the intellect, and from the spirit for those who believe in a faith dimension to life. Transactions that provide such information for a community have to do with interper-sonal exchange: Who are we for each other? What do we want from each other? What will we offer to each other? These questions are continually asked and responded to, as persons tyy to moye from being a "group" to becoming a "community." As these questions are asked and responded to, "data"--i.e., information about thoughts, feelings, wishes are made avail-able for sharing, and thereby become integrated into the processes of decision and choice. Research indicates that more data from members produce higher quality decisions and greater member commitment to carrying them out.~ The Horizontal Dimension Identity needs to be expressed in life outside the community group; it needs to be expressed in apostolic ministry. This is like a horizontal dimen-sion of growth reaching out, listening openly and reflectively and respond-ing to what one is called upon to do and be with others. In the words of Maslow: Part of le~arning who you are, part of being able to hear your inner voices, is discovering what it is you want to do with your life. Finding one's identity is almost synonymous with finding one's career, revealing the altar on which one will sacrifice oneself,r As there are points of diminishing return in gains from individual per-sonal growth experiences s.uch as psychotherapy or encounter groups, so too are there limits to the gains to be expected from a religious community's developmental experiences--those aimed at developing a group's identity dimension. Community relationships and activities have as their raison d'6tre the support of tasks that further the work of apostolic ministry. It is analogous " to a couple's love for on'e another, in that their relationship, their "com- ¯ ~Maslow, A. H., The Farther Reaches o] Human Nature (New York: Viking Press, 1971), p. 183. GKelIy, H. H., & Thibault, J. W., ',Group Problem Solving," in Lindzey, G. & Aron-son, E. (eds.), Handbook o] Social Psychology (Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), pp. 61-88. rThe Farther Reaches, p. 185. 816 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 munity" in a sense, requires expression in accomplishing goals-~having and raising children, for example--in addition to developing the affective rela-tionship that draws and keeps them together. Such a relationship needs manifest expression in order to continue to grow. This does not mean each aspect of community life requires direct con-nection to members' ministries. On the contrary, support is often drawn from interludes from "tasks": activities of recreation, distraction and apparent irrele(,ance. It is important to remember the purpose for which the support is given: that is, the rationale and the dyna.mic force for religious community comes from the shared commitment of members to thee values and goals underlying their collective ministries. As such, community identity is incom-plete without outward expression; small group religious life is incomplete without being related to apostolic ministry for purpose and direction. Similarly, ministry needs cbmmunity. Ministry needs community: (1) to provi~le a support system for sharing, helping, caring; i.e., for providing "maintenance" for the work of ministry, and (2) to provide for the personal development of members for their own sake, apart ~'rom apostolic work roles. "For their own sake" must not be taken lightly. The intrinsic dignity and value of each person's humanity calls for emotional connection to sig-nificant others. This need, this expectation, can be responded to by persons who commit themselves to one another in community life In summary, it seems that religious community groups work on two "agendas"---one vertical, the 6ther horizontal--and these become interde-pendent. Work on the vertical (e.g., listening, sharing; and more systematic-ally at times, team building or role clarification interventions)~ allows the group and each member more to offer on the horizofftal, in ministries. ' Work on the horizontal, the ministries, enables the con~munity to insert it-self into the world. It brings the world through members' experience into the community in order (l) to infuse ndw life, (2) to offer new direction, and (3) to provide standards for evaluating effectiveness of effort. The result is a dynamic system in which energy and creative r~sources increase. The sy~stem is dynamic in that it generates energy, and it is self-renewing because of the interdependent, reciprocal', exchanging relationship between vertical "and horizontal dimensions. The Goal of Community: Synergy One cannot explore for very long questions Such as we have asked about the dynamics of community life and ministry without confronting the larger question: What should community experience be like? What is it we are searching for by our attempt to integrate identity needs with apostolic min-istry? Maslow was a student of the anthropologist Ruth Benedict and he draws upon her concept of synergy to describe activities within a group w,hich benefit both individuals and the group as a whole. Quoting Benedict, Maslow writes: The Small Group in Religious Lile / 817 I shall speak,.of cultures with low synergy where the social structure pro- ¯ vides for acts which are mutually opposed and counteractive, and cultures with high synergy where it provides for acts which are mutually reinforcing, ¯ . . I spoke o] societies with high social' synergy where their institution insures mutual advantage ]rom their understandings, and societies with" low social synergy where tile advantage o] one individual becomes a victory over an-other, and the majority who are not victorious must shi]t as tliey call. (Italics by Maslow).8 Note the images that portray sources of energy and strength in Bene-dict's synergistic group and that we strive for in the small community group: " . . . acts which are mutually reinforcing . " " . . . mutual .advantage frrm their understandings"; opposing activities whereby "the advantage of one individual becomes a victory over another. " (italics mine). The goal of small group religious community life from a psychological viewpoint is to tap and direct this energy to provide driving force toward purposeful objectives. And the content of Benedict's message i~ the syner-gistic communities offer understanding, support °and action and oppose win/ lose relationships among members. Criteria for Synergistic Community ~ One way to test the thesis offered: here is to observe and reflect" upon experience with alternate life styles among priests and religious. Certainly no single organizational structure' promises to bypass the struggles required to enable a synei~gistic community to grow. Comprehensive discussion is beyond the scope of this paper, but we wish to poi~nt to certain mechanisms that have been found helpful by some rdligious communities in developing open, prbblem-solving climates. Most of the traits mentioned require organi-zational consultation and experience-based learning methods to become operational.9 The starting point is the vertical dimension--to expand the experience of c~mmunity identity. Desirable characteristics and mechanisms have to do with group size, group norms, communication skills, information about members' ministries, shared prayer' and sacraments, and explicit contracts regarding time, tasks, territory'and role of members. A' small group of from four to twelve members enables differences in re-sources to be present and the opportunity for each person to become well known to the others¯ Norms--implicit rules governing behavior--must be developed to support the expression'of affection a~d warmth, confronta, lion and conflict, and to support bringing-in input and help for the group. Basic communication skills in paraphrasing, describing behavior, describing Sop, cit., p. 202. 'aBarber, W. H., & Nord, W., Healer RoleJ o[ Consultants and Need Orientations o] Clients (Spokane: Eastern Washington State College,~mimeo, 1975). Barber, W. H., and Lurie, H. J., "Designing an Experience Based Continuing Education Program," American .tournal o[ Psychiatry, 130, 10, 1973. 818 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 feelings and giving and receiving personal feedback, facilitate interpersonal communication. Some initial didactic experience is useful, and the develop-ment of norms to support the use of communication skills in day-to-day practice is crucial. Since feelings about s'elf are strongly influenced by feelings about work, members who strive for interdependence need to have direct, first-hand in-formation about each other's apostolates. The group has the benefit of dif-ferent experiences and resources when it is comprised of members from different ministries. As there should be shared expression at an interpersonal level of posi-tive feelings and confrontation, as noted above, so there should be shared expression at a spiritual level through prayer, liturgical celebration.and other faith experiences. This serves the purpose of enabling persons who have a commitment to each other to share this special part of their lives. Keeping spiritual sharing separate from other community activities and allowing for differences in member participation is also important because these are valuable means of legitimizing the individuality of personal experience and expression. To be clear about and in control of boundaries the points of separa-tion- for the community in regard to time--when things happen; tasks-- what occurs; territo.ry--appropriate physical spaces for the separate and shared parts of members' lives; and role,delineation of special roles within the group (e.g., management, coordination, various maintenance roles). Summary: Culture and Open System Two ideas may help to summarize the characteristics of effective com-munity: they are "culture" and "open system." It is the hope of those estab-lishing a small group community to enable a particular culture to emerge, one that is unique and meets special needs for that group. A culture is characterized by its social organization--especially norms, roles and ex-pectations for member behavior--and by its "expressions," i.e., what is shared with the outside world by the group. We have said here that the culture of the religious community needs to develop through Particular norms, patterns and values regarding communication and the organization of tasks and roles and religious expression. An open system like a biological organism, is one characterized by in-take, transformation and export processes.1° Transactions occur with the environment: intake of new members, materials and information; and export of the "products" of members' work, and members who leave the system. It is through evaluating differences between intake and export that the quality of the group's efforts, its internal processes can be judged. To be. effective as an open system, a religious community requires management of its intake, export and internal transformation processes, in the latter case 10Rice, A. K., Learning ]or Leadership (London: Tavistock Publications LTD., 1971). The Small Group in Religious Li]e / 819 procedures for meeting individual and group needs for' control of boundaries of time, task, territory and role. Growth of the v~rtical dimension occurs as the culture develops; this growth can be measured by the quality of interaction among members. Open relationships occur as members share ideas, feelings and perceptions that have to do-with their purposes in being together. Trust develops enabling openness and personal sharing to occur appropriately (in contrast with some coercive group norms toward "confiding" or "revealing"). Norms support-ing individual differences in sharing grow and become explicit. When both openness and personal sharing occur and yet individual differences are en-couraged, a climate of genuine intimacy develops. Conclusions Openness, trust and intimacy are important because as human beings we are drawn toward becoming "the persons who we are" and toward being "in relationship.''~ But as a priest or religious one is committed to apostolic ministry--horizontal dimension. Community exists "in the service of min-istry"-~ and this is primary. But since vertical and horizontal dimensions are interdependent, the work of ministry will suffer unless it is anchored in re-ligious community experience that meets social and psychological needs of member~ along with spiritual and apoStolic objectives. One implication is that persons living in religious community may use-fully explore ways in which they are and are not, like the sunbathers men-tioned above, (1) a number of separate individuals in physical proximity to one another, (2) a group brought together because of an immediate, com-mon task, or (3) a special kind of institution, formed to support the work of members' apostolates and simultaneously to facilitate members' personal development. This paper has tried to distinguish among such groups in order to enable members to better cfioose the type of community to which they wish to be committed. The small group as religious community is a collectivity of persons unified by the overarching mission of faith--to facilitate the experience of Christ among persons. This paper attempts to describe how synergy develops and is maintained in the service of ministry thi'ough integrating, in a dynamic way, community needs and apostolic objectives of inembers.1~ XlBuber, M., I and Thou (New York: Scribners, 1970). tZThe ideas in the paper were presented at an assembly of provincial leaders of the Society of the Sacred Heart from North America, Australia, and New Zealand in September, 1975. Provincial teams of three to five persons worked for ten days at various experiential activities aimed at internalizing, in their own behavior, the char-acteristics which are noted in this paper. Their purposes were to strengthen their team relationships, to increase their own experience of Community and to apply the ideas in this paper to 'their concrete work tasks and roles. The women reported, and assembly observers documented~ significant movement toward integrating the concepts with be-havior and action. A paper summarizing behavioral science aspects of the assembly and follow-up data may be requested from the author. The Contemplative Attitude in Spiritual Direction William A. Barry, S.J. Father Barry, Director of the Center for Religious DevelopmeJat, has written on the subject of spiritual direction for our pages before. His last article for RfR was pub-lished in March, .1973. He continues to reside at 42 Kirkland St.; Cambri~lge, MA 02138. In a number of articles both William J. Connolly, S.J. and I have referred to contemplation and the contemplativ~ attitude as the kind of prayerful attitude which spiritual directors try to encourage in those who seek spiritual direction.1 We have tried to describe what we mean by these words. Suffice it here to say that we use the word contemplation in itsoetymological sense; we mean to refer to the act of looking at or listening to something. Webster's first definition of "contemplate" says some of what we mean: "to view or consider with continued attention." In our earlier articles, I believe, we have not been sufficiently precise in our use of the word co.ntemplation and contemplative attitude. We have spoken of contemplating .the Lord in Scripture and in nature and have not sufficiently distinguished between the contemplation of Scripture and nature 1Barry, W. A., "The Experience of the First and Second Weeks of the Spiritual Exer-cises," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Vol. 32, No. 1 (1973), pp. 102-109. Bai'r~;, W. A., "The Necessity of Contemplative Prayer for the Teaching and Stu~ly of Theology in a Ministerial School," Church Society ]or College Work, Vol. XXXIII, No. I (1975), pp. 6-10. Connolly, W. J., "Contemplation and Social Consciousness in the Context of the Directed° Retreat: An Experiential Approach." An address at the 8th National Workshop on the Spiritual Exercises, Cincinnati, August 25-28, 1974, and published by The Program to Adapt the Spiritual Exercises, Jersey° City, New Jersey 07302. Connolly,.W.J., "Contemporary Spiritual Direction: Scope and Principles, An Intro-ductory Essay." Studies in the Spirituality o] Jesuits, VII, (1975), pp. 95-124. 820 The Contemplative Attitude in Direction / 8:21 and the contemplation of the Lord. Perhaps we have also not sufficiently attended to the nuance that one can have a. contemplative attitude and yet noi be contemplating the LordsIt is the purpose of these notes' to attempt some clarification of the meaning of and use of contemplation in spiritual direction. The Contemplative Attitude and Its Relation to "Transcendence" Have you ever been so absorbed in watching a game or reading a book or listening to music that you have been surprised at the end of the passage of time, by how cold or hot you are, by the anger of a friend (who has been asking 'you something for ten minutes)? Then you know the power of paying attention to something, and you have a personal example of the contemplative attitude. The most telling examples come from reports of how parents 'have been so concentrated on their children's safety in a fire or accident that they have only at the end felt the pain of their own wounds. Thus, one effect of the contemplation of something outside ourselves is that it can make us forget ourselves and our other suroundings. Contempla-tion leads to, or rather, is an experience of transcendence, of self-forgetful-ness of everyone and everything else except the contemplated object. '. Conversely, we find that self-absorption makes the contemplation of any-thing or an~yone else very difficult, if not impossible. Thus,. a starving man may well be unable to enjoy a sunset. One of the key elements to ministry in a hospital is the atte~apt to help the sick to become interested in others around them and in the outside world, that is, to help them todo something that will enable them to forget their own pain and suffering or to put it in another perspective. , . : Another aspect of the examples we began with should' catch our atten-tion, namely that the responses of absorption, joy, pain,: sympathy, love, gratitude which are associated with contemplation are not willed acts or willed emotions~ They are elicited from us by what we see and hear and comprehend.,~ (Of course; these responses~, do not arise qrom a blank tablet, but are conttitioned by our own past experiences~) Herewe have an impor-tant element to consider in all spiritual direction. Responses that are elicited by contemplation are not experienced in the first instance as willed acts. The clearest example, perhaps, is the response of love when one looks at the beloved; it seems to be a gift, something that arises because of the other, not because one has decided to love or fall in love. What one can do is to look it and to try to pay attention to the other, but ore cannot will one's response. At most one can hope that one will respond a certain way, This last point leads us to a further consideration. The person who con-templates in the way we are describing has to have an attitude of reverence and wonder before the other, especially if what he/she ~vants to see or hear is within the power of the other to grant 9r~withhold. In this case all one can do is to ask the other to reveal himself or herself and wait for it to Review 1or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 happen. This insight is behind the prayer for what one desires which Ignatius of Loyola puts at the begifining of every one of the exercises of the Spiritual Exercises. For example, in the Exercises I pray that the Lord will reveal to me my sinfulness, that I may have shame and confusion, that the Lord make himself known to me in order that I may love him and follow him. Here we see even more clearly the relation between contemplation and transcendence. When we are dealing with another person, we are not in the same position as we are when we are dealing with an object. Saint Exuprry's Little Prince on his small asteroid only needs to move his chair a bit in order to see another sunset, but he is powerless to see the reality and unique-ness of his flower until she chooses to reveal herself to him.2 But when the free other chooses to reveal him or herself, then the genie is out of the bot-tle, as T. S. Eliot said,~ and the mystery of the other is upon us. Thus we have a further observation on the relation of contemplation to transcendence. We try to control our perceptions. We are threatened by new-hess and strangeness, msa result we often see only what we "want" to see or what our perceptual and cognitive structures let us see. To try to contemplate means to try to let the other be himself or herself or itself, to try to be open to surprise and newness. To begin this process means to open oneself to mystery, ultimately to the Lordship of the Other. It is to let oneself be controlled by the other; paradoxically, one finds oneself free. The upshot most often is that one becomes less incapacitated by fear from accepting the mystery of life/ The experience of transcendence is, I believe, one of a continuum from total self-absorption to total absorption in the other--with the two ends of the continuum being ideal .states not found in nature. In any human experi-ence there is bound to be an.admiXture of both self-consciousness and. aware-ness of the outside world. The boundaries of the continuum might well be circumscribed by referring to the narcissistic person on the one hand and the enraptured mystic on the other. It might also be a help to those who are praying to realize that the contemplation of the Lord is no different from the contemplation of any other person in this regard, namely that one can be in the intimate presenc~e of a very dear friend'and still be'or become aware of the ache in one's feet, of wondering whether one put out the lights in the car, of the work still to be done for school tomorrow, and so forth. ZAntoin"e de Saint-Exuprry, Le Petit Prince, New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1943. " :~"But let me tell y~u, that to approach the stranger ls to invite the unexpected, release a new force, Or let the genie out of the bottle. It is to start a train of events Beyond your control ." T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party 4See W. J. Connolly, "Freedom and Prayer in Directed Retreats," REVIEW ]FOR REr LIGIOtJS, Vol. 32, No. 6, (1973), pp. 1358-1364. The Contemplative Attitude in Direction "/ 823 "Distractions," in other words, are a part of even the most intimate rela-tionships and should be expected in prayer too. Finally, in an intimate conversation reflection on what is happening or. on how well one is doing, especially with the idea of writing about it in one's journal or using it as an example for an article like this, can disturb the communication and be an instance of self-absorption. It happens, but it is better not to program it this way. Thus, the wisdom of. the tradition in spiritual direction of advising the person praying to do the reflecting after the period of prayer is over. Contemplation ~f the Lord in Nature and in Scripture Perhaps now we can clarify what we mean by contemplation of the Lord in nature and in Scripture. The Lord is invisible, and so hard to look at; he also seems pretty silent, and so hard to listen to~ Often enough, therefore, we try too hard to pray, :try too hard to listen and look. Too often prayer is seen as self-absorbing; our natural reaction when someone says, "Let us pray," is to bow our heads, close our eyes, and get serious--all of which is proper in its place. But we rarely get the impression that prayer can be an enjoyable experience, :that it can be a conversation, a dialogue, a relation- .ship. The spiritual director is confronted with the problem of,helping people to the enjoyment of God when much Of their past experience of prayer is one of labor, seriousness, brooding, and self-absorption. Many of us .who do spiritual direction have hit upon the idea of helping people to forget themselves for a while. We ask them what they like todo, what he!ps them just to forget their problems (besides going to sleep), and we try to help them to see that 0ihey already do contemplate in the way de- Scribed in the first note. We suggest that they spend a certain amount of time-~each.day, if possible-~-, doing whateVer it is that they like doing that is contemplative, and that they :consider this time as time with the Lord (i.e: prayer) in much the same way that they might want to share the same ex-perience with a close friend. We also suggest that they ask the Lord to make his presence known, to reveal himself. Then they look at and/or listen to whatever it is 'they enj'oy. After e~ch period of doing this we ask them to reflect on the experience: What happened?'What did they experience? Did the Lord make himself known? It is surprising what .happens wl~en people begin to do something like this. They often have objections at first: they.f.eel it cannot be prayer. More-over, being so conditioned to think that brooding and insights and resolu-tions are what prayer is all about they often need time and patience to get the hang of it and to find out that the director really means what he says. But then they begin to find such "prayer" times enjoyable and relaxing; they find themselves surprised by feelings of joy and gratitude and a real sense that Someone is present who loves and cares for them. They find that th~ey can 824 / Review ]dr Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 admit things to themselves that they were always afraid or ashamed to look at--and they feel better for it; they feel freed, healed. Agnes Sanford in her book The Healing Gilts ol the Spirit gives very similar advice. To people whosay "I can't find God," she suggests doing some simple things, especially things they like to do, that will put them in the way of God, as she says,0so "that he can find you.''~ That is the point, of course; as we saw in the first.section, ~the only thing we can do when we want to get 'to know another person is to put ourselves near and askthe person to reveal himself or herself. These reflections bring us to the question: Are there any privileged places or privileged events where we can go to put ourselves in the Lord's way? The traditional answer has been that there are, and. that these places and events include the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, the church teaching, the Scriptures, and the works of the Lord, especially nature, I will say something later about additions to this list, but now I would like to take up nature and' the Scriptures, Traditionally people have found peace and refreshment in the beauties of nature: The fact that most retreat houses, houses of prayer and monas-teries have been located in or near scenes of natural beauty testify to the belief that God is found more easily in nature and in solitude than, say, in cities. Traditionally, too, we have spoken of God revealing himself in the things he has made, "in plants and animals and in men, the wonders of Your hand," as the canon written ~by John L'Heureux puts it,~ I do not want to counter this tradition although I do believe that the Lord can be as present in the city; rather, I want to examine how the Lord is met and how we can help people to meet him in natt~re. First of all directors should suggest~ looking ~nd listening, not give ideas about God's continual creation, his indwelling, and so forth. We have to remember that most of us are conditioned by catechism, philosophy and the-ology classes to have beautiful thoughts about how. God is in all things, but that few of us have ever looked long.enough at a flower to let God reveal himself as the maker of that flower for me. Before a tree can become a symbol of God, it must first be seen and touched and smelled as a tree. The first suggestion, then is that people look at and listen to what.is around them. The second suggestion is that looking at natural beauty can in itself be a way of relat!ng to the Lord without any words~being said. Just as I relate to an artist by taking interest in what he has made, by taking time to look at it or listen to it, so too I can relate to God if I take time to contemplate what he has made. Creators lik~ to have people show interest in what they have done. All the better if I like" what I ~see and smile or sigh or express ~Sanford, Agnes~ The Healing Gilts 0! the Spirit (New York: Lippincott, 1966), esp. pp. 25-32. ~In Hoey, R. F. (ed.), The Experimental Liturgy Book (N,Y.: Herder and Herder, 1969), p. 97. ' The Contemplative Attitude in Direction delight in the presence of the artist. Such responses are elicited by what I contemplate, not willed by me, and they are communications to'the artist; in the case of God they are then called prayers of praise. Tfiey do not have to be couched in "prayer language." Indeed, the prayer is often made before a word is formed. The spiritual director might then be able to point out that the responses of the directee are similar to the responses that the poet who wrote Psalm 104 must have had and then tried to express in poetry. Not everyone is a poet, but almost everyone can be thrilled by a dazzling sunset or sunrise, the sun's light on fall leaves, and so forth, and feel a. deep sense of wonder. , Thus far we have been stressing the need to look and listen, the con-templative attitude. As I contemplate, I can also have desires, one of which is that the Lord reveal himself to me while I am looking at his works. If I begin my period of contemplation with a prayer that this desire be grant.ed, then.it is liable to happgn. I do not want to rule out high mystical experi-ences--~ because they do happen and more frequently than we tend to think --but here I would rather concentrate on the more ordinary ways the Lord reveals himself in,answer to this prayer. One can be walking along the beach at night and see a touch of silver from the moon on the crest of a wave and besides delighting in it suddenly feel at peace and in someone's presence who .himself delights in such things. Unaccountably one may feel that one is still loved, even though one does drink o'r eat too much or get angry with one's community members too often or even though one has just lost one's best friend or has just been turned down for graduate school or was not elected superior or whatever, and one may feel free to face ~oneself more honestly and with less self-pity. Or a person may sense her insignificance under the stars, and yet feel her own importance in the ~whole scheme of things, Or another may Sense a call deep inside himself to change his life style. In all these instances the person may be hearing or sensing the voice of the Lord revealing himself. When these kinds of experiences are real and exciting.and challenging as well as com-forting, then the Lord has begun to take on a new reality for the person. Perhaps now he or~.she can also pay attention to him and not just to his creatures. And here may lie the dividing line between contemplating the Lord and contemplating his works. The work of the spiritual director now becomes one of helping the per-son praying to discern, that is, to figure out what is going on, what is God's voice, what not. The discernment of spirits, begins when there are inner movements and the question is: Is the Lord revealing himself, and if so, what is he saying? The genie is out of the bottle, and now it is important to follow the genie's movements. We can look at the contemplation of Scripture in a similar way. Scrip-ture is not the Lord, but a privileged place to meet him. However, one must pay attention to the Scripture itself just as one has to pay attention to trees 1126 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 or sunsets or mountains. That is,"it is necessary to have a contemplative at-titude toward Scripture, to let the Scriptures be themselves and to listen to them and to ask that the Lord reveal himself while we are listening to these words. I do not intend ~here to delve into the arguments as to whether any other religious texts might be privileged places for meeting God; they could be and indeed people have met God while paying attention to St. Augustine's Confessions, to the prayer of St. Francis, to many other works of religious .literature, and even to secular literature. I am accepting as a given that Sgripture has primacy of place over all other literature as the Word of God. But we must listen to the Scriptures themselves, and not our projections onto them. One sometimes hears that modern scripture ,.scholarship with its de-mythologizing and its form criticism has been a blow to piety and has made it more difficult to use Scripture for prayer. Scripture scholars, it is some-times charged, have taken the mystery out of the infancy narratives of the gospels and other stories. We are not sure what Jesus actually said, or whether he actually did everything the gospels say he did. "How can we ever know him then?", people wonder. Those of us who take scripture studies and spiritual direction seriously have had to ponder these questions and charges as well as to take seriously our own and others' experiences in praying with the Scriptures. I think that we have not always been careful in our way of speaking, and it is my hope that this note will contribute to the clarification of our thought and ex-pression. , ,I want to focus on. the contemplation of the gospels and hope that the principles enunciated here can be analogously translated to the use of other scripture texts~ The first point is obvious: It does little good for prayer or Christian living to base both on a delusion. Hence, it is important to see the gospels for what they are. They are not biographies of J.esus, but four differ-ent expressions of the faith of the early Church and what it remembered in faith about Jesus. Each gospel has its own point of view, its own theo-logical focus, its own Sitz im Leben. Contemplation of°Mark's gospel, for example, means taking Mark's work on its own terms and trying to listen to his work of art. Secondly, it should be said that one need not be a Scripture scholar in order to be able to use the gospels for prayer. The Lord can still reveal him-self to someone who believes that angels actually did sing "Glory to God in the highest" at Bethlehem as long as one is open to having the living Lord reveal himself. But I do believe that the more one knows about the gospel, the better one can look at and listen to it and not to one's own cultural and personal projections of it. Thus, I believe that scripture study can be a help to contemplation. In other words, it helps, I think, to be able to con-template Mark's Jesus and know that it is Mark's Jesus and not necessarily The Contemplative Attitude in Direction / 827 the "real article" in all his historical reality. For one thing, one is not going to be thrown so much out of kilter by new discoveries of scripture scholars. More importantly, one is more likely to realize that the person one wants to meet' is not the Jesus of the past, but the present living Lord (who, of course,'is continuous with Jesus of Nazareth). Here we are at the heart of the matter. The purpose of contemplating the gospels .is to come to know the living Lord Jesus. Here again we can see the wisdom of Ignatius of Loyola. Before every contemplation of events from the gospels Ignatius has the retreatant pray for what he desires, namely "an intimate knowledge of our Lord, who has become man for me, that I may .love him more and follow him more closely.''~ Then I listen to the gospel text and treat it for what it is, as imaginative literature. I try to take the text ~seriously, and try to let it inspire my imagination, as it was written to do (as well. as to enkindle my faith). But my desire is not to know the scripture text better, but to know the risen Jesus better. I want him to reveal himself to me. And when he takes on reality and shape for me (not neces-sarily in a picture, by the way), then I talk to him, not to the text, and I listen to him, not the text. Those-who have not had this experience will not know what I am talking about, but hopefully they will be open enough to listen to the experience of those who have. The purpose of contemplation of Scripture is not to see Jesus. walking on water or to see him in Galilee or hear him say to Peter "Feed my lambs.~ The purpose is to hear the risen Jesus say to me: "Your sihs are~ forgiven,~you" and to know he means me; to hear him say to me." "Come,,follow~me.and be my friend" and.know that it is the Lord and that he is talking to me. Once again, discernment be-comes a necessity when I begin to feel moved by the Lord himself. I hope that by now it is clear that contemplation of nature or of Scrip~ ture is not in itself contemplation of the Lord, but that the former is a privileged way to the latter. Indeed, one can say that contemplation in the first sense is a technique or method, where contemplation in the second sense is relationship itself and no methods ~are needed. Finally as to the list of privileged places, it may be well to indicate that those mentioned earlier are still privileged places and also that different eras and different people may prefer one of the privileged places to others. It may also be that new privileged places may come into prominence. I am thinking especially of a shift from nature to man-made works of art or technique, a suggestion made by Josef Sudbrack, S.J? In our modern urban culture we may well find that human artifacts as well as human persons themselves may be more privileged than natural beauty. "l~here should be no difficulty here since the works of humans are ultimately God's handiwork. ~Spiritual Exercises (Puhl Translation), No. 104, p. 49. 8Sudbrack, Josef, Beten ist Menschlich: Aus der Er]ahrung Unseres Lebens mit Gott Sprechen (Freiburg in Breisgau: Herder, 1973). 828 / Review jor Religious, Volume 35~ 1976/6 On the Question of the Utility of Contemplation Recently in a discussion of contemplation someone mentioned that many people were advocating the 'techniques I have labelled contemplative for problem solving in management, for conflict resolution and that they worked without reference to God or the transcendent. That is, the contemplative techniques we mentioned in the,.earlier notes, were being used for secular purposes,, and people were feeling better, were more creative, more integral, and so forth. There is no question that the technique of contemplation by itself is very salutary. We need~ not bemoan that fact. But then what is the need to bring in God and prayer? ~ Here the only reply is to ask oneself to what end one uses contempla-tive techniques. If the answer is to solve problems, to feel better, to be more creative, then perhaps there is no need t~ refer to God and prayer. But for those for whom contact with the living Lord and the relationship itself with him are the goals, the question loses significance. It is like asking someone what he gets ,out of time spent with his wife that he could not get from others just as well. For those who seek the Lord, these techniques would be worthless no matter how good they. made them feel if in the process they did not find their Lord. Throughout.~these notes I have stressed that the purpose of contemplating nature, Scripture, or anything else is to meet the living Lord. When he is engaged, or rather when he engages me, there is no need of techniques or even of asking what the utility of prayer is. I want to be with him, and ttiat is enough. Without effort utility comes; one be-comes a better person and Christian. But relationship,is what is sought: In a Rut To get out of a rut a seed digs deeper. Edward A. Gloeggler P.O. Box 486 Far Rockaway, NY 11691 Individual Apostolates and Pluralism Community Identity in John T~I Ford, C.S.C. Fr. Fo~:d is Associate Professor of' Theology and Coordinator of Ministerial Studies in the School of Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, WA 20064. Not too long ago, as our history is measured, the apostolic endeavors of American religious communities almost' invariably took a corporate or insti-tutional form. A typical example is the religious house all of whose members work in an adjacent school. Though there may be considerable variety in the occupations of individual religious (e.g~, ,~administration, teaching, coun-seling, maintenance, etc.), the work of;each is seen as contributing to the overall~ofunctioning of the institution. This corporate pattern is frequently paralleled in hospitals,~parishes, and other works religious communities un-dertake. ~ An.~important.consequence of this familiar pattern is aopervasive identi-fication, of religious community .with its institutions:' For example, this iden-tification is commohly reinforced through° a schedule that melds communal and institutional activities: if religious aren't working~in the institution, then they usua.!ly can be found together at some communal, activity in the near-bmyo rree sciydneinccale .h Tavhee c roemsuplatr iesd p wraitcht iicmapllryis ao n"mtoetnatl; .i nhsotwituetvieorn;.aalsi zwatiillo bne" nthoatet dthe later, a more apt.' comparison is with the communal life of the "family farm" or the "cottage industry" in agrarian societies. In brief, then, an "institutional apostolate" is a particular activity that members= of a religious community undertake as a corporate: effort; it is both a means of livelihood and a means of realizing the goals of the community. The melding of communal and institutional activities also affords a means ~f self-identity for religious. For example, the fact that religious (with 829 a30 / Review Jot Religioux, Volume 35, 1976/6 appropriate humility) speak of"'our school" is but one indication of the in-fluence of merged communal-institutional life on individual religious. Re-cently, when it has become necessary to close "our school," this identifica-tion has sometimes become painfully apparent. In other terms, the American tendency to identify a person with his occupation (e.g., John Smith is a carpenter, Mary Doe is a teacher) reached sort of a zenith in the case of religious; indeed, religious may be so identified with a particular institution that "outsiders" may not even know the proper name of the community whose members work there (e.g., "the sisters who teach at St. Mary's"). The liabilities of institutional apostolates are all too familiar. Perhaps the most burdensome is the tendency to subordinate the personal life of religious to the consuming demands of the institution. Illustrations are legion: fre-quently requests of a personal nature are refused if they are seen as inter-fering with the work of the institution (rather than as being alien to com-munity life). Another burden is an unrealistic subordination of communal life to institutional demands. While the acceptance of an institutional apos- ,tolate necessarily demands coordination with the life of the community, sometimes this is done by an additive process, as in the case of a com-munity that fulfilled its quota of religious exercises, one rapidly following another, after closing school for the day. Occasionally, the reverse happens: the requirements of an institutional apostolate are over-ruled by community procedures. An obvious, instance is the appointment of religious to in-stitutional positions for which their major qualification is membership in the sponsoring community. While post-conciliar renewal has (presumably?)caused the disappear-ance of the more conspicuous malpractices, still an inherent and recurring problem in institutional, apostolates is to maintain an appropriate balance between institutional work, living in community; and personal life. Any notable imbalance in these relationships is likely to occasion friction or dissatisfaction within a community. In addition to this perennial problem, there are other factors that have brought added pressures on institutional apostolates in recent years. For example, as a result of the post-conciliar decrease in the number of active religious, many communities have been. unable to staff their institutions in the same measure as formerly. Maintaining institutional 'commitments is seemingly so burdensome that some religious doubt the wisdom of institu-tional apostolates at all---even if their community would have sufficient personnel in the future. This feeling is frequently shared by those younger religious who are disenchanted with institutions in general and have entered religious life in view of a more personalized type of service. While this anti-institutionalism is~sometimes naively ex.aggerated, the fact remains that some communities have accepted members who simply do not identify with in-stitutional apostolates. Simultaneously new options have become available. For example, ~the Individual Apostolates and Pluralism / 831 closing of some schools has made it possible or necessary for religious to seek positions outside the educational institutions conducted by their own community. Again, recent developments in the °Church, have led to the creation of new positions that ~previously didn't exist--directors of religious education representing a common instance. And in some cases, religious have found employment in government agencies or public interest firms. An interesting relationship has emerged in many institutions of higher education. In order to qualify for governmental assistance, a legal separation has been effected between institution and sponsoring community. While the same religious may continue their apostolate within the institution, legal separation makes it incongruous for a community to continue to consider the institution "ours." The legal status of religious working in the institu-tion is also changed; for example, many religious now have contracts with institutions that were formerly controlled by theircommunities. Apparently, institutional apostolates are being "individualized." Individual Apostolates Such recent developments have led to the emergence of'a variety of "individual apostolates.''1 Here an "individual apostolate" is :taken to mean a particular occupation that a religious undertakes as a personal effort and responsibility; it is to some degree independent of the administration of the community as such; it depends more on the particular personal qualifications of the religious, not on membership in this or that community. The degree of individuality, however, may ~vary considerably: religious who continue to'work in what were formerly their community's institutions may find that legal separation is a more or less nominal change; other religious, however, may find that they have to qualify competitively for their positions. In the latter case, when a particular religious leaves an individual apostolate, the community can not expect and is not expected to furnish a replacement (as is frequently the case in institutional apostolates). An im-portant icharacteristic of individual apostolates is that the religious com-munity as such can not determine whether its members will be able to ob-tain specific positions. Speaking.of an: apostolate as "individual" does not imply that it~is in-dependent of church or community; rather (if it is to be considered an apostolate) it must be conceived in'some way as a service that witnesses to Christ and reflects the spirit of a particularjcommunity. Moreover, there is a sense in which every apostolate is "individual,". insofar as religious are individually responsible for "personifying" the Gospel in their particular occupations. l Just as some may prefer terms such as '!mission" or "ministry" in place of "aposto-late," some may prefer terms such as "special" or "experimental" to "individual." Whatever the merits of one or other term, the concern here is with the implications of the individuality of these occupations in relation to community life. 1132 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 However, one must admits, the arbitrariness of classifying practically any occupation as an "apostolate." For example, practically any occupa-tion- from farming to fine arts, from physical education to theoretical physics--has been placed under the generic umbrella of "apostolate" in various institutions conducted by religious. Given this precedent, it seems rather arbitrary to attempt to restrict "individual apostolates" along rigid lines.: In addition, individual apostolates have long-standing precedents in most active communities: the missionary stationed alone, the student i'e-ligious living outside a community residence, the traveling .retreat-master or fund-raiser, etc. Again on the'basis of precedents, it is hard to disqualify individual apostolates on .'the ground of separation from daily community life. Or is it justifiable to consider these instances "temporary," when in fact they last for years? Or is it realistic to consider these cases .exceptions or experiments, if they involve a relatively large percentage of a com-munity? The point in raising these questions is not to object to the legitimacy of individual° apostolates in active communities? Insofar as religious rules are guidelines~ not~ absolutes,, exceptions are allowable or, at times,.nece~sary; there does not seem to be any.a priori reason why individual apostolates can not be a justifiable exception. Likewise, communities have always had to experiment in their apostolates; accordingly, individual apostolates can be seen as a new type of apostolic venture attempting to respond to con-temporary needs. Still, it is hardly adequate to treat individual apostolates merely as exceptions or experiments~ First of all, a more positive view is necessary. Individual apostolates should be seen as a development that is appropriate, perhaps necessary, if the Church is to witness to Christ in the contemporary world? Indeed', individual apostolates have already proved beneficial in some communities; for example, their existence has occasioned a much needed delineation of lines of community responsibility in relation to all apostolates. Moreover, individu~il apostolates are a means whereby com-munities, instead of being constrained to fill various slots, can utilize their personnel in more creative ways. Perhaps the most attractive aspect of indi-vidual apostolates is their challenge to religious to develop fully their talents in the service of Christ. 2The question of what constitutes app(opriat~e occupations for r.eligious parallels that of appropriate occupatior~s for priests; cf. G. Murray, "The Hyphenated Priest," R]R (~'REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS) 25 (1966), 693-702; D. Hassel, "The Priest-Expert," Chicago Studies 3 (1964), 201-225. .~Whether individual apostolates can be defended in contemplative communities is a different question; the example of Thomas Merton suggests that the possibility should not be peremptorily rejected. :*Cf. M. Rondet, ',Choices of Religious Life in a Secularized Worldi" R]R 34 (1975), 574-579. ~Individual Apostolates and Pluralism / 833 On the other hand, since individual apostolates have seemingly arisen more by indirection than by intention~ it is easy to continue the pattern of temporary expedients ~ or ad hoc experiments"without facing broader issues. For example, it may be tempting to presume that individual apos-tolates are only a passing fad that will eventually go away; yet ~what if they are really introducing a new. and, distinct.form of religious,life?~ Again, it is tempting to assume that ,there is little difference.,~between religious, life for those in individual apostolates and those in institutional, apostolates; accordingly, the ~same mo~lel of religious' 'life should prevail in both. But what if there ,is-need for a new type of balance between occupation, re-ligiouslife, and personal life-style in individual apostolates? " The impl!cations of individual apostolates for religious life have been emerging, ,.like ~the apostolates themselves, only piecemeal. Though only partially apparent, these~implications need to be examined, for they poten- .tially constitute the raw material for either crisis or creativity---~r more ljk61y, a bit,of both. In other words,, a pattern is being established that affects,not only'the individual religious involved,,but the commumty as a whole~ For example, a relatively high proportion'of members in some communities is currently engaged in individual apostolates; even were it desirable to withdraw mem- .bets' from individual apostolates,.,it may no longer be feasible to do so without serious disruption (viz. problems in re-assignment, budget, resi-dence, etc.). Somewhat incongruously~ individual apostolates seem to have reached a point of institutionalization! On .the theoretical level, v~hat is at issue is a community's self-vision and self-identity. On the practical level is a complex of questions relating to the implementation of thi~ vision and the fostering of community identity Theoretical Level: A New Vision? Whatever the imbalances in institutional apostolates, they offer religious a sense of identity: "our community working in our restitution:" Quite commonly this sense of corporate identity ~s reinforced by a vision of religious life as a continual harmony of prfiyer ~nd Work, of w~or.k and prayer. Indeed, the identification of community and° institution, suggests something of an equation of,communal prayei and institutional work. If this'vision of religious~life was on~ convincingly painted in the novi-ti~ ite, such an interlocking matrix of p~ra~,er and work seems' alien 'to many religiohs today. The loss c~f this vision may'6ccasi6n feelings of ~talgia for a vision now blurred and a rhythm of. activity now. disjointed. Yet before ~Cf. R. Faricy, "Change in the Apostolic Religious Life," RIR" 34 (1975), 413-414. for a description of the "demonasticization of,apostolates." Should individual aposto-lates be seen as the cutting edge of this centrifug~al movement away from monasti-cism? o ' 834 / Review ]or Religious, l/olume~ 35, 1976/6 indulging guilt4eelings ab'rut, visions lost, it would be well to ask whether the vision is worth recapturing at all . . The vision of religious life as harmonious integration of prayer and work seems to presuppose a double model: a sociological model of an agrarian society coupled with a theological model of a divinely regulated universe.6 While an agrarian model may seem medieval, perhaps the. proximate in-fluence is the American frontier ideal of the self-sufficient family farm. Questions of historical origin aside, an agrarian model seems more influen~- tial in religious.life than is commonly acknowledged. For example, most religious communities were originally founded within agrarian societies; more importantly, an agrarian ideal of .community seems to survive in the expectations, of many religious. Indeed, one may suspect that efforts to "return to the spirit of the founder" may on occasion be similar to the flight from urban life and its mounting frustrations: a yearning for :a simpler life may be nostalgia for the benefits of an agrarian society. Or again, the once common practice of establishing houses of frrmation in rural settings ("where religious life could be lived at its ideal"), reflects something of the ideal of a self,sufficient family farm. Examples could be multiplied; varia-tions on the agrarian model could be added (e.g., religious~ community as "cottage industry" or "ethnic village," etc.). It seems worth noting the similar melding ~of work and communal life that characterizes both agrarian societies and institutional apostolates. Fitting: neatly with an agrarian model of religious :communityqs a the-ological :model Of a well regulated universe: iu~t as the universe is har-moniously ordered in every detail by an inherent set.of laws enacted by a provident God, so too is the religious community harmoniously regulated in every detail by a set of rules provided by ~a diyinely guided founder and subsequently administered, by omniscient superiors.7 While this is blatant caricature, it should be-remembered that every caricature hits uncomfortably close to life¯ ¯ Both models have become theoretically untenable. The~ agrarian model ~;Many different models have been used to explain the transition from one vision or world-view to another: for example, T. Nuij, "New Forms of Community Life," R]R 32 (1973), 59-64, coniraSts commtlnity in primitive, rural or pre-technological, and technological or industrial cultures. Among the abundant literature on this transition, cf. T. O'Meara, Holiness and Radicalism in Religious Lile (New York~ 1972); G. Moran, The. New Community (New York, 1970); L. Schaller, hnpact o[ the Future and The Change Agent (Nashville-Ne~ Yo.rk, 1969 and 1972, respectively); R. Weg-mann, "The Catholic Clergy and Change," Cross Currents i9 (1969), i78-197. The well-known works of C. Reich, The Greet,ing o! America (New York, 1971) and A. Toffler, Future Shock (New York, 1970) offer additional models and numerous illustrations. rThe influence of another model, the church as institution; is also evident; on the advantages~ and.~ limitations of 'this and. other ecclesiological models, cf. A. Dulles, Models o[ the Church (Garden City, New York, 1974). !t would be helpful to have a similar analysis of models of religious life. ~ Individual A,postolates and Pluralism / 835 is_Ansufficient in view of the complexity of urban, technological soCiety, while the theological model of-a s~,stematically directed universe is inade- - quate in the face of historical consciousness and philosophical pluralism. Accordingly, neither of these models .provides a suitable framework for a vision, of religious life. Nbnetheless, there is one reason ~for their tengcious survival:¢ they undoubtedly furnish a sense of security. It is ~spiritually reassuring to devote one's entire day in a harmonious blend of prayer and work dedicated to God: could a fervent religious want more? For some religious, then, the h'armonious vision is quite satisfying. For others, othe ~vision may~be~ feeble, but they are willing to live with;incon-sistency, because they are unable or unwilling to search for a new vision. If~a few havediscovered a new vision, many others are still searching. Aside from the fact that it is far easier to criticize a vision-become-problematic than to construct a replacement, visions are elusive and difficult to verbal-ize. More than likely, discussions within a community do notdebate visions but center on practical issues: traditional procedures versus new approaches. It is tempting, for example; to treat individual apostolates merely as another practical problem. Yet touch'more is at stake: competing visions of com-munity and apostolate that stand at the heart of personal and corporate self-identity. Not surprisingly, the .response to new visions has been varied. First of all, some would prefer to re-upholster the traditional vision by discard-ing out-dated elements" and .super-imposing sundry modern touches. Change is then cosmetic: the superficial appearance is different, but the funda-mental vision remains the same. Nevertheless, there are definite ad-vantages to this approach: it affords cor~tinuity with the past--a matter of concern to older members; it accommodates itself to new circumstances.--- a mattef of importance for younger members; and it introduces, ch~inges gradually sb that there is sufficient time to become accustomed to one set of changes before more_ are introduced--a matter of expediency in all social changes. Yet such an option Carries with it a'notable liability: it relies on a vision that is basically unattractive and unacceptable to many. ~ ~ ¯ Nonetheless-, the right of a community to take this option must be respected, for it may be the only option that a particular community can really live with.8 To follow an out-dated vision may not be wise, but it need not be wrong.dn fact, the attempt to .jerk away an apparent Linus blanket from those committed to a traditional vision is likely to be disrup-tive of both community and apostolate? .Without arbitrarily precluding the o sit might be well to develop a declaration of rights for religious similar to Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom. '~Th6 hazards of adopti0g a new vision are forcefully, though stridently, indicated by J. Hitchcock, The.Decline and Fall o~ Radical:~Cbtholicism (New York, 1971); with-out accepting his viewpoint, one can still~adna!t the need for facing straightforwardly his criticisms. 83b / Review for Religious, Vrlume 33, 1976/6 possibility of future change, a community may.decide very realistically and very,' honestly that its capacity for renewal can only accomplish so much at~a ~iven moment of its history. Communities that decide to retain a traditional vision of community and'apostolate would be well advised not to"eng~ge any of their members in,individual, apostolates that require a life-styl~ that'is basically incompatible with the community,s traditional, vision and thus 'threaten its ~corporate identity. The predictable resulr~'would be serious dissension that.:the, com~ mfihity .may not be prepared to bear:~Yet this need not imply that such communities need to exclude ever~ type of individual.apostolate; what is implied is that~each proposed individual apostolate must be carefully ex-amined for its concordance.with the community's self-vision and self-identity. ,, The Problem, of Pluralism : If the traditional vision is~unattractiw or untenable, what is the new vision of ~community and apostolate? The ~option would be simple~ if a compelling new vision were~ at hand;'then at least-the choice would be.~ clear-cut: traditional or new. Unfortunately there is no one unifying vision that demands acceptance. If it is quite clear that modern life is techno-logical not agrarian, pluralistic not uniform, it is not clear how such aspr'cts .can be synthesized in a new vision. Instead of one new vision, there are~ any number of competing visions--each with advantages~ all'with their respective liabilities. The way to the future seems tobe: may. the best vision win! It is then quite understandable why many religious prefer to hold on to the~ vision they have, whatever.its deficiencies, rather than risk'the vague uncertainties of some apparently more problematic replacement. It is equally understandable why many other religious tend to hedge their op-tions ,by tentatively exploring new possibilities, while keeping a firm'grasp on,a traditional vision. Still., just as a diversity of liturgical practices and theological viewpoints has emerged in. the post-conciliar Church, so a similar diversity in life-styles and visions of community and apostolate has emerged in post-conciliar religious life. This ~variety is rooted in a greater theological awareness of the diversity in the mystery of Christ, the uniqueness of each person, and the temporal and cultural plurality of mankind.~° Where formerly uniformity was prized,as exemplifying the uhity of the Church, now pliJralism is seen as reflecting the Church's catholicity. Yet if it is easy~to pay lip-service to pluralism, it is much more difficult ~°Cf. E. Carter, "Pluralism in Christian Life," R[R 31 .(1972), 22~26; K. Rahner~ "Pluralism in Theology and the Oneness of the Churchs' Professiono o~ Faith," Con~ cilium 46: 103.123; A. Dulles', "Dogma as an Ecumenical Problem,'" 'Theological S~udies 29 (1968),~ 397-416 (reprinted in Dulles! The~'Survival ot Dogma [Garden City, New York, 1971], pp. 152-170). ,Individual Apostolates and Pluralism / 837~ to cope consistently with its implications. For example, some religious have adopted new life-styles, but have not related these to a new vision; and vice versa, new visions 'have been officially adopted in constitutions and rules without subsequent implementation in a community. ~ More importantly, the transition from uniformity to pluralism is both threatening~and enticing. Those who were trained for, or are congenitally inclined to, a life of uniformity and regularity can be severely confused by a,superabundan~e of choices and°the burden of responsibility inherent in a pluralistic situation:~°For example, obedience seems to furnish an excuse for some religious to become over-dependent on their superiors; or vice versa, obedience seems to allow some superiors to pre-empt most decision-making from their subordinates. If some r~ligious pale at pluralism~ it may be the threat of responsibilities that they are unwilling or unable to, bear; similarly, if some ~superiors resent pluralism, it may be through unwilling-ness to share their authority with former subordinates. Another dismaying aspect of pluralism is the potential loss, of com-munity support-systems; when familiar practices vanish, religious ma~' feel themselves ostracized from the group or isolated in their work. Change ih any form is unsettling to creatures of habit, but clinging to a traditional pattern may result in isolation. Since the prospect of losing the respect and understanding of one's companions is~unnervihg, pluralism can prove to be just as formidable to younger religious as to older. In the case of the younger, ,it can be the refusal to adopt the ~vision currently in vogue among their peers. Yet if pluralism ig threatening; it is also attractive. In place of the enervating burden of predictable routine there is the prospect of flexibility and variety in both communal and ~ apostolic life. Religious life is more easily seen as a challenging opportunity for'personal initiative and creativity in the service of Christ. For example, obedience may be seen~ as a commit-ment to Christ that takes the form of submitting one's proposed activities tO the critical encouragement and the charismatic~ evaluation of one's col-leagues; authority is pr!marily that of competent advice; ultimate responsi-bility is one's own before Christ and community. But such a revised view of~ obedience has to be accepted, not ~ofily by the individual but by the community, which may have fo ask whether it can function with a number of different and divergent views of obedience. Another attractive aspect of pluralism is the atmosphere which~ the community provi~tes religious for developing their self-potefitial both in their lives as Christians and in ~their apostolates; this implies a willingness and openness in sharing insights and successes, failures and feelings; in-deed, the diversity of apostolates undertaken by their colleagues can be-c~ me an incentive for religious to Work at~maximum capacity. The preceding contrast exemplifies some of the positive and negative aspects of pluralism. The examples may also help explain why individuals 838 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 react quite differently to the prospect of pluralism: some feel threatened; others are attracted; still others would like to have the advantages of both uniformity and pluralism without the liabilities of either.11 Insofar as pluralism seems to have emerged within religious life more as the result of a series of individual decisions and external trends than through precise planning for pluralism, its implications need attention. Earlier, pluralism in religious life tended to exist more as a collective phe-nomenon: different communities constituted a diversified spectrum of "catholic" religious life, but any one community tended to occupy only a section of this spectrum; each community enjoyed a fairly well specified corporate apostolic identity. The importance attached to this identity-via-apostolate is illustrated by the fact that some communities (even when personnel was available) refused to undertake certain apostolates, as incompatible with their constitutions; as a result, some communities originated as off-shoots of others, when a new apostolate was needed which the parent community felt unable to enter. "Of course, some communities have always allowed greater internal diversity than others. For example, if some communities have restricted their endeavors to one or two specific apostolates, others have undertaken a variety. At first sight, individual apostolates appear to be simply an exten-sion of this variety. And in fact, this seems to be the way most individual apostolates have come about: superiors have allowed individual religious to accept experimental apostolates as exceptions to accustomed practices. In fact, these exceptions have gradually reached the point in some com-munities- where a comparatively high percentage of members is involved; in some instances, proportionately more members are now in individual apostolates than are in some traditional ones. In effect, the exceptions appear to be constituting a new rule, though there is not always a new vision to accompany it. Thus, the introduction of individual .apostolates may precipitate a re-orientation of a community's self-vision and self-identity. In other words, individual apostolates seem to imply the acceptance of a plurality of visions, only some of which are com-patible with traditional vision(s). The basic question then is: to what extent is a community really willing to accept the implications of pluralism? Practical Options A community's Vision of its apostolate(s) is a vital element in its cor-por. ate identity; presumably its apostolic vision is an important factor in attracting, applicants ,and in training younger membersi presumably too, 11The reaction of any person to pluralism seems to involve a number of intertwined factors--personality, intelligence, education, age, occupation, etc.--so that it is im-possible to predict an individual's receptivity.to pluralism. Nor is receptivity~ merely a matter of age; the contrast "traditional-pliJralistic" is not identical with older versus younger~ Also, one may doubt whether it is possibl6 'to foster pluralism simply through instruction~ Individual Apostolates and Pluralism /839 apostolic vision is an essential motivation for the special spirit and dy-nainism of a community. Moreover, apostolic vision is necessary if a community is to avoid being victimized by the needs of the moment and to pla.n its activities on a long range basis. It is crucial, then, for a com- ~iinity to delineate its apostolic vision as clearly as possible, while recog-nizing that every option involves risk.1~ ,~ first option is for a community to continue its institutional aposto-late( s) as~ its primary and (probably) exclusive commitment. Presuming of course that its institutions are really viable, the most-compelling motive for this option can be found in the fact that this is what the membership recognizes as its proper charism and commits itself to do. The evident risk is that this option is not particularly appealing to those who want to work in a more personalized setting; thus, recruitment of new members and dis-satisfaction among present members could well be problems. Moreover, this option may yield to the temptation to abandon the struggle to live a religious life in the modern pluralistic world. The polar-oppbsite' is the option to make individual apostolates the primary and presumably exclusive emphasis in a community.~As a means of responding to challenges facing the Church in the modern world, thisop-tion presupposes considerable flexibility in community structures as well as Considerable self-reliance on the~part of individual religious. These pre-sumed strengths may be dissipated through excessive individualism on the one hand or through lack of traditional support-systems on. the other. While a few commuriities," or at least some segments .of communities, appear to be headed in the direction of this option, what may really be at stake is the creation of new communities (even though the present may not seem a particularly auspicious moment for new found~tiofis). L oA compromise between these two options is the attempt to. juxtapose ¯ institutional and individual apostolates. In greater or less degree, this is theo~present option of many active communities in the United States. In-deeid, it seems to be a typical bit of American pragmatism for a community to allow its members to dream different visions, to work in diffe~rent settings, oani:l, yet to unite, together as members of one family. If such diversity defies theoretical alignment, American religious will presumably be content, as long as their community lives and works harmoniously, however diversely. Compromise will tend to succeed as long .as religious are genuinely tolerant of the inevitable tensions that diversity introduces. The unavoidable risk is that s'uch a compromise will become unglued for example, through a wide-spread failure to fulfill responsibilities both in apostolates and in religious life, through favoritism or factionalism introduced when one group attempts to impose its views on others, or through the difficulty of attracting new members to a pluralistic life. r-'Cf, the interesting interview with a superior,general, C. Buttimer, "Is Religious Life Viable Today?" America 128/4 (February 3, 1973), 86-90. 840 / Review Ior Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 If compromise is to be successful, it is important for the members of a community~ explicitly to recognize the terms of the compromise. In other words, if the tensions arising from diversity in visions and a variety of life-styles are not to. be divisive, a community needs to recognize and to ,accept a spectrum of variant models of apostolic endeavor and of, community life. A community should specify the extent of pluralism that it is capable of tolerating. For example, some communities may be ,open to any type of individual apostolate; others may wish to restrict themselves~ tO select types. Without prior specification or evaluation, .there is potential for arbitrary decision-making, either real or imagined; there is also the likelihood of disillusionment among members if their expectations, ,whether realistic or idealistic, are :not met. (Disillusionment can affect both those who expect the traditional apostolates to be maintained, as well as~ those who, want ind~ividual apostolates to be introduced.) . ~ ~ The acceptance of pluralism should eventually. 'be expressed in bbth the constitutionS, which describe a community's aprstolic vision, and in the rules,~which attempt to concretize this vision in the life.of a community. Such, formulation is .a difficult endeavor, as the revisions undertaken after Vatican II amply confirm.13 Moreover, the emergence of individual aposto-lates adds to the.complexity: first, since the vision is pluralistic and personal, constitutions apparently can do little more than generalize about the limit-points of the pluralism that is acknowledged in principle~ secondly, if rules presumably reflect the lived experience of a community over a period of ¯ time, individual apostolates, in their present form, ar~ both recent and .still .experimental. Accordingly, .different communities may choose .to accept individual apostolates .in rather different ways. Some communities may find it feasible to consider tliem as extensions of existing apostolates; for example, a com-munity., whose apostolate is in education may decide to restrict the ac-ceptance of individual apostolates to educational endeavors. Other com-munities, which have defined their apostolates in terms of specific groups (e.g., poor,~ unevangelized, ethnic, etc.) may allow individual apostolates as a broadening of their ministry to these groups. Still other communities may encourage any~,type of new individual apostolate that displays some relation to witnessing Christ in the modern world.' At least as crucial as express recognitio,n of individual apostolates~ in :constitutions and rules is the way religious regard such formulations. For some, rules are principles that must be uniformly applied in partiCular in-stance. s; others would view rules as determinations that are to be supple-mented and emended according to actual experience. This contrast is given visual form,,in the first case, by those rules that are published in leather-l'~ Cf. J.l_~zano, "Revision of the Constitutions: Meaning, Criteria, and Problems," R]R 34 (1975), 525-534. Individual Apostolates and Pluralism / 841 bound, red-edged volumes resembling miniature Bibles; in the second.case, rtiIes migtit well be mimeographed on loose-leaf sheets and placed in folders to facilitate periodic revision and up-dating. At least this illustration may indicate tha~t attempting to specify'rules for a diversity of individual aposto-lates is a ~tenuous enterprise. In addition, it suggests that traditional rules; however well suited to institutional apostol~ites, should not simply be used as .an umbrella to cover the new situations encountered in individual aposto-lates. Since uniform rules for individual apostolates tend to be anomalous in theory and impractical in"fact, it seems necessary for commuifities whose members are engaged in individual apostolates to develop new approaches: It may well bethat'a community may decide to'formulate guidelines for community or .procedures~for administration or standards .for~professional life for those members in individual apostolates. In so doing, a community will need to face squarely both the advantages and the draffbacks that are encountered in attempting to live and work with quite different 'types of apostolates and life-styles within tile same community. o In any pluralistic situation, it is obviously impossible to lis't all the variables; yet it may be helpful to saml~le a few problem areas: administra-tive procedures, community life, and personal freedom. Administrative Procedures In the halcyon days of institutional apostolates, administration .may have been tedious, but it f~equently had the advantage of following a,stan-dard pattern of applying general norms to particular cases. This '.view. of administration is inadequate for dealing with individual apostolates (and, it should be added, With most institutional apostolates as-well). On the one"hand, individual apostolates tend to elude uniform norms, unless these a~'e~,extremely general; on the other hand, individual apostolates necessarily change the roles of and relationship between superiors and subordinates; This change in, roles" is graphically illustrated by the religious who occa-sionally employed the provincial' superior on a part-time basis. A prime factor in the:reorientation of roles is the fact that in most indi- .vidual apostolates, religious .need a fair amount of latitude to negotiate with prospective employeis and that, ~once employed, their work is not under, the direct supervision of community superiors. As a result; a superior's role tends to be narrowed to antecedent approval (for it is frequently unfeasible, if not counterproductive, for a superior to become involved in negotiations) ¯ and subsequent ratification, which may,be tantamount to rubber-stamping a iait accompli. Some superiors may find this process quite congenial; they have plenty of other problems and are quite relieved if some religious can successfully pursue their individu~ apostolates without supervision. Other superiors may feel more or less frustrated at wanting .to be helpful yet not being needed or at wanting to give daily directives yet being powerless; they may subcon- Review Ior Religious, Volume 35, 1976/6 sciously resent the apparent diminution of their authority. All of these reactions manifest, a lack of appreciation of the change in roles in the superior-subordinate relationship. If it is unrealistic to expect to transfer a set of relationships en masse from institutional to individual apostolates, what then is the role of the superior in relation to religious in this context? First of all, a superior has to take seriously the individuality of each apostolate as well as the personality of each religious; in effect, each apos-tolate must be considered as a separate and somewhat unique case, just as each religious ~is a unique individual. Instead of applying general norms to individual cases, a reverse process is needed: whether and how general principles apply needs to be discovered through an evaluation of each apostolate. The latter task can only be carried out as a joint effort of supe-rior and subordinate, acting as colleagues. . Accordingly, the role of the superior is less a matter of issuing com-mands and more a matter of fostering dialogue, discernment, and discre-tion. 14 Dialogue is necessary if the superior is to understand different apos-tolates from the viewpoint of participant religious; though this does not necessarily imply that a participant's view is always the best, still it should at least be the point of departure for productive discussion. Discernment, in the sense of raising appropriate questions to evaluate the potential, and performance for an individual apostolate, must also be a joint endeavor if the merits and disadvantages of a particular apostolate are to be appreci-ated. Discretion, which aims at deciding on an appropriate course of action among a number of alternatives, should also be shared; it is pointless to impose a decision that one cannot or will not be implemented. Obviously, such an approach to community administration requires a more personal type of communication than may have been customary in the supervision of institutional apostolates. Where a large number of indi-vidual apostolates are involved, such an approach may require that super-visory responsibilities be divided among more than one superior. Effective use of such an approach demands that superiors be skilled in interpersonal communication; in practice, this may mean that other administrative tasks, such as financial management, may have to be delegated to others. If a new administrative approach is required for individual apostolates, no approach is a panacea. While a more personal approach may be more human and hopefully more productive, both superiors and subordinates should realize that there is no advance assurance that their discussion will prove fruitful: if ~dialogue can result in agreement, it also may make any disagreement painfully evident; if discernment can raise crucial questions, l~One of the reasons-that dialogue, discernment, and discretion have become m~ajor concerns in post-conciliar renewal is linked to increased recognition of religious as persons; an added reason for the importance of these means here is the individuality of apostolates. Individual Apostolates and Pluralism / 843 it may also end in self-contented deception; if discretion can aid in deter-mining appropriate action, it is also an arbitrary selection among alterna-tives. There is no method that as such will guarantee success. For example, one question that dispels any roseate vie

Issue 31.1 of the Review for Religious, 1972. ; ASSOCIATE EDI'I.'O R Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS ANI) ANS\VERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editor, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to I~EVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Build-ins; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, SJ.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ccclcsiastical approval by faculty mcnlbers of tile School of Divinity of St. Louis UniversJly. the edilorhll otfices beii~g located at 612 Ilumboldt Bnilding~ 539 North (.;rand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned b.v the Missouri Province Educational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1972 by REVIEW I:OR RELIGIOUS. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. l.ouis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years: other counlries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for Ilew or renewal subscriptions and should bc accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. cur-rency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent I~EVIEW I:OR ~ELIGIOUS. Clmnge of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent I)ululh, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editori-al correspondence, and books for review ~bould bc scat 1o REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: 612 [lumboldt Building: 539 North Grand Boule-yard; SI. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to tile address of tile Questions and Ans\vcrs editor. JANUARY 1972 VOLUME 31 NUMBER 1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Volume 31l 1972 EDITORIAL OFFICE 539 North Grand Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri 63103 BUSINESS OFFICE P.O. Box 1110 Dululh, Minnesota 55802 EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, Published in January, March, May, July, September, No-vember on the fifteenth of the month. Review for Religious is indexed in the Catholic Periodi-cal Index and in Book Review Index. Microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Micro-films; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. HELEN CONDON, R.S.C.J. The Prayer Question [Helen Condon, R.S.C.J., is a member of the administrative team of the International Union of Superiors General; Piazza di Ponte S. Angelo, 28; 00186 Rome, Italy.] One sign that religious men and women are experiencing renewal and not just making adaptations is the surfacing of a deep current, the desire for prayer. Within the past two or three years there has been a stronger interest in prayer, in new forms and approaches, in books by Lutheran, Anglican, and Orthodox mystics and in Eastern spiritualities. That this interest is more than academic is evident from the efforts being made to experience prayer -the workshops and live-in institutes, directed retreats, the spreading house of prayer movement, the contacts being sought with various masters of contemplation. The Spirit breathing through the Second Vatican Council is surely responsible for this direction of renewal. One strong influence has been the Biblical renaissance of our time, affecting both communal and personal prayer. Among young religious in particular there is often a truly Scripture-centered praying. Another impetus has come from the new freedom given by the chapter decrees of numerous apostolic congregations, doing away with outmoded and excessive devotions and offering wide latitude for individual needs and attractions. What is this contemplative prayer? However we may try to analyze or describe it, in the end it is perhaps least badly expressed as an experience of God. Desire for this experience goes far beyond religious and Christian life, for the same dynamism is active in contemporary society. A'quest for religious experience is a marked characteristic of the counter-culture, however misdirected it may become in esoteric dilettantism and drug addiction. In many places criticism of religious institutions is strongest among those who sense what religion should be. Celebration of the death of God is not an attack on Him but in our misrepresentations, and it can lead to a search for Him. The awareness of God's absence and the widespread crisis of faith and hope may well be social phenomena akin to the mystical dark night. Is it surprising that religious men and women may be similarly affected? Our problems are often the same problems that others have. Realization of this fact can lead to meaningful solidarity with them. It can also be a tremendous apostolic challenge. In this context we come to understand that, although prayer as a human experience has certain constants through the centuries, it must also be real today. Action and contemplation are not antithetical, any more than are body and soul or other so-called dichotomies. All the condemnation of old attitudes and structures that enforced parallel lives of individualistic prayer and work and even the recent criticism of mere horizontalism are now subsiding. What is left is at bedrock level, a hunger and thirst for the living God. The modalities of this experience are many, defying definition and classification. Age-old awarenesses still hold - man's sense of the wholly Other, man's need for a human God - but these are intensified and Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 re-expressed in our heightened consciousness of present realities. Prayer is experience of God's dynamic presence; it is also search for this God. Sometimes it is experience of His absence. Prayer is awareness of His saving action in the world, challenging our integral response. Prayer can be both cause and effect of serving the real needs of men. Yet, without denying the present thrust toward prayer, a crucial question is justified: given the present conditions and circumstances, can many religious men and women engaged in active apostolates really have contemplative prayer? Never have pressures been greater than they are today in Catholic education, the area in which most religious devote themselves. The burden of the future weighs heavily on teachers and administrators: how to assess apostolic need and effective response; how to become more involved in the wider community; how to achieve academic excellence and, of course; how to make ends meet while increasing faculty salaries and benefits, improving instructional programs, and extending scholarships; whether to keep open or to close a school or college. Shortage of personnel presents critical financial problems and sometimes affects morale, especially if teaching sisters, brothers, and priests interpret the questioning of schools and universities and the undertaking of new apostolates by members of their congregations as a lack of support and confidence. Added to all these circumstances is another factor, the grave problems of high school and college students which have also spiraled within a few years and which cry out for help, time, and emotional expenditure on the part of those who teach and guide them. In view of all these pressures - and similar pressures in other kinds of apostolic work - some religious men and women are driven to settle for very little prayer. In addition, the changes within religious life have had an effect - more direct responsibility for one's own "prayer life," greater personal freedom, a wider variety of leisure activities. No longer does a rule or superior "safeguard" times of prayer. Self-discipline is rightly intended to replace other structures, but this kind of self-discipline is not easy, even after years of fidelity to meditation. Other changes have caused malaise and polarization within congregations and local communities. After hectic days in the classroom or office, religious men and women sometimes come home to tensions that are even more difficult to bear. Then there are the heaviest pressures of all, questions that are being asked not just in theological speculation but in personal anguish: ls religious life itself a valid and viable way any more? What meaning has permanent commitment? Is such commitment possible? What really is a relationship with God? Is there such a thing as being "called"? Who is Christ? Where is He? What is the Church? It is not surprising that some find prayer very difficult or meaningless. If it is true that the Holy Spirit is seeking to pray more within us and among us, how can we help one another respond, in spite and because of the problems that burden us? Some of these problems are outside us and some are within. Basic to any effort is a view of religious life itself. It is more and other than professional service, however sympathetic and unselfish. Religious life is a way of realizing the baptismal commitment. It is a faith relationship with the Lord lived out in apostolic community. It is a shared experience of Jesus Christ. A religious congregation is a community of persons committed to, an evangelical life and mission, which is the saving work of Christ among people today. Some such vision reflecting the charism and spirit of the founder is at the head of the book of new decrees or interim documents of ourcongregations. Ultimately this vision is a conviction of faith, with an overriding logic of its own. And this Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 conviction must become the point of reference and basic principle determining our priorities and policies. As a matter of fact, many congregations are acting according to their vision and basic principle in making courageous decisions about reorganizing institutional apostolates and opening up new forms of evangelical service and ministry. Convictions about the individual's'needs and apostolic call are leading to new types of community life and more diversified professional training. The experiments in initial formation and the move toward continuing education and retirement programs result from a realistic application of fundamental aims. Yet are we equally realistic in implementing the prayer-imperative intrinsic to our vision and faith conviction? If in actuality many or even some apostolic religious are so overburdened and pressured that prayer becomes impossible, then priorities demand an honest facing of the problem by everyone concerned. This confronta-tion is the responsibility of a whole congregation or an entire province as well as those in authority, since we now participate in some way in our own government. We have been willing to cut back on institutional commitments because of new apostolic demands, because of the need for further professional preparation, the shortage of personnel and finances. Are we willing to make similar decisions to help one another grow in the faith relationship with God, live the apostolic religious life more humanly and freely? This is not a pious ideal but a pragmatic conclusion. Apostolate is bigger than work, as the person is more than a function. People have to be given time and psychic space to breathe and be. Practically speaking, we need to provide more help for overworked administrators, to lighten class loads of teachers whose day also includes hours of informal counseling or evening activities in the parish. And speaking just as practically, we must begin to give time-off to individuals - spiritual sabbaticals - not just time to acquire a degree in theology, but time and help to seek the living God. Summer renewals of a month or so are helpful. Yet what seems to be needed is a prolonged period, a semester or more, with courses in Scripture and theology and other disciplines integrated into a community experience, and the opportunity for real spiritual direction. The ARC program held in Rome during 1970-71 offered such an experience and might serve as one model for similar ventures elsewhere.1 This kind of spiritual sabbatical might well give the distancing that some seem able to find only in a leave of absence. For most others it would be a time of growth and re-integration after years of self-expenditure. Congregations - which is to say, we - owe their members continuing spiritual help and most especially help in praying - not just talks on prayer, though these can be valuable, but personal guidance and circumstances that favor growth. Good directors are hard to come by; this field of ministry is crying out for sisters and brothers as well as priests. We need prayerful men and women with learning, experience, and sensitivity to the contemporary, who can enlighten and encourage others, enabling them to discern God's leading and to go forward in faith. Besides the congregation, local communities are "responsible" for the quality of 1 ARC - Apostolate of Religious Community - was a program first offered for religious women in 1970-1971 in Rome. Courses in Scripture and theology were taught in English by such persons as Barnabas Ahem, Luis Alonso Sch6kel, Robert L. Faricy, Paul Kennedy, Edward Malatesta, Juan Mateos, Paul Molinari, David M. Stanley, and James Walsh. The 28 participants of varying ages belonged to 17 congregations. They developed their own community life, integrating course content, and communal prayer.'The ARC program,is being repeated during 1971-1972. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 prayer of their members. It is in the living situation that a person's overwork and exhaustion will become most evident. If a community is really a home, then already other pressures lessen and we get strength from one another. If it is not home, a person may tend to withdraw, to center his life outside, to work compulsively. Even if an individual will not or cannot work out of his overextension, his friends can help, like the four men in the gospel~ by laying him at Christ's feet in their own prayer. Since we have chosen to live out our commitment in community, community becomes the context of our discovery of Christ, as it was for His Apostles. As they supported Thomas, we can sustain the faith of one another. Our faith is in need of such help. Perhaps more of us than we could ever guess are going through the same kind of thing - asking ourselves who Christ is and where He is, what our own lives mean and how we can live them today. Another's questioning and searching can help us immeasurably more than facile theoretic solutions. Some are doubting if there is such a thing as a personal call by God. Ultimately the only answer is people's experience. In the long story of salvation history some individuals have known a personal call, and in the more tangible present of our own communities others may be able to share their own moment of meeting with the Lord. Perhaps we can dare to walk in the strength of another's vision, or he in ours, or the hidden Christ may join the two of us as we speak of no longer finding Him. The prayer of the Christian community has special efficacy because the Lord has promised His presence there. Whatever form communal prayer may take, it must make room for this presence, with all its implications of conversion and forgiveness. Through the centuries religious men and women have edified each other by their ardor and fidelity. Today, when we are particularly vulnerable to one another, the quality of community life has a tremendous impact. Perhaps more than anything else, the best help to personal prayer is to be with praying people. What about the individual religious who finds prayer impossible or meaningless? When we cannot pray, when we are bogged down, utterly weary, drained, dried up, when we may already also feel guilty, advice is the last thing we want from Job's comforters, perhaps even from our closest friends. But maybe we can quietly recognize that much of our impotence may come from exterior circumstances and our own human condition. The response is what we are capable of at any given moment. Maybe the only response possible is a desperate cry to God for help. And maybe there will be no answer, only silence. If we can remember words about knocking over and over again, we can try to keep on asking, begging especially for faith: Save me, God! The water is already up to my neck! I am sinking in the deepest swamp, there is no foothold; I have stepped into deep water, and the waves are rushing over me, Worn out with calling, my throat is hoarse, my eyes are strained, looking for my God (Ps 69:1-3). God's power that raised Christ from the dead is working in us (Ep 1:19-20). In prayer the initiatives are His: "Is anything too wonderful for Yahweh?" (Gn 18:14). The response we are capable of may mean a courageous honesty, admitting our own carelessness or compromising or sinfulness. It may mean a willingness to take small steps, perhaps just a recognition of the problem of personal prayer, perhaps letting ourselves be helped. At some point priorities can be sorted out. If the problem is overinvolvement, something has ~to give. Nobody but God can be all things to all men. In its acute form this condition is like a heart attack, when a Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 doctor would say to us: "If you want to live, you've got to let up." Now our very life is just as truly at stake. Do we want to live, and live more abundantly? For all of us, moving into this more abundant life means discovering a rhythm and realizing an integration of prayer into our very existence. The Spirit's action leads to life, not frustration. His invitation to apostolic religious must be possible of acceptance. Given the complexities of today, obstacles around us and within us are immense, but with personal and communal effort they must be surmountable. The new decrees of congregations which altered prayer obligations were intended to open do6rs and windows, not create a vacuum. Contemplative prayer does not need to be defended. Time taken for it does not require apologies to anyone. For the problem of prayer will always be partly a question of time because of the human condition. The modes of prayer are multiple and unique: God can and does give Himself anywhere at any moment. To recognize and assimilate this encounter takes reflection, time, some solitude. Prayer is a human experience, caused and conditioned by and inseparable from human living; prayer is also a gift of the immanent and transcendent God. Apostolic religious are praying people who happen to be teachers or adminis-trators or other professionals, not workers who happen to pray. If we mean what we have so often said - that is what we are rather than what we do that matters - then nowhere is this more true than in our being in Christ. The integration of our lives comes about through the quality of our prayer. The deepening desire for prayer is surely a sign and fruit of renewal. And God's gifts are given not just for ourselves but for others, for the building up of Christ's Body. Religious men and women who are praying people can help others to pray, those who are searching for God without knowing Him, those who have lost Him, those who are revolting against the sterile materialism of technocracy. The religious person is also meant to be a prophet, to condemn injustice and hatred and violence by his words and his life, to proclaim the kingdom of justice and love and peace. One who speaks God's message to mefi must all along be a listener: The Lord Yahweh has given ,me a disciple's tongue. So that 1 may know how to reply to the wearied he provides me with speech. Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple. The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear (Is 50:4-5). M. BASIL PENNINGTON, 0.C.S.0. Contemplative Community lM. Basil Pennington, O.C.S;O., is a Cistercian monk of St. Joseph's Abbey; Spencer, Massachusetts O1562.] The Third Cistercian Symposium (August 30 - September 6, 1971) held at the Abbey of Notre Dame du Lac (near Montreal, Canada) brought together some fifty participants from various nations and continents, including such notables as Jean Leclercq, O.S.B., Armand Veilleux, O.C.S.O., Chrysogonus Waddell, O.C,S.O., Valentine Walgrave, O.P., Ghislain Lafont, O.S.B., and many others. The theme of this Third Symposium was "Contemplative Community." Like the previous Cistercian Symposiums, a team of experts, in this case fifteen, were asked to prepare papers which were circulated in advance. Like the Second Symposium this one also was interdisciplinary and included papers from the fields of Sacred Scripture, patristics, monastic spirituality and history, liturgy, theology, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. A paper reflecting the Anglican perspective was also presented. Unlike previous Symposiums the papers were not read at the meeting. All had been asked to study them carefully prior to the meeting. Or/the first day each expert made a very brief presentation and time was allotted for questions. Such a plan was proposed to allow the greatest amount of time possible for discussion in the hopes that the group might in this way penetrate more deeply hato the question. In practice it proved quite successful. The twelve papers presented were: Scripture Monastic Community and the Summary Statements in Acts Francis Martin Monastic Tradition and History The De Instituto Christiano: Reflections on Contemplative Community Sr. Michael Connor, O.C.S.O. St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Contemplative Community Jean Leclercq, O.S.B. Seeking God in Community according to St. Aelred Charles Dumont, O.C.S.O. Together unto God: Contemplative Community in the Sermons of Guerric of Igny M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. A Challenge for Today: The Problem of the Contemplative Community at the End of the Eighteenth Century Cyprian Davis, O.S.B. Contemplation and Community: An Anglican Perspective Sr. Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. Liturgy Liturgy and Contemplative Community: Random Reflections and Notes for Discussion Chrysogonus Waddell, O.C.S.O. Theology The Theology of Contemplative Community Tarcisius Conner, O.C.S.O. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 Sociology The Theology of Social Dynamics with an Application to Contemplative Life Valentine Walgrave, O.P. Anthropology Contemplative Community David F. K. Steindl-Rast, O.SoB. Psychology Some Psychological Dimensions of the Contemplative Community D. H. Salman, O.P. Experts present who did not present papers were: Armand Veilleux, O.C.S.O., abbot of Mistassini and editor ofLiturgie, Ghislain Lafont, O.S.B., of Pierre-qui-vire andJohn Eudes Bamberger, O.C.S.O., Secretary General of the Cistercian Order, psychiatrist and patristic scholar. In addition to the team of experts there was a good cross section 'among the participants of those concerned with the contemplative community. There were abbots and abbesses, novice masters and novice mistresses, monks, nuns and novices; there were Cistercians, Benedictines, and Dominicans; there were those from experimental communities, secular institutes, and the lay state. With such a large group there was always the danger that the Symposium might evolve into a colloquium. In actual fact 6ne evening session was devoted to sharing the experiences of the various communities represented. However, for the most part, the meeting remained a very serious study, yet one constantly challenged by practical pastoral concern. On the first day after the brief presentations and a question period, the meeting divided into five small groups, three English-speaking and two French. These groups, in the light of the presentations, formulated questions which represented areas of concern: the essential nature of the Christian contemplative community, sharing at the level of contemplative experience, integration of the vertical and horizontal dimensions. Fidelity to the evolving community and entrance into the contemplative community were also to be discui;sed. On the second day discussion was largely restricted to the panel of experts. The Biblical type of the Christian community, especially in the light of the summary statements in Acts (2:42-7, 4:32-5, 5:11-6) was explored. And then the wider human phenomenon was considered. It was felt that the specifically Christian dimension which transfinalized and elevated the human could best be understood if it was seen precisely in this light. Thus the concluding statement first considered the human phenomenon and then the Christian: CHRISTIAN CONTEMPLATIVE COMMUNITY In order to live human life to the full, man must transcend his empirical self and so realize his True Self. This implies an openness to the Transcendent. Attention to his openness for the Transcendent makes man aware of his contemplative dimension. Contemplative life as a form of life expresses and fosters in every detail of daily living mindfulness of the Transcendent. Contemplative community is a gathering of brethren who support one another in contemplative life through a giving and receiving that is at once spontaneous and responsible. For the Christian to live the human life to the full means a dying to selfishness to enter into the life of the risen Christ. This is the conversion that leads to transformation into the New Man and to the realization of the Self as Cosmic Christ. This transfiguration is realized as the Spirit opens us to the revelation of the Father in His Word. Loving awareness./of this revelation in all its dimensions is contemplative prayer. Since Christian contemplative life focuses on the Word, it is a form of life which expresses and fosters in every detail of daily living a listening to God and a living by the Word. Some Christians called to the contemplative life gather in love and experience God by sharing solitude in common life, supporting one another as brothers. In doing so, they mediate to each other the revelation of God and they manifest the mystery of the Church as open to God in prayer. 10 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 The full significance of this statement can this schema: CONTEMPLATIVE HUMAN (1) FULLNESS In order to live human life to the full, man must transcend his empirical self and so realize his True Self. be better perceived if it is considered in COMMUNITY CHRISTIAN OF LIFE For the Christian, to live the human life to the full means a dying to selfishness to enter into the life of the risen Christ. This is the conversion that leads to transformation into the New Man and to the realization of the Self as Cosmic Christ. This implies cendent. (2) OPENNESS TO THE TRANSCENDENT an openness to the Trans- This transfiguration is realized as the Spirit opens us to the revelation of the Father in His Word. (3) CONTEMPLATIVE DIMENSION Attention to his openness for the Trans- Loving awareness to this revelation in all its cendent makes man aware of his contempla- dimensions is contemplative prayer. tire dimension. (4) CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE Contemplative life as a form of life ex- Since Christian contemplative life focuses presses and fosters in every detail of daily on the Word (Logos), it is a form of life living mindfulness of the Transcendent. which expresses and fosters in every detail of daily living a listening to God and a living by the Word. (5) CONTEMPLATIVE COMMUNITY Contemplative community is a gathering of brethren who support one another in con-templative life through a giving and receiv-ing that is at once spontaneous and respon-sible. Some Christians called to the contemplative life gather in love and experience God by sharing solitude in common life, supporting one another as brothers. In doing so, they mediate to each other the revelation of God and they manifest the mystery of the Church as open to God in prayer. This extremely rich statement summarizes a great deal of discussion and shared insight, the fruit of the labor of the experts working in panels, small group discussions, general sessions, and long night sessibns of the conclusion committee with various experts. Pages and even volumes could be written on it. The committee did offer a brief explanation or development of some of its aspects but these themselves open the way to further areas of exploration and reflection: Fullness of Life The empirical self is the self experienced as acting, reasoning, managing, controlling; not only the self as egotistical or selfish. To mistake this functional self for one's True Self is an illusion. To h~eak out of this illusion means to realize life in fullness. (We are using "tea|ize" throughout in its double sense of becoming aware and making real.) The realization of this universal Self constitutes the ultimate achievement in various spiritual traditions. In Christian tradition this breakthrough into fullness of life is our entering into the Paschal Mystery. What it means to enter into the Cosmic Christ becomes clear when we take seriously St. Paul's "I live now no longer I but Christ lives in me," and keep in mind that this is the Christ in whom, through whom, for whom all things have been created - the Cosmic Christ of Col 1 : 12-20, "Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the firstborn Son superior to every creature, for by him God created everything . and through the Son God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself." Tradition expresses this mystery in the language of image and likeness with reference to Genesis 1:36. Community plays an essential role throughout the process in which the image is restored to its likeness (cf. Eph 1:23). Openness to the Transcendent It should be noted that we are dealing with a process, a path. Traditionally this path has been Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 11 seen as leading from knowledge of self which is humility, through knowledge of others which is compassion, to knowledge of God which is contemplation. This process cuhninates in that purity of heart which is man's transparehcy.to the deifying light, of which St. Benedict speaks, and this is true transfiguration. Contemplative Dimension The contemplative attitude is a matter of love, a matter of an intense continuous desire for God. When we speak about contemplative prayer we mean prayerfulness, not only prayers. The man of prayers strives to "pray without ceasing." In arriving at this, the "intention," that dynamic directiveness toward God explicated in a loving attitude of listening, draws the whole heart after it as the needle draws the thread. We refer to all the dimensions of re~,elation because revelation of the Triune God is in itself as it were three-dimensional. God reveals hiinself to us through his Son, the Word, through whom he created and saved everything (Heb 1:3). Thus God speaks to us through all things. We may call this the theophanic dimension of revelation. But it is only in the Spirit that we can understand God's Word, because "the things of God no one knows but the Spirit of God. Now we have received., the Spirit of God that we may know the things that have been given by God" (1 Cor 2:10-12). We may call this the pneumatic dimension. Even this revelation leaves intact the mystery of God the Father who "dwells in light inaccessible, whom no man sees or can see" (1 Tim 6:16). We may call this the apophatic dimension. Contemplative Life When we say that Christian contemplative life "focuses on the Word" we mean that it is through the Word that we come to know the Father in the Spirit. This is why Christian contemplative practice strives for an ever greater sensitivity to the Word (Ausculta) and, through the Word, to God. The clause "expresses and fosters in everyday living," refers to asceticism as practiced in monastic communities. In Cistercian monasteries, for instance, this is done by a deep commitment to the Rule of St. Benedict as interpreted by the living Cistercian tradition. Contemplative Community All Christian life includes an element of contemplation, and all Christian life implies communion. Some Christians, however, live a community life specifically dedicated to contemplative prayer. Their goal is to realize kohtonia in its full Biblical sense: personal communion with the living God and sharing in communion with brothers (cf. 1 Jn 1:3). This is contemplative community, one way of realizing concretely the mystery of the Church. We are poor men, sinners, needing help, not only God's but one another's. For this reason also we need to share a common commitment within a common life. Deep inner sharing of purpose has brought us to a community where, by mutual love and concern, respect and correction, we search, we grow, we experience God. ("Experience" here is not limited to its merely psychological sense but means a deep personal encounter with God in faith.) We support one another in this experience by praising God together, reflecting and learning, living and suffering together to be reborn together. And yet in this life together each brother is the guardian of the other's solitude, protecting it both against infringement and against deteriora-tion into loneliness. Some people need more solitude and others need more togetherness. This implies a true pluralism among communities and in community. The practical question which had inaugurated the Third Symposium had been formulated thus: To see more clearly the problems inherent in the life-situation when men freely gather together and commit themselves to live together in a Christian community for the precise purpose of obtaining for each one the maximal freedom to respond to God in prayer and contemplation (and) of fostering each one's growth in this (and) to seek out, as best we can, genui~tely practical responses to these problems. 12 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 In more concrete terms: I am a Cistercian. 1 live in community. 1 am trying to be a man of prayer. I want to be fully responsive to my community, each man in it and the community as a whole. At the same time 1 want to live an intense prayer life and attain to the deepest possible union with God and experience of Him. In view of this twofold concern what are the difficulties and tensions i am running into and how practically can we best resolve them? Its answer is found in two related insights: an understanding of what might be called incarnational;contemplative prayer, and of unity in pluralism. As the statement above brings out, contemplative prayer, the contemplative attitude, lies in openness to God, responsiveness to God, God who has revealed Himself to us. We know that this God, our God - indeed the only God - is always beyond all His revelations and manifestations; yet He is known and contacted in and through them. His revelation of Himself is to be found not only in the Sacred Books or in the depths of one's own soul, but in all creation, His work which He ever keeps in being, sharing His being, and above all, in the creature He made to His own image and likeness: man. If one approaches creation and especially his fellow man with the Christian contemplative attitude, then this is contemplative prayer. He contacts God and responds to Him as He is revealing Himself. But a man can not do this unless he does have in his life, besides times of communion with creation and with his brethren, periods of silence and solitude wherein he can become aware of his own contemplative dimension and learn to live and respond at this level. Thus it is necessary for the contemplative community to structure itself to some extent at least so that each member can be assured of the time and leisure (which is something more than just time) he needs for this. The other practices of the traditional Christian ascesis are also presupposed. Even when the legitimacy of the incarnational approach to contemplative living is fully established, it remains that this is not the primary attraction or call of all contemplatives. And thus it does not provide the only or wholly adequate answer to our question. There must be within the contemplative community a healthy pluralism which responds to the members' diverse ways of perceiving God and consequently their diverse ways of seeking Him. The official report of the Symposium summed up the conclusions of the Symposium on this point in this way: Unity and Pluralism The contemplative community finds its unity in its common basic orientation toward listening to God and living by the Word. It experiences this unity insofar as the members are able to communicate to one another that they do share this common orientation. Some of the ways in which this is done are through common prayer, praise and Eucharist, through sharing a common spirituality, through accepting the common leadership of an abbot, through example, through participation in common exercises, mutual service and community support, through the charity of fraternal correction, through a common sharing of the responsibility to work toward unity, and through interpersonal encounter in which the brethren share deeply what God is accomplishing in their lives. Their very oneness in Christ makes them essentially sharers. There can be true pluralism only insofar as there is true unity in this basic orientation because pluralism is the expression and realization of the same ideals or orientation in different ways. Psychologically a community can peacefully accept pluralism and not experience it as threatening to its unity if there is among the brethren sufficient knowledge of each other's sharing in the common goal to allow each to have confidence that his brothers are with him in this. Within the ambiance of this common basic orientation each one, according to his own proper attraction, will seek God in different ways placing more emphasis on one approach or another. Some will more readily seek and find him in the depths of their own being, others in their brothers, in creation, in all the details of everyday life. The former will mediate God to their brothers more by example or "image," the others more by "word," interpersonal relations and shared activities. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 13 Within a truly united community there can be a very extensive spectrum of diversity, a very rich pluralism. Such pluralism manifests the great vitality of a united community. Guidelines as norms which set certain limits to pluralism can help a community to be faithful to its basic orientation and invite it to a deeper awareness of it. But ideally such guidelines should merely reflect values which are personally possessed and cherished by all the members of the community. Finally the report of the meeting added a few brief considerations on the present situation vis-,~-vis the contemplative community: Dynamism of the Present Situation Contemplative life today is an adventure, a risk demanding acceptance in faith of difficult situations, a realistic living of the Mystery of Christ, all the while open to the Spirit so that he may move us. In our present situation it is necessary not only to be aware of our past but also of a future that is unfolding with ever greater rapidity. To be a member of a contemplative community is to accept and embrace with joy the death and rebirth into new life that continually mark a vital community life. Love has to express itself in patience, trust and hope in the face of insecurity in the situations that we encounter today. In periods of transition we experience a certain polarization. In the midst of this we can find u~nity in working together toward a fuller unity to be achieved in the future. There is a new form of asceticism in accepting change in a spirit of detachment and in not forcing change on others. Some unusual situations can demand decisions. In regard to fidelity to one's community, only when it becomes clear that the community's evolving orientation blocks the realization of an essential dimension of one's response to God should a person consider separating himself. Honest recognition of community problems is a first step toward building the future. In formulating solutions the community, head and members, listen to one another, always keeping their basic values and orientations in view. We have to love one another. We need to be healed. There is much pain in the perfecting of a contemplative community but this very pain can be the means of bringing forth life and growth. We live in a new age and must find new solutions for problems, some old and some never before encountered. All who took part in the Symposium felt it was a very enriching experience. A report can hardly do justice to the immense wealth brought to the discussions by the large and most capable panel of experts. But perhaps far more important was the strengthening witness shared by all there, a witness given not only by the participants, one to another, but that of the wonderful contemplative community which hosted the meeting. The large and flourishing community of Notre Dame du Lac with its most generous and open hospitality, its vital celebration of the daily liturgy, and its very evident commitment to contemplative living provided the most ideal context for a symposium on contemplative community. The papers and conclusions of the Third Cistercian Symposium will be published shortly by Cistercian Publications in Volume Twenty-one of the "Cistercian Studies Series": Contemplative Community: A n Interdisciplinary Symposium. GEORGE A. ASCHENBRENNER, S.J. Consciousness Examen [George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J.,is the director of novices in the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus; Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues; Wernersville, Pennsylvania 19565.] Examen is usually the first practice to disappear from the daily life of the religious. This occurs for many reasons; but all the reasons amount to the admission (rarely explicit) that it is not of immediate practical value in a busy day. My point in this article is that all these reasons and their false conclusion spring from a basic misunderstanding of the examen as practiced in religious life. Examen must be seen in relationship to discernment of spirits. It is a daily intensive exercise of discernment in a person's life. Examen of Consciousness For many youth today life is spontaneity if anything. If spontaneity is crushed or aborted, then life itself is stillborn. In this view examen is living life once removed from the spontaneity of life. It is a reflective, dehydrated approach which dries all the spontaneity out of life. These people today disagree with Socrates' claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. For these people the Spirit is in the spontaneous and so anything that militates against spontaneity is un-Spirit-ual. This view overlooks the fact that welling up in the consciousness and experience of each of us are two spontaneities, one good and for God, another evil and not for God. These two types of spontaneous urges and movements happen to all of us. So often the quick-witted, loose-tongued person who can be so entertaining and the center of attention and who is always characterized as being so spontaneous is not certainly being moved by and giving expression to the good spontaneity. For one eager to love God with his or her whole being, the challenge is not simply to let the spontaneous happen but rather to be able to sift'out these various spontaneous urges and give full existential ratification to those spontaneous feelings that are from and for God. We do this by allowing the truly Spirited-spontaneity to happen in our daily lives. But we must learn the feel of this true Spirited-spontaneity. Examen has a very central role in this learning. When examen is related to discernment, it becomes examen of consciousness rather than of conscience. Examen of conscience has narrow moralistic overtones. Though we were always told that examen of conscience in religious life was not the same as a preparation for confession, it was actually explained and treated as though it were much the same. The prime concern was with what good or bad actions we had done each day. In discernment the prime concern is not with the morality of good or bad actions; rather the concern is how the Lord is affecting and moving us (often quite spontaneously!) deep in our own affective consciousness. What is happening in our consciousness is prior to and more important than our actions which can be delineated as ju~'idically good or evil. How we are experiencing the "drawing" of the Father (Jn 6:44) in our own existential consciousness and how our sinful nature is quietly tempting us and luring us away from our Father in Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 15 subtle dispositions of our consciousness - this is what the daily examen is concerned with prior to a concern for our response in our actions. So it is examen of consciousness that we are concerned with here, so that we can cooperate with and let happen that beautiful, spontaneity in Our hearts which is the touch of our Father and the urging of the Spirit. Examen and Religious Identity The examen we are talking about here is not a Ben Franklin-like striving for self-perfection. We are talking about an experience in faith of growing sensitivity to the unique, intimately special ways that the Lord's Spirit has of approaching and calling us. Obviously it takes time for this growth. But in this sense examen is a daily renewal and growth in our religious identity - this unique flesh-spirit person being loved by God and called by Him deep in his personal affective world. It is not possible for me to make an examen without confronting my own identity in Christ before the Father - my own religious identity as poor, celibate, and obedient in imitation of Christ as experienced in the charism of my religious vocation. And yet so often our daily examen becomes so general and vague and unspecific that our religious identity (Jesuit, Dominican, Franciscan, and so forth) does not seem to make any difference. Examen assumes real value when it becomes a daily experience of confrontation and renewal of our unique religious identity and how the Lord is subtly inviting us to deepen and develop this identity. We should make examen each time with as precise a grasp as we have now on our religious identity. We do not make it just as any Christian but as this specific Christian person with a unique vocation and grace in faith. Examen and Prayer The examen is a time of prayer. The dangers of an empty self-reflection or an unhealthy self-centered introspection are very real. On the other hand, a lack of effort at examen and the approach of living according to what comes naturally keeps us quite superficial and insensitive to the subtle and profound ways of the Lord deep in our hearts. The prayerful quality and effectiveness of the examen itself depends upon its relationship to the continuing contemplative prayer of the person. Without this relationship examen slips to the level of self-reflection for self-perfection, if it perdures at all. In daily contemplative prayer the Father reveals to us at His own pace the order of the mystery of all reality in Christ - as Paul says to the Colossians: ". those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendor of his secret plan for the nations" (Col 1:27). The contemplator experiences in many subtle, chiefly non-verbal, ways this revelation of the Father in Christ. The presence of the Spirit of the risen Jesus in the heart of the believer makes it possible to sense and "hear" this invitation (challenge!) to order ourselves to this revelation. Contempla-tion is empty without this "ordering" response. This kind of reverent, docile (the "obedience of faith" Paul speaks of in Rom 16:26), and non-moralistic ordering is the work of the daily examen - to sense and recognize those interior invitations of the Lord that guide and deepen this ordering from day to day and not to cooperate with those subtle insinuations opposed to that ordering. Without that contemplative contact with the Father's revelation of reality in Christ, both in formal prayer and informal prayerfulness, the daily practice of examen becomes empty; it shrivels up and dies. Without this "listening" to the Father's revelation of His ways which are so different from our own (Is 55:8-9), examen again becomes that shaping up of ourselves which is 16 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 human and natural self-perfection or, even worse, it can become that selfish ordering of ourselves to our own ways. Examen without regular contemplation is futile. A failure at regular contempla-tion emaciates the beautifully rich experience of response-ible ordering which the contemplative is continually invited to by the Lord. It is true, on the other hand, that contemplation without regular examen becomes compartmentalized and superficial and stunted in a person's life. The time of formal prayer can become a very sacrosanct period in a person's day but so isolated from the rest of his life that he is not prayerful (finding God in all things) at that level where he really lives. The examen gives our daily contemplative experience of God real bite into all our daily living; it is an important means to finding God in everything and not just in the time of formal prayer, as we will explain at the end of this article. ADiscerning Vision of Heart When we first learned about the examen in religious life, it was a specific exercise of prayer for about a quarter of an hour. And at first it seemed quite stylized and almost artificial. This problem was not in the examen-prayer but in ourselves; we were beginners and had not yet worked out that integration in ourselves of a process of personal discernment to be expressed in daily examens. For the beginner, before he has achieved much of a personalized integration, an exercise or process can be very valuable and yet seem formal and stylized. This should not put us off. It will be the inevitable experience in religious life for the novice and for the "oldtimer" who is beginning again at examen. But examen will fundamentally be misunderstood if the goal of this exercise is not grasped. The specific exercise of examen is ultimately aimed at developing a heart with a discerning vision to be active not only for one or two quarter-hour periods in a day but continually. This is a gift from the Lord -- a most important one as Solomon realized (1 Kings 3:9-12). So we must constantly pray for this gift, but we must also be receptive to its development within our hearts. A daily practice of examen is essential to this development. Hence the five steps of the exercise of examen as presented in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola (# 43) are to be seen, and gradually experienced in faith, as dimensions of the Christian consciousness, formed by God and His work in the heart as it confronts and grows within this world and all of reality. If we allow the Father gradually to transform our mind and heart into that of His Son, to become truly Christian, through our living experience in this world, then the examen, with its separate elements now seen as integrated dimensions of our own consciousness looking out on the world, is much more organic to our outlook and will seem much less contrived. So there is no ideal time allocation for the five elements of the examen each time but rather a daily organic expression of the spiritual mood of the heart. At one time we are drawn to one element longer than the others and at another time to another element over the others. The mature Ignatius near the end of his life was always examining every movement and inclination of his heart which means he was discerning the congruence of everything with his true Christ-centered self. This was the overflow of those regular intensive prayer-exercises of examen every day. The novice or "oldtimer" must be aware both of the point of the one or two quarter-hour exercises of examen each day, namely, a continually discerning heart, and of the necessary gradual adaptation of his practice of examen to his stage of development and the situation in the world in which he finds himself. And yet we are all aware Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 17 of the subtle rationalization of giving up formal examen each day because we have "arrived at" that continually discerning heart. This kind of rationalization will prevent further growth in faith sensitivity to the Spirit and His ways in our daily lives. Let us now take a look at the format of the examen as presented by St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises, #43 but in light of these previous comments on examen as discerning consciousness within the world. Prayer for Enlightenment In the Exercises Ignatius has an act of thanksgiving as the first part of the examen. The first two parts could be interchanged without too much difference. In fact, I would suggest the prayer for enlightenment as a fitting introduction to the examen. The examen is not simply a matter of a person's natural power of memory and analysis going back over a part of the day. It is a matter of Spirit-guided insight into my life and courageously responsive sensitivity to God's call in my heart. What we are seeking here is that gradually growing appreciative insight into the mystery which I am. Without the Father's revealing grace this kind of insight is not possible. The Christian must be careful not to get locked into the world of his own human natural powers. Our technological world can pose as a special danger in this regard. Founded on a deep appreciation of the humanly interpersonal, the Christian in faith transcends the boundaries of the here-and-now with its limited natural causality and discovers a Father who loves and works in and through and beyond all., For this reason we begin the examen with an explicit petition for that enlightenment which will occur in and through our own powers but which our own natural powers could never be capable of all by themselves. That the Spirit may help me to see myself a bit more as He sees me Himself! Reflective Thanksgiving The stance of a Christian in the midst of the world is that of a poor person, possessing nothing, not even himself, and yet being gifted at every instant in and through everything. When we become too affluently involved with ourselves and deny our inherent poverty, then we lose the gifts and either begin to make demands for what we think we deserve (often leading to angry frustration) or we blandly take for granted all that comes our way. Only the truly poor person can appreciate the slightest gift and feel genuine gratitude. The more deeply we live in faith the poorer we are and the more gifted; life itself becomes humble, joyful thanksgiving. This should gradually become an element of our abiding consciousness. After the introductory prayer for enlightenment our hearts should rest in genuine faith-filled gratitude to our Father for His gifts in this most recent part of the day. Perhaps in the spontaneity of the happening we were not aware of the gift and now in this exercise of reflective prayer we see the events in a very different perspective. Our sudden gratitude - now the act of a humble selfless pauper - helps make us ready to discover the gift more clearly in a future sudden spontaneity. Our gratitude should center on the concrete, uniquely personal gifts that each of us was blessed with, whether large and obviously important or tiny and apparently insignificant. There is much in our lives that we take for granted; gradually He will lead us to a deep realization that all isgift. It is right to give Him praise and thanks! Practical Survey of Actions In this third element of the examen ordinarily we rush to review, in some specific 18 Review for Religious, Volume .31, 1972/1 detail, our actions of that part of the day just finished so we can catalogue them as good or bad. Just what we shouldn't do! Our prime concern here in faith is what has been happening to and in us since the last exa.men. The operative questions are: what has been happening in us, how has the Lord been working in us, what has He been asking us. And only secondarily are our own actions to be considered. This part of the examen presumes that we have become sensitive to our interior feelings, moods, and slightest urgings and that we are not frightened by them but have learned to take them very seriously. It is here in~ the depths of our affectivity, so spontaneous, strong, and shadowy at times, that God moves us and deals with us most intimately. These interior moods, feelings, urges, and movements are the "spirits" that must be sifted out, discerned, so we can recognize the Lord's call to us at this intimate core of our being. As we have; said above, the examen is a chief means to this discerning of our interior consciousness. This presumes a real faith approach to life - that life is first listening, then acting in response: The fundamental attitude of the believer is of one who listens. It is to the Lord's utterances that he gives ear. In as many different ways and on as many varied levels as the listener can d"iosbceedrnie tnhcee wofo rfdai tahn.d" .w. iIltl oisf tthhee Laottridtu mdaen oiffe srteecde tpot ihvinit~y, ,h pe amsussitv rietsypoIn adn wdi tpho avlel rthtye oPfa uolninee who is always in need, radically dependent, conscious of his creaturehood. Hence the great need for interior quiet, peace, and a passionate receptivity that attunes us to listening to God's word at every instant and in every situation and then responding in our own activity. Again in a world that is founded more on activity (becoming activism), productivity, and efficiency (whereas efficacity is a norm for the kingdom of God!) this faith view is implicitly, if not explicitly, challenged at every turn in the road. And so our first concern here is with these subtle.intimate, affective ways in which the Lord has been dealing with us during these past few hours. Perhaps we did not recognize Him calling in that past moment, but now our vision is clear and direct. Secondarily our concern is with our actions insofar as they were responses to His calling. So often our activity becomes primary to hs and all sense of response in our activity is lost. We become self-moved and mbtivated rather than moved and motivated by the Spirit (Rom 8:14). This is a subtle lack of faith and failure to live as a son or daughter of our Father. In the light of faith it is the quality (of responsive-ness) of the activity, more than the activity itself, which makes the difference for the kingdom of God. , In this general review there is no strain to reproduce every second since the last examen; rather our concern is with specific details and incidents as they reveal patterns and bring some clarity and insight. This brings us to a consideration of what Ignatius calls the particular examen. This element of the examen, perhaps more than any other, has been misunder-stood. It has often become an effort to divide and conquer by moving down the list of vices or up the list of virtues in a mechanically planned approach to self-perfection. A certain amount of time was spent on each vice or virtue one by one, and then we moved on to the next one on the list. Rather than a practical programmed approach to perfection, the parti'cular examen is meant to be a reverently honest, personal meeting with the Lordfin our own hearts. I David Asselin, S.J., "Christian Maturity and Spiritual Discernment," Review for Religious, v. 27 (1968), p. 594. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 19 When we become sensitive and serious enough about loving God, we begin to realize some changes must be made. We are deficient in so many areas and so many defects must be done away with. But the Lord does not want all of them to be handled at once. Usually there is one area of our hearts where He is especially calling for conversion which is always the beginning of new life. He is interiorly nudging us in one area and reminding us that if we are really serious about Him this one aspect of ourselves must be changed. This is often precisely the one area we want to forget and (maybe!) work on later. We do not want to let His word condemn us in this one area and so we try to forget it and distract ourselves by working on some other safer area which does require conversion but not with the same urgent sting of consciousness that is true of the former area. It is in this first area of our hearts, if we will be honest and open with the Lord, where we are very personally experiencing the Lord in the burning fire of His Word as He confronts us here and now. So often we fail to recognize this guilt for what it really is or we try to blunt it by working hard on something else that we may want to correct whereas the Lord wants something else here and now. For beginners it takes time to become interiorly sensitive to God before they gradually come to recognize the Lord's cidl to conversion (maybe involving a very painful struggle!) in some area of their lives. It is better for beginners to take this time to learn what the Lord wants their particular examen now to be rather than just taking some assigned imperfection to get started on. And so the particular examen is very personal, honest, and at times a very subtle experience of the Lord calling in our hearts for deeper conversion to Himself. The matter of the conversion may remain the same for a long period of time, but the important thing is our sense of His personal challenge to us. Often this experience of the Lord calling for conversion in one small part of our hearts takes the expression of good healthy guilt which should be carefully interpreted and responded to if there is to be progress in holiness. When the particular examen is seen as this personal experience of the Lord's love for us, then we can understand why St. Ignatius suggests that we turn our whole consciousness to this experience of the Lord (whatever it be in all practicality, for example, more subtle humility or readiness to get involved with people on their terms, etc.) at those two very important moments in our day, when we begin our day and when we close it, besides the formal examen times. In this third dimension of the formal examen the growing faith sense of our sinfulness is very central. This is more of a spiritual faith reality as revealed by the Father in our experience than a heavily moralistic and guilt-laden reality. A deep sense of sinfulness depends on our growth in faith and is a dynamic realization which always ends in thanksgiving - the song of a "saved sinner." In his book Growth in the Spirit, Francgis Roustang, in the second chapter, speaks very profoundly about sinfulness and thanksgiving. This can provide enormous insight into the relationship of these second and third elements of the formal examen, especially as dimensions of our abiding Christian consciousness. Contrition and Sorrow The Christian heart is always a heart in song - a song of deep joy and gratitude. But the Alleluia can be quite superficial and without body and depth unless it is genuinely touched with sorrow. This is the song of a sinner constantly aware of being prey to his sinful tendencies and yet being converted into the newness which is guaranteed in the victory of Jesus Christ. Hence, we never grow out of a sense of wonder-ful sorrow in the presence of our Savior. 2O Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 This basic dimension of our heart's vision which the Father desires to deepen in us as He converts us from sinners to His sons and daughters, if we allow Him, is here applied to the specifics of our actions since the lhst examen, especially insofar as they were selfishly inadequate responses to the Lord's work in our hearts. This sorrow will especially spring from the lack of honesty and courage in responding to the Lord's call in the particular examen. This contrition and sorrow is not a shame nor a depression at our weakness but a faith experience as we grow in our realization of our Father's awesome desire that we love Him with every ounce of our being. After this description, the value of pausing each day in formal examen and giving concrete expression to this abiding sense of sorrow in our hearts should be quite obvious and should flow naturally from the third element of practical survey of our actions. Hopeful Resolution for Future This final element of the formal daily examen grows very naturally out of the previous elements. The organic development leads us to face the future which is now rising to encounter us and become integrated into our lives. In the light of our present discernment of the immediate past how do we look to the future? Are we discouraged or despondent or fearful of the future? If this is the atmosphere of our hearts now, we must wonder why and try to interpret this atmosphere; we must be honest in acknowledging our feeling for the future, and not repress it by hoping it will go away. The precise expression of this final element will be determined by the organic flow of this precise examen now. Accordingly, this element of resolution for the immediate future will never happen the same way each time. If it did happen in the same expression each time, it would be a sure sign that we were not really entering into the previous four elements of the examen. At this point in the examen there should be a great desire to face the future with renewed vision and sensitivity as we pray both t~ recognize even more the subtle ways in which the Lord will greet us and to hear His Word call us in the existential situation of the future and to respond to His call with more faith, humility, and courage. This should be especially true of that intimate abiding experience of the Lord calling for painful conversion in some area of our heart - what we have called the particular examen. A great hope should be the atmosphere of our hearts at this point - a hope not founded on our own deserts, or our own powers for the future, but rather founded much more fully in our Father whose glorious victory in Jesus Christ we share through the life of Their Spirit in our hearts. The more we will trust God and allow Him to lead in our lives, the more we will experience true supernatural hope in God painfully in and through, but quite beyond, our own weak powers - an experience at times frightening and emptying but ultimately joyfully exhilarating. St. Paul in this whole passage from the Letter to the Philippians (3:7-14) expresses well the spirit of this conclusion of the formal examen: ". I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal" (3:13). Examen and Discernment We will close this article with some summary remarks about the examen, as here described, and disceinment of spirits. When examen is understood in this light and so practiced each day, then it becomes so much more than just a brief exercise performed once or twice ~ day and which is quite secondary to our formal prayer Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 21 and active living of God's love in our daily situation. Rather it becomes an exercise which so focuses and renews our specific faith identity that we should be even more reluctant to omit our examen than our formal contemplative prayer each day. This seems to have been St. Ignatius' view of the practice of the examen. He never talks of omitting it though he does talk of adapting and abbreviating the daily meditation for various reasons. For him it seems the examen was central and quite inviolate. This strikes us as strange until we revamp our understanding of the examen. Then perhaps we begin to see the examen as so intimately connected to our growing identity and so important to our finding God in all things at all times that it becomes our central daily experience of prayer. For Ignatius finding God in all things is what life is all about. Near the end of his life he said that "whenever he wished, at whatever hour, he could find God" (Autobiography, # 99). This is the mature Ignatius who had so fully allowed God to possess every ounce of his being through a clear YES to the Father that radiated from the very core of his being, that he could be conscious at any moment he wanted of the deep peace, joy, and contentment (consolation, see the Exercises, # 316) which was the experience of God at the center of his heart. Ignatius' identity, at this point in his life, was quite fully and clearly "in Christ" as Paul says: "For now my place is in him, and I am not dependent upon any of the self-achieved righteousness of the Law" (Phil 3:9); Ignatius knew and was his true self in Christ. Being able to find God whenever he wanted, Ignatius was now able to find Him in all things through a test for congruenc~ of any interior impulse, mood, or feeling with his true self. Whenever he found interior consonance within himself (which registers as peace, joy, contentment again) from the immediate interior movement and felt himself being his true congruent self, then he knew he had heard God's word to him at that instant. And he responded with that fullness of humble courage so typical of Ignatius. If he discovered interior dissonance, agitation, and disturb-ance "at the bottom of the heart" (to be carefully distinguished from repugnance "at the top of the head''2) and could not find his true congruent self in Christ, then he recognized the interior impulse as an "evil spirit" and he experienced God by "going against" the desolate impulse (cf. Exercises, # 319). In this way he was able to find God in all things by carefully discerning all his interior experiences ("spirits"). Thus discernment of spirits became a daily very practical living of the art of loving God with his whole heart, whole body, and whole strength. Every moment of life was loving (finding) God in the existential situation in a deep quiet, peace, and joy. For Ignatius, this finding God in the prese.nt interior movement, feeling, or option was almost instantaneous in his mature years because the central "feel" or "bent" of his being had so been grasped by God. For the beginner, what was almost instantaneous for the mature Ignatius may require the effort of a prayerful process of a few hours or days depending on the importance of the movement-impulse to be discerned. In some of his writings, Ignatius uses examen to refer to this almost instantaneous test for congruence with his true self - something he could do a number of times every hour of the day. But he also speaks of examen in the formal restricted sense of two quarter-hour exercises of prayer a day. The intimate and essential relationship between these two senses of examen has been the point of this whole article. 2john Carroll Futrell, S.J., Ignatian Discernment (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), p. 64. IEDWABD CARTIER, S.J. Pluralism in Christian Life [ Edward Carter, S.J., author of Response in Christ (1969) and Spirituality for Modern Man (197 I), is associate professor of theology at Xavier University ; Cincinnati, Ohio 4520"/.] There has always been a certain diversity which has characterized the history of Christian life or spirituality. There have been different schools of spirituality, different trends, different emphases; but all of these, in so far as they have been authentic, have been rooted in the same gospel message. They have, each in their own manner, been reflections of the one mystery of Christ. Today's Church is marked by an accentuation of this diversity in spirituality or Christian living. But before fastening our gaze upon the contemporary scene, let us first reflect upon some of the theological principles which give rise to this diversity or pluralism. The first of these principles concerns the mystery of Christ as relived by Church and Christian. The People of God, individually and collectively, are meant to continue the redemptive Incarnation in space and time by reliving the life, death, and resurrection of Christ - the mystery of Christ. The mystery of Christ, however, is richly d.iversified. Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection has left us many different truths and examples to be incorporated into our own Christian existence. Historically, this rich variation of the mystery of Christ has given rise to different schools of spirituality. Each of these gives a special witness to this or that aspect of the Christ-event, to its own particular harmonization and implementation of the various facets which comprise this event - the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For instance, Carmelite spirituality has always stressed prayer, as it gives a special witness to the Christ who often went aside and prayed to His heavenly Father. Benedictine spirituality gives a special attention to liturgy, and, consequently, emphasizes the priestly activity of Christ. Dominican spirituality has traditionally stressed the pursuit of truth as it points in its own special manner to the prophetic or teaching office of Christ. Franciscan spirituality, among other things, has emphasized the material simplicity of Jesus' life. Ignatian spirituality has stressed as one of its leading characteristics the union of a~tion and contemplation - both of which were marvelously blended in the life of Jesus. In more recent times, in the effort to apply in a special way the mystery of Christ to the diocesan priesthood and to the laity, there have been writings dealing with the spiritualities appropriate to these two vocations. The mystery of Christ, then, possessing at one and the same time a varied richness and a profound unity, makes possible different spiritual movements which, however, ultimately comprise but one Christian spirituality. Consequently, we must preserve a balanced view. We must admit the legitimacy of varied spiritual movements and schools of spirituality with their own particular nuances in the following of Christ, while at the same time realizing that all Christian spiritualities are essentially the same. They have very much in common since they are rooted in the one Christ, in one and the same total Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 23 gospel, in one and the same liturgy. We have established what is a very basic theological reason for diversity in spirituality - the diversity which is contained in the very mystery of Christ. There are two more principles we would now like "to discuss which help us to see' the utility and even necessity of diversity or pluralism in the Christian life. These second and third principles are connected with what we might term the theology of personal uniqueness, and the theology of time and culture. The theology of personal uniqueness tells us that each human person is an eternal imitation of God. Any one individual can truthfully say that there never has been, is not now, nor ever will be, any other person like himself. Each person is a eternal uniqueness. As we are elevated to supernatural life through our incorporation into Christ, this personal uniqueness is .deepened. This is simply an application of the theological principle that grace does not destroy nor lessen nature, but perfects it, gives it a deepened capacity to actuate more deeply all its authentic dimensions. One of these dimensions is personal uniqueness. Our life in Christ, then, far from destroying or lessening our uniqueness, respects and develops it. There are various implications and ramifications flowing out of this theology of personal uniqueness relative to diversity or pluralism in spirituality. We have said that there are various spiritual movements and schools of spirituality because of the possibility of reliving the richly diversified .mystery of Christ with different emphases and nuances. As this diversity is possible between schools of spirituality, so is it possible in reference to individuals. Not only is it possible, but it is actually necessary because of the concept of personal uniqueness. No two Christians will put on Christ in exactly the same manner; for they put on Christ according to what each is. Although obviously each Christian is to assimilate Christ in essentially the same manner, he will also do it in a manner which cannot be duplicated. He will offer Christ his own unique person with his unique temperament, personality, capacities, and talents. Through the uniqueness of this Christian, Christ continues His redemptive Incarnation in a particular way, a way which cannot be duplicated. Consequently, even though two individuals are following the same spirituality - Dominican, Franciscan, Ignatian, or any other - there will be a difference or a diversity manifested as they live out this common spirituality. Sometimes this diversity will be quite striking. This does not mean that one or the other has wavered from the spiritual tradition to which each has committed himself or herself. Of course, such a diversity could be so explained in certain instances. But a diversity, and again even a striking one, could be present as each is authentically living out the one spiritual tradition which they profess in common. In such cases the diversity is to be explained by the principle of personal uniqueness. Furthermore, pluralism or diversity in the Christian life is found not only between the different spiritualities, not only between individuals, but also within the extended existence of the same individual. Contemporary thought has empha-sized that man and his world must be considered according to a framework which has a dynamic, progressive, evolutionary dimension. We now realize that we must not view man as being a static creature. While it is obviously important to realize that man is always essential!y the same throughout the ages, it is also very important to remember that man has a thrust toward change, toward evolving into what he is yet to become,.toward authentically adapting to the signs of the times. If such truths are applicable to mankind in general, they are also proportionately pertinent to each individual. Because each individual has an evolutionary dimen-. sion, a thrust toward that which has not yet been achieved, an innate desire to 24 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 become more what his uniqueness is destined to be, he is simultaneously always the same individual and always a dynamically different individual. One's personal uniqueness, then, has both an unchangeable and a changeable dimension. We can see the implications of this for one's Christian existence. Because the Christian is meant to change dynamically and evolve into a greater assimilation to Christ, his needs are not always the same. While he must always strive to maintain a proper balance of the Christian essentials according to his present spiritual condition and development, his needs may vary.'At a certain time he may be attracted to giving a considerable amount of time to formal prayer. At another time, while not neglecting set times of prayer, he may feel called to a greater external involvement for the cause of Christ. At certain periods of his life he may feel a need for frequent spiritual direction, while at other times the intervals of this direction will be greatly lengthened. A person can feel a graced attraction for the renunciation of certain created goods and values at one time, while at another he is drawn rather to use and relate to them in a proper fashion. While always striving to have a proper balance in his imitation of Christ, he can differ in his desire to focus his attention now on this, now on that event of Jesus' life, now on this truth of Christ, now on another. Spiritual diversity or pluralism, consequently, is present within the one and same Christian individual. Having seen how diversity is present in the Christian life because of the principle of pluralism contained in the very mystery of Christ, and because of the principle of personal uniqueness, we now come to our third and final principle which helps provide a basis for such diversity or pluralism. This principle deals with ideas contained in what can be called the theology of time and culture. In God's dealings with mankind, the concepts of time, or of historical situation, and culture, have played a very important role. In saving man, God works within time, history, and culture. His salvific action is not unnaturally superimposed upon man's historical and cultural situation. Rather, God's salvific process works within time, history, and culture. Consequently, His saving will throughout the continued course of salvation history manifests itself differently - diversely or pluralistically. This diversity or pluralism of God's salvific activity can in part be explained by the factor of historical and cultural exigency. A .classic example of this is the comparison between the old and new covenants. God's dealings with the people of the Mosaic covenant were conditioned both by the point of time in salvation history that was then actually operative, and the culture of the Jewish people. With the enfleshment of His Son and the ensuing formation of the new covenant, God communicated Himself in a manner partially different from that Self-communica-tion which prevailed during the time of the Mosaic covenant. If God's salvific activity has a pluralism or diversity attached to it because He respects the time-conditioned and culture-conditioned life situation of man, so must there be a similarly caused pluralism in Christian life. For the Christian life is radically a response to God's salvific activity, a response to His loving initiative which always precedes us. God's activity, respecting the differences which time and culture insert into human history, will exact differentiated responses from the Christian community. This differentiation or pluralism can exist between the various ages of the Church, and, therefore, we legitimately speak of the pre-dominant spirituality of the sixteenth century or of a certain period within the eighteenth century. This pluralism can also exist within the same age because of cultural differences. God respects the African culture, the Chinese culture, the American culture, and so forth. As Christians within these various cultures respond Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/I 25 to God's continued Self-communication, they will do so in a manner which is partly determined by their particular cultures. Because there are differences in their cultures, we will find a Christian pluralism arising out of these cultural differences. An African spirituality will differ somewhat from an American spirituality, and they both will differ from a Spanish spirituality. Up to this point we have been discussing basic truths and principles which offer a sound theological basis for pluralism in Christian spirituality. This pluralism, while obviously having a place in any age of Christianity, is an especially important dimension of contemporary Christian life; for today's Church offers a particularly advantageous climate for the development of authentic pluralism in Christian living. This favorable climate has developed because of the greater spirit of freedom which is present in today's Church. True, this greater freedom has been abused in many instances, but this fact cannot deny that God seems to intend this climate of expanded freedom in today's Church, for this freedom has emanated from the very truths and principles of Vatican II. The connection between pluralism and a Church which allows a greater freedom of thought and life style expression is obvious. In such a Church various thrusts of pluralism and diversity are bound to fructify more often than in a Church which is heavily monolithic, a Church which has its thought and life style too much imposed from the top down. The hierarchy will always have the leading role in directing the Christian thought and life style of the People of God, but it must do so according to the principle of collegiality. This principle allows for all members of the People of God to help shape the life of the Church. However, in order to flourish, collegiality needs a spirit of freedom, some elbow room in which to maneuver - and, yes, even in which to make some mistakes. Consequently, even though some are tempted to think at times that the greater freedom of today's Church has resulted in more harm than good, fundamentally this is not true. In the last analysis such a Church will be a healthier and more mature Church - and one characterized by a greater pluralism in her Christian life. There are already various examples of an increased pluralism in today's Christian life. For instance, the liturgical aspect of today's spirituality is greatly diversified when compared to the liturgical situation of ten years ago. As for the apostolic dimension of contemporary Christian life, there has been considerable discussion and implementation relative to pluralism in Christian ministry. Also, Christian life style is considerably more pluralistic today than previously. This greater diversity of life style can be found even within the one and same religious order or congregation. There has also been a much greater pluralism in theological thought, a pluralism which often filters down and makes its impact on spirituality, on Christian living. New and diversified forms of prayer have appeared to take their places alongside the traditional ones. These, then, are some indications that today's Christian life is marked by an increased diversity. There are three special qualities which are necessary to live properly in today's Christian community with its increased pluralism. These qualities are not mutually exclusive. There is an overlap between them, but each has its own particular nuance. First of all, there is the need for an increased awareness of the necessity of spiritual discernment. Among the diverse movements in today's Church, which are really Spirit-led? And after I satisfy myself as to which are Spirit-inspired and which are not, which one does the Spirit intend for me personally? Regardless of any particular age of the Church, the Spirit does not intend any one person to incorporate within his own Christian existence all authentic thought styles and life 26 Review for Religious, Volume 3 I, 1972/i styles. But in an age when authentic possibilities have been greatly increased and diversified, the necessity for spiritual discernment becomes more obvious. To cope properly with today's pluralism we also especially need the quality of Christian maturity. Increased diversity within the Church demands increased maturity. In the more tightly structured and monolithic Church of pre-Vatican II days, we had things spelled out for us in much greater detail compared to the situation which prevails today. The Church of today is asking us to exercise a greater maturity, a more mature use of our freedom, as we are called upon to live responsibly in a more pluralistic Church. The Church is asking us to use our greater freedom properly, not to abuse it, but to direct it, among other ways, at the development of an authentic pluralism. Finally, besides an increased sense of Christian discernment and maturity, there is a special need today for the spirit of Chrisitan tolerance - a tolerance of the views and life styles which do not agree with my own. The need for this spirit of tolerance is indeed evident if only we look at what each of us has experienced in recent years. One of the great pains of the post-Vatican I1 Church is precisely that caused by the numerous and diverse viewpoints which have arisen in the contem-porary Church. This spirit of tolerance, of course, does not mean we condone what we think is wrong. It does mean, though, an increased effort at being open to the views of others, an admission that a more greatly diversified Church is intended by the signs of the times, a realization that we are all more likely to make mistakes in such a situation as we grope for the lead of the Spirit, a lead which at times is much more hidden than we would like because of the confusion of a Church and world experiencing a radical transition. A more diversified Church and a more pluralistic Christian life are what we are all experiencing. We can say, as perhaps all of us have been tempted to say at one time or another during recent years, that it is too difficult to cope consistently with the situation. We have all, no doubt, been tempted to withdraw from the struggle which an increasingly pluralistic Church demands. We have been tempted to carve out our own little niche of Christian existence and there lead an unperturbed life and let all the confusion of a Church striving for authentic renewal and pluralism pass us by. If we surrendered to such a temptation, we would avoid a certain kind of pain and suffering. But we would also be missing the joy and sense of accomplishment which result from contributing our share to the shaping of a contemporary Christian life - one characterized, among other things, by an increased pluralism. DAVID K. 0'ROURKE, 0.P. Three Models for Viewing Religious Life [David K.O'Rourke, O.P:, is the prior of the Berkeley Priory; 1730 Arch Street; Berkeley, California 94709; he is also associate professor of pastoral theology in St. Albert's College and in the Graduate Theological Onion of Berkeley and is associate director of the Western Dominican Province's Pastoral Training Program. I The purpose of this article is to give a structured view of some of the reasons why a man may choose to enter religious life. More specifically, it is an attempt to understand in a schematic and rationalized way, with three different and distinct models, what there is in the religious life that brings a potential member to view it as a viable alternative to the several possibilities in the lay life. Obviously, this means that I see the religious life as a viable alternative, and such is the case. There is always the possibility that an analysis of religious motivations and structures can come from, or be seen as, an attempt to undercut religious life. The fact that analyses of this sort have been known to have the heavy-handedness of an autopsy supports these fears. Such is not my purpose. I presuppose that religious life is livable and worthwhile, and I presuppose this because I have seen it to be so for myself and others. Of course, there are pathological reasons why one may choose to enter a religious community. These have been analyzed with ability and insight. My purpose here is to apply the same analytic approach to the valid and healthy reasons that enter into a sound vocation. This latter comment is significant because it points out the pragmatic and experiential quality of the approach I will follow in this article. There are other approaches, ones which would begin on a more absolute and theocentric note, or ones which could begin in a less concrete and more "spiritual" way. I have no argument with them. I presuppose all they might say. Here I limit myself to the more human and concrete elements which enter into an individual's decision. It will also be noted that I am speaking here of male religious. This does not mean that the ideas presented here are not applicable to women religious. However, the ideas in this article are drawn from experience with male religious and in fact might not be applicable to women. My experience with women religious has been limited primarily to counseling those in the process of leaving their communities. Obviously this would give me a one-sided view, so I will leave the question of applicability to the ladies themselves. To begin with, and again noting that my view is of healthy reasons, I see people entering religious life in order to make sense of their lives. With the approach of adulthood a young man is faced with the need of stating for himself who he is, the better to enter into the tasks and relationships that face him. The answer to the question "Who am I?" is critical for his future life. Now it is fairly certain, I imagine, that very few men, save in the hands of TV script writers, actually pose the question "Who am I?" in so many words. Yet, faced with choosing their education, their type and place of employment, their friends, and the need to 28 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 establish a different, more independent relationship with their families, they are in fact faced with the question "Who am 17" And the answers that each makes to these questions, the decisions he maizes about his education, employment, and human relationships will bring into play and firm up the values that will give the ethical dimension to his self-view. It is my experience that the choice for a life within the context of a religious community can be understood in this light. To make this understanding more concrete 1 propose to speak about three models of religious life which have occurred to me, and which bespeak three rather functionally significant aspects of life. They are functionally significant, as I put it, in that by their individual and interwoven appeal they can be seen to account for a major portion of our religious vocations. These three models are the service model, the life style model and the intellectual model. I will speak of each in turn. The service model entails the desire to help, and the process of being helpful to, others. It means a self-view in which the helping process looms large. Asked the question "Who am I?" the answer would be "I am a person who helps others." Obviously, this desire to help and the actual fact of serving can take many forms. In fact it has taken many forms in the course of the Church's history. The many religious groups dedicated to education, to caring for the sick and old, and in general to meeting the needs of those in need, bear eloquent witness to the institutionalization of the service model. Viewing this model further within the context of self-identity, we can single out the following additional elements. By definition it is other-oriented. There is a relational quality which predominates. The individual's energies turn outward from himself to another person or persons. Furthermore, the medium by which the individual religious relates to others is the work he performs for them. This bespeaks a certain type of personality. 1 might add here that the notion of a "personality type" does not imply some sort of pathology. Rather, it is no more than the recognition that the abilities, interests, likes, and dislikes of any individual will lead him to interact with the world around him in such a way that we can note patterns of similarity between certain individuals. The second of the models is the life style model. This is really quite different from the service model. Again using the question of identity, the individual attracted by this model would identify himself by referring to the way he goes about the details of his life. Its scheduling and disciplines, its structures such as the patterns of collective prayer, communality in housing, dress, and table all point to a definite and institutionalized way of life. And it is a style of life to which the individual adapts himself. Again, this life style model has had a long history in the Church. It typifies all those groups which we call monastic and can be seen as the most notable element in monasticism. The relational quality in the life style model is also quite different from that in the service model. Here the relationship is in large part with the individual himself. This might seem strange since there are so many external acts and tangible elements that go into the daily life of a monastic community and to which the individual is called on to relate and respond. But they are things whereby he can give to himself a shape and forming consonant with the values embodied in this style of life. It might seem that this life style model is not only different from but runs counter to the service model. In many ways this is true. It is difficult to say that a way of life that is oriented to helping others is basically the same as a way of life that is oriented toward helping one's self. I do not claim that they are basically the Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 29 same but quite the contrary. My purpose here is, once again, to state that these models are real, that they are articulated in these ways, and that they function in the lives of those in religious life. The third model of religious life 1 wish to go into is the intellectual model. This differs from the above two in that it denotes an approach that is typified not as much by action as by a state of mind. The individual who is attracted by this approach is an individual who enters situations head first. He is interested in knowing the reason why.Faced with the question of self-identity he answers "I am a person who must make sense of things, and to do so I must know why they are the way they are." Does this really differ from the other two? I find that it definitely does, that it is not just an aspect of either of the first two models. The individual drawn by the service model is not about to question the value of serving others. Its value is self-evident. The individual drawn by the life style model is content with the fact that to him this way of life feels right. The individual characterized by the intellectual model is by nature a questioner. Whatever the emotional or other causes, the result is an approach typified by a series of probing questions. Furthermore, his questioning will often be directed toward the other two models. Is this the person we should help? Is this the way to help? What are our priorities here, and are they correct? Is this monastic life appropriate? Why do you like it? Is it worthwhile, does it make sense? In relating to others he does so with a question on his lips. This question stems from his need to make intellectual sense of his world. He confronts, he challenges, he probes, often in a way offensive to those who do not understand his way of doing things. There is an analytic and evaluative process at work, one which can lead to a further integration into the religious life, but which can also appear to be negative and destructive. It can be argued that the individual drawn into religious life by the intellectual model is basically looking into someone else's way of doing things. What are his own supports and values? To answer perhaps oversimply, his chief support is the process itself of analyzing. As long as he is able to continue trying to make sense of things he will be sufficiently at home with himself to survive with some comfort. In addition, there is the more important question of this person's utility t6 the community around him. Does his probing and examining of his community's emotional, theological, financial, and mythological supports serve any purpose? I think it does. The Church in its history, at least in its more self-reflective periods, has tried to build in mechanisms for self-criticism. Granted, this has been with mixed success at best. But we do hold our own critics in some real esteem, at least in hindsight. In addition, we have institutionalized this critical process in those areas of moral theology which deal with concrete issues. The Church and the religious life, at least on the theoretical level, havealways had a place for the analyser, and the capacity of the institution to tolerate its critics is a sign of its maturity. It might also be helpful to point out, finally, that the questioning by this individual does not come necessarily from an opposition to those things he questions. It is analysis, it is not attack. It might well be hard to put up with, but it is primarily this person's way of relating to the world around him. At this point 1 would again like to point out that each of these models is a partial view, and each one does typify real people. Any one of these models is sufficiently capable of absorbing the energies of an individual to provide for him a rather complete view of his vocation. The fact that the model might bespeak a limited 30 Review for Religious, Volume 3 I, 1972/1 approach, in fact does bespeak a limited approach, is both true and irrelevant. The energies and interests of any one individual are always limited. What I am here maintaining is that this limitation has a recoghizable shape to. it, and that in my experience the diversity in these shapes can be viewed in the light of these three models without notable distortion. The fact of limitation can also have aspects to it which are not quite as neutral as might seem to be the case from the above statements. I would like to single out the types of difficulties that can and do arise with each of these models. The service model, as noted above, will be attractive to the person whose identity receives outward expression in helping others. Obviously, this means that this individual will be oriented toward work, since service reqhires work. In certain situations the outlet for helping others is rather severely cut off. This is the case in many novitiates, and especially during academic studies. Here the student is expected to channel his energies in ways which are different from those to which he is accustomed, and this does not come easy. I would suspect that much of the criticism directed against seminary studies has this at its root. The students are not so much opposed to study as they are frustrated in their desire, indeed their need, to expend their energies in the way that comes most easily to them. A basic pattern of relating is frustrated, and this frustration is going to make itself felt. In addition we can expect that any notable frustration in the attempt to be of service is going to cause stress for this individual. Whether the frustration comes from competing requirements, such as studies, or from official interference, or from the rejection of the services offered, the result will be the same - a sense of disorientation that the individual will be hard pressed to cope with. Of all these possibilities probably the most troubling is the rejection of help offered because it is so final and does not admit of alternatives. When the rejected help is the product of considerable effort and the result of a great in~,estment on the part of the individual, the effect can be devastating. Religious who place great stock in their work and are told at some point th::t what they have been preparing for or what they have already been doing is no longer needed are prime examples of this. Their crisis is not a minor one but one that can shake them to the roots of their personality. There is also the danger that the individual attracted by this model - or any of these three, for that matter - will not be a particularly self-reflective person. In this case he is not apt to see that his way of doing things - the particular model that attracts him, or his way of putting it to work - has some subjective and personal need-fulfilling sources to it. His way becomes absolutized, his way becomes the way, and other ways are to be adapted and refashioned in support of his. Furthermore, explaining to the non-reflective person, presenting him with an intelligible rationale which tells him why his view is too narrow, is a waste of time. By definition, by virtue of the fact that he is non-reflective, he will be unable to grasp tiffs. It is asking him to use a weak or undeveloped faculty. It is much better to present him with the conclusion, that is, that others are not going to adapt to suit him, and help him cope with it as best he can. With the person attracted by the life style model, the limitations are of quite another sort. We can pinpoint them by observing that monastic practices have considerable similarities in Christian and non-Christian traditions. It is possible to be a good monk, as the Buddhist monastic tradition bears witness, without being a Christian. There is thus nothing basically Christian about monasticism; it is one of the ways man has invented for living a human life. Also, monasticism can have an Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 31 absolute character to it; it can engage all the time and energies of the monk in a pattern of meditative, penitential, and ritual practices. In addition there is a certain absolutism in Christianity. The life and teachings of Jesus, our knowledge of the early Church from the Acts and St. Paul, and the subsequent development of both these in the life of the Church and in its theology, point out that the half-hearted and lukewarm Christian life is to be shunned in favor of greater commitment. The danger here is to make the mistake of equating monastic absolutism with Christian absolutism. 1 believe that when this happens it does so because monastic absolutism presents an articulated, structured, and circumscribed channel for the Christian's desire to get in touch with what is absolute. In its most extreme form this would be to equate becoming one with the monastic absolute, that is, becoming absorbed, as it were, by the monastic life st~,le, with being one with God. It seems more exact to say that what has happened here is the substitution of a collective human structure for the individual personality, a process of quite questionable morality. But this is an extreme. Our focus here is the garden variety of problem that' comes from the life style model. The one I see to be common and troubling is the equation of religious life as a whole with the life style model. It is easy to see how this happens. Since it is the life style model that deals most directly with externals, especially with those externals which differentiate religious life from lay life, it is easy to equate these tangible and visible elements with religious life. This is a beginner's problem, and except in one area we seem to outgrow it. The exception has to do with the process of introducing new members. They are frequently placed under the direction of someone who is rather committed to the life style model. In large part I think this is due to the expectations of the incoming members, whose focus on visible and external elements is quite normal. It is also due, I suspect, to the guilt of work-oriented superiors about the lack of this model in their own lives, and for which they compensate in the choice of formation superiors. Be the cause what it may, it stacks the deck against a broader and more complete view of the opportunities present in the religious life. The problems in the intellectual model come, as with the others, from the very heart of the model. The intellectually oriented person is probably more developed in the thinking than in the feeling area. He will have less appreciation for the areas of religious life that utilize the feeling side, such as the symbolic and liturgical. This lack can become a real problem, for it can lead to an intolerance of any areas and elements which do not admit of the clear-cut, sharp-edged, and logical approach that is possible in the mind. Having viewed these three models there remains only one major comment I wish to make about them. It is fairly common to recognize that religious, like other people, will be oriented in one direction rather than another, that they have definite personalities, likes, dislikes, abilities, and weaknesses. And having recog-nized this, it is also common to forget it, to hope and expect that the individual will work out a personal balance including significant elements from each of these models. This is often raised to the level of an ideal, the religious equivalent of the well-rounded individual. This expectation is unrealistic, and it can be disastrous. A person who is drawn into religious life by the service model, and for whom the service model represents an important expression of his personal makeup, is quite apt not to be attracted by the life style model. If he is not, then any attempt to make him respond as though he were attracted by it probably won't work. If this is an importarit element in the 32 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 life of the group he is entering, then he should not enter it. If the religious group requires only some token observance of the life style model, recognized as token, then he can be expected to put up with it in the way any mature person can be expected to put up with things he doesn't like. But if the life style model, in fact, be important in the life of this community, then he shouldn't be there in the first place. There is no way, short of self-delusion, to get around the simple but difficult fact that he is in the wrong place. The hopes that he will change, that he will develop an appreciation for this view, are as futile as they are potentially destructive. The probable result will be complaining, fault-finding, and after considerable turmoil, departure for some situation where he can be of service to others and where he should probably have been in the first place. The same is true of the other models. The individual who comes to religious community because he wants and needs the structured, orderly life that comes from the life style model cannot realistically be expected to work and function well where these do not exist. If the life style model is part of the whole pattern of life there will be no problem. If, as is often the case, it is part of the seminary structure, after which the individual is expected to shift to a service model and provide his own working and personal structures, then there is going to be a dangerous situation, possibly involving a personal collapse. Similarly~ the individual drawn to religious life in order to make sense of his life, where making sense bespeaks an intellectual approach, cannot be expected to make a shift from this approach to another one. The fact that the particular style of life which he is asked to enter, and which he can't intellectually organize, might "feel right" to others will mean nothing to him and will probably antagonize him. The same applies to a work situation. "This is the way we do things here," or "This has always been our system" may be satisfying answers to some people. They will not satisfy this individual. He will be disturbed and disturbing until he is given a reason why. If none is to be forthcoming then it is better that he not work in that context. Some religious groups, such as my own Dominican Order, do combine these different models. But the combination is one of tension. We recognize that the tension is there, and we expect our members to tolerate it. We do not expect to be able to resolve it and thus demand that our members pay the price for maintaining the several elements which we see to be of value. There should be no question, however, but that there is a price to be paid. In summary, then, 1 see these models as expressions of personality patterns which do exist in reality. Whatever be the cultural or psychological causes here, experience seems to point out that we can speak of people who live their lives using the service of others, a structured life style, and an intellectual understanding of far-reaching reasons as means for ordering their lives. Furthermore, these patterns are often firm and definite. And, they are incorporated to differing degrees in the makeup of different religious groups. It seems crucial to me that, for everyone's benefit, religious groups should determine their own basic orientation and recruit their members accordingly. NICHOLAS AYO, C.S.C. Variance in the Religious Vows: What Poverty, Why Chaste, Who Obey? [Nicholas Ayo, C.S.C., is a member of the Department of English at the University of Portland ; Portland, Oregon 97203. ] No observer can fail to notice that the religious life under the three vows is undergoing considerable reinterpretation and change. Part of the explanation lies with the sweeping changes revising social and religious institutions throughout the world. What remains in doubt is how far-reaching these reinterpretations have become, and whether they should be viewed substantially as renewal or more as a distortion. The purpose of this essay is not primarily to evaluate the changes in religious life, although to an extent that kind of judgment is inevitable in the very selecting aud ordering of materials, but rather to describe the alternative vow styles that can be observed and to some degree categorized. After the ground has been as accurately mapped as possible, I shall offer some tentative conclusions concerning the progress and direction of the religious life in these days of not only "monasteries without walls," but also "monasteries for sale." In the history of the religious life, the three vows of poverty (goods of the hands and the earth), chastity (goods of body and the heart), and obedience (goods of the mind and the will) are late developments. From the very beginnings of the following of the Gospels in a radical form, there has always been, of course, some kind of interior dedication, if nothing more than a promise made to God alone in one's heart. For those living in comnmnity, a single vow of obedience, or stability, or poverty, or not to tnarry was often considered sufficiently embracive of all the areas of property, family, and discipline required to maintain the well being of a Christian community. What the three vows accomplished did not amount to additional demands upon a total dedication to following the gospel in a radical way, which even the hermit understood welt enough before God, but rather a more explicit determination of a "way of life" that the Church could specify and direct attention to as evangelical by profession and recognized publicly as such by the People of God through their bishops. Poverty Let us look at the three vows separately. Poverty usually is considered first, although apparently for no intrinsic reason. The advantageous effects of poverty depend upon some minimum ownership and use of goods and property. One may retain enough, of course, for life's needs. Destitution distorts poverty. The benefits of poverty, however, were not discovered by Christians. Property of its nature tends to encumber a person, saps his attention, and devours his freedom. The posses-sions- own-you syndro~ne has been with the world a long time. Auyone who owns an expensive yacht, or whatever, may well feel obligated to make use of it, whether 34 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 any longer inclined to or not. Moreover, it takes time, effort, and supervision to maintain an estate, to cultivate, guard, protect, insure, and in all respects properly manage property. Without this effort, the property is sooner or later lost or ruined. The more the wealth, the more the management; and even if managers are hired, the owner has to manage the managers. Property, therefore, unless carefully chosen and curtailed according to one's real needs, easily becomes a burden and actually impedes freedom instead of enhancing it. The pagans knew this, and modern man suspects all too often his convenience machines run him. They must be maintained according to their schedule, not his. Only the man who travels light moves without care. Historically, the ancient monasteries sooner or later acquired great wealth, and contemporary religious orders have amounted to multi-million-dollar operations. Someone has to manage the concerns as well as the property of these institutions. To help preserve the virtue of poverty in those Christians, whether in vows or not, whose task in life demanded the use of the power and goods of the rich, the concept of "stewardship" was evolved. Accordingly, one's labors as manager of millions of dollars were not directed to one's power and prestige, but rather to the commonweal. The steward was merely a servant.whose job was to invest and order goods and services for others. Many. contemporary religious see their vow of poverty in this light. United Air Lines credit cards and new Chevrolets are merely tools, necessary in a modern and affluent world, to get a job done. The heart of th.e religious vowed to poverty ought to remain free of the contamination of wealth, even while he or she has free access to the benefits that only the at least moderately rich enjoy. Poverty of Spirit, a sense of detachment, thus assumes the essence of the vow of poverty. How one uses property, not the quantity and kind of property, becomes the key question. However, from this position, too, a counterinsight arises. The argument goes like this. Granted stewardship is necessary and can be sanctified, it still falls short of the spiritual advantages of actual material poverty. Not everyone need share the poverty of the poor, of course, but those who wish to might vow to do so in an actual and explicit way. Francis of Assisi led a vanguard of those who sold everything, and in sandals alone followed the gospel. In modern times, the carefree poverty of a Francis is difficult to achieve literally - leather sandals can be very expensive. But some groups of religious monks, like the Little Brothers of Charles de Foucauld, do live a simple, inexpensive life, as do their secular monkish counterpart, the sleeping-bag, thumb-riding "hippies" of the 'back-to-the-earth counterculture. This phenomenon demonstrates once more that the advantages of material poverty are not recognized solely by those who follow Jesus Christ alone, although for the believer, identification with the man .of Nazareth, who had nowhere to lay his head, adds a significant core motive. The insight that validates material poverty as such amounts to this. The steward of wealth, while he may well keep his heart unattached, still enjoys the benefits of wealth. He is well cared for and comfortable, and so much the worse for him. Only those who know real want know life in a depth that becomes readily and spontaneously religious. Those who know not where tomorrow's food is coming from have a capacity to appreciate a piece of bread and a cup of cold water as the well-fed can never imagine. The poor know what creaturehood means - to be finite and finally powerless to hold onto one's life and keep everything within one's control. Actually, the rich man does not hold his life securely in his hands either, for accident and microbe strike without distinction of bank account; but the rich Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 35 man can surround himself with apparent defenses, fences, and doctors, who lend him the illusion that he is not finally in fact vulnerable, as the poor man well knows from his own experience. In the living out of actual poverty, virtues such as gratitude for the help of others, heartfelt thanks to God, and sharing alike with others flourish. Faced with helplessness and forced back on basic needs - food, shelter, and friends - it seems far simpler to discover the truth about one's self, that is, one is only a man, naked at birth and destined to dust; masks, poses, the power that corrupts, illusions of bright lights, and life without tragedy, cannot survive the facts. While the rich can hide from the human condition, the poor man knows that to be human is to be vulnerable, even while remaining appreciative, wondering, deeply aware of others, and alive with the radical truth that God alone suffices: "That is why I tell you, don't worry about life, wondering what you are going to eat. And stop bothering about what clothes you will need. Life is much more important than food, and the body more important than clothes. Think of the ravens. They neither sow nor reap, and they have neither store nor barn, but God feeds them. And how much more valuable do you think you are than birds?" (Lk 12:22-5). One further interpretation of poverty deserves mention, because some religious hold to this style, although many point out its fallacy. The position argues that although the group may be wealthy, the individual lives under a spirit of Christian communism - to each according to his need. Needs vary according to status and job, and so does the use of wealth. Actually this p, osition is a variety of the stewardship position, except that it removes the responsibility for management from the individual conscience and invests it in the hierarchical leadership of the group. The individual can thus use any amount of property in peace of conscience provided the group authority has given its approval. The critics of this position, of course, reply that no individual with the vow of poverty can abdicate his responsibility to remain poor, any more than a citizen can automatically wage war simply because his government approves the conflict. Celibacy At first consideration, celibacy seems a necessary concomitant of group living, and group living in a Christian community seems a continuation of the sharing of goods and life outlined in Acts, a sharing which foreshadows the coming of the kingdom. Why groups of families historically have not been able to maintain community living is not easily determined. Through the centuries there have been numerous attempts to do so, from the Brook Farm experiment of our American origins to the communes of 1970, but none have been long lived. Monasteries with single people and strict discipline managed to stay together, but familial groupings have not. No intrinsic reason seems evident to me why Christian community life could not incorporate families, but in practice celibates have a better record of success. The "efficiency model" for the vow of chastity (or celibacy as it might more fairly and accurately be called) emerges from just this insight. For, either it is argued that community life, that is, shared goods and shared inner life, demands celibacy, or even more persuasively it is maintained that a greater freedom for apostolic work becomes available to the single man or woman. Despite the counterarguments of successful and busy married doctors and politicians, it is claimed that a fulltime apostolate often needs a mobility that the person with a family can hardly enjoy without imposing on his family, especially on his children, 36 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 who unlike his wife, did not know in advance what they were getting into. The celibate can work for less money, move locations quickly, and risk his life and health with less fear of the consequences t'o others to whom he is committed and responsible. The input that a generous and inspirational wife might add to a married man's apostolic work is often parried with the negative effects of an unhappy home life in the case of many married "apostles." In short, the argument states that the layman may enlist in the army of Christ, but the celibates will always make up the marines. Besides the "community life" and the "apostolic efficiency" justifications, an appeal for embracing the celibate life may include the "legal status quo." For example, to be a priest, at least today, includes celibacy as part of the package, and when the motivation for the priesthood is high, it can and does override the desire to marry. Actually many men and women remain in celibate vows because by age or inclination they no longer want marriage or children; no't a small number of middle-aged celibates fail to see what overwhelming competition the married state offers the celibate, if children are not a primary consideration. What this reluctance to marry may mean, however, is that many now in celibate vows would have married and raised a family at an earlier age, had the climate of acceptance for such vocational decisions been as good twenty years ago as it is today. Late marriages, of course, will always seem less attractive. If all practical reasons of whatever kind are set aside, whet today might motivate the vow of celibacy? A keen sense of vocation, of being chosen and being called, seems uppermost in many celibate vocational decisions. There is a sense of the mystery behind the destiny of any person, whether to marriage or to single life for the sake of the kingdom: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," and "Everyman who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or land for my sake will receive it all back many times over, and will inherit eternal life" (Mt 19:29). The celibate vocation remains very much on the defensive today. If formerly marriage was considered a second-rate vocation, it is clear that the atmosphere of sexual fulfillment as a necessary ingredient for maturity and personality growth has left the celibate vocation almost in need of a "single's lib" movement. Those who thrive within the celibate vocation seem to have developed a profotind awareness that no man can run the entire gamut of human experience. One life style cancels out another; there are advantages to restraint as well as to delight. Those who are married have a set of pluses and minuses, which while they differ from the pros and the cons of the celibate, may indeed total out to an equivalent sum. Robert Frost's lines "I have chosen the road less travelled by / And it has made all the difference," or Thomas More's apologia in A Man for All Seasons, namely, I choose to believe this because I choose, may finally be the ultimate explanation for a vocation. There is no adequate reason that can be formulated and presented convincingly to any other open-minded person that he should go and do likewise. One is dealing with the kind of radical freedom exercised in choosing a spouse. I marry Susan because I choose Susan, not for any catalog of virtues that would automatically persuade every other reasonable man to marry Susan. Finally, many celibates do experience a discovery in the expanded opportunities for well-developed and often protracted friendships with someone of the opposite sex. Such friendships often enrich their life and yet confirm their vocation to celibacy. The insight that emerges is this. Any deep bisexual friendship demands cultivation, ingenuity, time, effort, emotional energy, imagination, and thoughtful- Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 37 ness. One may conclude that there can be only one dominant psychological center in one's life for any length of time; and if a deep cultivated life of prayer and practi

Issue 36.3 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edtted by faculty members of St Lores University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1977 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor May 1977 Volume 36 Number 3 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGZOUS; 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 REVIEW I~OR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-yard; 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. Nomadic Love Rita Bernard Walton, S.S,J. Sister Rita Bernard resides at the Corpus Christi Convent; Sumneytown Pike and Supplee Rd.; Lansdale, PA 19446. :: Fpr centuries men have responded to a voice, a formless, faceless, nameless voice, a voice that pierced the inner depths like a fiery sword saying: "Come and see" (see Jn 1:35-51). To come and see is to come into Jesus, and to respond to the call is only to hear it repeated over, again and again, to _come deeper into Jesus. It means a lifetime of coming and a lifetime of seeing as one .surprise of.love follows another:in living in Jesus. The heart hears the silent language of Jesus' love that calls for acceptance. 'The acceptance of his love entails ac-cepting all the Lover is and~ all he gives. He gives himself in sacrament, in word,, in life. He reveals himself slowly with each love-touch and fills the soul with wonder at the awesome burden with which he impregnates it. ~In this prayer of love one is. urged to stand firm, to persevere in the gift of.,love in the sense that St. Paul urged the Thessalonians to stand firm: ,"Stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions that we taught y0,u, whether by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Th 2: 15). "Standing firm" is a recognition of having been chosen, loved, formed and hollowed. It is a 'recognition of one's emptiness and fullness in Christ Jesus. To "stand firm" is to accept further the responsibility to love and be loved;~to be known and to,know the God who is. "Standing firm" is to be used, used as a reed on which he plays his tune. ~ Coming deep into this love with Jesus re~uires a lea.ring behind of all ~hat ,is self and, in some way, living within the heart the life of a nomad by abandoning oneself to the purpose~ of the Lord in an emptiness of spirit-- being a nomad without a desert other than the desert of life itself. This nomad 337 338 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 life whets the appetite for the fullness of the kingdom, a life fully embraced. The nomad life is a living in joy, a living wholly in the now. This great love renders one powerless and defenseless and 'one. feels the pain of the rendering. Such powerlessness allows God to be G6d, bring-ing to the lips a prayer for an increase of faith which enkindles hope and which builds further the great fire of love. In this love-prayer, the~desire to pray and prayer itself are planted in the heart of one's being by the God of ¯ love. As the desire is nurtured, the heart of one's being grows and ~.the cycle of life in prayer develops. It is recognized as the Lord's gift. This writer invites the reader at this point to place himself or herself in the sandals of the nomad and let the following speak directl3)' td you. Come and see, Nomad. The nomad carries little. The nomadic lover carries little, too, for this lover must pass through love's gate as through the eye of the needle, free of encumbrances and the excess baggage of self-love. As nomadic lover you go through the doorway of Jesus as yourself~ as a real person. You go with Jesus' to go through Jesus into Jesus more deeply,, realizing so de.eply that Jesus is in you filling you with so much love. Loving is what living is all about. Living the love of Jesus is allowing the fruit of hislove to be'~plucked while it is ripe and rich. Following Jesus in nomadic love leads you to a still point. A still .point is a further death to self. Freed of the baggage and clutter of ~elf-will, hands are emptied to embrace the Will of the Father, the Cross of-Jesus, the Gifts of the Spirit. This still point is an intense grace of being~known, and being filled with an unknown kind of knowing God in his Oneness and Trinity of Persons. Reaching, or being brought to this still point of love is like passing through the turmoil of a storm and no longer being in .the path of its destruction, but aware of it and aware of being held at the center of calm only by his grace. It is an experience of an overwhelming sense .of quiet joy where your being sings an endless, wordless song of silent praise. Nomadic love extends you and develops all the facets of yourself, and then it changes you. You become a new self with all the old facets"refined. 'You come to a point where you hardly know yourself, and yet you do, more deeply than you did before. If the Beloved allows you to see yours.df"vfith his eyes you see a sight of beauty, surprising beauty. What you see is so grace-laden and love-filled that your heart responds again in silen(, ioyful song to the love and the Lover who has made you this way. You know that all this grace and beauty are his gift to your creature-self. It is yours to 'rejoic( in, to use and to give away~ When you return to your owns, seeing, you find you are the same, but not the same. You have been held b~y Love unaware of space and time and you somehow know that you hold a inystery~ and are held by Mystery. The nomadic lover has thus rested in th~ sweet oasis of love. ' Soon, however, the nomad is stirred from the oasis-rest .by th~ silent Nomadic Love / 339 voice the heart has come to know. "Rise, cla~p my hand, and come!" ("The Hound of Heaven," by Francis Thompson). "Yes" becomes the word on your lips and the journey continues. Now the desert stretches dry ahead and its night settles in like a winter season. The fruit and the comfort and rest of an oasis are not in sight, but the memory of them warms your heart. All is silent within and without, and the nomad must stand firm in the silence as would a silent sentinal. The treasure of love must be guarded within the heart. As nomadic lover in the desert night you know, you be-lieve~ you trust in the touchless Lover who is with you, who encircles you with his love. A nomadic lover prays: I cannot walk, my Love, I cannot walk alone. I must be led, or carried. I cannot trust myself, my own sense of direction. I must let myself be lost as it were, with no map or seeable route on this journey in faith and trust and love with You. My Love, I depend solely on You and Your guidance with no desire other than the desire to be Yours. You p!ace in shadow all that has been familiar during this journey with You. The oasi~ of Your gifts and consolaiions is lost ¯ in the darkness of this desert night in order to test my love for You alone. My~ Love, I ask for the grace of receptivity. Open me to the greatness of desiring You . for Yourself alone. ".Rise, clasp my hand, and come!" ("The Hound of Heaven"). So, once again Nomad, you hear yourself asked to "come and see" mindful you are nomad by invitation; that the journey is a gift and that you do not "stir love until its appo~inted time" (Song of Songs 2:7). Grassroots Sisters Today: Calvary People? Anawim? Marie Emmanuel, S.C. Sister Marie Emmanuel, though retired otficially, icontinues to exercise an extensive apostolate through her writings. She resides at Mount St. Joseph, OH 4505.1. No writer can speak from her heart unless wha( she says is consciously directed to a well-defined group of readers. Even a g!ance at the topic sentences of the following paragraphs, for example, would indicate that this article would "turn off" religious caught up in the urgencies' of seeking self-fulfillment, of 'being recognized as a person, of securing independence, and of embracing a life-style which has much more in common with that of a career girl or married woman than with that of the traditional religious of ten or fifteen years ago. And these same pages would probably read like something from outer space to the few fortunate religious in whose com-munities wholesome, holy religious life has somehow managed to survive experimentation. The vast majority of American sisters, however, belong to neither of these groups. They are the typical religious of our decade the thoiasands who look with aching hearts on what mistaken attempts at renewal (a renewal too often not rooted in a primary interest in the things of God!) have done and are doing to their corrimunities, and to religious life itself as they can see it. Their cause is seldom taken up by the religious press or cham-pioned by speakers; yet they are the ones who are holding the line for Christ. They know what their Lord was asking of them when he called them to their community--and they know what they gave. him on their vow day. Integrity permits them to dilute neither his divine requests nor their giving. These are the religious who must be assured that their questioning is being heard, that their Calvary is understood, and that, if they have but faith, their fears for religious life itself will be quieted by the same dear 340 Grassroots Sisters Today:~ Calvary People? Anawim? / 341 Christ who answered the frightened apostles in the tempest-tossed boat on Galilee: "O ye of little faith, why do you doubt?" Not even the hardiest can deny, of course, that hurricanes have been buffeting religious life for a decade or more, and that unprecedented winds and waves have sadly battered the bark of those who follow the evangelical counsels. There is no question here of the exaggerated fears of timid souls. Too many facts corroborate 'the ~threats, too many experiences bolster appre-hension. All one need do to be convincedis read, watch and listen. " See whathas happened in our day to the observance of poverty and obedience! And often not even chastity survives at least not envisioned as an espousal relationship with Christ, a concept which, iust a short time ago, was. generally accepted as basic to the vow. Silence no more has a place in most Interim Directives; prayer has become largely a completely personal matter, with sometimes not even the offi~ze or rosary said in com-mon; and the whole concept of community living is under attack. One does not have to be a seer to be aware that in some congregations goals, aposto- ,lares, and life-style have been so revolutionized that even the most recent of founders would be hard put to recognize their own! Administrators of certain large American communities, for example, seeing membership plummeting and the median age rapidly rising, have °already experimented with the idea of extending membership to anyone who wishes to live with the sisters, "regardless of sex, religious affiliation or marital status." In some religious houses such~ extended membership is already an accepted fact. At a meeting of formation personnel late in 1975, one young director told her audience (and was immediately quoted in metro-politan and diocesan newspapers) that her community had "already opened its doors to such .applicants, among them a married woman, a divorcee, and a woman whose husband is in Europe." These people, she assured her hearers, "share the life and home of the sisters and are regarded as mem-bers, not as guests; employees or volunteers." In order to supplement recruitment, other congregations have accepted girls who came with the avowed intention of staying just for a year or two, although canon law has stipulated that candidates may not enter on a temporary basis, that they must have the iiatention of remaining or at least the hope of determining their permanent vocation by honest trial. We hear,. too, of young religious who, though they may have entered with the inten-tion of remaining, are now reluctant to maki~ any permanent commitment and are being permitted to stay on indefinitely, despite canonical strictures, merely making temporary "promises" over and over. Yet though membership is being supplemented in such unorthodox ways, genuine religious vocations in America have dwindled to almost nothing. Vineyards entrusted to us by the Church are abandoned for works of our own choosing; conx;ents stand empty in the midst of fields white for the harvest, and the tragic exodus of professed sisters "back to the world" con- 342 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 tinues, though God knows that some motherhouses have few, except the aged, left. A further tragedy lies in the fact that those who remain tend to fall into groups so diverse in their reactions to experimentation that the attainment of consensus in basic areas becomes impossible. There are the sisters of all persuasions, liberal and conservative, who are content with the status quo as they meet it; there are the crusader.s, dissatisfied with the ."inadequacy" of experimentation as they see ,it initiated, and dedicated to revamping re-ligious life now to conform to what they consider relevant to today's world. And then there is the army of ordinary sisters down at the grassroots who have suffered shock after shock as they were subjected to innovations (allegedly designed to make them more relevant, more self-fulfilled, and more libera.ted, but which have a~:tually proven incompatible with their ideals of religious life) who are now openly seeking answers to the disturb-ing questions which haunt them. "What is going to become of religious life?" they ask in desperation akin to that of the apostles, when their small boat was. storm-tossed that night on Galilee. "Will,it someday be impossible in my community to live the life I v6wed? What will be left of religious life when all this experimen-tation is officially ended?" Before sisters consider the future of their own communities in the light of such questi0.ns, it is logical that a prognosis for religious~ life itself be attempted. Is it dying? Is it still relevant? A number of current books study the topic from various points of view, but the Vatican II Fathers .have already settled all doubts in ~this regard bY the place in the modern Church which they assigned to religious. A dying group would scarcely be commissioned, as religious were in the Constitution on the Church, to ,"stren.gthen the kingdom in soul~, and extend it to every clime." And who is relevant to our confused, anguished world if not those to whom the council, in the same document, entrusted the needy of that world? "Religious should carefully consider that through them, to believers and unbelievers alike, (he Church wishes to give an increasingly clearer revelation of Christ," decreed the Council Fathers. "Through them, Christ should be seen contemplating on the mountain, announcing God's kingdom to the multitude, healing the sick and maimed,, turning sinners to wholesome fruit, blessing children, doing good to all, and always obeying the will of the Father who sent them." There is not one .sufferer among all those who throng our streets, or whose stories are blazoned in, the daily press or pictured on TV, who does not fit into one of the categories listed by the Council as being charges of today's religious. There is no human need, spiritual or temporal, which has not been confided to our charity in our own time by Holy Mother Church herself. Therein lies our blueprint of relevance. Father Thomas iDubay, contemporary writer on living the evangelical Grassroots Sisters Today." Calvary People? Anawim? / 343 counsels, states: "The religious life belongs inseparably to the Church's life and holiness . Periodically, in the history of the Church, someone is likely to prophesy the death of religious-life. Our day is no exception. Yet so closely bound up with evangelical perfection are consecrated virginity, voluntary poverty and ecclesial obedience, that to predict the disappearance of religious life is to assert the irrelevance of the gospel. The profession of the evangelical counsels may decline, through human weaknesses, but dis-appear it willnot.''~ Yet, notwithstanding such assurances, sisters confide that try as they will to tell themsel~,es that all will be right, they cannot shut their eyes~to what is happening in many communities. "Is it unreasonable," they ask, "to wonder how I can trust, when I know how convent walls have tumbled down since the '60's, destroyed not by enemies of the Church but by con-secrated women who are .apparently casting aside the very.essentials of religious life so as to grasp the best of two vocations without assuming the responsibilities of either? How can I"even hope that I will always be a nun, when I see congregations once flourishing and fervent actually falling apart or so revolutionized as to be unrecognizable?" Of course, there are no pat answers, as there are no pat answers for other questions'which vex us today. But Peter and his companions were expert sailors, and they had seen other vessels go down in squalls on Galilee like the one they were battling. Yet Christ rebuked them that night for their lack of faith when they were apprehensive. He did not tell them how to ride out the storm, he gave them no practical directives. But he did reassure them. "Fear not!" he said. And he did calm the winds and the buffeting waves, and bring his friends Safe to.shore. Suppbse their boat had sunk in the storm. Can we doubt that our Lord would have saved his 6wn; so that they still might, become the Spirit-driven anawim who were to establish his Church? That should tell us something! And there are many other gospel stories.~which'can set our troubled hearts at rest. This is a goodtime to remember~Bethany, for example; we who are frightened by what the future may hold have Christ's own word that our "best part"-~will never be taken away from us. In,another passage he gives us his solemn assurance that he will be with us always, and that whatever we ask in.prayer will be given us;, even to" feats like moving mountains! He reminds us that we did not choose him; it was he who called us. Dare we insinuate that-he was trifling with our hearts in making that invitation on our vow day? No, the circmfistances surrounding our aposto-lates may indeed be drastically altered, but our consecration to Christ no one no one--can take from us! Right now many mature religious stand onCalvary. We try to assure ourselves, perhaps, that faith and hope demi~nd that we look forward to a 1Ecclesial Women, by Thomas Dubay, 'S.M. (New York: Alba House, 1970). 344 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 glorious Easter, when resurrection joy and peace will fill our hearts again. That Easter will come. But ~hould we begin to face the possibility that we, personally, may never see its glad dawning? Maybe our little boat won't survive this. tempest! What if our community becomes so debilitated or so revolutionized that it no longer is our.community? Do we love Christ so much that we can offer ourselves, in that event, to become his anawim, the remnant beloved by God, who will somehow continue to carry on his work in and for a world which hungers for him while it rejects him? That may well be what he is asking of us now. If this should happen and we find our 'institutes rapidly losing all re-semblance to the dream of evangelical perfection which God gave our founders and to which he called us, we can find comfort, first of all, in knowing that religious life, itself will never die. That is where faith and hope lead us today. Isn't that, perhaps, where they leave many of.us, too? Let's admit it: we, at least we sisters in America, may well be Calvary-people all our lives. But .wasn't that what our Lord was? The shadow of the Cross touched everything he looked on, and Easter came only after the final agony of the crucifixion. "Fear not.t" Our Lord is saying to us. Even though this congregation or that is shaken, religious life will always flower somewhere in the Church, and no sister will ever be dispensed ]rom perpetual vows unles~ she herselI .has chosen, in some way, to cancel her commitment to the God who loves her with an everlasting love. 'We must remember that when things look black, when maybe even our own beloved community may seem'to be racing toward disaster.~, We must hang onto the fact, too, that "retreat masters and others in a position to see and judge are finding rainbows arcing over motherhouses here and there, where experimentation has not only. been lived through but is reaping a golden harvest of renewal. True, such blessed communities doubtless still have their respective cordons of dissidents unhappy because changes haven't been radical enough, but interested now in the ordination of women, in 'political jobs~ or~ in being, vocal on controversial theological questions. Their current involvement in topics beyond the jurisdiction of their communities leaves the body of the, membership free to yield. ;to the Spirit, and to concentrate on intensive, broadly-varying spiritual programs, which one priest-director tells me are proving "an astonishing purification, a genuine spiritual renewal, and a happy return to the ideals of the foun-ders" of several communities with whom he is in contact. How heartened many grassroots sisters should be by rumors of such rainbows, which indicate that for some religious at least, the storm is over for the time and the Paschal Sun is shining! There are communities, too, which have never lost their balance, but which, despite growing pressures, have managed to adhere t,o their self-definition and to maintain the life of the counsels as their founders would Grassroots Sisters Today: Calvary People? Anawim? / 345 have it lived at present. They are the ones (believe it or not!) who are be-ing sought out by young women who want just what these communities will give them. The same retreat master I quoted before confided that one such community with which he works "is swimming with postulants and novices, bright and lively young things who enter precisely because of the habit; who are genuinely (if youthfully) in earnest about learning the spirit of their congregation and (and through) the spirit of their founder." So even if, in our corner of the world, the eclipse still leaves us groping in dark and cold, we can rejoice that somewhere the sun is shining again on happy, holy novitiates and on burgeoning religious life. We can rejoice, too, that our way of-life is a good way; despite the odds against us, we do contribute to the holiness of the Church! And it is a relevant way. Millions of people contact God today because sisters still live and work among them. So if our particular corner of the vineyard is languishing, we must simply put our hand into the hand of Christ and trust him to use us as he will. Through an ordeal.like this, our consciences should reassureus that we are not disloyal because we can foresee local debacles resulting from ill-ad-vised changes in the very basics of~religious life. As mature religious we can-not help but be aware that congregations which cut themselves free from their moorings an the Church and dispose of authority, vows, silence, community prayer and the common life with fine, dispatch, are no longer offering their members the type of life the.y vowed to follow: There is no disloyalty here. No, it is love for the life to which Christ calls us that prompts us to challenge attemis°ts at renewal which have gotten out of hand. The pro~ing questions one hears now on all 'sides should alert the powers that be to the fact that definitely all is not well. Before it is too late, those influential in community affairs throughout the country should take inventory to see wfiether religious, life, as they are manipulating it, can flourish and bear the fruit God expects. Only a prayerful, serious evaluation by those supposedly in authority can dete~rmine for any congregation whether experimentation is sanctifying its members or secularizing them, meeting the needs of their assigned apostolates or merely working toward human goals or personal self-fulfillment. That some groups will not see the necessity for such reconsideration is a sad commentary on the problem. It is good, therefore, that individual sigters are not closing their eyes to what is being done, that we at last are asking serious qui~stions and seeking honest answers. We are not discountenancing faith and hope when we admit that we think it possible that our partiqular vineyards may someday lie in ruins. Rather, our faith and hope could never be fairer .than when we watch our dear garden-places transformed into alien desert and yet hold fast to Christ, confidefit of his love, ready to take up our interrupted apos-tolat~ wherever he wants us to be and to do whatever he may send us to do, even if that is just to suffer and pray for the harvest which we may no longer have an opportunity to plant or gather in. Symbols.'. Signs. and the Times Jane Marie Kerns, S.H.C.J. Sister Jane Marie is engaged in development work. curriculum planning and public relations at Cornelia Connelly High School; 2323 W. Broadway; A~aheim, CA 92804. _~er degree is in the field of sociology. Technically speaking,' says S. R. Wilson, signs are not symbols. Signs are perceptible m~inifes~ations which point to a condition present or to come because they flow from the ultihaate reality underlying the sign. In this sense signs are revelatory because the natural objects involved are ]as in-trinsic~ illy related to the ~:eality underneath as the smell of an onion is to the onion itself. For example, hot forehe'ad, weakness, perspiration and chills signify fever. Signs, in thig sense, cross cultural barriers of language and fl~ish essentially the identical message-content to all who can read the signs. At some point in history the acctimulated wisdom of a l~eople unravels the mystery behind the sign and passes on the same m.essage from generation to generation. Thus signs are stable in content because that which we~ per-ceive bears an unalterable and peculiar relationship to the reality wtii~zh is present or coming to be. Symbols are different. They are arbitrary things which are invested with 1Sociologists, in developing the implications of symbolic interaction, have made some distinctions between sign and symbol that differ markedly from the'more traditional scholastic terminology contrasting natural and conventional signs. For example, Berger and Luckmann in The Social Construction o! Reality speak.of "detachability" as a characteristic of all signs and sign systems while symbols are any significative themes achieving maximum detachability by reason of their being located in one sphere of reality but referring to ahother. A far simpler presentation by S R. Wilson has generated a line of thought that can be applied to the contemporary religious scene with some profit for us if we are willing to follow up his line of thought"with some applications made on our own. 346 Symbols. Signs . . . and the Times / 347 a tempbrary message by consensus of the group which employs the symbol. Symbols are the shorthand which capsulizes a larger"concept, perhaps an abstract one--the cryptography which presupposes that the users share the meaning so fully'that they can afford to reduce it to a kind of code word, that beStows brevity without sacrificing richness. There need not be any necessary connection between the choice of an object to act as symbol and the content of the message.Symbols are temporary: time-bound~ timely,, tied to. context so they lose their significance or are invested with new meanings in new times. How fickle symbols can be is well exemplified'by the quirk of fate that transmuted .Churchill's gallant V-for-victory hand salute into the peace symbol of the 1960's. Signs are natural, unequivocal, independent "of time and place an~l ¯ language, Symbols are culture;bound, subject to misinterpretation by the uninitiated and to re-interpretation by succeeding in-groups, long- or short, lived depending on the consistency of the ,sub-culture that employs them. Perhaps some reflection on this distinction, between sign and symbol can shed light, on:,one of the dilemmas facingreligious today. We religious have tried abruptly 'to change our symbol ~ystem and we find often enough that We have lost our sign value in the world., of today, We changed 9ur dress to relate more easily to the world of the ~twentieth century. Removing a barrier did not automatically create a sign 6f the Lord present among us. We chose the symbol system of modern womanhood .and sometimes found ourselves comfortably bunched .in with all the other .bananas. The public we served was not interpretifag our symbolic action as we meant it to be. And we are forced to recognize that the dress we donned and the veil we doffed were only symbol--not sign, not natural,.cross,cultural., unequivocaI expression of what .is or what is to come--:-only symbol, 9nly thingg subject tO misinterpretation, 'time-bbund even for us who made the gesture of changing the symbolmand ambivalent;~ even,~ to the ~degree. that not all religious~would agree on the what. and the why of the gesture. By and large our people are complimentary 'and comfortable with our new look, yet amid a growing congeniality we. have lost some of the eschatological sign value that should be ours. Why? I, Hazarding guesses is hazardous and it is;my guess that an understanding of signs and symbols can shed some light. If we understood how 'a society creates .a symbol, if we understood how a group learns toread a sign, .per-haps we could appreciate the impact of. context on communication. Accurate identification of the "things': we use to present ourselves depends on the context in which we use them. Think of ~ome "symbols" we have adopted in the last few years: There are religious who see denim as denoting fellow-ship with the poor, But with the escalation of the denim fashion' parade, to many people denim speaks of the radical chic, the young affluent who chooses to dress down, the professional would-be college kid revolting against .white shirts and starched,collars. To many, "fellowship" with a 348 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 "groovy" bunch in.~faded cut-offs has no religious connotations whats6ever. We want to say simplicity of life-style; they hear over-age college set gone "mod." Unwittingly, there is growing up a garbled version of the Fountain of Youth myth where what we wanted to hand on was the Good News about the Fountain of Living Waters which springs up in men of faith. Our~ sym-bols aren't bad; it's just that we exist in a cultural context which colors the interpretation of symbols "due to circumstances beyond our control . " We are talking about the fact that we can't control the whole configura-tion of life that put denim (or its equivalent) into a context in which it will be understood by those who see the same symbol system used to convey a different message. We human beings acting in concert unconsciously invest symbols with meaning 6nly in context. + can mean Christianity or + can mean add it all depends on what goes with it. It's the nature of symbol to be tied to other people's mentality. Let me" push the notion of symbols-in-context a bit further. In some ways symbols are .like bumper stickers~ That is, they are "one-liners", that punch out a limited message about one aspect of a question or point of view--concise, catchy, incontrovertible as far as they go. But when we are talking about the sign value of religious in their mission of revelation, we find that we aren't able to frame the essential message and crop off all the peripheral or block out all the other things we do and are. Hence, our symbols are never seen except in a broader context of the configuration of our whole lives. Let's think a little then about configuration. Have you ever pondered the variety of countenances .the Lord has fashioned out of the simple set of major elements such as two eyes, a nose, a mouth, some small degree of color in the eyes, some minor variations-- all within the magnitude of an inch or less--in the spacing of these ele-ments, the alignment of them, and so forth? Fantastic how .little he had to work with and yet how totally unique are the billions of faces that inhabit the universe! And all ~.because the particular configuration of similar ele-ments so alters the' finished product! How marvelous is the import of the configuration in which a single pair of blue eyes is set in defining the unique profile of a German lass as opposed to a California coed! Taken separately all the major elements of their countenances could be identical. Only the final configuration gives the identity to each as a unique person. Something like that is true of our symbol systems. When we changed our bleak habit woolens for blue denim or for fashionable fabrics and styles, we also re-arranged a thousand seemingly unrelated parts of the mosaic Called life-styles. Visits to hairdressers, pierced ears, cosmetics, jewelry, stereo sets in our rooms, guitars under our arms, weekends at the beach or skiing in the mountains, ten-speeds, dining out when pressures mount, happy hours and wine-and-cheese-get-togethers--all the places we went and the things we did in our new dress. And gradually we blended with the Every Woman in tune with the times--and lost any aura of the "otherness" of Symbols . . . Signs . . . and the Times / 349 the woman in touch with the Lord. It is frustrating and confusing since there is nothing wrorig with any of the items taken separately, nothing that could not serve as a ~,ehicle for inserting the message of the Lord into the modern context. Yet, unfortunately, the gap between intentions and outcome is real, if we'dare tell it as it is. So what can we do in such a dilemma? Retreat to our pre,Vatican II existence? . How dare we even consider such a move--we who have been called by. the Lord in his Church to seek ever new ways to bring his .same truth to our age? ~ . I believe that there are several lines of action open to us. First, and perhaps the easiest to admit, we must recognize.that a private symbol sys-tem whose true message is known only to ourselves is a useless tool for communication. Hence, in our recognition ~of the public nature of the sym-bols we choose to employ, we must be attentive to the feedback from those around us, the feedback that comes in the form of spoken criticism or spoken praise, and also the feedback that comes in the form of a vacuum-- the indication that we aren't, even noticed~ This isr not so easy since it implies that if we listen and respond'just to, those who catch the message, it might be we are only speaking to our in-group. Openness to criticism and willing-ness to. vary our approach is the on13~ way that will. make our knowledge of de facto social interpretation of symbols work for the good we yearn to. do. Apropo.s., algo, is the need for a discerning spirit that can ferret out the essence of a critical remark and that has no fear to dare to be different if the difference is where, it really: counts--difference, because our fundamental orientation even in choosing fashionable clothes, and so forth, is utterly other. For the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of those around me, for the sake of my apostolic effectiveness I choose to use the things I use; for ¯ their ability to extend my vital concerns outward, not just for their ability to enhance me. From .the apostolic point of view ~vhat my symbol system says to. those around rn"e is:more important than what it"says to me as long as"it is genuine. , A second direction in which to focus our attention is on the mutability (as w~ll as .f.allibility) of any~ symbol which derives from the other mean-ings conferred on the "things" we use or do by other people whose message differs from ours. '~We can always afford to bend and 'blend and experiment with our symbol system in order to keep it 'up-to-date. Indeed, we must be alert to those circumstances beyond our control which render any system obsolete or .misleading--changing customs, .changing values in some areas of life, changing vocabulary. Even semaiatics can' cause a loss of utility in a given form of expression. Knowing' the difference between what is essential and what is merely an arbitrary, ,though well-chosen, form of expression is an art capable of infusing life ,into the means we use to contact the world around us; The art of choosing wisely, rests largely on the nature of what we.try to signify. How can we speak to men of our God who is so utterly 350 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 other? What has holiness to say to a modern world? What can communicate spirit to flesh:and-blood men of today?. As men and nations,~scramble tO get, what words speak of giving.'? And what can emptying oneself to put:.on Christ say to empty men who have lost .their own identity? When thinking men unite to feed the world's hungry because 'the survival of all ultimately depends on the wise sharing of resources, how does one say that enlightened self'interest isn't enough? For a task of this magnitude, perhaps symbol .is the wrong tool. Maybe we can't rely~on a form of "shorthand" for all that the Christian message means to us. Perhaps we have to strive; to explicate our message--impress it more fullythrough expressions revelatory, :flo~ving from the essential reality of life in Christ. Earlier we spoke of the smell of an onion as peculiar to the. reality that is the onion. Substitute perfume to the rose if you prefer, but that is just how specific our expression should be to what 'it is we're trying to communicate! Perhaps sign is called for-- natural, unequivocal, universal harbinger of 'what is or what is to come. Sin~:e whatever we do can be so easily mis-read by a generation that rarely reflects deeply, our?language" (spoken, body, symbol) must be one that is unequivocal, timelessly true, inextricably bound up with the nature of what we communicate. Our "language" must be sign of what is or what is to come. We can only hope to sign the Lord to the world if we ourselves can be the living revelation of~God present among us, actuating what we are. When we so live in the presence of God that his thoughts have become ours, his con-cerns, outs, we can hope that the vitality of his life in us will speak to"men of Someone else, just as Jesus invariably led people beyond himself to ". the~Father who sent me; the Father himself loves you. ; if you knew me you would know the Father also . . . the words I speak are not mine but the Father's; . as my F~'ther sent me so I also . ; I do always what the Father command~ . . . ; I must be about my Father'S' business~. ; I will ask the Father and he will send you the Paraclete . . . ; whatever you ask for in my name that I will do so that the Father may be glorified in the Son . , . ; the world must: be brought to know .that I love the Father. ; I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I have learned from myFather." It was when Jesus said. to his own, "I came from the Father,and have come into the world and now I leave the world to go to the ,Father," that his men replied at long last, "Now you are: speaking clearly . because of this we believe that you came from God.,." (Jn 16:28-31.). Hardly can we expect to be heard by our world tif we are less specific! Hardly do we ~dare to be so specifi!! Yet. I doubt that there is one of us who has,not in prayer thrilled to the vocation that is ours and marveled that God should choose to use us as a means of revealing and witnessing to his presence in the world. We believe--and yet . We shall never be able to offer our people more than fickle symbols until it becomes "natural" for us to perceive and Symbols . . . Signs . . . and the Times / 351 to speak of ourselves as signs that God is present and coming~ Our work for the poor may appear to be just the fad of generous adolescence or neo-humanism in action unless we are in fact coming from God and drawing our people to God. Angry activists can demand' prison reform as effectively as we and still remain atheists'. To what am I signing on the picket lines or in the classroom? Many good men grow whole from their repulsion over human suffering. Ft. George Aschenbrenner, in his article, "Hidden in Jesus Before the Father" (REviEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Jan., i975), spoke of the healing ministry of Jesus as springing from his vision of the holiness of God. So, too, for us philanthropy is not enough, It is significant that a woman of~ our times renown for her ministry of healing has had her story told to the world under the title, Something Beauti[ul for God. Mother Theresa undoubtedly comes to her poor as one sent ~by God to lead them on to him. Her meaning is unequivocal, its con-tent crosses language barriers and surmounts limitations of time and place. She is indeed a signto all of.the presence of God in his creation. But how was she different? She adapted the dress and the practices of religious life to the customs of India; so have we striven to meet America in the twentieth century. What more is there to it? . ' Perhaps it isosomehow or other connected with her approach to the first major work that .she undertook: her concern for the dying, the terminally ill; the cases that most of the hospitals there would not accept today be-cause there is nothing-that can be gained from medical treatment, there is no hope of recovery: . . . There is an element in her preoccupation with the dying that shouts aloud that dying is not the end, that even a dying man is worthy of respect and love and concern. Hers was an attitude-in-action which pointed a reality present in he~r and pre~sent in her world of the dying that could only mean that death~was not what it seemed to be to the masses who passed by the dying beggar in the streets. The reality alive in the center of her being revealed itself in act and attitude peculiar to those who know the God and Father of Jesus Christ. She was indeed a sign of God present in his world. Mother Theresa shows~us that it is possibleto be a sign in the world. What she stands,.for speaks internationally of humanity's ability, to stand 'before the experience of the Holy. Even more exciting, what she is and has become for our age is the revelation~that a person~who is sign doesn't sim-ply point out statically something that has .happened to her or him but rather that such a sign enables the beholder to experience the Holy for him'- self. It not only'allows man to~'think about God, but it activates an en-counter between God ands.the beholder. Our interpretation of the sign be-comes experiential, not simply intuitional or cognitive. I believe that the authentic Christian witness offered by Mother Theresa and her co-workers demonstrates, by the grace of God, the essential ele-ments of signs in an eminent degree. The grace which incorporates one into 352 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 the very life of Jesus enables a human life to be a natural revelation of the supernatural reality that is present and coming: Man's. experience of the Holy as it radiates through, the person and personality of another chal-lenges with the unequivocal demand to "take off your shoes" in ~ome fashion. The call to respond is universal, that is, it °cries out to hearts of men of every tongue, time or religious .traditi0n---assuming their hearts have been initiated into the mystery of God. And there is nothing in the configura-tion of his life~style to confuse or to cloud or to bury the sign under a bushel basket. ': We know that the same grace of God confers p6tential sign value on us all, even beyond the extent.to which we surrender to its gentle usurpation of our natural self. We may need to study our lives to perceive the dynamic of their configuration. We can scrutinize what we do with our time,, what we talk about, what we expend our energies on, what delights us, what we do with our free time, what .people we interact With most often--~and why. What do people ,bring to us as topics of conversation and as cause for concern? Not just what are the ice-breakers, but what are~ the substantive issues? Or .are there any substantive issues?,, Is it just fashion~talk, hair styles, and where are the best sales, what restaurants do we like, what about the latest recording artists, what team will win the World Series, what shows are worth seeing, what books are topping the Best Sellers lists? As well.educated women and well-rounded persons, we ought to be capable and to be intrigued .by exploring all facets of the contemporary scene.Yet there is incumbent upon us always the urgency of the prophet: A voice commands: Cry! and 1 answered, "What shall I cry?. Shout with a loud voice, joyful messenger . Shout without fear, "Here is your God." (Is 40:6-9) If we spend a day without ever mentioning our God to our world; if we: converse wisely about everything else but not about the Cent6r of our lives; if for a day, and days and a day, we apply psychology and economics and political :science and medicine and pedagogy in the. healing of hearts and the enabling of those striving to break out of bondage of any sort, it well may be that we present ourselves as professional personswho can live without any practical application of our religious profession. Then it is un-derstandable that the totality of the configuration of our daily lives obscures the sign and justifies our world's propensity for reading us according to the symbol system in vogue where we are. Our anomaly gtems not from our doing anything wrong and not from our not doing anything .at all, but just from the fact that our peculiar blend of actions~and attitudes islso familiar to our people that we fail to communicate the otherness of God. ~Where Jesus is the song sung softly all day long in the hearts of his own who are called to witness to him in this day and age, the most appropriate Symbols . . . Signs .,°and the~ Times / 353 exhortation might be "Preach what you practice." In terms of this article that could be translated to mean, "Find the ways--the signs, the symbols, the. emphases in the particular blend of attitudes and activities that are our life--(to say we come) from an inner experience of the God who is present and who continuously is coming." In this sign surely we shall conquer! NoW Available, As: A Reprint,, Colloquy of God with a Soul That Truly Seeks Him ,Address: Price: ~;.30 per opy,~ 161us post~ige.' Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand '~ St. Louis, Missouri 63103 Reflections on Vowed Living1 Claire Brissette, S,S.Ch. Sister Claire. a graduate of the Center for the Study of Spirituality at the Institute of Man, Duquesne University, is engaged in ongoing formation work in her province, working with sisters primarily at the local community level. She resides at 297 Arnold St.; Wrentham. MA 02093. More than a decade ago, the Church, speaking officially through the Vatican Council, invited and challenged religious throughout the world to re-evaluate their institutional structures and to re-examine their~ lives in light of gospel values and the spirit of their founders. For most congregations and most religious men and women, the spiri~t of Vatican II soon became crystallized in the phrase "renew and°adapt." During the years immediately following the council, we opened the windows of our lives and hearts to let in the fresh air and warm sunshine of renewal chapters', of .'revised Acts of the Chapter, of experiments in life-style~ community living, apostolate and forms of prayer. We questioned the structures and values of religious liv-- ing all in a sincer~ effort to ~:espond to the dictates of Vatican II. Through- 1This article is an integration of personal reflections from various sources. In listing these sources, it is difficult to distinguish Where their thought ends and where mine-begins. I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to each of these authors and speakers for their insight which fias stimulated my own integrative reflection. Besides the publica-t'ions listed in the bibliography, the following workshops have also influenced the con-tents of this article: "The Life of the Counsels" given by Thomas Walsh, S.J. and ~Bernadette Casey, R.S.M. at the Diocesan Spiritual Life Center in Pawtucket, RI on Feb. 28-29, 1976; "Fashioning the Future,of Vowed Commitment" a ten day workshop given at Mt. Augustine, Staten Island, NY, during which nine nationally known speak-ers, m turn, provided input on a specific vow. Appreciation also goes to Susah Muto, Assistant Director of the Institute of Man,, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, for her helpful suggestions regarding the final draft, Of th~is a~rt!cle. 354 Reflections on 'Vowed Living / 355 Out this period of painful searching, we sought to discover the Spirit of the Lord guiding us through the confusion and turmoil of the~renewal. In more recent years, as~the initial turmoil has begun to subside, we have found ourselves facing and grappling with one of the deeper issues of the renewal, the meaning of our vows. Because of the :legalism that charac-terized our pre-Vatican II way of life, the meaning and living out of our. v6ws was often limited to external structures and rules. As many of these were put aside, and greater emphasis was placed on personal fulfillment and community living, poverty, celibacy and obedienc( seemed to fade into the background. We were no longer certain of (heir meaning_nor of their relevance forpost-Vatican religious life:' As we begin to take a new look at the meaning of our vowed consecration, the living of our vows is gradually emerging as the concrete expression of a personal love relationship with the Lord. In reflecting upon vowed living, 1 would like to elaborate upon the meaning of our love relationship with God, as well as on the meaning of each vow in light' of this love. Vowed Living: A Relationship of Love: A clue to the inner attitude of love which lies at the heart of our vowed living, may be found in the book of the Prophet Jeremiah:Experiencing an inner crisis, Jeremiah speaks of God rather boldly and directly, as he says, "You have seduced me, Yahweh, and I have let myself be seduced; you have overpowered me: you were the stronger" (Jr 20::7). Perhaps oi, too, living a way of life that seems absurd to our superficial world, .can address these same words to God. I can look back into my life, and perhaps remem-ber the moment I was seduced by God, the moment I felt the closeness of his presence and love in my' life, and with my whole being,, responded '~yes" to his invitation of loveTIt was a total "yes," one that would plunge me .deeply into ~n intimate sharing in the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus, pone that would demand a constantly renewed surrender Of my whole self to his hidden designs upon my life. T0,seduce and to be seduced implies a love so deep and,~so strong that it enables lovers,to move beyond the externals of looks and ways, to touch one another's hearts. In thecase of God and,myself, a human creature, I have been ocaugh~up in the' infinite love of a God for me, and.,of my total love for my God. For some mysterious reason beyond my .limited compre-hension, God has fallen in love with me; I, in turn, have responded to his love. Our love for one another is not passing or temporary. Nor is it a senti-mental love. Rather, it is a love that has been sealed in the total consecrar tion of my entire being to him. It is a love that has changed radically the ¢ '-'For a more complete and di~tailed reflection on the love-relationship aspect of the vows, see Ladislas M. Orsy, Open to the Spikit (Washington. DC: Corpus Publica-tions, 1968), pp. 71-163. 356 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 course of my life, a love so powerful that I, a human creature, have allowed myself to be seduced by a God who is Spirit. "You have overpowered me: you were the stronger." At the moment of my "yes" to God, I experienced the overwhelming reality rOf his love_for me. Caught up in the experience of such a love, I could respond only with love, accepting to follow him wherever he would lead me. In my enthusiasm, perhaps it seemed to me then that just about anything was possible:. For, in my weakness, he would be my strength. In moments of darkness, he would light 'the way. In the experience of my powerlessness, l~e,would sus-tain me with his~power. Iri moments of ,aloneness, he would be .present in the silent depths of my heart. Confident of his love for me, and relying on his strength and power, I could say "yes" to a way of life that seemed some-what out of the-ordinary. Many years, perhaps; have passed.since the d~y of my love-filled "yes" to my Lord. Since that day, I have tasted the joys of my yes, as wel! as its sorrows and disappointments. I have also felt the weight of the cross, as well as the new and deeper life that has emerged from its pain. At times, also, I have perhaps doubted my Lord, for he seemed absent when I needed him most. And my flame of faith and love seemed on the verge of being extinguished. Through the persons who have entered my life, as well as through the various situations and events that have constituted my sacred journey with my Lord, my love has been tried and tested.In his love for me, my God~ has attempted to deepen and mellow my Iove~ for him. Each day, he continues to .purify my love, to shape and mold me, making me ever more precious in his. sight. Have I let myself surrender to his mysteri-ous ways of love in my life? As I reflect upon my love-relationship with my Lord, I need to realiz6 that as a human person, I am flesh and blood, limited by time and space as well as by my very nature. I can live out this love relationship only in a way that is possible for me, given who I am as a person, and~the concrete situation in which my Lord h~is placed me. He has probed me and has known me even before I.was knit in my mother's womb (see Ps 139). He knows better than I do what are my limits and abilities.,His love demands no more than what is possible for the human person I am. He is well aware that I cannot deny my human nature or my human needs. I can only tran-scend my needs in and through the experience.of his love for me and of mine for him. I also need to keep in mind that my love relationship with God, sealed on the day of .my religious consecration, deepens and,mellows over a life-time; as does the love of a married couple. I need to respect the present level of my relationship with him; while remain, ing open each day to concrete possibilities for deepening that love. Within the context of this love relationship between my Lord and me, it becomes possible to reflect on the lived meaning of our vows. For, if we consider vowed living only on the human level, we risk becoming enmeshed Relqections. on Vowed Living / 357 in such thinking as "My human needs are repressed." Or, "Human fulfill-ment is impossible." Or again~ "This way: of life doesn't make sense?' No, it doesn't make any sense at all, if we limit our vowed living to the nar-rowness of human logic and understanding. For God's ways are not ours, and what seems wise in the eyes of men is foolishness to God. Consequently, I need to take the leap of faith into the horizon of my love relationship with my Lord in order to grasp something of the spiritual meaning of vowed living. Consecrated Celibacy:' During a recent hospitalization, I was, to some extent, an "object of curiosity" for my roommate. She questioned me at length about my~life-style and work. But what puzzled her most was my celibate commitment: She .seemed unable to grasp why any+ne would want to make stich a com-mitment. "Whatever made you do it? .How can you live that way?" she often asked; For her, a celibate way of, life seemed .almost unthinkable. And yet, before she left the hospital, she very spontaneously admitted that she had grown to feel comfortable with me, remarking that I was "OK." The attitude of my new-found friend regarding celibacy reflects the thinking of a culture which extols sexual pleasure andgratification. We need only.listen to TV commercials, look at paperback racks in the local book-stores, or glance through the newspaper movie listings to become aware of the sexual orientation of our culture, Or, we need only listdn to teenagers speak of sexuality to realize that sexual morality has changed drastically in recent years. Within this cultural context, celibacy is frowned upon and looked down upon as an impossible and repressive way of life because for many, sexual pleasure and gratification have, to some extent, taken on an absolute character. Sexuality and sexual pleasure in themselves are sacred values, willed .by God from the time of creation. Simply.sacrificing these values in. and for itself for no deeper value, does indeed lead to a repressive way of life. How-ever, viewed within the context of one's personal love-relationship with God, celibate living'takes on deeper meaning and dynamism. As my Lord becomes central in my life, he becomes the hidden trea-sure and the pearl of great price for whom I am willing to give. my whole life, all that I 'am and all that I have. As Paul tells us: aln The Vowed Li/e, va~ Kaam maintains that the attitudes of celibacy, poverty and obedience comprise the fundamental threefoldO path of human and spiritual unfolding. He sees these human attitudes already foreshadowed in the highest forms of animal life. All human persons, regardless of their life form, are called to live out these attitudes according to the specific demands of their concrete life situation. Vowed relig!ous, he says, are called to be living witnesses for the threefold path of self-unfolding. They profess to find the beginning and end of this threefold presence in Gdd. See Adrian van Kaam~ The Vowed Life (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1968), pp: 11-74. 35'8 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 Those things I used to consider gain, I "liave now reappraised as loss in the light: of the surpassing knpwledge of my Lord Jesus Christ. For his sake, I have forfeited everything; I have accounted all els~ rubbish so that Christ may be'my wealth and 1 may bein him" (Ph 3:7-9). To us, who ifi recent years; have placed much emphasis on human develop-ment and on the person, these words sound strong and absolute, demand-ing and without compromise. They may even turn us off. Yet, the challenge of the gospel, of Christianiiy, of vowed living is that over a lifetime, Christ become so central in my life, so real for me, that my human life and human values take their rightful place in light of him. Thus, the human value of the pleasure of a needy self-centered love is transcended by my total love for my Lord. He becomes the.companion of.,.my life, him in whom I live and 'move and have my being. In the exp.erience of his love, I grow in love for the human person that I am, a person with human potential and short-comings; a person entrusted with talents that I am called to own as mine and use for his love; a per~son graced with the loving presence of Father, Son and Sl~irit through the'.:gift ef baptism; a person so much in love with my Lord, that I too can willingly boast of my weaknesses, for I know and believe that his power is living and active within me (see 2 Co 12:9). Within the experience 9f God's personal love for me, I grow in self-love and self-acceptance. At the same time, I grow in respect and accept-ance of other~, the sisters I live with, the. persons I work with, those who enter into my life each day-s-loving them as they are, and allowing them to be who they are, different from me. Gradually, over a life-time, his love for me and mine for him free.;me, to some extent, from the subtle manipula-tion of using 'others for my"self-interests, or of trying to make others into my own image, and likeness. My love relationship with my Lord opens me gradually to the beauty of the other lying beneath the surface of appear-ances and behavior. In his love, I learn to transcend my own needs,"and begin to let go of my narrow labeling tendencies so as to allow the other to unfold as the unique person he or she is. Thus my celibate love fosters life within myself as well as within others. My love relationship with Christ makes me aware of his love .for others also. I do not seek to cling in a needy way to others, for ultimately, they, too, belong to God. Rather, rooted in his loxie, my love for others calls forth what is best in them. Celibate love cannot beqived in a vacuum. The deep and real sacrifice of the human love of marr!age and of a family must not turn me in on myself in a sterile, self-centered way. Rather, my capacity for love and inti-macy must gradually blossom forth in a deepening of my love for God, in the warmth and intimacy of human friendship, in the tenderness,of a love that moves outward to those with whom I live, and reaches out daily to those persons the Eoi-d allows to enter into my life, my co-workers, my stu-dents, patients or clients. R~ither than repress my human capacity for love, then, celibate love, vowed fc~r the sake of the deeper love of my Lord, frees Reflections on Vowed Living / 359 me .to spread his love warmly, tenderly, and generously, simply by being who I am and living what I am--a celibate lover/ ~ Furthermore, because I am human flesh and blood with needs, desires and passions, I may experience, at various periods in my life, and'with varying intensity, the overwhelming need for sensual satisfaction and gratifi- ¯ cation. At other times, I may experience the deep suffering of human alone-ness and of loneliness. To deny or repress any of these feelings leads only to deeper pain and suffering. Rather, I need to face my feelings, own them as .mine, and 'realize that they too are part of my being human. During .these, painful mon~ents, a living faith in my Lord's love for me, often concretized' in the love and concern of a supportive community or of a friend, may be the only means of transcending my suffering. Each encounter with my hu-~ man poverty and vulnerability becomes a renewed opportunity for strength-ening my love for my Lord as well as for other persons he places on my path to comfort and support ~me. Gradually, over a life-time, I learn to turn to him, relying on his strength and his power, aware that "when I am powerless it is then that I am strong" (2 Co 12: 10). Poverty.~ A sister friend of mine~recently graduated from college. Shortly before graduation, as she and her classmates were busily writing r6sum6s and look-ing into various job opportunities, she was approached by Rome of her friends. "What happens to your salary? Do you get.to keep the money you make?" ~ They - seemed somewhat puzzled as Sister explained to them that she turned her salary in to the community. "You mean ,you can't keep what you earn?" they replied with a kind of disbelief. Their attitude is characteris-tic of another trend within our culture. For many Americans, material wealth and possessions h~ve become important status symbols. We need only listen to various individuals speak of wanting a higher salary, of moving into a larger, more impressive home, or of buying a more expensive car, to realize that personal identity and prestige are often dependent upon one's income bracket. Everyone, rich and poor alike, is engaged in the struggle for survival, for more money and more possessions~ Part of the American dream consists in the belief that if.'one, earns enough money and. eventually works his way to the top, he will be blessed with perfect h.apptness. For many contempor~try Ameri-cans, acquiring wealth and~ possessions has become an ultimate value. 4Hinnebusch describes love as f611ows: "To Io~,e is to go out of myself as the center of interest, and to make'.the loved one the focus of attention." Paul Hinnebusch, Corn- " munity in the Lord (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1975), p. 23.~This is the kind of self-giving attitude fostered by g~nuine celibate love. ¯ ~For a more extensive development of poverty as total dependences on God, see Johannes B. Metz, Poverty o[ Spirit, trans. John Drury (Paramtis, NJ: Paulist Press, 1968). 360 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 Within this competitive materialistic culture, men and women religious vow to live poverty--not for its own sake, for poverty in and for itself is not a value to be encouraged. Rather, religious poverty becomes meaning-ful only in and through one's personal love relationship with the Lord. As I grow in the ispiritual attitude of vowed poverty, I become increasingly aware that God's love for me is so deep and so complete that he emptied himself totally'~of his equality with God, and took the form of a slave, be-coming one ofous, subjecting himself to the limitations of the human, condi-tion (see Ph 2:5-11). Once again, I find myself caught up in the mystery of my Lord's love, a love that has seduced and captured me. Only if I am truly in love with my God, rich in him, can I, in turn, gradually empty my-self of myself ~nd of material possessions. As my love relationship with him becomes central in my life, the human value of possession becomes subordi-nated to this: love, and takes its rightful place in my life. In the strength of his love, I am able .to let go, gradually, of my possessive attitude, no longer al-lowing myself to cling possessively to things such as clothing, money, food, the latest fad, machines, the community car, my own ideas, opinions, views, and.more. I recognize the need for possessions: for money, clothing, food, machines, as my friend recognized the need to earn a salary. Likewise, I recognize the need to have certain ideas, views, and opinions. But because I care so much for God, I care also for this world--for our world. Our love for one another frees me to use.things respectfully rather than possessively, with the detached attitude that allows things to be as they are, rather than with the grasping, and clinging attitude of hoarding, or of the' stubborn attitude that "my way is the right one.'''~ As my love for my Lord grows, I gradually learn to see myself in my rightful place as a.limited human creature. Through the eyes of a living~ faith, I begin to realize that my views, my opinions, my ways of doing things may be good and right for me, but remain relative for other members of the community as well as for those with whom I work. As iI become rich in the one thing necessary, the love of my Lord, the self-emptying of poverty helps me to transcend my need to totalize and absolutize. In light of my Lord's living and active presence in the cultural-historical situation of the world, I ~radually begin to distance myself from my views, values and ma-terial possessions. They are important to me at this time in my life, but they also are relative, even for myself. For if I remain flexibly open to the un, folding of my life situation, the values, principles and opinions that seem absolute for me today may be less important to me in a few years. For ex-ample, perhaps a few years ago, I was on the "band wagon~' for total, open-ness in community. At the time, openness seemed to be ~an ultimate value for community living, With time and experience, I may have come to see that openness is indeed important, but every member of the community is '~van Kaam, The Vowed Li]e, pp. 176-186. Reflections on Vowed Living / 361 not capable of the same level of openness. Consequently, the value of open-ness which at one time seemed ultimate for me, has become modified by the emergence-for-me of the deeper value of respect for the other. Through a continual self-emptying attitude, I gradually learn to let go of my opinions and views in order to become more open to the Spirit of my Lord as he expresses himself through the differing values and opinions of others, as well as through the unfolding of history. My love for my Lord enables me to learn to flow with life, expecting little, and accepting whatever comes, as it comes, rather than rigidly and possessively trying to control my" life. For, in love, I gradually come to realize that ultimately, I do not control my life; it i.s in the hands of a Father-God who loves me dearly and cares for me tenderly. Furthermore, the self-emptying of poverty viewed within the context of love, may prompt me to give myself' away through giving my time, through allowing persons and their needs'to take priority over things. In an individualistic culture .in which my life is often run by a time-clock, per-haps I have lost the art of sharing my time with others, of giving my time away for the sake of others. In silent reflection before my Lord, I gradu-ally discover how much of my time I can realistically give away, for the demands of my own life make it impossible for me to be totally available to others. While the self-emptying of poverty may at times demand that I give myself selflessly to others, this same self-emptying may at other times .require that I refuse a request, because of my personal obligations or simply because I need the time to restore myself both physically and mentally. The essence of the spirit of poverty is. that~I grow gradually into the lived realization that my life is in the hands of my Lord. In love, he .has created me. In love, he continues each day to sustain me. My love for him in turn, prompts me to empty myself of myself and slowly to detach myself from material possessions in order to create the inner space in which I may become ever more sensitive and responsive to the whispers of. his love in my daily life. The pain of self-denial and of daily dying to my self-centeredness is very real, and at times, may be overwhelming. At such moments, I need to remind myself that my Lord'~ love for me led him to the cross, the ulti-mate experience of detachment .and of self-emptying:Just as his love for his Father and for me enabled him to transcend his natural repugnance for suf-fering,? so too, my love forhim strengthens me to follow my Lord along the way of the cross, that through the pain of self-emptying, I may be glorified by an ever deeper share in his life (see Ph 2:5-11 ). Obedience A further reflection on our contemporary culture leads us to realize that the value of power, also, is highly esteemed. All of us, at some time or another, fantasize having some kind of power. Perhaps during my school years, I dreamed of being class president or president of the student council. 362 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 Or perhaps during my early years in religious life, 1 dreamed of one day being house assistant or local superior. Or;again, since ~those structures of-ten no .longer exist, perhaps my dreams are now directed toward being school principal, or head nurse, ot an influential member of tt]e parish team. What-ever my fantasy or my dream, chances are that some aspect of it is related to my drive for power. ,. Often implicit in this climb to the top of the social ladder is having power,over other human ~.persons, as well ashaving the power to make im-portant decisions. In fact, our world civilization seems to be based on a power struggle between the free world and communism. ., This power stru(:ture has .implications for ~the life of every human per-son: we often feel overpowered by technology, by the intricacies of big government and big business, by large ,agencies :that seem to control some facet of our lives, and before which we feel helpless. In turn, each of us to some degree seeks to react against, these overwhelming powers by asserting our own power within.:our small domain, be it in our limited ability to say "yes" or ,no" to issues pertaining to our personal life and work. Power in itself is to be valued, for without some degree of power, I ab-dicate the gift of my :human freedom, as well as human responsibility. How- ~everi power becomes detrimental when other human persons become ob-jects of my . personal project and desires. Then my power infringes upon their human freedom, and can become a destructive force. When this hap-pens, power, becofiaes an ultimate value for me, one by which I hope to gain some prestige and security, thereby repressing my own inner insecurity. '~ Religious men and women who vow obedience within our power-oriented world are reminders that human power, like the values of pleasure and possession, is not an ultimate value; that in light of my personal love relationship with my Lord, power is relative. For to be seduced by God means that ! allow him to have power over me. It implies that I grow in my ability to become attentive to his will, and become increasingly sensitive to his demands and desires. Our' love relationship assures me of his con-stant care and concern for me, In the security of his love, I discover the space to grow in the awareness that what he asks of me through the 'persons, events and situationg that enter into my life each day, is the concretization of his will for me at this time in my life,r Just as he speaks to me through~these realities that exist outsid ,myself, so too, he speaks through the reality that I myself am. His presence can be discovered in and through my possibilities and my limits, my desires and ¯ ambitions, my physical and emotional strengths and weaknesses. All that ¯ I am is my Lord's gift to me, a gift through which he speaks his word. Paul tells us that our deepest self is hidden in Christ, Part of our 10ve-re- ':For a further development of obedience as listening, refer to van Kaam, The VoCved LiIe; pp.'q57-169. '- Reflections on Vowed l,iving / 363 lationship then, demands that I be true to that deephst self, created in the image and likeness of .my Lord himself. To obey my deepest self, to submit myself to other persons, to events and situations demands a love so strong, that I am willing to empty myself of my desire, for total power over my own life, to accept in loving faith, that my Lord does indeed reveal himself through other creatures. In such a love, I can'.gradually loosen my grip on my own life, and slowly begin to listen more openly to persons, events, situations, both within my community and within the culture, as messengers of his divine will for me. In this loving openness, I am gradually freed from a slavish attachment to my feelings, my views, my opinions, my ideas, because I allow myself to be enriched by those of others. Recognizing the presence of my Lord in and through persons and events outside myself is difficult and challenging. For unconsciously, I tend to be-lieve that I know what is best for me. I tend to believe that what 1 know to be best for me is the concrete expression of the Lord's will in my life. How can otherpersons, each limited as I am, reveal to me anything of God's will? Such thoughts gradually close me in on my own thinking, my own ideas and opinions, somewhat like a snail closed-in in its shell. Uncon-sciously, I make myself like God, giving myself ultimate power over my life. Only in love can I gradually transcend my self-centered God-like atti-tude, and slowly begin to recognize my Lord's will for me as expressed in and through all of creation persons, events, situations.and things. In love, I discover the strehgth to die daily to my own will, in order to allbw my Lord's will to live and to be express~ed in and th.rough the limited human person that I am. Thus, every person who enters into my life, as well as everything that happens in my life becomes an integral part of my~ personal sacred history with my Lord. Conclusion ¯ A~' I reflect upon vowed living within the context of my personal love relationship with God, I can begin to see my vows as gifts which invite me to a continual deepening of this love relationship. For no longer is God a distant Spirit imposing upon me the obligations of the vows; rather, He be-comes Someone for me, someone real and personal inviting me to an ever ,deeper intimacy with °him through the sacred bond of my vows. As this intimacY deepens, I grow in the awareness of my need for him. I cannot live my vows on my own strength; I need to rely on his power. Paul tells us that "We possess this treasure in earthen vessels, to make it clear that its surpassing power comes from God and not from us" (2 Co 4:7). In hu-man terms, my vowed life makes no sensi~; it is foolishness in the eyes of men. Moreover, on the human levd alone, ].am unable to live such a way of life. It is delicate, fragile and vulnerable; ever exposed to the opposition of my own human nature and of controversial forces in our world. 364 / Review ]or Religious, I/olume 36, 1977/3 Living my vows becomes possible only through the centrality of my per: sonal love relationship with my Lord. In that love, I am graced with the strengtl~ and power, to re~spond to his constant invitation to enter into the self-emptying process. Our Lord is a jealous God who wants to possess me totally. He promises in return, to fill my emptiness with his loving presence. Each call to self-emptying is an invitation to die to some aspect of my old ~self; my needy self, constantly in search of the security of human power, pleasure and possession. However, this death is but a means of leading me to a life of deeper intimacy with him. It is a death c.alling me constantly to the new and deeper freedom of love. Each day of my life, he seduces me, calling me t6 a.morb personal" rela-tionship with him. Each day of my life, I must allow myself to be seduced-- to give him love for love, relying on his strength and his power. This call is a daily challenge, the challenge of living my "yes" to him. Am I willing to follow him all the way; ever open to i:laily situations as so many con-crete opportunities .for deepening my love through consecrated celibate .love, through self-emptying poverty and through freeing obedience? Now Available As A Reprint, ¯ Prayer of Personal Reminiscence: Sharing One's Memories with Christ by David J. Hassel, S.J. Address: Price: $.60 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand St. Louis, Missouri 63103 Toward Further Self-Definition William F, Hogan, C.S~C. Father Hogan is an Assistant General and General Procurator of his congregation'. His last article in these pages, "Communily Reconsidered," appeared in the September; 1976 issue. He resides Via Framura, 85; 00168 Roma, Italy. In' Per]ectae Caritatis the Fathers of Vatican II told us that it serves the best interests of the (~hur~h for religious institutes to have their own special character.and purpose. Thus, the spirit of founders and all the particular goals and traditions that constitute the patrimony of each religious institute should be recognized and safeguarded (See 'PC 2,,b). This statement oc-casioned a flurry of activity in some religious communities to start research-ing their traditions to ,.confirm again the self-definition of each community, and to stir up interest in the spirit of their founders. In many instances this activity has bo~ne fruit in that the religious have been put more'clearly in touch with their particular roots and have slowly effected,some changes of direction in their life and apostolic stance. In other institutes, the spurt of renewed interest subsided almost as fast as it. began, especially in those congregations in which nothing particularly unique seemed to stand out. The call to discover the uniqueness of one's heritage is being reasserte~i in the proposed new text of the law for instittitesof the consecrated,life; for those who have framed the proposed text have taken very seriously the mandate of Vatican II about' preserving,the patrimony of each religious in-stitute. Instead of drawing up legislation to cove'r all the points on religious life in a uniform way, as th( present law in. good part does, they are pro-posing general principles of Jaw within which each institute is to draw up its particular norms in accordance with its own traditions. By taking such a direction, the new law, if it be approved,, will be inviting and requiring of religious greater efforts at community self-understanding and self-definition. In order to meet this demand, it will be necessary for members of religious 365 366 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 institutes, and in particular members of general chapters, to develop a re-fined awareness of the founder's charism, the continuing charisms of the congregation as expressed into traditions and in its spiritual and apostolic heritage, a clear sense of where the institute has been in the past, where it is in the present and where the legacy of the founder and the traditions of the community are pointing for the future. That there is still a widespread need for further self-understanding and self-definition is becoming apparent from the various interim constitutions and position papers of religious institutes. Prior to the decree on renewal of religious life (Ecclesiae sanctae, August 6, 1966) and the directive to revise constitutions, the legislation of religious institutes had a remarkable sameness because constitutions had to conform to the ~Norms of 1901 and the subsequent rules of the Sacred Congregation, promulgated in 1921, which, had to be followed in seeking approbation for the texts of new constitutions. Today a new similarity is emerging, although it bears little resemblance to the primarily legal approach of the pre-sixties. The present-day "sameness of texts" appears to be rooted~in the fact that religious in-stitutes have followed the" lead of the council and gone back to the gospel roots of religious !ife, t0_us considering it as flowing out of the baptismal commitment. As -a result of this important emphasis on religious life in the context of the gospei and of bap~tism, underscoring, as it does, the.thorough-ly Christian nature of religious life, frequently the same scriptural and conciliar texts are cited. And in the process of situating the religious insti-tute in its proper ecclesial and Christian context,.little, or at least, insufficient stress,,~.is placed 6n those particular ways in which the founder wished to emphasize the gospel message and on those facets of. the Christ-life revealed through the Spirit's activity in his or her life and mission. Generally speak-ing, all religious have~'been very conscious of the need to express religious life in terms of a broad ecclesial vision and to avoid any instances of the exaggerated c~ngregationai emphasis~that may have closed them in on them-selves in the past. But in meeting, this issue, they may be.losing sight of that part of their contribution to the life of the Church which consists in positively developing their particular heritage. There is ~no reason why there cannot be harmony and balance between .the ecclesial and the peculiarly congregational elements, and thus a clearer understanding of the role of a particular .religious institute in the Church. For some religious institutes it may be rather difficult to grasp the unique-ness of their heritage, especially if they have been founded since the 1800's, when many congregations came to birth under the ~inspiration of. the Spirit ¯ to meet particular needs in some specific geographic area, and have pat-terned themselves on-other, already existi.ng congregations. But even in such instances, there.may well exist a uniqueness of insight and emphasis fr6m the founder, the early members and the riches that have accumulated~from the various religious over the years--spiritual, intellectual, apostolic riches that Toward Further Sel[-Definition / 367 constitute the legacy, of the congregation. It is these factors that will have to be borne in mind in delineating the norms of law for the congregation' today, and that will yiel'd the necessary self-understanding of the religious institute. Religiou,s today often have recalled in liturgies or at congregational gatherings concerned with community and plurality the celebrated text from the_ first epistle to the Corinthians: There are different 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 12:4ff,). And similarly from Ephesians: ~And his gifts were that some should be apogtles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers in roles of service for the faithful to build up, the body of Christ. till we become one in faith and in the knowl-edge of God's Son, and form that perfect man who is Christ come to lull stature (Ep 4:11-13). The't~exts in themselves obviously speak of individual gifts of the Spirit to the Church; but in the modern context they can well'remind us of the diversity of gifts and charisms within the categories of the traditional gifts in the Church. If religious life itself is a gift of the Spirit to the Church, as the Church teaches, then even more precisely is the religious life of a particular institute a special gift of the Spirit to the Church for the building up of the Church. And the religious of the institute should seek to fathom the gift in all its particular aspects. The° gifts of diverse religious institutes to the Church reflect the many-faceted splendor of the Father's love for his peo-ple. Our response to that love should reflect the facets of that love as these are particularized in our institutes and their heritage.- To continue to reflect on and search out the heritage'of a religious in-stitute demands the continued expenditure of psychological energy. Yet many religious are tired of devoting their energies~this way, especially in view of the crying needs of mankind ~hom they are called to serve. The self-definition and self-understanding being requested of them may no longer be seen as a value worth pursuing. It cannot be denied that there are many demands on religious today, and they must~become ~selective in which de-mands they will meet. But in developihg personal and ~ollective criteria for responding to demands, religious must not forget.that the time and effort spent in self-understanding and self-definition is~ultimatelyfor the sake of greater and more meaningful service to others and for the building up of the life of the Church. The deeper the unde.rstand!ng of the call of the Spirit .,to the founder and those who have come after him, the deeper and more intense could be the response. And the growth in appreciation of the gift Of the Spirit that is a particular religious institute contributes to growth in wonder and appreciation of the gift that is Church. 368 / Review Jor Religious, Volume "36, 1977/3 . If the proposed direction of the new law for institutes of the conse-crated life is adopted in the Church, religious could be the richer spiritually for what it will necessitate in terms of further self-definition. But if the easier, more .comfortable path is followed of just latching on to that which is familiar, without serious examination of roots and traditibns, then the opportunity for seizing onto the uniqueness of God's gift of the particular institute will be lost. Every religious group was called into being because of a unique need in 'the Church. The continuance and growth of'institutes is suppo~sed to be .in terms of their umque contributions to the life of the Church and the world. This uniqueness is born of the special love of God for the founder and those who have succeeded the founder with the passage of time, all unique persons, who, in sharing life and ministry together, should be creating a unique response to God, the Church and the world. We need to know exactly where our insl, itutes are "new" in terms of this uniqueness, how we have arrived at this point through our traditions and history, and the best steps to promote ot~r response within a thoroughly Christian and ec-clesial religious life for the future. The Church's renewed call to the dis-covery of uniqueness deserves a serious answer if we value the gifts of God that are our institutes. ~ The Pregnancy The cloistered life within her sends the fire that burns her cheek-- Nature's proud assertion; Life's excited'glow; The insuppressible, open declaration Of yesterday's.creation and tomorrow's warm embrace. A compliant constitution accommodates her child--~ Time's prodigy care~ering toward release From cell to self so he may show his face And state in gurgled language instinctive gratitude. Never more important or more vital to another; ~ Linked by blood and substance in protracted intimacy O~f singular and enviable duration-- A high point in the human testament of love. A legacy for embattled man to learn from-- Acceptance, peace, surrender of one's self, Belief'in time hnd patience that reveals The unfathomable restoration of life's fragments in a soul. Donald DeMarco St. Jerome's College Waterloo, Ontario N2L _3G3 Canada Chapter Delegate" Qualities and R esponsi bi I iti es Robert Morneau Father Morneau is an Instructor of Philosophy at Silver Lake College; Manitowoc, WI 54220~ The significance of general chapters of religious communities cannot be overstressed. The responsibility of providing and sustaining a vision, the challenge to be true to the gospel while preserving the uniqueness of the community's special charism, the mandate to read the signs of the times and yet have a universal sensitivity, all demand diligent work and competent deliberators. This article is an attempt to describe some of the qualifies in-herently crucial to the fulfillment of the above challenges and to specify areas of responsibility following upon election as a delegate to a general chapter. Essentially what is being offered is a job description, a delineation ot~ the functions of a trusted steward, The thesis of this article is that a chapter delegate is called to be a dialogical person, a prophetic person, and a wounded healer.' / Delegate: A Dialogical Person God our Father is a God of revelation. In the precious mystery of his grace, he has chosen to reveal himself and his gracious love to mankind. Throughout history God .has communicated with his people, calling all crea-tion to life and fidelity. As a diaiogical God, he longs to speak his love and forgiveness; he searches out those who will listen and respond to his word. ~The image of wounded healer is taken from Henri J. M. Nouwen's book by the same title. 369 370 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 God has spoken and told us where he is and who he is. We are called to imitate our Father: "Try, then, to imitate God, as children of his that he loves. " (Ep 5: ! ); we do this from one perspective by becoming dialogi-cal persons. Our model is the Father who shares himself with us in word and sacrament. The qualities of a dialogicai person are many; we will limit our con-sideration to three essential attitudes that must be present if authentic com-munication is to happen. The first and perhaps most difficult quality of a dialogical person is listening. Monologues are terribly common in life; empty, one-sided discourses in which no one is listening and probably no one is thinking. Dialogue demands attentive listening, feeling behind the words into the reality being expressed. This type of listening is concerned not with simple, audible comprehension but with a compassionate desire to enter into the world of the speaker to see what has been seen, to hear what has been given. An example of this sensitive listening can be found in Tolstoy's classic War and Peace: He told of these adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now, as it were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he was tell-ing it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man has when women listen to him--not clever women who when listening either try to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their own little mental workshop--but the pleasure given by real women gifted with a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself. Natasha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word, not a single quiver in Pierre's voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in his face, nor a single gesture. ~ She caught the unfinished word in its flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret meaning of all Pierre's mental travail.'-' If a delegate is to truly listen, there must be some degree of interior silence.Turning off the inner engines is difficult and demands discipline, yet so necessary if the message is to be understood and the feelings are to o be appreciated. C. S. Lewis expressed well our dilemma: "Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement.":' To obtain this silence we must deal with our own fears, insecurities and prejudices. These tendencies block lis-tening, put us into the land of defensiveness and create a sense of being threatened. Secure in our forts, with drawbridge raised and the moat filled with crocodiles, we protect ourselves from new ideas, visions and possibili-ties. Again C. S. Lewis drives home the point: "He could never empty, or silence, his own mind to make room for an alien thought.''~ A chapter dele- "Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, tr. by Louise and Aylmer Maude. (New York, 1942), p. 1241. By permission of the Oxford University Press. :'C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (New York, 1944), p. 140. 4C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York, 1955), p. 184. Chapter Delegate: Qualities and Responsibilities / 371 gate must listen and discern. Electing a nondialogical person to a chapter is like inviting a deaf person to a concert or taking someone who is blind to an art museum. Neither experience nor growth is possible if essential capaci-ties are lacking~ Listening is essential to dialogue. A second quality of a dialogical person is trust. In an essay written in 1952, Martin Buber stated: "But here is an essential presupposition for all this dialogue: it is necessary to overcome the massive distrust in others and also that in ourselves.''~ If Buber's observation is correct, and there seems to be sufficient evidence to,verify his reflection, we have a lot of growing to do. We must reestablish trust in others and in ourselves. H~opefully, we will gr~aund our trust on the theological fact that God has faith and trust in us. He has given us freedom and intelligence, blessed us with insight and grace. We are his stewards entrusted to do his work in our times. Sensing this, a delegate must come to a radical trust in his own personal insight and conviction. This trust must then be extended to others who are also on the journey searching for truth and goodness. Nothing breaks down communica-tion so quickly as distrust; it hardly pays to initiate a discussion unless there is a solid degree of self-confidence and a climate of confidence in others. Buber, quoting Robert Hutchins, writes: "The essence of the Civiliza-tion of the Dialogue is communication. This presupposes mutual respect and understanding, it does not presuppose agreement.'"; Our trust in self and others must be supplemented with respect and the ability to understand. It would be profitable for delegates to spend some time critically reading Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" and Howe's The Miracle o[ Dialogue. Desire ]or truth is a third quality of the dialogical person. A longing for insight and perspective characterizes the mind and heart of a truth-seeker. Like an ink blotter, this type of person quickly and completely absorbs truth wherever it presents 'itself. Desire for truth means being in contact with facts (hard data). There is no excuse for ignorance; the homework must be done. Besides researching and interpreting facts, truth demands contact with basic principles, those patterns of meanings which explain and eluci-date reality. Experience and reflection are prerequisites here. Besides dealing with facts and principles, desire for truth calls for the basic disposition mani-festing a willingness to change and grow. Regardless of who speaks a "pagan" philosopher, a formed provincial, a member in one's local commur nity, a poet--the searcher for truth listens and evaluates. So often God is speaking through these and other historical channels. If the search is honest, change will be demanded; certain, pet ~:ategories will be dropped and new ones added (e.g., collegiality) ; treasured prejudices must be let go and open-ness of mind fostered; static, rigid formulations must be reexamined in the :'Martin Buber, "Hope for This Hour;" quoted in Maurice S. Friedman, ed., Pointing the Way (New York, 1974), p. 222. ~;ibid., p. 222. 372 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 light of new research and insight. The process is painful and not without its victims but this is the price of honest discipleship. If a chapter delegate is called to imitate God by being a dialogical per-son characterized by attentive listeniiag, deep trust and a desire for truth, several responsibilities automatically arise. (1) A chapter delegate must be available to the people he represents. The thinking, feeling and life-style of his ~onstituency must be familiar material to the delegate. The duty of being available is not without its price: time and energy, precious and limited commodities, must be sacrificed in fulfilling this obligation. (2) A chapter delegate must be able to make distinctions. Meriol Trevor, in her biography of Cardinal Newman, wrote concerning Ft. Faber: "He would never dis-tinguish between disapproval and dislike; he himself always spoke of hating people who disagreed with him and he could not believe others were differ-ent.'' r This type of person should not be allow~id to be in the arena of policy making. One must be able to know and experience the difference between understanding and agreeing, between a person and an issue, between an idea and its emotive force. Chapters in which such distinctions are consistently made result in community growth and peace. (3) A chapter delegate must be willing to speak during the chapter proceedings. Some eloquent (and not so eloquent) discourses on stairways and in other private areas would be more profitably shared with the. entire group. There 'is no excuse for devastating criticisms made outside the halls of the chapter room and silence reigning within. As a general principle no one should say outside of chapter what he is not willing to say to the whole group. A delegate is mandated to speak out, to take a stance, to express points of view. If this is done with respect and in the spirit of truth, there should be tittle to fear. Merton's insight is helpful: "Ignorance is the parent of fear.''~ Our talk should flow from our study and reflection on life. Delegate: A Prophetic Person Jesus was a prophet. The study of Scripture verifies this fact and. further points out that throughout the Old Testament the Father sent prophets on special missions. Jesus' mission was unique and yet contained the basic in-gredients of those who preceded him: to reveal who the Father was and also to provide the means whereby people might return to the Father. Like Christ, the chapter delegate is missioned. This "being sent" comes through the community and the task flowing from this mission resembles that of all the prophets. The booklet Spiritual Renewal o[ the American Priesthood describes the prophet in these terms: The prophet's function was to perceive the presence or absence of God in situations and to point out the consequences of that presence or absence. A 7Meriol Trevor, Newman: Light in Winter (New York, 1963), p. 86. ,'Sotlrce unknown. Chapter Delegate: Qualities and Responsibilities / 373 prophet had to know contemporary issues, but even more, he had to be sensi-tive to the mind and will of God.:' In the context of this prophetic role, certain traits clearly emerge that would characterize a chapter delegate. The first of these is sensitivity. This sensitivity must embrace the three sectors of time: the past with its treasures and cultural limitations, the present with its high ideals and ambiguous facts, the future with its plans and realistic hopes. It is possible and often happens in life that we eat but do not taste, read but do not comprehend, listen but do not hear. Historical insensitivity cannot be excused; we must be in touch with our roots and our traditions. Unless carefully nurtured, this sensitivity can be lost. Sensitivity demands that we perceive what is happen- .ing here and now; that we enter in or are caught up by the present moment. This is not just a cognitive apprehension, since it necessarily includes an affective involvement~ The future will be basically meaningless if we do not avoid the tragedy of lost sensitivity written of by Hopkins: Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wear man's smudge and shares man's smell; the soul ls bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.~° It is time once again to take off our shoes/' to be sensitive to our world, to our people, to our deepest self. A sense of reverence, awe and wonder is much needed in our merry-go-round world. Prophets are, of necessity, courageous people. If Emerson is correct in saying that "God will not make himself manifest to cowards,''r-' then the V~rtue of fortitude takes on added importance in fostering the kingdom. Among the courageous people in history, St. Paul has been honored in a special way: ¯ . . But the big courage is the cold-blooded kind, the kind that never lets go even when you're feeling empty inside, and your blood's thin, and there's no kind of fun or profit to be had, and the trouble's not over in an hour or two but lasts for months and years. One of the men here was speaking about that kind, and he called it 'Fortitude.' I reckon fortitude's the biggest thing a man can have--just to go on enduring when there's no guts or heart left in you. Billy h~id' it when he trekked solitary from. Garungoze to the Limpogo with ~This booklet, edited by Gerard Broccolo and Ernest E. Larkin, O. Carm., was pub-lished in 1973 by the Publications Office of the United States Catholic Conference ( 1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., WashingtoniDC 20005). ~'~Gerard Manley Hopkins, "God's Grandeur." ~V'Earth's crammed with heaven And every common bush afire with God; And only he who sees takes off his shoes-- The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries." Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Aurora Leigh." I~Ra!ph Waldo Emerson, "The Over-Soul." 374 / Review lot Religious, ~'olume 36, 1977/3 fever and a broken arm just to show the Portugooses that he wouldn't be downed by them.,But the head man at the job was the Apostle Paul . 1:~ Courage helps us to deal,with two tendencies that permeate human existence: the tendency to fear the unknown and the drive to flee spontaneously from any object of danger. "Fright and flight"14 can block us from experiencing reality to its fullest. Courage enables us ~to stand firm and fight when the situation calls for this type of response; courage enables us to die to our-s~ lves for the sake of life. A delegate, knowing well what happens to most prophets in history, will have to face many dangers and crosses. At times his courage will manifest itself in patient endurance (the most difficult type of courage), while at other times he will be called upon to pounce on evil.1'~ Whatever is not compatible with the gospel must be courageously ques-tioned; whatever is antihuman or subhuman must be diligently removed. Living courage is a great boon to the entire community, not just to the in-dividual exercising that gift. A third trait of the prophetic person, exemplified so clearly in the life of Jesus, is that of vision. A delegate is called upon to have a perspective of what religious life is, to be able to situate in their context contemporary. issues, to sense the interrelationship among such things as prayer, asceticism and the apostolate. The blind cannot lead; only a person with vision can point the way. If a guide has not been to a given territory or if he loses the map which would get him there by carefully reading, he is no longer an asset to the group which relies on him. The delegate without vision con-tributes little in the attempt to provide meaning and direction for the com-munity. Two dangers have always plagued a healthy perspective: myopia and ignorance. The first danger allows one to see, but only to the end of one's nose--not a terribly helpful overview. Ignorance, th~ second danger, can only result in a valley experience even though the voice of the ignorant leader be forceful, and filled with an apparent self-confidence. A number of responsibilities become obligatory for the prophetic dele-gate. (1) A chapter delegate must be informed. Study and researizh will be as necessary and as natural as breathing for such a person. There is no excuse for not being aware of contemporary issues, the movements of our present culture, the meaning and influence of history. The presence or absence of information is relatively easy to detect. (2) If a person is to.be attuned to the mind and heart of God, prayer is necessary. Special emphasis should be placed on scriptural prayer since it is God's word which illuminates our understanding of contemporary issues. If the porters at the chapter doors should bar the uninformed, they should be twice as diligent in barring l:~John Buchan, Mr. Stead[ast; quoted in C. H. Dodd, The Meaning o[ Paul/or Today (London, 1920), p. 7. ~4Rev. Kevin O'Shea, "Enigma and Tenderness," Spiritual Li]e, Spring, 1975. ~sSee the. excellent Thomistic treatment of the virtue of fortitude in Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame, 1966), pp. 117-141. ,Chapter Delegate: Qualities and Responsibilities / 375 a person who does not pray faithfully. (3) A chapter delegate should be a person of decision. Newman in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua states: "Certitude is a reflex action; it is to,know that one knows.""; Study and prayer should lead us to this type of certitude which in turn enables us to make serious decisions, even though there will always be some element of risk if not doubt. Another facet in this process of decision making is the,willingness to assume responsibility for the decisions made. Indecisive and irresponsible persons should not be elected to chapters. The duties of being informed, prayerful and decisive are not acquired in a day not even a week. Yet the delegat~ should be growing in each of these areas if the community is to be served well. Delegate: A Wounded Healer Jesus promised that when he had returned to the Father he would send their Spirit. That promise has been realized in all who have come to believe in the Lord. This Spirit is leading all back to the Father through Christ; this Spirit is a Spirit of love, joy and peace. Through the Holy Spirit, heal-ing and reconciliation happens in our world today. A great vision of unity found in Pauline theology becomes a reality to the extent that people are living the life of the Spirit. Yet this vision of unity is premised on the tragic fact and acute awareness that fragmentation permeates creation. Man is divided within himself and separated from his fellow man, his God, and his world. We are a wounded pe~ople, scarred and battered by our own sins and the sins of others. "Everything God has made has a crack in it.'''r Our voca-tion is to make all one in Christ, to reconcile all creation to the Father. The gift of the Spirit dwelling in the Church and in our personal lives enables us to begin this glorious and painful task. The delegate as wounded healer is distinguishable by a sense of deep compassion. Graced with the ability to perceive things from the inside, the compassionate person has a knowledge of the heart and not just of external activity. The secret of the fox18 is undoubtedly correct: "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." Compassion promotes our seeing what is truly significant;.it goes far beyond the inhuman limitations of our sensate culture. So often in Scripture, reference is made to the neces-sity of a new heart.':' God's word urges us to .grow in compassion and empathy. Insensitivity to the hurts and pains of others, even though these may be self-imposed, prevents the building of community. Compassion heals! Hopefully, every deli~gate has had the experience of being healed a6Early in his book Newmah writes, "In the first chapter of this narrative I spoke of certitude as the consequence, divinely intended and enjoined upon us, of the accumula-tive force of certain given reasons which, taken one by one, were only probabilities." lrRalph Waldo Emerson, "Compensation." lSAntoine de Saint Exupery, The Little Prince (New York, 1943). 1:'E.g., Jeremiah 31 : 31-34; Ezechiel 36:24-28. 376 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 through the heartfelt concern of others. Perhaps the task of the doctor applies to all of us: "sometimes to cure, often to alleviate, always to care.''z'' Compassion is care incarnated. The destructive force of nuclear warfare is so obvious that no on.e can deny its effects; less obvious but extremely powerful in the psychological realm is the prevalent killer called judgmentalism. A delegate must be a non~ judgmental person. This does not mean that one ceases making judgments, judgments which at times are sharp and painful. God has blessed us with reason and insight and we must ferret out the truth and the falsity of our lives and the life of the community. We cannot renege on our responsibility to find the truth and to speak it boldly. Judgmentalism, on the other hand, uses the faculty of reason but in an abusive way. Judgments are made, not on dis-cernible consequences, but on motives which cannot be verified. Evidence is wanting, yet persons are judged and insinuations are made. This type of iudgmentalism is characterized by intolerance (a demand that everyone live by my interpretation of religious life), a defensiveness and air of hostility, a lack of warmth and affability. A delegate, therefore, should have a delicate balance between tolerance of persons and intolerance of falsity; between respect for the individual and firmness in sticking to principles; between understanding the human condition and calling each other to growth. We come to realize that without the gift of the Spirit we cannot but fail in this stupendous task. Again we are helped in this area by realizing that we have been blessed in our personal histories with people who have refused to judge and condemn us, who have manifested an infinite patience in allowing us to grow through the stages of personal development. If we have been ~he object of judgmentalism, our experience should forever prevent us from venturing down that road of psychological and spiritual destructiveness. The word of God provides light for our pilgrimage. In the prophet Micah, we are challenged by the Father's woi~d: this is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.21 The call to justice, charity and faith is clear. Interestingly, spiritual love has the quality of tenderness, a-term which forcefully describes the manner in which we are to reach out to others in concern. It is possible to serve un-willingly, to meet needs because of duty, to heal out of necessity. This is neither sufficient nor healthy in an ultimate sense. God calls us to enter fully and generously into the lives of others. A tender love, a gentle con-cern, a warm respect characterize total love. Underlying this kind of love is the keen realization that human beings are terribly fragile. Indeed, "avalances gather force and crash, unheard, in men as in the mountains." "-'°America, May 1, 1976, p. 377. Paul Ramsey was quoted by the authors. '-'1Micah 6:8. Chapter Delegate: Qualities and Responsibilities / 377 People with whom we live can be breaking apart inside without our aware-ness; a tender word and radical love can heal so many lives that are on the edge.of despair. A chapter delegate would benefit from reading Fr. Kevin O'Shea, especially his article "Enigma and Tenderness.''~ The chapter delegate, a wounded healer, is challenged to fulfill certain responsibilities in this area. (1) He must ]ace the negative in self, others and the world. A recent Cartoon showed a street cleaner lifting up the edge of a sidewalk under which he swept the city's debris. No healing can take place unless we honestly and courageously face that which is destructive within life. Exploitation and manipulation are too common to be ignored; these must be searched out and dealt with in a reasonable way. (2) He should ]ace the positive in self, community and the world. Just as dangerous as the rug syndrome is the denial of or unwillingness to recognize the vast potential waiting to be actualized in creation. Leadership qualities lie fallow because of fear; intellectual skills remain untapped because of a lack of .challenge; talents stay on shelves for want of affective nutrients. "Our in-tellectual and active powers increase with our affection.'"-':' The truly great person has the vision to perceive the gifts of others~ the truly great person has disciplined productivity and shares his love and life with others. The delegate must perceive and promote the gifts and talents given by the Lord. (3) He should rejoice in life. Nothing heals so quickly as genuine humor and authentic play. Joy is one of the signs of the Spirit's presence. It flows from an awareness of God's personal love and the gift of his life. Consoling Conclusion It is eminently unfair.to demand of a single individual the. multiple qualifications listed in the foregoing pag.es. Who could possibly fulfill the following want-ad posted on the community .bulletin board? WANTED!!! 25 people who are: !) dialogicai persons --who have deep capacity to listen, trust, learn --who are available, discerning, vocal 2) prophetic persons who are --sensitive, courageous, visionary --informed, prayerful, decisive 3) wounded healers who are --compassionate, non-judgmental, tender --realistic, joyful ~20'Shea, op. cit. ~:~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Friendship." 378 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 Although applications might be filled out, no one person could qualify in every area. The first spiritual Olympics are yet to be held. Consolation comes from the fact that chapters are not made up of only one individual. Rather, they a~:e community affairs and the principle of complementarity comes inio play. What one lacks, 6thers have. The above job description is not so much one for individuals as it is for a community. Because of the blessing of pluralism, many communities could easily qualify. Tragic is the election in a community that allows a strong predominance of a single personality type. Once again, it is diversity ttiat leads to life; a di-versity grounded in concern for the kingdom. Beginnings Somewhe.re, in the night I hear you gathering pebbles for tomorrow's task.' Take care to slip a stir amidst the stones you gather; temples hold fast with dreams. Only a locust lurks in the wrinkled meadows, keeping company with the wheat that waits to be reaped by our tears. Together we will meet you at the altar when only the sound of bees will be heard preparing waxen sacrifices for your vacant vigil. Until then, I will be chanting antiphons in tune with your canticles. Sister Carole MacKenthun St. Mary Academy 250 Forest Ave., Lakewood, NI 08701 The "System" Side of Stewardship Gerald R. Amelse Mr. Amelse has been a church finance manager and consultant for sixteen years. He studied Accounting, Business Administration and Economics at The Catholic Univer-sity, the University Of Notre Dame, George Washington University and the University of Maryland. Culrently he is a partner of Calkins-Amelse Associates, which offers management services for non-profit organizations. His office is located at 4531 Pine-crest Heights Drive; Annandale, VA 22003. The widely publicized financial mishaps of several Catholic Church organi-zations in recent years have brought into question the quality of church financial management in general and of financial management in religious congregations in particular. Public attention has tended to focus on the caliber of the financial administrators and advisors involved in these cases rather than on the adequacy of the underlying systems of financial organi-zation, policies .and procedures in each instance. Responsible stewardship can result only when qualified administrators function within an appropriate financial management system. An unsound financial management system; in whole or in part, can be as inimical to responsible stewardship as unquali-fied administrators or advisors. A sound financial management system is equally important for religious congregations because of their changed environment. For several genera-tions, ~religious congregations in the United States enjoyed almost steady growth in membership, resources, activities .and facilities. Now, however, total memberships are static, if not in actual decline; new needs, such as retirem6nt, are making additional claims on already limited resources, and the maintenance of much needed apostolic acti~,itie's and institutions is be-coming increasingly more difficult. Financial management systems developed and used during previous generations may have been adequate in an era 379 380 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/3 of growth. The present environment, however, requires a system that will improve the ability of a congregation to meet~ increasing internal and apostolic needs with limited and declining resource potential. The exercise of responsible stewardship today calls for clear financial organization, appropriate financial policies, and sound budgeting, account-ing and reporting procedures. Church leaders should be concerned about the adequacy of' their organization's financial management system and anxious to improve it in each of the following areas: Financial Organ&ation A congregation's financial organization is the structure of its formal decision-making positions, the relationships between those positions, and the lines of their accountability. Besides the standard positions (treasurer, controller, and so forth) a congregation's financial organization should also identify the individuals responsible for specific programs, projects, activities and departments, and clearly define their respective roles, relationships and lines of accountability. Lack of clarity in a congregation's financial organi-zation can easily lead to flawed communications, loss of direction, duplica-tion of effort, and wastefulness in the exercise of responsible stewardship. Financial Policies A policy is a definite course or method of action, selected from .among alternatives and in light of given conditions, to guide and determine present and future decisions. Without a comprehensive set of clear financial policies, officials and administrators ~i'e, in effect, more or less free to make financial decisions according to their individual discretion rather than according to previously approved courses of action. The four major sources of financial policies for a religious congregation are: Church law, norms and guidelines; the congregation's own rule and constitution; formal enactments of the congregation,s governing body; and day-to-day operating decisions. It is the responsibility of the congregation's governing body, however, to have a summary of financial policies prepared and periodically to review and approve it. Budgeting The budget is a congregation's principal financial planning tool. The long-range planning aspect of a budget (i.e., two or more years') should identify the congregation's future sources" and uses of funds, project the amounts of revenue anticipated from each identified source and project the amounts of expenditures required for each identified use. The short-range aspect (i.e., month, quarter, year) should detail the estimated ex-penditures for each proposed program, project, activity and department, and itemize the specific means of financing the expenditures. Since the objective of a budget is the development of a financial plan, it The "System" Side o[ Stewardship / 381 is necessary to begin the budgeting process with information about the programs, projects, activities and departments which the congregation is planning for the coming year(s). Information on past performance is an importarit input to the budgeting process, but relying too heavily on ac-counting data and financial reports (which are historical in character) can create the danger that.a congregation's budget will reflect more what has happened in the past rather than what the congregation wants to happen in the future. Clear financial organization is essential for sound budgeting. A budget can not be completely useful as a planning tool until the individuals re-sponsible for each program, project, activity and department have been identified and their responsibility for performance against the plan and budget has been accepted by them. Furthermore, budgets that are prepared without the participation of the persons responsible for directing specific programs, projects, activities and departments are generally weak as plan-ning tools. Program, project, activity and d~epartments heads can not be expected to comprehend fully, agree with or conform to a financial plan in which they did not participate in developing. Accounting ~nd Reporting The financial statements of religious congregations are meant to provide superiors, administrators, members and other interested parties with a mean-ingful summarization of the congregation's overall financial condition as well as the operating results of its programs, projects, activities and ~depart-merits. In order to achieve this purpose more effectively, congregations should introduce both "fund" and "functional" accounting procedures into their basic accounting systems. A fund is a sum of money or other resource, set aside for a specific pur-pose acc~ording to restrictions imposed either by the intent of the donor or" by regulation of the congregation's officials~ Grants, annuities and endow-ments are examples of funds whose uses are restricted by the intent of the donor. A retirement fund is an example of money set aside for a specific purpose by regulation of the congregation's officials. The significant char-acteristic of fund accounting is that it classifies and records the financial transactions within each fund--assets, liabilities, receipts, disbursements and fund balances--according to the specified restrictions. Functional accounting records expenses according to specific programs, projects, activities and departments, and reports this information to the administrators directly responsible for these functions. This procedure im-proves expense control and also provides a practical basis for realistically evaluating the allocation and use of the congregation's limited resources. A congregation could be led' tO revamp its finanEial plans of action when confronted with financial information that enables a comparison of pro-gram, project, activity and department ~osts with their intended results. 3a2 / Review jot Religious, lZolume 36, 1977/3. oaelusion Financial organization, policies and procedures are not the only aspects of responsible stewardship. They are, nonetheless, essential elements of-sound financial management and control. Any congregation that finds its present management system to be somewhat inadequate should obtain qualified assistance to help review and strengthen it wherever necessary. REPRINTS FROM THE REVIEW Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of Discernment of Spirits by J. R. Sheets, S.J. .50 Retirement or Vigil by B. Ashley, O.P. .30 The Confessions of Religious Women by St. M. Denis, S.O.S. 30 The Four Moments of Prayer by J. R. Sheets, S.J. .50 The Healing of Memories by F. Martin .35 The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat by H. F. Smith, S.J . 35 The Teaching Sister in the Church by E. Gambari, S,M.M. .30 The Thepiogy of the Eucharistic Presence by J. Galot, S~J. .30 The Vows and Christian Life by G. Greif, S.J. .30 New Reprints Centering Prayer--Prayer of Quiet by M. B. Pennington, O.C.S.O . 50 Colloquy of God With a Soul That Truly Seeks Him .30 Prayer of Personal Reminiscence by D. J. Hassel, S.J. 60 Orders for the above should be sent to: Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 No. Gra

Issue 31.3 of the Review for Religious, 1972. ; ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS ANI) A N S\V E R S E 1) ITO R Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editor, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Build-ing; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, SJ.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of l)ivinity of St. Louis University, 01e editorial offices beihg located at 612 tlumboldt Building; 539 North (;rand Boulevard: St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Educalional In';titute. Published bimontbly and copyright © 1972 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. SuBscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year. $11.00 for two years; other countries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders sbould indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and sbould be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S,A. cur-rency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former addre.~s. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REVIEW I:OR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 60 Duluth. Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editori-al correspondence, and books for review should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: 612 [lumboldt Building; 539 North (;rand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of tile Questions and Answers editor. MAY 1972 VOLUME 31 NUMBER 3 BENEDICT ASHLEY, O.P. ¯ Retirement or V gil? [ Benedict Ashley, O.P., is Profess6r of Theology at The Institute of Religion and Human " Development; Texas Medical Center; P.O. Box 20569; Houston, Texas 77025.] Retirement and the Work Ethic To provide for the retirement of senior members has bdcome an urgent task for many religious communities. D~clining vocations, risfng medical costs, changes in traditional apostolates and in sources of income demand that we develop new, organized ways to care for those who have reached that last, often lengthy phase of life which we Americans call "retirement." The action of Pope Paul VI in requesting even cardinals and bishops to retire acknowledges that in times of rapid change older persons, for all their expe~'ience and "tested virtue," often lack the energy and flexibility to carry on the apostolate. However reasonable this trend may seem to those long dist~int from the "cut-off point," it is prQducing great anxiety, discontent, . and bitterness in many aging religious. This intensifies the polarization against which many communities now struggle. Recently an elderly but very much alive sister said to me: "What a paradox that our community is how so concerned to give younger sisters free choice¯ of apostolates, while forcing older sisters to retire willy-nilly. I was told to retire last year without any consultation or discussion of my preferences. My only choice, which was no choice at all, was to come to this retirement house. The young are demanding small interpersonal communities. I must live with over a hundred sisters, most of them sick, some completely senile, although my health is good, my mind active, and I like to live with young people, 'where the action is.' " Of course, some communities take great pains to discuss the situation carefully with members who must retire from present apostolates, to give them choices and training for a "second career," or at least maximum opportunities for "semi-activity." They realize that the problem of these religious is, after all, only part of the larger geriatric problem in the United States which will probably increase still further as our national birthrate continues to decline, and the average age of Americans begins to rise. However, I wonder if the very term "retirement" does not reflect the dehumani-zation of our technological society. It is borrowed from the practice of American business and starkly reflects the "work ethic" dominating our culture, against which the counter-culture is rightly protesting. This ethic evaluates human 'worth only in terms of production, organizational efficiency, capacity for marketable innovation. It values "doing and making," but ignores the values of "being," unless they can be translated into commodities. Even without the protests of the .counter-culture, we should know from the gospel that "man does not live by bread alone" (Mt 4:4) and that we have been told "do not be anxious for what you are to eat or wear, because unbelievers are always. running after these things" (Mt 6:31-32). The values of the work ethic are real and ¯ 326 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 are not repudiated by the gospel, but they are .~ternly subordinated to a very different appreciation of what really counts in life. Let us retire the term "retirement," and even "semi-activity." The notion of "a second career" is better, yet it too has a work ethic flavor. Moreover to talk about "second careers" to religious for whom it seems nothing remains of life but suffering, prayer, and gradual decline is to coin another of those horrible euphemisms with which we today in our society of affluence indecently hide the unacknowledged' miseries of neglected poverty and death. We are Christians who ought to have the courage to face the facts of old age with a realism warmed by Christian hope. Trying to wrestle with this fact of life theologically, I have found in the gospel a theme which seems to me very relevant, the notion of vigil. Christian Vigil The current liturgical reform began with the renewal of the Paschal Vigil, called by St. Augustine "the mother of all vigils," because it sums up the expectation of all ages of Christ's victory over death. Its meaning is beautifully stated in the General Instruction bn the Liturgy of the Hours issued by the Holy See in 1971 (nos. 70-2): [St.Augustine writes] "by keeping vigil, we observe that night when the Lord,arose, and by his own flesh began in us that life which knows neither sleep nor death. ; then as we sing together to the risen Lord a little while longer by keeping vigil, he will grant us to reign with him by living forever." Asin the Easter Vigil, the custom soon arose in different churches t6 begin various solemn feasts by keeping vigil, notably in the Birth of the Lord and Pentecost. The Fathers and spiritual writers frequently urged the faithful, especially those who live a contemplative life, to nocturnal prayer, which expresses and fosters our waiting for the Lord?s return: "At midnight someone shouted, 'The groom is here! Come out and greet him!' " (Matthew 25:6); "Keep watch! You do not know when the master of the house is coming; whether at dusk, at midnight, when the cock crows, or at early dawn. Do not let him come suddenly and catch you asleep" (Mark 13:35-36). To implement this idea the Church in its new calendar has not only given the Paschal Vigil the central place in the liturgical year and retained the ~vigils of the Birth of the Lord and of Pentecost, but recommends the use of "Bible vigils" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 35), and in the instruction just quoted encourages the use and development of the Office of Readings as a time of vigil, thus preserving the nocturns or night Office of the traditional Breviary. This last recommendation is not only for priests and nuns, but for the laity as well (Instruction, nos. 20-2). These liturgical reforms are rooted deeply in the New Testament. Jesus Himself prepared for the great moments of His life by keeping vigil. For forty days and nights (Mt 4:2) He prayed in the desert before beginning His ministry. Before extending it beyond Capernaum, He went to a "Ion.ely place" (Mk 1: 35) to pray till dawn. Before announcing His inevitable passion, He kept vigil with Peter, James, and John on the mount of transfiguration (Mk 9:1-8). On the eve of the passion He agonized in Gethsemane (Mk 14:32). In their turn the disciples and Mary kept vigil before Pentecost (Acts 1 : 14; 2:2). The newborn Christian community prayed for its leader Peter when he was in prison (Acts 12:5, 12), and before ordaining presbyters (4:23). Paul continued this custom on his missions (16:25). The significance of such vigils was indicated by Jesus Himself in many of His discourses and parables in which He urged his followers to "Watch, for you know Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 327 not the day nor the hour!" (Mt 25:13). If we look at the well-known work of Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (rev. ed.; New York: Scribner's, 1963) we notice that he classifies the parables in ten groups: "1. Now is the Day of Salvation; 2. God's Mercy for Sinners; 3. The Great Assurance; 4. The Imminence of Catastrophe; 5. It May Be Too Late; 6. The Challenge of the Hour; 7. Realized Discipleship; 8. The Via Dolorosa and Exaltation of the Son of Man; 9. The Consummation; 10. Parabolic Actions." These very titles indicate how close all these themes are to the vigil concept, although groups 4, 5, and 6 are particularly pertinent. The parables constantly say: "Wake hp! Watch !" When we look at the Epistles we find that Peter and Paul and the others have the same pastoral advice. For example: Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in yo6r faith, realiz!ng that the brotherhood of believers is undergoing the same sufferings throughout the world. The God of all grace, who called you to his everlasting glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish those who have suffered a little while. Dominion be his throughout the ages. Amen (I Pt 5:8-10). Asregards specific times and moments, brothers, we do not need to write you; you know very well that the day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night. Just when people are saying, "Peace and security," ruin will fall. You are not in the dark, brothers, that the day should catch you off guard, like a thief. No, all of you are children of light and of the day. We belong neither to darkness nor to night; therefore, let us not be asleep like the rest, but awake and sober! Sleepers sleep by night, and drunkards drink by night. We who live by day must be alert (1 Thes 5:1-8). The Theology of the Vigil To discover the the.ological meaning of these New Testament actions and teachings, we must begin with the obvious fact that a vigil is eschatological prayer. It is directed toward the future, toward Christ's victory over sin and death through Resurrection and Ascension, toward the coming of God's kingdom on earth through the mission of His Church, toward the universal transformation of the cosmos at Christ's Second Coming when all things will be summed up in Him in the glory of the Father (Phil 2:9-11 ; Col 1:15-20: Eph 1:18-23). A vigil is expectation in faith, hope, and yearning love directed to the future and eternal life. Its heart is joy, not the joy. of fulfillment, but the bitter-sweet joy of anticipation, a hunger and thirsting for the justice of God's reign. This is why a vigil humanly is a struggle to keep awake, to arouse ourselves from the oppression of drowsiness. The Apostles could not keep awake with Jesus in the Garden, because although "the spirit is willing, the .flesh is weak" (Mt 26:41). Luke says they slept because they were "exhausted with grief" (22:45). The weariness, discouragement, apathy, the numbing dread of waiting! Who has not waited in fear in a doctor's office? Waiting can be still more dreadful when we wait for some great joy, in growing doubt that it will ever come. During such painful times we all seek to escape the tension, to drug ourselves with some empty distraction or even sleep and forgetfulness. It is against this spiritual sleep that Jesus warns us. We must live in active hope, in wide-awake awareness, because in truth Jesus has already come. God is already present in our world if our eyes of faith are wide-open to sense His presence. The symbolism of "watching in the night" is simple and profound. This "night" is the world in the Johannine sense: "He was in the world, and through him the world was made, yet the world did not know who he was" (Jn 1 : 10). The world is humanity not in its earthliness or secularity, but in its hard-heartedness, self-centeredness, self-righteous pride and aggression which blind it to the present LOrd: 328 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 "Men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were wicked" (Jn 3:19). It is in this night where God is present but man is absent from Him, in this shadow of death, that the Christian lives by faith and hope. Another element of the symbolism of the vigil is the silence, when the rush of activities, the vanity of human plans and boasted accomplishments, the flood of sights and sounds advertising expensive but delusive pleasures, conceal from us the reality of the void, the desert of human despair. Existentialism has revived for us this aspect of vigil, the search for authenticity. The Christian enters the desert of silence not to escape, but driven by the Holy Spirit to confront the Evil Spirit as Jesus was (Mk 1:12-3). Night has its peace and cessation from exterior work, but it is also the time of spiritual combat with angels, both evil and good. Tobiah struggled with an evil spirit and came out whole (Tobit 8); and Jacob with a good one, but was crippled (Gen 32:23-33). Night is man's encounter with the hidden levels of his personality and with the subtle cosmic influences that profoundly affect his life, yet which are covered over by his day-time activities. Watching, therefore, is not a mere passive waiting, but an active preparation, struggle, reflection, purgation, integration, simplification of life, requiring the use of the deepest human energies, it is an activity not at the periphery of human life where most of our "doing and making" take place, but in the central abyss of our being. Again, because it is eschatological, a vigil is also a time of judgment. Many of the Psalms speak of this nocturnal examination of conscience: 1 am wearied by sighing: every night I flood my bed with weeping. I drench my couch with my tears; My eyes are dimmed with sorrow. They have aged because of all my foes (Ps 6:7-8). I bless the Lord who counsels me; even in the night my heart exhorts me (16:7). i will remember you upon my couch, and through the night-watches I will meditate on you (63:7). By night my hands are stretched out with flagging; my soul refuses comfort. When l remember God, I moan; when i ponder, my spirit grows faint. You keep my eyes watchful: I am troubled and i cannot speak. I consider the days of old; the years long past I remember. In the night I meditate in my heart; [ ponder, and my spirit broods. "Will the Lord reject forever and nevermore be favorable?" (77:4-8). In a vigil we face ourselves in truth, we accept the punishment of remorse, we are freed from the burden of illusions. Even when our conscience does not reproach us, we come to understand that we are children of Adam, part of the inhuman race of men. Yet as Christians we do not come to judgment so much in fear as in petitiqn to be healed. Purgatory begins for us, a merciful cleansing through hope and longing, because a vigil is penitential, expiatory, redemptive. This is not because God exacts a payment for sin (it is only the unjust steward who thought God a hard master), but because He requires us to share in the work of repairing the damage we have done to others and to ourselves. "God's glory is man fully alive," as St. Irenaeus said, and the restoration of God's glory by penance is nothing other than the healing of man and of the broken relations between men by forgiveness. How does a vigil repair the human world? It does so first by healing the watcher himself, since in this purgatory he learns to forgive others and to lay down .the burden of his own follies. But a vigil is also communal. It is a time when together, at least in spirit, we pray for one another and share one another's burden of guilt and sorrow. Today, some people think prayer is only an excuse not to help others Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 329 through action, but even after we act we may find that our neighbor is still alienated from us by hidden barriers that nothing but prayer can ever pierce. Furthermore, a vigil is communal because it is a witness. Who has not been strengthened to know that another watches in prayer for him with a love that is ever awake? A vigil also always implies the coming dawn, the Resurrection, the rising Sun of Justice. At the heart of the vigil is the well fueled lamp of love, as Jesus indicated in the Parable of the Ten Virgins. He also asked: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Lk 18:8). Matthew speaks of "charity" (24-12). The greatest human prdblem is to persevere in faithful love, a love that increases until the kingdom of God kindles like a consuming fire (Lk 12:49). This silently burning light in the night vigil is a fire stronger than the waters of death: "For stern as death is love, relentless as the grave in its devotion; its flames are a blazing fire" (Song of Songs8:6). The Paschal fire is the liturgical symbol of this "living flame of love," which John of the Cross and all the mystics tell us begins to burn in the dark night of the spirit. The Psychology of Later Life Recent developments in developmental ego-psychology, exemplified in the work of Erik Erikson, show us that the phases of human life all have or can have a positive meaning, including old age. It will suffice here to quote a passage from Erikson's Identity: Youth and Crisis (New York: Norton, 1968, pp. 139-40): In the aging person who has taken care of things and people and has adapted himself to the triumphs and disappointments of being, by necessity, the originator of others and the generator of things and ideas - only in him the fruit of the seven stages gradually ripens. I know no better word for it than integrity. Lacking a clear definition, I shall point to a few attributes of this stage of mind. It is the ego's accrued assurance of its proclivity for order and meaning - an emotional integration faithful to the image-bearers of the past and ready to take, and eventually to renounce, leadership in the present. It is the acceptance of one's one and only life cycle and of the people who have become significant to it as something that had to be and that, by necessity; permitted of no substitutions. It thus means a new and different love of one's parents, free of the wish that they should have been different, and an acceptance of the fact that one's life is one's own responsibility. It is a sense of comradeship with men and women of distant times and of different pursuits who have created orders and objects and sayings conveying human dignity and love. A meaningfulold age, then, preceding a possible terminal senility, serves the need for that integrated heritage which gives indispensable perspective to the life cycle. Strength here takes the form of that detached yet active concern with life bounded by death, which we call ~wisdom in its many connotations from ripened "wits" to accumulated knowledge, mature judgment, and inclusive understanding. Not that each man can evolve wisdom for himself. For most, a living tradition provides the essence of it. But the end of the cycle also evokes "ultimate concerns" for what chance man may have to transcend the limitations of his identity and his often tragic or bitterly tragicomic engagement in his one and only life cycle within the sequence of generations. Yet great philosophical and religious systems dealing with ultimate individuation seem to have remained responsibly related to the cultures and civilizations of their times. Seeking trans-cendence by renunciation, they yet remain ethically concerned with the "maintenance of the ¯ world." By the same token, a civilization can be measured by the meaning which it gives to the full cycle of life, for such meaning, or the lack of it, cannot fail to reach into the beginning of the next generation, and thus into the chances of others to meet ultimate questions with some clarity and strength. Erikson points out that this achievement of integrity implies that the person has the courage to retain his own individuality and life style even in the face of changing times: Forheknowsthat an individual life is the coincidence of but one life cycle with but one 330 Review for Religious, Volume 3 I, 1972/3 segment of history, and that for him all human integrity stands and fails with the one style of integrity of which he partakes (p. 140). He also points out that when old age is not used positively, it will end negatively in disgust and despair: Such a despair, is often hidden behind a show of disgust, a misanthropy, or chronic contemptuous displeasure with particular institutions and particular people - a disgust and a displeasure which, where not allied with the vision of a superior life, only signify the individual's contempt of himself (ibid.) From a Christian point of view, therefore, the period of vigil for the Lord's Coming is a precious gift. It is not merely for the aged, but is a feature of every Christian life. All of us, young and old, must have some vigil in our life, some time of reflection, purification, integration. It should begin early, so that old age will only be its culmination and intensification. It is not something separated from active life but is rather a harvest time in which the fruit of experience ~is reaped, assimilated, and made part of our total personality. The Paschal mystery means for us that although this world and its life must pass, yet nothing experienced here in faith will ever be lost, no genuine tie in love will ever be severed. In Christ our life will be summed up, "recapitulated," and transformed in the eternal life of the Trinity. Death is not a closing in of the horizon, but an opening on an ever wider vista - a narrow door that opens on an expanding landscape. The end of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey is one way of saying it. Therefore, the vigil time of life is not just "waiting to die," but is a process of integration in which we "get it all together," discovering in all that we have done and suffered an inner core of meaning. Moreover, we have the obligation of letting others who are in the midst or the beginning of life know there is meaning to what seems to them a mad scramble, a rat-race. The generation gap can never be closed in time, because the wisdom of experience cannot be expressed in the language of inexperience. Yet something can be communicated and must be communicated to the young, and that is hope. Only those seniors who have achieved peace, and who prove it by letting the young live their own lives, are able to give a truly credible sign of hope. The Apostolate of Vigil In view of this psychological and theological meaning of vigil and of later life as a time of vigil, it seems to me that we can frame a better practical understanding of the so-called "retirement problem." (1) In order to obliterate the "retirement" idea, I think we should institute both in name and fact a new apostolate in our communities, the Apostolate of Vigil. It is a genuine apostolate in the wider sense in which traditionally the contemplative life was considered the supreme apostolate, because contemplatives perform a special service of intercessary prayer, reparation, and witness to the transcendent, eschato-logical goals of the Christian life. Lately, active communities are recognizing this need by establishing "houses of prayer." It seems to me that the notion of "vigil" adds to the concept of "prayer" that "thrust into the future" which is so necessary to our time that suffers from "future shock" and "existential despair:" The work of this apostolate consists in several related elements: (a) Reflection. Erikson's emphasis on old age as a time of integration indicates that those in the apostolate of vigil must give themselves seriously to reflection. In a recent movie Kotch, Walter Matthau brilliantly portrays a retired business man who annoys everyone by his constant, apparently disconnected garrulity. Yet as we Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 331 listen to him, we see that he is still a mentally very active man, more alert ~han his rather stupid son and daughter-in-law. He is reflecting over his reading, his life, his successes and failures, and is distilling real wisdom from them. He looks at life with a tolerant yet discerning eye. He contemplates its beauty with delight and tries to express it in language that has its real poetry. But no one listens. On tlie other hand, another movie, 1 Never Sang for My Father, shows the tragedy of another elderly "successful" business man who cannot find the clue to the real meaning of his life, but endlessly moves in the circle o~ the old, bitter thoughts of his rejected youth. Some of our attempts at community dialogue have left the old silent, because we are always talking about the future. Perhaps we should try to have some times of discussion devoted to the needs of the senior members to talk about their past. (b) Prayer. This should not only be intercessory and reparative, as I have already indicated, but also a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. If we need time to "make a thanksgiving" after Holy Communion, don't we also need time to give thanks for the banquet of life? Undoubtedly older religious will want to continue the forms of prayer which have formed the basis of their lives, and, as Erikson says in the quotation above, this is a part of their personal integrity. At the same time, they may welcome the opportunity to deepen these accustomed forms of prayer if they are given opportunities for better theological.and liturgical instruction on the values which they contain. A prayer group made up of older priests, with which I am acquainted, is finding the new "Liturgy of the Hours" a delight. It retains the basic elements of the older "Divine Office" but in a form which makes recitation more meditative and leisurely. (c) Counsel. This is a difficult point which requires a good deal of study and experimentation. In traditional societies the elders were the counselors, yet today it is argued by Margaret Mead and others that the young really have more experience than their seniors. Furthermore, it is said that elderly counselors incline to an authoritarian moralism that is contrary to the non-directive methods of modern counseling. On the other hand it is certainly true that some older people have real assets as counselors. They have time to listen, a broad sympathy based on their own self-knowledge and the experience of human struggle, and a calm, hopeful attitude, sceptical of facile solutions, yet free of pani~ about the crises of life. There is no reason that such persons cannot still learn to improve their technique as.counselors if given some additional training and supervision, Their tendency to moralize or over-direct is more a result of their desire to help, than an incapacity to learn a more psychological approach. I suggest that while not all older people will make good counse.lors, many will if.given some additional training. (d) Suffering. The physical and mental decline of later life tends to become the focus of many wasted days and years, unless this suffering is understood as an element of Christian experience not merely to be endured but to be used creatively. The Cross is a means of integration and fulfillment, as it was for Jesus who said: "It is completed" (Jn 19:.30). To make this suffering a spiritual resource, however, requires spiritual guidance and support. In Gethsemane Jesus was strengthened by an angel (Lk 22:43). The flagging energies of the sick and aged make it difficult for them to exert themselves to prayer. They can relapse into a routine of gradual decline and apathy. Consequently, it is important to help them use the energies they have to grow personally. (e) Small Services. Today religious orders rightly seek to free themselves from wasting their energies on "trivialities." Nevertheless, we need to realize that nothing 332 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 humanizes our lives so much as the small personal services that make us feel loved and that free us from details for more creative work. In any religious community its life and its apostolate can be immensely aided by persons who have the time, the tact, the humility to render some of these small services either within the community circle or as a feature of particular external apostolates. For example, how much a really good receptionist contributes to the work of any organization! Jesus spoke of the "cup of cold water only" given in His name (Mt 10:42) and of the "widow'smite"(Mk 12:41-4) to indicate the dignity and beauty of such small services given in love. They exemplify the first beatitude of poverty of spirit. (f) Hope. The culminating task of the Apostolate of Vigil is the witness of genuine hope, free of "future shock," of gloom, of cynicism, or panic. We need only to think of the example given the Church and the world by the aged John XXlII to realize what a rainbow sign (Gen 9:11-7) this witness of hope can be, giving life and renewal to the whole community. (2) A second step we need to take is to make clear that this Apostolate of Vigil is not exclusively for the old, but an option for all religious at any age, as a permanent or temporary apostolate. There are young and middle-aged religious who will find that their charism is more contemplative than active, or that at least for certain periods of their life they need to '~be" rather than to "do or make." We should ¯ make clear also that age does not automatically qualify a person for this apostolate, or make it his or her single choice. Some senior religious will still find themselves more inclined to a "second career" or to "semi-activity" and should be given this option if it is at all a realistic choice. Finally, we should avoid identifying this apostolate with the problem of residence. It is true that the "villa" may be one center of such an apostolate, but some religious will prefer to carry it on in houses of prayer or active communities. (3) Since this apostolate requires special qualifications other than mere age, it also requires proper training, facilities, and evaluation, exactly as any other apostolate. When a religious is considering choosing it, he or she should discuss the matter with a qualified counselor. The community itself should have definite plans for developing, evaluating~ and revising this apostolate in the formation of which theological, liturgical, psychological, and medical expertise should be used. (4) Finally, proper recognition should be given to those who sincerely engage in this apostolate, so that they know and feel that they truly contribute to the community's life and work. One form of recognition is, of course, a clear financial arrangement by which it is apparent to all that persons in this apostolate are not a "burden" to the community but an asset. This is no mere legal fiction because: (a) This apostolate is a fundamental service to the Church and the world which every religious community has the obligation to provide in some form or other. (b) In actual fact a great part of the free gifts made to any religious community come because the laity look to the assistance of that community's prayer and penance. (c) Religious by their contributed services in their years of "active apostolate" have certainly invested enough in the community to deserve in justice the opportunity to engage in the Apostolate of Vigil if they choose. Some communities solve this problem by paying each local community of which the religious is a member a regular monthly salary as her contribution to its financial upkeep. An Obvious Objection An honest doubt about the idea I have outlined naturally arises. How can we speak of an apostolate for a really senile person who has lost memory, emotional Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 333 control, clarity of mind and purpose? What of those who really are "just waiting to die," living only on a vegetative, custodial level? I can only suggest two points for reflection: (1) Today certain psychologists and some young thinkers of the counter culture are raising sharp questions about the way our work ethic culture tends to define "mental incapacity" or "mental illness." They point out that in many cultures persons we label as "crazy" or "mentally defective" are considered "wise," "prophetic," or "sacred." Jesus spoke of the wisdom of the child, and St. Paul of the wisdom of those whom the world calls fools. St. Luke pictures those two ancient prophets, Simeon and Anna, who alone recognized the Messiah. I certainly would not subscribe to overromantic ideas about the wisdom of the senile, but I do not think that we should identify the value of human personality with the well-being of the brain. The senile person can still be capable of faith, hope, and charity. The process of spiritual purgation and integration which goes on in later life no doubt can reach its completion even when life has reached its ebb tide. (2) In any case our real problem is not the extremely senile patient for whom nothing remains but custodial care. We will give that care gladly and it raises no great puzzles. The real geriatric problems are the much larger number of religious who are still very much alive, perhaps with many years ahead of them. We must help them live these years as a vigil of hope, of effective prayer for the Lord's Coming and for the establishment of His kingdom on our earth. DAVID A. FLEMING, S.M. Formation and the Discovery of Identity [David A. Fleming, S.M., is a faculty member of Marianist Seholastieate; 2700 Cincinnati Avenue; San Antonio, Texas 78284.1 People in formation today tend to feel uncomfortably like bridges. At one end they cling to the solid but sometimes arid rock of a tradition, while at the other they try to find some footing in the shifting sands of new styles of life and experience. Meanwhile they often feel that people are walking all over them from both directions and fighting their battles on top of them, while they themselves look down at the gaping abyss beneath. Luckily, though, many of us like being bridges, despite the discomforts involved, and we feel that the attempt to reach across the gap is more than worth the effort. Our problem, our sense of battles and abysses, is, 1 think, related to a major cultural shift in the understanding and expression of religious values. This shift became an experiential reality for me not too long ago one evening when I attended two parties in religious communities, one - frequented by older members - celebrating the jubilee 9f a much respected member of my province, and the other a community party in a house of formation celebrating the end of a semester. It struck me very forcibly that what I was doing was observing the ways in which two distinct cultures celebrate. To attempt to summarize cultural differences is a risky undertaking. No one is ever satisfied by someone from the outside attempting to sum up basic commit-ments and ways of seeing. And, of course, none of us is ever or should ever be completely "outside"; our summaries are inevitably colored by our own commit-ments and viewpoints. But if we are to talk meaningfully of the situation in which the person involved in formation finds himself today, it is necessary at least to draw up a schematized and admittedly unnuanced outline of the very real contrasts that govern our situation. By culture I mean simply the sum-total of the social values, ways of thinking, means of expressing human relationships, and habits of life shared by a whole group of people (whether tribes in Africa, villages in France, or social groupings in America). At the two parties I recognized two contrasting ways of celebrating, two approaches to festivity. The older party was characterized by a happy convention-ality. People told the old jokes and sang the old songs, reminisced about the way things used to be, shared common memories about the persons and mores of a true but somewhat idealized past. The younger one was colored by creative expression (new skits, new games and ideas) and fantasy (making up new stories and new songs). At both parties, there was much sharing of laughter at things normally taken very seriously. The cultural differences are not restricted, of course, to behavior at parties. The two groups' means of expressing values are notably different. Both are preoccupied with fidelity, but the older group stresses fidelity to an established role, believing Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 335 that a man's true fulfillment and the greatest service he can give lie in being as faithfully and totally and interiorly as possible what he is called to be by the work assigned to him: a good teacher, pastor, cook, or whatever. For the younger group fidelity means, above all, a continuous search to discover and live out what is one's own unique contribution. True fulfillment for this younger group means the discovery of self, which will then lead to a service to society which may or may not correspond to any pre-established role. The older group stresses perseverance in holding to the role that is given, while the younger group stresses honesty with oneself, even though that honesty may not lead very quickly to stability. The older group sees forgetfulness of self and modesty as prime virtues for relating with others, while the younger group stresses openness, the willingness to let oneself be influenced by the thought and action of the other. The older group stresses the necessity for each individual to stick to what he thinks is right, no matter what social pressures he may be subjected to. The younger one feels that communion with the group is a prime value; although he too knows how to withstand social pressures, they prompt him more quickly to re-examine his position, rather than stiffen his resistance to corruption. The older group speaks much about preserving and enriching a tradition that comes out of the past, while the younger one is more oriented towards building a future that may or may not spring very obviously from the past. The experienced seek a carefully limited, realistic, but wholehearted commitment to the goals they have accepted. This approach seems narrow to the young; fascinated by a multiplicity of goods, they tend rather to become overcommitted to too many things, while at the same time being only partially committed to any one of them. The patterns of thought of the two groups are also quite diverse. For the older, truth is to be achieved above all by method, by a disciplined and patterned application of long-tested paradigms; for the young it is to be sought in dialectic, in conversation and interchange, more by group experience than by individual reflection. The older person wants someone to give him answers to his questions; the younger one simply looks for a person to share the process of discovery. The older man has been educated more in a rhetorical tradition that takes a position asa given and then finds all the supporting reasons and arguments; the younger man's education has increasingly stressed a heuristics that is concerned above all with the search for the position that is (existentially) true. For the older man, knowledge tends more to be a possession (the kind of knowledge denoted by the French verb (savoir), something that is dominated, assimilated, and put to profitable use. For the younger man it tends to be a mode of being-related (conna~tre), a personal or quasi-personal communion. The older man looks in his thinking for stability and attempts to stick to the essence of things; the younger man is taken up with the process and is unimpressed by thinking that relies on stable effsences. Discursive thinking and logic tend to be the natural realm of'the older man; symbol thinking, poetry, and art, that of the younger. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the ways of relating to people and forming friendships differ between the two groups. The way to an older man's heart is to work together with him at a common project perceived as meaningful. The way to a younger man's heart is to listen to him creatively, to share one's own experiences - a process of much dialogue and many hours of deep conversation. Obviously this outline of the two approaches is quite schematized, and most of us - old or young - are somewhere in-between. The purpose of this rather cavalier summary and contrast has been to point up that the two approaches exist (although 336 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 hardly ever in a "pure" state), that they are, in fact, very different - a difference such as has not often been experienced between any two successive generations in human history - and to intimate, by expressing the values of each in a positive way, that both approaches are very open to living the message of the gospel. It is evident that we have two contrasting ways of being faithful, and we who work in the formation of young religious find ourselves very much in a mediatorial, reconciliational role between them. Our role in this cultural situation is, I believe, best conceptualized today as being of service to individuals and communities in the discovery of an identity. Our most obvious task is to aid the indivMual in developing a social identity with the concrete group which he or she is in the process of joining. Because of the cultural crossroads where we find ourselves at this point in history, however, it is unrealistic to reduce the whole of our role to "socialization" within a given congregation. Neither the individual nor the life of the group can remain static, and a true commitment to the group can happen only as the individual finds within the group a true aid to releasing his own creative potential and an increasingly rich field for expressing that potential. A person can develop an identity with a group only on the basis of a strong personal identity, and. strong personal identity can be developed, paradoxic-ally, only in an interplay with a social group. The person working in formation must therefore deal with both poles of identity - the group and the personal. Hence a second, by no means subordinate, part of our role is to be of service to the young person who comes to us in the absorbing work of his own personal search for identity. Formation people, though they tend. to be "generalists" rather than specialists, should, if anything, be specialists in "human development." Although we should only begin working with young people who have already developed a fairly advanced degree of security, self-identity, and clear-headedness, their entry into religious life, at whatever age, is always part of a search for personal identity and identity within society, and we must be prepared to be of service in that extremely personal search. Given the state of constant evolution in which we more and more consciously find ourselves, the first aspect mentioned above, that of identification with or true membership in the order or congregation can no longer be conceived at any level as identification with a status quo. Commitment to religious life today means rather a commitment to God working in a concrete group of people who are pledged to grow and evolve together, to share the consequences of their lives and decisions. Membership means the willingness to keep growing together, to keep sharing consequences, and to let others within the group continue to influence our lives. Joining religious life is less a flight into a specific desert (for deserts can become rather comfortable, as full of fleshpots as any Egyptian oasis) than a going on pilgrimage together, a common movement toward the God who speaks in our lives and calls us forward through history. Religious life, if it is to give its most telling witness to mankind today, must become (as Schillebeeckx has put it) a '~sacrament of dialogue," a living sign, open and visible to men, of the fact that people can live together and share the search for God's concrete will for them in the present, and that this common search can become a fascinating, absorbing, and fulfilling life project. If we view religious life in this dynamic, search-centered way, it becomes increasingly evident that formation must involve a great deal of contact between the candidates and the experienced members. A decision to throw in one's lot with a given order or congregation can be made only on the basis of knowing and Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 337 experiencing the sacrament of dialogue as it really is. Isolated formation houses no longer fill the need, at least not for the totality of the period of basic formation. They were viable in a day when the problem of formation was simply that of taking on an accepted and rather standardized culture. They are good at providing the deeply spiritual motivation that is alone adequate to sustain a person in the challenges which the communal search for God demands. But they do not give an experience of the communal search to which the community as a whole is pledging itself. They rather give another experience - that of a group of peers struggling with commitment together - an experience which will happen anyway, with or without an isolated house of formation, and one that can too easily create a kind of sub-culture, spiritually and emotionally alienated from the group as a whole. They accentuate cultural differences, rather than helping all - young and old -go beyond them to a deeper unity. Identification with the group is complicated today by the problem that many of us are in fact probably better at being of service to personal growth than at helping develop social roles. We tend to have some competence in psychology, none at all in sociology. Yet as each individual grows personally, he becomes more conscious of his unique contributions and personal richness, and he usually discovers the fact that there are no ready-made social roles into which he can easily fit. Because of the rapid change in our society, many of the traditional service roles which religious have filled (teaching, nursing, pastoral work) are themselves in search of an identity, and many religious want to alter these service roles in significant ways. In this crucial area of both personal and community growth, it is above all important that as much of the whole community as possible be involved in developing and living with social roles. Our own personal identity, that of our younger members, and that of the order or congregation as a whole are inextricably entangled. They can either enrich or discourage one another. Rather than a pledge to adopt unquestioningly a given service'role, a commitment today means a pledge to share in mutual growth as we reexamine our traditional service roles. In turning to the question of our service in the area of each one's personal quest for identity, we will find it helpful first to consider the psychological characteristics of the typical young person with whom we have to deal today, his problems and prospects. The most striking strength of the typical candidate we meet today is his sensitivity. Impressionable, responsive to friendship, and anxious to give a service that is personally perceived, he is capable of developing a pers6nality that will be richly responsive to people. The weakness of our candidate is the typical weakness of a sensitive person. He is quite unsure of himself, uncertain of the best way to respond to the heavy pressures of the experience in which he becomes so deeply involved. He does not take all kinds of values, ways of acting and thinking, for granted. He has grown up in a scattered, fragmented world, and he has not yet had the time and the experience to build up a very firm personal stance - a coherent and well-articulated system of values, beliefs, and ways of acting. Because of his own insecurity and his sensitivity to influences, he tends to waver from position to position with what (for us) seems like astonishing rapidity. Growing up in a period when informational input has been reaching and surpassing overload capacity, our candidate has become aware of far more than we knew at his age, but he has simply not had the stabilizing and strengthening influence that we now enjoy nor even the stabilizing influence that we had at the same stage of our own growth. Hence he is very cautious about taking stands. He wants to continue to be "open" to experience, and he does not want to close too many doors too fast. He has come to 338 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 religious life because he is struggling for an identity that is out of the normal; he will not be satisfied with the ready-made roles which society presents so per-suasively to him. Hence he is, in his own peculiar way, cautious about making commitments, and he wavers through many possibilities before finally determining upon one. Our candidate's experience of the past twenty years has taught him that institutions and ideologies fall with great regularity, and that those who build their lives upon them do not survive. What he can perhaps trust is people. He is person-oriented, deeply conscious of his need for friends. He may find trust difficult; but once he has achieved it, he easily becomes dependent, and he is unashamed of finding strength in the support of his friends. He .is less concerned with building an institution, or an ideology than a friendship. He frequently seems to us to have an "affective" problem. His needs are enormous (or so it seems for those of us who have not lived through his cultural experience) in the area of personal friendship and support. He tends to think that the satisfaction of these needs will solve all his problems in life. He can easily be moved, even manipulated (and here we must be careful to respect his person), by motives of personal friendship, less easily by other motivations. In helping our candidate in his search for identity, we are often tempted to solve his problem for him, to shower on him the rich fruits of our own experience and expect him to respond with profound gratitude. Actually though, the nature of his problems (perhaps the nature of all human problems) is such that only he can solve them. Only he can discover and create an identity for himself. Our genuine help can be in sharing the process of discovery with him; in asking sensitive, helpful, but challenging questions; in sharing, but in a non-coercive way, something of our own search and some of its outcomes. In her fascinating little book Culture and Commitment, Margaret Mead has pointed out that the days of the "postfigurative culture" (the one in which the adults are supposed to have answered all questions and to provide a reproducible pattern for the young to imitate with exactitude) are gone. She believes that we are in a "cofigurative culture," one in which everyone, both young and old, determine the solutions to their problems and the answers to their questions by learning from their peers, with the danger of never being able to open up to an experience that is foreign to them. Our future lies, she believes, in a "prefigurative culture," one in which different age-groups and people with quite different experience can work together in the process of discovering new answers. Youth can contribute the special wisdom of its sensitivity, lack of complacency, and pertinent questioning; experience can enrich the dialogue by sharing, in a genuine search, some of the answers and guideposts it has met on its pilgrimage. Even though many of us still like to think we are quite young, we are on the side of "experience" when it comes to formation. The best that we can do for our candidate is engage in an intelligent, open, ongoing dialogue with him. One of the major problem arias that this dialogue will have to confront is that of authority, freedom, and independence. Because of our typical candidate's lack of security and wavering personal identity, he can become very dependent. He can mistakenly think that he has solved his identity problem by patterning his life after a respected elder. Thus he may be, in the judgment of many, a "model religious" for a time, until he discovers that what he was trying to be was not really himself. When the dependence has been considerable, especially when it has begun at an early stage of maturity and resulted in a rather far-reaching superego acceptance of Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 339 norms that are not internalized (an inauthentic identity plastered on from the outside), the young person, if he is healthy, will sooner or later rebel against the artificiality. More or less intensely and for a longer or shorter time, he will rej6ct much of his past experience, what he might call the "system" of religious life, the structures which characterize it, and possibly even some of the people, especially those with whom he has most closely identified. This rejection will be all the stronger if it is the first significa.nt one, if it has not already taken place in regard to home and parents, for it seems to be an almost inevitable part of growing up in the tensions of present-day society. In this area we need, therefore, to be especially careful. Most of us tend, like the generality of human beings, to be over-protective. We enjoy having someone a bit dependent on us. It is, in fact, a beautiful experience of spiritual fatherhood or motherhood, but it is not something which we, as celibate persons, can cling to. At this point a caution against "overcounseling" deserves special attention. Even though the ongoing dialogue is, I am convinced, of the essence of our task, it is sometimes possible to use counseling as a means of manipulating the young person's emotions, of forcing a growth for which he is not yet ready, of protecting him from learning by experience, and of re-enforcing the tendency toward dependence rather than helping him achieve freedom and self-actualization. Recognizing and accepting the psychodynamics of rejection enables us to maintain enough distance to be helpful rather than compound the problem. But this recognition should not lead us to discount the criticisms of the young person. The period of rejection may be a very special occasion for surfacing some real and deep-going problems, and it may point out some genuine weaknesses of our structures, our demands, and our means of formation. Creative listening and discernment of spirits at this critical juncture may be painful, but it may also help us see the )/bung person far more clearly and truly than ever before, and it may in turn reveal to us some of the deepest-penetrating dynamics of our own interaction. In working through this critical state, many young people come to the conviction that religious life is not what they want, that it does not correspond to the authentic identity which they. finally see themselves developing. They may often seem wrong, and we may sometimes realize better than they that their decision is simply part of the rejection process. At best we can keep it from becoming a particularly bitter or scarring part. Nevertheless, some of the most painful decisions we have to face come at this critical period. It is the strains and stresses of this period that especially urge the wisdom of taking candidates at an older, more mature period, since the strength of the rejection is more or less directly in proportion to the levels of inauthenticity and false docility that have to be uncovered and the depth with which the false super-ego identity has penetrated the person. But° we must ask ourselves whether our tendency to defer entrance is in each case a matter of prudence or pusillanimity. The dynamics of identity growth happen in late adolescence in a never-to-be-repeated fashion. The period can be so painful precisely because it is a time of so much growth. Many can develop a true personal i~lentity as religious if we can work sympathetically and understandingly with them through this difficult period. Once the person has passed this crisis, he usually begins to experience the need for building again, for discovery of means to live his religious commitment that correspond to his new found, more authentic self. For example, he will often reject prayer structures at one point only to find himself later, but more genuinely, seeking again to find true means to express his prayerful attachment to God, in 340 Review fog Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 concert with the community. The end result can be very creative - but oniy, of course, if we know how to keep concerns and realities alive without stifling the individual's periods of docility, rejection, and new growth. Our best role, throughout the whole process, I am convinced, is to engage in an ongoing dialogue with the person, to serve as one who can sympathetically share the process, avoiding as much as possible the danger of becoming an object of too great dependence and thus the eventual target of rebellion. Our most useful help will be to aid the young person to handle his dependence, his rebellion, and his new, more authentic independence, to help him find his true place within life and especially within our congregation. We can facilitate the search; we cannot do the discovering for him. The lines between dependence, independence, helpful ques-tioning, and coercive probing are so delicate at this period and so different for each individual that we must face the fact that we will sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. That is part of the joy and suffering of our mission. Another major problem area that we must face in our ongoing dialogue with our candidates is that of psychosexual identity. Here I am of course thinking more than ever in a male context, and those who work with women must make whatever applications they find appropriate. The problem seems to be somewhat different for them. At any rate, our typical male candidate today is not very' sure of his masculinity or even of what masculinity means. Popular society gives him some images of the male hero which he is rather quick intellectually to reject, but which he cannot easily replace: the strong man, excelling in sports, never expressing powerful emotions, capable of handling his drink and his women. The young man today is caught between this image, which it is hard for him to avoid, and his value system, which calls into question most of this image and lays a heavy stress on the goodness of emotion and sensitivity, which makes him very conscious of his own needs and his own very active life in these areas. He is part of the so-called "generation without a father," for his relations with his father have probably been rather occasional and distant. He feels very much the lack of a strong masculine image, and he even doubts at times his own true virility. If this young man is to undertake a life project involving celibacy, he must be able to reassure himself that he can find friends to fill his affective needs. He is horrified by the prospect - one which he is quick to detect, accurately or not, about him - of the middle-aged religious who has no real friends. He can be willing to undertake celibacy only if he is able to experience it as a unique way of loving others. He feels that it is as great a sin to be celibate without love as it is to have sexual relations without love. Very conscious of the eros within himself, he has to grapple with ways of discovering, releasing, and expressing that eros that corres-pond to the identity which he is seeking as a religious. In simpler terms, he wants to learn how to love (as all young inert do), but if he i,s to be a religious, he must learn to love in such a way that his focus is sharing the Spirit - in such a way that the peace and joy and goodness of God is the focus of his interchange with people. He can be attracted by the ideal of a love that is selfless, but not by one that is isolated or theoretical; the selflessness he seeks, if he is capable of celibate love, is the self-emptying of moving together with other human beings beyond the self and towards the God who calls us on. Too often we older religious have biocked the unique experience of celibate love in our hearts. We may have been celibate, but we have perhaps not always been fully loving. Sometimes the experience of wanting to be possessive, protective, jealous, and competitive, to dominate another person instead of freeing him, may Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 341 be an almost inevitable part of learning to love and to find self in relation to God. The aim of the genuine celibate is to share the Spirit and not bind the persqn to ourselves. The usual challenge for the young person is learning to share the SPIRIT, rather than himself; the challenge for many of us is learning to SHARE that Spirit whom we find within ourselves but often tend to stifle. Only by finding his identity as a celibate person in the midst of genuine love and friendship can a young religious man today achieve a secure psychosexual identity. Much of our work consists of helping him through that painful process - not, again, by expecting him to repeat our own experience, but rather by sharing with him in as understanding a way as possible the progress of his search, Many other areas would have to be touched if our aim were to exhaust the questions that confront the young person in formation: discovery of a meaningful relationship with God in prayer and in service, growth in self-awareness and self-confidence, discovery of identity as a worker and a professional person, and so forth. But what has been said suffices to show how the person who works in formation today is in a very delicate situation, one that can be riddled with anxiety - the anxiety of not knowing exactly where we are going, having a sense of the fragility of human life and commitment, recognizing the precarious religious identity of many of our candidates and longing to protect it, but still having to deal creatively with each one's personal quest and realizing that only he, under the guidance of the Spirit, can fashion his own life. If I may conclude, in Pauline fashion, with a catalogue of the virtues to which we are called, I believe they include a buoyant, persevering zest for life; a willingness to live with some anxiety, to let things and people be as they are; and a creative acceptance that affirms all the good in each person and helps him but does not coerce him to channel it towards the growth of mature religious identity. Abov.e all we need to develop a capacity for creative listening - listening to people as they are, without passing judgment, yet giving them our honest insights and letting the call to growth in the kingdom sound through us. All of this demands what Paul characterizes again and again as "patience" and "magnanimity" - hypomone, the gift of persevering zest, of withstanding pr.essures with love and graciousness; and makrothymia, the "great big heart" that is able to let God and men touch it and fill it and call on it no matter what. There is probably no role in religious life today that calls more than ours for deeper prayer, more hope, and more faith in God's loving strength - for more "waiting on the Lord." Perhaps our motto should be taken from Isaiah: "Those who wait for the Lord renew their strength, run and do not grow weary, walk and never tire" (Is 40:30). THOMAS N. McCARTHY Entry Age for Church Vocations [Thomas N. McCarthy is Vice President for Student Affairs at La Salle College; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19141.] Optimum age for entry into Church vocations continues to be a controversial subject. During the 1960's many seminaries and religious institutes, yielding to both internal and external pressures, raised entrance age requirements from early to late adolescence, and during that decade many permitted the demise of high school juniorates. Pressures for further change persist. The thrust of the early 1970's appears to be toward a further delay of entry from ageseventeen or eighteen to twenty, twenty-one, or beyond and with this a growing trend to phase out college level minor seminaries and scholasticates. At the same time that delayed entry for younger candidates is being encouraged, the admission of older candidates, that is, those over thirty years of age, is being actively encouraged. The purpose of this paper is to provide some empirical information on the relationship of applicant age to entry/non-entry rates among those who present themselves as candidates to Church vocations during post high school years and to persistence/attrition rates among those who enter then. The figures reported here are taken from a larger study currently being completed in which 750 candidates to two institutes of teaching brothers, 360 candidates to an institute of religious priests, and 1100 candidates to four institutes of teaching sisters were followed up for periods ranging from three to thirteen years to find out who entered and who did not, who had persisted and who had withdrawn. The relationship of these outcomes to characteristics of the people at the time they became applicants was then analyzed. Some of the applicant characteristics studied were age, education', ability, personality, and interests. The results of this study provide some empirical grounds on which to base policies about when people should be admitted to Church vocations - information which is currently not available in the literature. There are, of course, many relevant factors, of which empirical evidence is one, in a policy decision of this sort. Some Influences on Postponing Entry Among reasons for the demise of early adolescent entry to Church vocations in the United States are support from Rome for the delay, changes in family life, psychological and sociological theory, evidence of very high drop-out rates among high school age entrants, and feelings of interpersonal deficiencies among the current generation of religious leaders. While Rome has declined to officially condemn early entry - indeed it continues to encourage 12-13-year-old entry in some countries - in 1969 the Sacred Congregation for Religious and for Secular Institutes issued a document,Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation, recommending the practice of postponing Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 343 entrance for a year or two after high school graduation. The document moved beyond the recommendation that seminaries and religious orders get out of high school age formation - the cause c61~bre of the sixties - to getting out of some college age formation work as well. The recommendation rests on the assumption that older entrants would be more mature and consequently better able to profit from spiritual training. It also rests on the related assumption that, being more mature, older entrants should be more stable vocationally. These assumptions have not been put to an empirical test for religious candidates. It is not known if being older would in fact be related to greater maturity nor is it known if being older would be associated with higher persistence. The purpose of this paper is to provide information for testing the latter assumption among post high school age candi-dates. On theoretical grounds "one would expect that post high school entry, that is, entering when about seventeen or eighteen years old, should be associated with more stable career choices than entering prior to that time. That expectation is based on changes in family life, typical career choice patterns in the United States, Erikson's theory of ego identity, and Super's career development theory. The question of achieving greater vocational stability by delaying entry to even later ages, however, remains an open one. The American family, often mother dominated during the thirties when fathers suffered crushing economic humiliation and during the first half of the forties when men were off to war, has come more under the influence of father in the past twenty-five years, Undoubtedly this is one of the reasons for the decline in vocations which began to occur in the mid to late sixties. There is ample evidence that mother is most frequently the primary inspiration and support of religious vocations. Fichter is quoted by Rooney (1970) as reporting evidence for the greater influence of priests than of mothers in priestly vocations. Later research, especially that of Potvin and Suziedelis (1969), however, clearly supports the primary role of mother. In all likelihood there is no essential disagreement between these findings. I suspect that maternal influence is probably the major predisposing factor in the development of priestly or religious interests and that the influence of a given priest or'religious is generally the precipitating factor associated with a specific choice of institute. Mothers generally are more religious in orientation than fathers are, and with declining maternal influence and a corresponding increase in paternal influence, I think it can be safely assumed that today's teenagers are not as subject to family p.ressures to enter church vocations as was formerly true. It can be assumed further that pressures of this sort are felt most greatly in early teen years, that is, before an independent sense of self is well developed, than in the late teen years when eg.o identity normally is firmer. Thus a strong maternal influence on Church vocation choices most likely would be associated with both early entry and high rates of entry, while waning maternal influence would be associated with later and declining entry rates. Furthermore, if the dynamics of husband-wife, parent-child relation-ships have indeed changed with father re-assuming greater ascendancy since the"mid " 1940's, one could also infer support for a psychoanalytical interpretation that children in their early teens today should feel less heavy maternal emotional demands than was true of youngsters in the past. Consequently today's youth should feel less need to escape the home and these demands. Also instrumental in supporting delay of entry until after high school is the general tendency in America today to put off professional career choices until 344 Review for Religious~ Volume 31, 1972/3 college. Typical career development patterns now c~ll for a tentative choice of broad field and entrance into training for it around age eighteen. This generally is foll6wed by a period of narrowing course and career selection from around age 20 which eventually culminates for those who successfully complete career training in actual job entry around age 22-25. The near universality of this pattern for professional careers appears to be having a persuasive influence on Church pers.onnel practices. Both advocates and adversaries of delayed entry accept the premise that there must be substantial differences between preparation for Church vocations and preparation for secular careers. Education for the Church requires both an academic and a personal formation side, whereas preparation for secular careers is almost always restricted to the former. Paradoxically, agreement about this has fed the controversy about optimum entry age, both sides using it to make their case. Advocates of early entry have argued that the seed of a vocation is typically implanted early, will not be properly cultivated and is unlikely to grow outside a religious house of formation, and that vocations will be reduced unless early admission is permitted. Adversaries have argued that a person in his early teens does not know his own mind and that he needs the broader experiences - especially heterosocial ones - of ordina~'y family and social life before he is mature enough to profit from the spiritual formation side of Church vocation preparation. The immense popularity of Erikson's theory of adolescent identity crisis has had a remarkable effect on the attitudes of Church authorities toward proper entry age. Erikson's views about the development of a sense of self-identity, more than the views of any other theoretician, have provided the rationalization for delaying entry until an individual has achieved sufficient psychological independence from the primary adults in his life to have an ego identity of his own. That independence is thought to occur generally around age eighteen rather than at the beginning of the teens when so many youngsters formerly were funneled into religious or clerical life. Two recent religious writers, Mitchell (1970) and Gerlach (1971), have argued the viewpoint that the nature of a Church vocation requires entrants to have resolved not only the teenage identity crisis but also to have achieved a successful resolution of the problem of how to be intimate with another, the next level in Erikson's developmental theory. This viewpoint is offered as a basis for a further delay of entry age to twenty or so. Other than the theory behind the position, I find little else to support it. To my knowledge there is no published empirical information comparing the eventual social adjustment and persistence of entrants at one age to entrants at another age. Nor am 1 aware of any evidence that learning how to be intimate outside of religious life generalizes to the special circumstances within the life. On the contrary, this strikes me like a girl telling an interested boy to go learn how to make love and then come back when he knows how. He'll probably go elsewhere and learn all right, but it is not likely that he'll return to her. Super's career development theory, thanks to the promulgation of it among Church leaders by people like Kinnane (1970), also has influenced the move toward post high school entry. Super has proposed that the specification of a career choice, that is, electing a given career and taking concrete steps to prepare for it, normally occurs between ages eighteen and twenty-one and follows a period of roughly four years (ages 14-18) during which a career preference is crystalized out of an individual's growing awareness of his own interests, values, abilities, and opportuni-ties. Following Super's reasoning, entering the preparatory stage of a career before Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 345 age eighteen would have, for most people, the effect of foreclosing other options before the individual knows himself and the world of careers well enough to make a sound choice. For Super the choice of career involves a way of implementing one's concept of oneself, and a person is not ready to do that until the self-concept is relatively clear. Drop-out rates have never been well publicized even in professional literature and as a result are hard to document, especially over long periods of time. An occasional master's dissertation (see Verstynen, 1948) and studies dealing with some other aspect of seminary life sometimes report this information. People involved in Church personnel administration also generate a reservoir of information, often more anecdotal than systematic, about attrition rates. By the middle 1960's these varied sources, admittedly not rigorously scientific, had provided some foundation for the belief that drop-out rates are inversely related to age at entry. Patterson (1942), for example, reported a drop-out rate of over 80% for those who entered one seminary after grade eight declining to just over 75% for those who entered after having had some high school. So far as I know, to date there has been no systematic attempt to establish relationships between age of candidature and entry/nonentry, persistence/attrition rates across different types of church voca-tions. Is age of candidacy related to entry/nonentry or persistence/attrition in the same way for brothers, priests, and sisters? Dissatisfaction with interpersonal aspects of their lives is evident among a large number of the current generation of priests and professed religious. This is one of the most common complaints to come out of several studies over the past five years (see Schneider and Hall, 1970; Louis, Bowles, and Grace, 1967). Many in Church vocations feel that interpersonal deficiencies could have been corrected had candidates been required to remain outside the walls for a longer period of time. While there is no direct evidence that this in fact would happen, the desire to have better interpersonal relationships has been strong enough to persuade many to this viewpoint. All of these factors appear to have contributed to the demise of entry before high school graduation and to support of the current trend to delay entry for another year or two after that. It is a curious comment on the times that during all the controversy over this matter of optimum age for entry very little research was carried out to assess the actual psychological impact of formation on individuals at different ages. Keefe's study (1965) is the only one I know of which compared individuals of the same age in seminary and non-seminary high schools to see if there was a differential effect on maturity associated with one type of school as opposed to the other. He concluded that neither group was more mature than the other. Other doctoral dissertations done at Fordham (Mastej, Sandra, Vaughan) have shown increasing signs of maladjustment during college years of formation, but the cross-section methodology used in those studies leaves open the question of whether the subjects themselves actually changed or whether the group average changed as a result of better adjusted people having dropped out. 1 think the weight of the evidence on theoretical grounds, social changes, and on what empirical information exists clearly justifies delay of entry until the comple-tion of high school. As to justifying delay beyond this, it seems to me that empirical evidence is currently lacking and that the implications of theoretical positions such as Erikson's developmental views are open to conjecture. At the same time, however, there does appear to be a growing trend among college 346 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 students to put off career decisions longer than was true in the recent past. Some Empirical Evidence In 1970 I did a follow-up study of approximately 2200 candidates I had examined for seven Church institutes during the years 1957-1967. Information about age at the time they applied for entry was available for 742 candidates to two provinces of the same institute of teaching brothers, 354 candidates to an order of religious priests, and 1089 candidates to four institutes of teaching sisters. Their age when they were examined for admission was then studied in relationship to their having entered or not and to their having persisted or not for those who entered. The examinations were conducted on the average 3-9 months before actual entry. On the average when they sought entry the candidates to the brothers were 17 years, 11 months, to the priesthood 19 years, 2 months, and to the sisters 18 years, 5 months (see Table 1). The half-year difference between candidates to the brothers and sisters, the eight month difference between candidates to the sisters and the priesthood, and the fourteen month difference between candidates to the brothers and priesthood were all statistically significant and could not be accounted for by chance. Thus each type of institute attracted candidates of somewhat different ages. Table 1. Mean ages in months of candidates, nonentrants, entrants, persisters, and withdrawers for seven institutes of brothers, priests, and sisters.* Brothers Standard (2 Provinces) N Mean Deviation t p Candidates 742 215.3 19.7 Non-Entrants 389 216.8 24.9 Entrants 353 212.9 15.9 2.56 .05 Persisters 151 214.0 18.1 With'drawers 202 212.2 14.0 1.01 ns. Priests Standard (1 Institute) N Mean Deviation t p Candidates 354 229.6 34.4 Non-Entrants 60 239.8 45.2 Entrants 294 227.5 31.3 2.00 .05 Persisters 98 227.8 29.1 Withdrawers 196 227.3 32.3 ,13 ns. Sisters Standard (4 Institutes) N Mean Deviation t p Candidates " 1089 221.2 24.4 Non-Entrants 222 228.8 32.5 Entrants 867 220.5 21.5 3.60 .01 Persisters 469 219.7 18.2 Withdrawers 398 221.4 24.8 1.13 ns. *Age refers to how old the person was when he was examined as a part of the application process. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 347 Older candidates to all three types of institutes were less likely to enter than were younger candidates. As shown in Table 1 the differences between the average ages of entrants and nonentrants were statistically significant beyond chance expectancy in all three cases. For the brothers nonentrants were on the average four months older than entrants, for the seminary a full year older, and for the sisters eight months older. Clearly promise, at least from the viewpoint of entrance, was not associated with being older for these seven institutes during the eleven years from 1957 through 1967. It would not be correct to conclude from this that superiors had a tendency to deny admission to older candidates on the basis of age alone. The more usual situation was that being older tended to be associated with some other factors considered signs of poor promise: indecisiveness, family problems, psycho-sexual problems, and questionable motivation being common. Only eleven of the 2185 candidates were over thirty years old. The brothers had two such candidates and neither entered; the priests had five, of whom three entered; the sisters had four, of whom two entered. All of the other candidates were in their late teens or twenties. At the lower end of the continuum 78 of the brothers' candidates were sixteen in comparison to 6 seminary candidates and 27 candidates to the convents in that age group. The brothers had 2 candidates who were fifteen and the seminary 1. The sisters had none that young. All of these younger candidates have been lumped in the 17 and under category in Table 2. Table 2. Proportions of entrants, non-entrants, persisters, and withdrawers by age of candidates to seven institutes of brothers, priests, and sisters. Total Candi- Non- Institute Age dates Entrants Entrants Persisters Withdtawers N N % N % N %* %** N %* P 5 2 40 3 60 1 33 20 2 67 40 S Base Ratet (17%) (83%) (34%) (28%) (66%) (54%) S 4 R S Base Rater * Proportion of entrants (All figures ~e for age at 115 19 506 81 274 54 44 232 46 37 60 19 256 81 142 55 44 114 45 36 37 28 93 72 49 53 37 44 47 33 8 44 10 56 4 40 22 6 60 33 2 50 2 50 0 0 0 2 100 50 (20%) (80%) (54%) (43%). (46%) (36%) ** Proportion of candidates ~- Proportions without regard to age time the person was examined during the application process). B 2 2 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 E R Base Rate~ (52%) (48%) (42%) (20%) (58%) (27%) S 348 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 The largest single age group applying to all three types of institutes were seventeen years old: 94% of the brother candidates, 46% of the seminary candidates, and 55% of the sister candidates. This was followed by those in the eighteen and nineteen-year-old bracket who comprised 19%, 30%, and 29% of the candidates to the brothers, seminary, and sisters respectively. Five percent of the candidates to the brothers were between twenty and twenty-four, 19% of those applying to the seminary, and 12% to the convents. Very few candidates to any of the institutes were between twenty-five and twenty-nine (see Table 2 for all of these figures). The base rate figures in Table 2 indicate the overall proportions of nonentrants, entrants, persisters, and withdrawers without regard to age. If being a given age was a "good sign" for entry, the proportion of those entering from that age group should be above that of the base rate. For the brothers and priests the 17-year-olds had the best entry rates and for the sisters those in the 17-19 age brackets had the best entry rates. For the brothers all ages over 17 had entry rates lower than the base rate; for the priests those in the 20-24 and over 30 age groups had lower entry o rates; and for the sisters all those 20 and over had lower entry rates. Do these same patterns hold with regard to persistence and attrition for the seven institutes? The data are not nearly so clear on this point. The figures in Table 1 show no appreciable age differences between those remaining in and those who left. It is important to bear in mind that all figures are for the ages of persisters and withdrawers at the time they applied for entry, not at the time of the follow-up. Two base rate figures are given for persisters and withdrawers in Table 2. The first refers to the proportion of those who entered who eventually remained or left; the second refers to the proportion of total candidates wt~o remained or left. Brothers For the brothers 42% of the 353 entrants were still in when the follow-up was done. The best persistence record was for those few entrants (1 I) who were between 20-24 when they applied for entry. On the other hand, the best persistence record for all candidates was for those who were either 17 years old or between 25-29 when they sought entry. Only two persisters were in the latter age group, however, versus 122 in the l~-year-old group. Clearly, delaying entry for candidates to these institutes w~uld have resulted in a very heavy loss of people who are still persisting. This, of course, assumes that the interest of the 17-year-olds would not have been sustained while waiting for a later entry - an outcome which I think is highly likely, though not amenable to proof from these data, even with lots of tender loving care in extramural aspirancies. The normal training period for these brothers extends for six years. In general, though this was not true for everyone at the time of the follow-up in 1970, it can be assumed that those still persisting from among candidates who had applied during the years from 1957 through 1962 were finally professed. These men would have been in their respective institutes anywhere from eight to thirteen years. In absolute numbers far and away the greatest number of final professed came from among candidates who had applied at age 17. There were 63 professed from that age bracket versus 5 from those who had applied at age 16, 13 from the 18-19- year-old applicants, and 3 from the 20-24-year-olds. On the basis of the proportions of candidates within each age group who remained to be finally professed, again the highest proportion was found among the 17-year-olds, though the differences from one age group to another were Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 349 relatively small: 17% of the 16-yea.r-old candidates eventually were finally pro-fessed, 23% of the 17-year-olds, 15% of the 18-19-year-olds, and 20%of the 20-24- year-olds. The entrants in each age group who had taken final vows were distributed as follows: 45% of the 16-year-olds, 48% of the 17-year-olds, 37% of the 18-19-year-olds, and 60% of the 20-24-year-olds. With only 3 people in the latter category, one could hardly justify delaying entrance to that age unless one could also demonstrate their superiority over the 81 professed who had entered at the younger age. The differences between the persistence rates of candidates and the persistence rates of entrants suggest that pre-ad.mission screening improves persistence rates rather substantially at every age. Priests In the case of the priests the overall persistence rate for the 294 entrants was 34% in comparison to 28% for the 354 candidates. The best persistence record for entrants was achieved by those who had applied when they were between 20-24 followed by the 17-year-old applicants. The best persistence record for candidates was achieved by 17-year-olds followed by those 20-24. There were fairly sizeable numbers of persisters in all the age brackets from 17 through 24 but substantially greater numbers who withdrew. Thus it would be very difficult to generalize about an optimum age for entering this seminary aside from being under age 25. At the time of the follow-up 19 of 118 candidates who had applied during the years 1961 and 1962 had been in the seminary eight or nine years. On the average they had been 19 years, 9 months when they sought entry. Of the 19 a total of 10 were ordained. The youngest candidate among the ordained had been 18 when he applied. The majority (6 of the 10) had been between 20-24; 1 was 27; 2 were 19. There is a strong suggestion from these few figures that for this seminary being in one's early twenties was a better sign of promise for eventual ordination than being younger. It needs to be pointed out, however, that older candidates had less education to complete when they entered and were thus more likely to have been ordained within the eight-to nine-year span covered by this study than were younger entrants. When the follow-up was done 9 non-ordained of the 19 persisters over this time span had been 18 or younger on becoming candidates: 1 was 16; 5 were 17; and 3 were 18. Accordingly, one might still be reluctant to deny admission to 17-year-olds. Looked at another way and assuming the 6 remaining 16 and 17-year-old persisters all accept ordination, that would result in an expected ordination rate of 13% for the 46 candidates in that age bracket during the years 1961-62 versus an actual ordination rate of 26% for the 23 candidates who were between 20-24. The comparable ordination rates for entrants in these age brackets would be 15% versus 37%, respectively. For candidates 18-19 years old, 3 already were ordained and assuming ordination of the remaining 3, their ordination rate against the total candidates in that age bracket would be. 14% versus 18% for entrants in that age group. Though the numbers involved are very small to draw firm generalizations, the ordination rates, both actual and assumed, give rather clear support to the view that candidates in their early twenties show greater promise than do those in their late teens. Sisters Fifty-four percent of the 867 who entered the four convents were still in as of 1970 in comparison to 43% of the total 1089 candidates. The persistence rates of 350 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 all entrants under 25 years old differed very little from one another: 54% of the 17-year-old entrants were still in, 55%of the 18-19-year-olds, and 53%of the 20~24- year-olds. Entrants over age 25, a very small number (10), were less likely to persist (40%) than the others. Using the total pool of candidates as a reference point the best persistence risks came from those who were between 17 and 19 (44%) when they applied. The poorest risks were those over 30 (0%), followed by those between 25 and 29 (22%), and 20-24 (37%). A separate analysis was done of the 209 candidates who had applied to three of the convents sometime between 1958 and 1962 and who were still in as of 1970. The fourth convent did not begin psychological evaluations until 1963 and was excluded for that reason. Thus for the other three institutes those persisting had been in their respective convent for eight to twelve years and normally would have been finally professed by that time. For these people essentially the same persistence rates were found for all ages between 17 and 24. Of the 17-year-old entrants 53% were professed compared to 54% of the 18-19-year-olds, and 56% of the 20-24-year-olds. Using candidates as the base for comparisons, 47% of the 17-year-olds were professed, 47% of the 18-19-year-olds, and 42% of the 20-24-year olds. In absolute numbers far and away the greatest number of professed (I 13) applied when they were 17 followed by 67 18-19-year-olds, 23 20-24-year~olds, 3 25-29-year-olds, and 3 16-year-olds. No candidate over thirty remained in.Sixteen-year- old candidates were a rarity. There were only four and all applied to one convent. Three of the four were eventually professed. What can one make of the figures for the convents? With about one-half of the 17- year-old candidates having remained in the convent at least eight to twelve years, it would be hard to support the contentii3n that they are a less stable group than older candidates and thus should be delayed from entering for another year, two years, or more. Profession rates for 18-19-year-old entrants are no better than theirs and after that age the persistence rates drop off. Unless one could assume holding the interest of 17-19-year-olds during a period of delay, a large drop in absolute numbers of those who eventually take final vows can be predicted and probably without much change in overall persistence rates given the same amount of screening done in the past. Summary Observations An increase in the number of nonentrants among candidates to Church vocations is one likely consequence of postponing entry beyond high school graduation. Age in itself would not be the reason for this increase. However, age-related factors such as career indecisiveness, social and sexual adjustment, and similar factors probably would be. A second consequence very likely would be a sharp decline in the number of candidates making application. This already is evident for institutes which have adopted a policy of postponed entrance for a year or more after high school graduation. The brothers, in particular, would be affected by this. The two brothers institutes in this study do not conduct colleges whereas the institute of priests and the four institutes of sisters each conduct at least one college and in some cases :two or more. 1 do not know if this was a contributing factor to brothers attracting the youngest candidates of all three types of institutes and having had relatively small numbers of candidates in their early twenties, but 1 suspect that was the case. In addition, for the brothers almost three times the proportion of candidates in their early twenties failed to enter than was true for the seminary and convents. I take Review for Refigious, Volume 31, 1972/3 351 this to mean that applicant proximity to the age group with which the Church institute works may be a significant factor both in becoming a candidate and in entering. Persistence was related to ag~ differently for the three types of institutes. Considering only those who had remained in for periods ranging from eight to thirteen years, for the brothers 17-year-old entrants had the best persistence records and in absolute numbers constituted by far the largest group of persisters compared to other ages; for entrants to the priesthood being in the early twenties was associated with a persistence rate twice that for 17-year-olds and approximately twice that for 18-19-year-olds as well; for the sisters essentially the same persistence rates were found for all ages between 17 and 24. The absolute number of persisters was much higher for 17-year-olds, however, than for any other age group. These figures indicate that it is unwise to generalize about optimum' age for entry without taking into consideration the type of institute. Given the same set of circumstances for the future that prevailed in these institutes through 1970 - an admittedly questionable assumption - one would have to predict that postponing entry to age 20 for the brothers could shortly put those institutes out of business. For the seminary reported on here to do that could result in a reduction of up to 50% of those who remain in to be eventually ordained, though I would estimate~ the more likely reduction would be on the order of 20-25%. For the convents to postpone entry to age 20 one would predict a very sharp drop in total number of entrants but without appreciably improving persistence rates of those eventually admitted. The net effect would be a substantial drop in new professed. All of this obviously assumes a simpler relationship between age and persistence than fits the facts, but the estimates have some empirical foundation. I think the more important question than simple persistence is whether one can identify among post high school candidates those who are mature enough to hold promise for an effective ministry. On the side of negative characteristics, there is firm evidence that candidates with poor motivation and poor prognosis due to family problems can be identified with a high degree of success (Weisgerber, 1969). The very sharp differences for the brothers in persistence rates for entrants from the different age groups in comparison to candidates from the different age groups probably reflects the results of effective screening. The brothers admitted only about 50% of their candidates. Similar differences in persistence rates were not found between entrants and candidates to the seminary which had not screened nearly so rigorously. Some institutes prefer to admit candidates without putting strong emphasis on the psychological evaluation. This typically results in higher entry rates and lower persistence rates, an outcome which indirectly suggests that signs of promise among candidates can be identified with some accuracy by pre-admission evaluation. So, too, does the much higher long-term persistence rate for the brothers than for the seminary, the former institutes having been more selective than the latter. The research project of which this report is a part is also concerned with specifying psychological attributes which distinguish successful 17-year-old candi-dates from nonsuccessful ones, success defined in terms of interpersonal relation-ships and job competence after final profession. Preliminary results suggest this can be done to some extent for a given institute but that the findings are not generalizable even between two similar institutes, for example, between two institutes of brothers engaged in the same work. This, too, would argue against 352 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 making specific entry age recommendations for all Church vocations and would argue instead for institutes establishing entry age policies based on studies of their own candidates. REFERENCES Gerlach, J. Form. ation: Some Reflections and Convictions. Review for Religious, Vol. 30, No. 5, September, 1971. Keefe, J. Maturity io the High School Seminary: An Empirical Approach. The Catholic Psychological Record, 1969, 6, 1, ,I 5-29. Kinnane, J. F., Career Development for Priests and Religious. Washington, D.C.: C.A.R.A. 1970. Lewis, A., Bowles, W. and Grace, R. Attitude Study Among Priests and Religious in New Orleans Archdiocese. Project ~560, May, 1967 Unpublished paper. Mitchell, K. R. Priestly Celibacy from a Psychological Perspective. The Journal of Pastoral Care, Vol. 24, No. 4, December, 1970. Patterson, H. A Study of Student Mortality at St. Anthony's Seminary and Suggestions for Improving the Situation. Master's Dissertation, Catholic University of America, | 942. Potvin, R. H. and Suziedelis, A. Seminarians of the Sixties. Washington! C.A.R.A. 1969. Rooney, J. J. Psychological Research on the American Priesthood: A Review of the~ Literature in E. C. Kennedy and V. J. Hecker, The Loyola Psychological Study of the Ministry and Life of the American Priests (Washington: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1971). Sacred Congregation of Religious and for Secular Institutes. Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation. Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1969. Schneider, B. and Hall, D. T. The Role of Assignment Characteristics in the Career Experiences of Diocesan Priests. in W. E. Bartlett (ed.) Evolving Religious Careers, Washington, D.C.: C.A.R.A. 1970. Verstynen, R. J. A Study of Perseverance in Relation to Vocations to the Priesthood. Master's Dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1948. Weisgerber, C. A. Psychological Assessment of Candidates for a Religious Order. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1969. JOHN R. SHEETS, S.J. Soundings on the Present State of Religious Life [John R. Sheets, S.J., is professor of theology at Marquette University; 1131 West Wisconsin Avenue; Milwaukee, Wisconsir~ 53233.] Anyone who attempts to assess the present state of religious life in America today is in a position similar to that of a weatherman who might try to give a neat presentation of the weather across the country. It defies any neat categories. In one part it is calm, in another stormy. In one, it is warm; in another, below zero. High in the atmosphere there are currents of air which no one picks up without the proper instruments, while close to the earth there are other currents which everyone can feel. Changing the comparison, we would like to present some "soundings" concerning the present condition of religious life in America. "Soundings" is a safe word for what we would like to do. Taking soundings of the ocean floor, for example, is always a combination of accurate analysis plus some educated guesswork. At the same time, the nature of sounding what lies beneath the surface respects the fact that the picture can change very suddenly because of the constant movement of the currents. There are two assumptions underlying all that is said below. They are quite obvious, but it is necessary to mention them in order to put the rest of" the remarks in their proper context. The first assumption is this: There are certain fundamental components involved in all change which must interact harmoniously if there is to be growth and development. These components of change are mainly concerned with permanence and variability, sameness and newness, unity and diversity, continuity and discon-tinuity, conservation and innovation. When these components are mutally suppor-tive, there is progressive growth. When they fail to mesh and are at odds, the result is frustration, stagnation, fragmentation, and disintegration. The second assumption concerns the vital synthesis of these components. They are held together only through vision and values which are shared. The components are only mutually supportive if they are held together from above through faith enriched by love. Where faith is lost, these components lose their synthesizing center. They tend to break off and live a life of their own when the center is gone. On the other hand, where they are rooted in a common faith, then, while there may be stress and strain, there will inevitably be growth. We would like to make our soundings of religious life on the basis of these two assumptions. It seems that our soundings pick up an antagonism between these components of change as well as approaches to synthesis. We would like to hazard the opinion that this antagonism comes largely from an overreaction to what we 354 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 can vaguely call a "classical" view of religious life. This is the first point we would like to make. In the second place, we would like to comment on the fact that in many instances the synthesis is lost because the vision and values that were shared are no longer shared. In the third place, we want to call attention to the phenomenon of fresh synthesis that is taking place in many religious personally as well as in their congregations. Overreaction to the "Classical" Mentality We said above that growth depends on the harmonious interaction of the various components of change and that frustration occurs where these begin to be antagonistic to each other instead of supportive. One of the main sources of this antagonism today comes from an overreaction to the past. Today one often hears our own age of rapid change contrasted with a "classical" world view. This term is a hard one to nail down adequately. Among other things it connotes a mentality which is static, uniform, traditional, symmetrical. No period and no person in history ever verified this description perfectly. It is for the most part a mental construct. Nevertheless, in comparison with our present age, it does serve as a useful category. Our own age takes its orientation not only from the various forces that are at work, but also from the fact that these forces are fed by undertows of reaction toward the past. This is not an unusual phenomenon. Other periods of history have been marked largely by the way in which they reacted .to the past. The period of Romanticism, for example,took its shape and force largely as a reaction to the Enlightenment. The same process takes place in individuals as well as in groups. A person who has been brought up in a home that is overrestrictive can turn his initial taste of freedom into a spree of irresponsibility. It seems that many problems in religious life today come not simply from a legitimate reaction but from an overreaction to what can be vaguely called a "classical" form of religious life. Reaction in itself is not necessarily harmful. It can in fact provide impetus to move a person or a group forward. When it becomes an overreaction, however, it moves a person or a group into a position of imbalance. Overreaction can act like a blind force pushing a person or a group into a position beyond the point where they would normally go if they had full control of the situation. Where there is overreaction, reason does not lead. It is only called upon to legitimate the position a person has been forced into by overreaction. Similarly, overreaction is not the product of freedom and choice but of a passion generated by antagonism against a previous state of things. Reaction, as was said, can be an incentive to move beyond the point where one finds himself. Reaction can be the realm of the Spirit. Overreaction, on the other hand, is the realm of the demonic. Reaction can be the activity of the prophet. Overreaction is characteristic of the fanatic. Reaction is power under control. Overreaction is power without control. We can ascribe three main characteristics to the "classical" mentality. They are (1) anonymity, (2) structure, (3) subordination of the individual to the community. In lining up these characteristics we repeat the caution that they are largely a mental construct we put on the past. While they are verified, they are never found in an unmixed form. At the same time we want to avoid the idea that we are condemning the "classical" mentality. It is like pointing out a particular style of architecture that characterized a certain period in history. It is no reflection on the Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 355 genuinity of religious dedication in the past. Our contemporary "architecture" will become "classical" to the generations that follow us. The Reaction against Anonymity One of the reactions to what we called the classical mentality is the reaction against "being a nobody." It is a reaction against a certain kind of anonymity that was part of religious life. Perhaps anonymity is not the right word. In any case, the religious was not to call attention to himself as an individual. He was in a sense to " be a symbolic presence, where what he stood for shone through the individual characteristics. For this reason, particularly with religious women, the religious garb itself served an important function, not only in its positive value as sign, but also in what could be called a negative sense. Individual characteristics were "blacked out," very often to the point where only the face was visible. Whenever religious women today reminisce about the kind of clothes they used to wear, they usually do so with a mixture of humor, wonder, and relief, somewhat in the same way that children react to the old pictures in an album. However, when one realizes the thinking behind that manner of dress, it is not all that ridiculous. The dress was in some way to reduce what was purely individual in order to manifest the personal. Individual characteristics were suppressed to make room for what was beyond the individual. We are not calling for a return to those particular modes of dress. It is important, however, to understand the rationale behind them. The same thinking was behind the custom of changing one's name. When a religious gave up his family name and assumed a new name, this change was symbolic of a new mode of existence. This anonymity was a kind of a general condition in which religious, especially religious women, worked and lived. It monitored one's whole life. One's home, background, family, were kept hidden like a precious secret. We can all remember (except the ~,ery youngest of us) when one of the greatest childhood thrills was to discover the color of sister's hair, or to find out her real name. The cloister itself was a graphic symbol of this hiddenness. Today there is a strong reaction against any factor which is associated with anonymity. As HammarskjiSld observes in his diary, "Our final wish is to have scribbled off the wall our 'Kilroy was here.' " We all want to be recognized, not to be a nobody, but to be a somebody, and to have what we do acknowledged by others as our own work. Though we boast about our being able to go it alone, wo are very dependent on the recognition given us by others. No one can deny the value in such a reaction where it makes someone a more genuine person. Often, however, it results in making someone more of an individual, but less of a person. The difference between the individual and the personal is the difference in the color of one's eyes and the light in his eyes, or the shape of one's body and the genuineness of one's love. What is individual in us is (to use St. Paul's expression) the earthenware vessel in which we carry the personal. Where the individual is cultivated at the expense of the personal, we find something like those tiny Japanese trees which are very beautiful but unfruitful. While each of us has the temptation to sacrifice the person on the altar of the individual in us, the overreaction to the anonymity of the past has in many cases brought about a cult of individualism rather than a deepening of the personal. There is a difference between the liberation of the person and the liberation of what is individual in us. Often what passes for liberation of the personal.:in us is simply a disguised form of individualism. 356 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 Another aspect of this reaction against the anonymity of the past is evident in the strong movement to have a say in what is happening. In the past, religious, especially religious women, were to be seen, not heard. They never had a share in the decision-making in the parish, diocese, or Church. They were always obediently "there." Decisions from Rome, the Sacred Congregation of Religious, or the chancery office were accepted with unquestioning obedience, at least as far as execution was concerned. There was a certain mystique to the whole idea of authority in the Church. An interesting reaction has taken place, which in many instances has assumed the proportions of an overreaction. If in the past there was a mystique about authority, today there is a de-mystification of authority to the point where the very ¯ foundations of ecclesial authority are denied. Ecclesiastical authority, especially if it is of the unAmerican type, is relegated to something like baroque architecture, which is a relic of the past. In a very brief span of ten years, many religious, as individuals and as groups, have come of age, and issued their declaration of independence, often in the words dictated to them by some other authority. Chesterton's remark, though written decades ago, is apropos. He said: "Thousands of women rose up and said, 'We shall not be dictated to!' Then they sat down to be stenographers." It is unfortunate that an overreaction to a "classical" mode of exercising authority has led many to reject or to question the authority of the Church itself in matters touching their religious life. When this happens, another authority comes in to take the place of the one rejected. Nature abhors a vacuum. An authority vacuum is soon filled with another authority. Often the situation is like that described in the gospel, where seven devils enter who are worst than the first. In something of a similar vein, religious are feeling their "political oats." There is also a reaction to anonymity here. They are beginning to realize that they can and should have a voice in the affairs of the Church and society. Much of this is on the positive side of the ledger. There is a danger, however, that some may lose sight of the fact that a religious group does not exist primarily to exercise political pressures through the use of political tactics. Their political influence in fact is mainly exercised through witness to the gospel values in a manner which ve.ry often is incompatible with the strategies involved in politics. The Reaction against Structure We have commented on the imbalance that comes from an overreaction against a kind of "classical" arlonymity which we associate with religious life of the past. This same kind of a phenonmenon occurs in reaction to "structure." It is hard to pin down exactly what is contained in the word "structure?' Many use it in different ways. In any case, it seems to be loaded with many of the connotations we described as being part of the "classical" mentality. It conjures up spectres of impersonalism, inflexibility, regulation, and stereotype. In the past, at least in the case of many religious, practically every detail of their lives was regulated, the way they dressed, the order of the day, their manner of dealing with externs, their correspondence, and so forth. It is understandable that there should be a reaction to this type of regulation. But, as in the case with the reaction against anonymity, which has become the cult of the individual, here also the overreaction against structure has often turned into adolescent immaturity. There is almost an allergy to any type of regulation at all. Even language itself has to be purged of words that suggest anything like regulation. The word "rule" has Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 357 gone into the limbo of forbidden words and has been replace.d with safe words like "guidelines," "directives." As an overreaction to the regulation of everything, many are spastic about the regulation of anything. In many cases even the revised constitutions, the product of much work, prayer, study, discussion, are very careful to be "safe" in their terminology. Words that have any connotation of structure are carefully avoided. Very often these constitutions are written on the tide of overreaction and are careful to play down any idea of subordination of self to anything like structure. Yet it is a matter of common sense that structure is one of the components of growth that we spoke of earlier. It is like the branches of a tree through which the life flows to produce the fruit. Of course, structure without life is dead, and life without structure is aimless. Along with this reaction to overregulation, there is also the reaction to oversupervision. Some religious consider their duty is done if they "check in" occasionally to let superiors know what is happening. In many cases, superiors themselves have abdicated any real role of authority. They see their role only as serving as a kind of check point to keep the traffic running smoothly. These remarks should not be construed as hankering after the days of yore, where every detail in a person's life was regulated, and being an authority was identified with giving orders. They serve to point out a fact, however. Overreaction to that kind of a life has often resulted in a caricature not simply of religious life, but of any kind of life, which needs a certain structure and regulation if there is to be concerted work for a goal. The Reaction to Institution Along with the reaction against anonymity and structure, there is the reaction against institution. While this word is related to structure, when we use it here we are thinking of the corporate nature of the religious group. It takes into consideration the relationship of the part to the whole, and the whole to the part. We see the same phenomenon here that we have commented on above. There is a profound malaise with everything connoted" by the word "institutional." Once again, as a reaction against certain features of our institutional life, this movement can be very healthy. However, when it becomes an overreaction, the components of change begin to clash instead of supporting each other. One aspect of the reaction to "institution" is the movement to small commu-nities. It is an attempt to "de-institutionalize" one's life. It is too early to assess the results of this. In some cases, it has resulted in a more genuine community life, both within the small community, and in the relationship of the small community to all of the other communities. In other instances, the s~ into individuals who share the same rooms without sh~ As part of this reaction against institution, there i., vision of one's apostolate to one's personal career. apostolate of many religious communities has lost tl~ has been reduced for all practical purposes to a group own flight plans. The apostolates that have suffered areas, where hospitals and schools have closed and r facing an uncertain future, because they have no !~ whether religious will still be interested in such work. Now I feel I must tread where even angels fear religious garb. A few years ago (though it seems like a concerned with modifying the religious garb. Now it nail communities degenerate ing anything else. the tendency to narrow the is a great tragedy that the community dimension and individuals turning in their the most are those in rural aany others find themselves uarantee from year to year walk. It is the matter of ',entury) the discussions were a matter in many cases of 358 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 adoption of a mode of dress which in no way disti.nguishes a person as a religious. This is a very touchy subject. Though the question of clothing is trivial in itself when compared with values like faith and charity, it assumes in practice an importance out of all proportion to the fact that it is something extrinsic, while the other values are intrinsic. This phenomenon should already give us a hint concerning the nature of clothing. Clothes are never merely extrinsic. They are like the face. They mirror forth the person behind the face. We have been speaking of the reaction against anonymity, structure, and institution, where an overreaction results in individualism instead of personalism, fragmentation instead of integration, careerism instead of group apostolate. It seems that the question of clothing is of particular importance because it becomes as it were the symbol of the reaction against all of these classical features, not just against one of them. On the other hand, is it not possible that it has become an anti-symbol, where it symbolizes individualism, fragmentation, and careerism? We hope that, even though this is such a sensitive subject, most of us are beyond the stage where rational discussion is swallowed up in emotional reactions. We seem to have forgotten that the social sciences have given us much insight into the matter of clothes. All studies of human clothing point out the basic fact that clothes are not just things. They are part of the body-person, t Leaning on the research of the social sciences, we would like to comment on two aspects of clothing: what we wear gives visible shape to our inner attitude, and in turn what we wear shapes the attitudes. In both cases, this comes from the fact that clothes have a symbolic nature. Our inner attitudes are expressed in the way we speak, act, and dress. This is the law of our being. Human clothing is not just a protection against the elements. It forms an important link in that interlocking network of symbols in which we communicate with one another. Clothes are a function of meaning even more than words. They do in fact provide the light in which people interpret our words. We all recall the story of the Turkish astronomer in The Little Prince. No learned society accepted the report of his discovery of the new asteroid until he changed from Turkish clothes into European costume. Clothing, therefore, is never neutral. While this is true for every human being, it seems that it is especially true. for women. Clothes are not blank cartridges. When Judith prepared to meet Holofernes, she knew what every woman knows. Clothes are a manifestation of inner intentionality. The medium is the message. There are three levels of our existence, each of which is manifested by the way we dress. On the first level, clothes manifest our inner attitudes. On the second level, they manifest something more superficial, a job that we have, as we see in the uniform of a policeman, a soldier, a nurse. On the third and most profound level, they symbolize our meaning. A wedding dress, for example, is more than a symbol of an inner attitude, more than a uniform someone wears to get married. It symbolizes the meaning of a person's life, which from this point on is to be a life-with-another. The same is true of the vestments worn by the priest when he is celebrating. They symbolize more than a mentality. They are not a uniform used for worship. They serve to draw the worshippers into a new mode of existence. The symbolic aspect of clothing is obvious. There is another aspect of clothing, I see for example in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences the entries under "Dress," "Fashion," and so forth; see also: J. C. Flugel, The Psychblogy of Clothes (New York, 1950), and Mary Shaw Ryan, Clothing: A Study in Human Behavior (New York, 1966). Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 however, which we do not think about as often. Clotl as the saying goes, "clothes make the man." In a ge man more really than man makes the clothes. All psychologists, and for that matter anyone w aware that the most sure way to change a person's v the symbols which surround his life. A person's changing his ideas alone. The change comes fr( meaningful sense symbols which gradually change sudden a person finds himself thinking in a different way a person dresses affects the way he thinks. self-image; they create it. Clothes are like reflectors. are, but they also act as reflectors in which we see of what we see. It is of great importance for religious to avail the~ matter of clothing provided by the social scientists. 0 that clothes are a way of speaking. The question to be To what extent should what I wear speak to others' inner character, or my job, or my meaning? Similarb psychological effect that clothes have on our thinking" Let us sum up our remarks for this first part. We r~ growth depend on the harmonious interworking of t many cases we saw th, at these components, insteac ended up in antagonistic positions. This can be trace overreaction to what is called a classical mentality. Ma from reaction, but where reaction gets out of bound: frustrate progress. We pointed out three areas in whi have been particularly strong: against anonymity, : nature of religious life which we globally describ~ commented on the fact that attitudes toward, religi influenced by the same type of reaction. The Loss of Shared Values and Shared Vision We mentioned above that the components of c! synthesis through shared faith and shared values. Whe works and lives at cross purposes. They are like rowe trying to row in his own direction. There is no doubt that the atmosphere of seculari~ and hearts of many religious. This is a process of h that are distinctively Christian are leveled to a vague, h betterment. Those values of the gospel which are rationalistic mind and sinful nature are de-scandaliz~ categories of relevance. Those gospel values which res Such are the scandal of the cross, the virtues of h~ renuntiation, repentance, and penance. In some cases secularization has not only de-Christ: even infected the ideas that some religious have about To all appearances some religious seem to have lost the Sometimes the gospel values crystalized in the tra chastity, poverty, and obedience, are lost in the perf~ vows is "updated" into some more meaningful an~ 359 es not only manifest the man; luine sense, clothes make the no knows human nature, are ,hole personality is to change character is not changed by ,m the pressure exerted by the concepts, until all of a way than he did before. The They not only express his ['hey not only reflect what we urselves and assume the shape tselves of the insights into the ne cannot avoid the basic fact answered by everyone is this: ' Should clothes manifest my ,, we have to be aware of the entioned that all progress and ~e components of growth. In of supporting one another, at least in great part, to an ny positive features can come ~ it delivers ultimatums which .~h this overreaction see.ms to ;tructure, and the corporate d ds institution. Finally we ~us garb are to "some extent ~ange are kept in a healthy a these are lost, a community rs in a boat, each of whom is ation has infected the mind~ arizontalization where values umanistic concern for human a perennial scandal to the d and adapted to the bland st adaptation are abandoned. ~nility, docility, abnegation, anized the gospel, but it has God, Christ, and the Church.