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The WSU Stewart Library Annual UC-UI Symposium took place from 2001-2007. The collection consists of memorabilia from the symposium including a yearly keepsake, posters, and presentations through panel discussions or individual lectures. ; Audio Recording ; David Eccles and the Origins of the Utah Construction Company a commemorative lecture presented at the 2007 Utah Construction/ Utah International Symposium The Beginning of an Era by Dr. Thomas Alexander Thursday, October 18, 2007 1 It's a pleasure for me to be here today and let me thank a number of people for this opportunity. Thanks to Beverly Ahlstrom and to my daughter Tracy Alexander Zappala for their help with the research. Thanks to Richard Sadler and Joan Hubbard here at Weber State for inviting me to give this presentation. I thank Brooke Ann Alexander, another daughter for her help with the pictures that I put together today and thanks to John Sillito and the staff of Special Collections here at the Stewart Library for their help with the documents here. To Brad Cole and the staff of the Leonard J. Arrington Archives at Utah State University for their help and Greg Thompson and his staff at the University of Utah Marriott Library for their help. Most particularly let me thank Utah International and the Eccles, Wattis and Dee families for sponsoring this symposium. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here today. On May 12th of 1849 Sarah Hutchison Eccles gave birth to David Eccles who joined his older brother, John, among William Eccles and Sarah's expanding family that eventually included seven children. After working hard selling resin stick as lighters and products of his fathers lathe in Scotland and obtaining less than a year of schooling David immigrated with his family from Scotland to Utah in 1863. The family settled first here in Ogden and then successively in Liberty and Eden in Ogden Valley. Cataracts had blinded William Eccles, but he turned utensils on his lathe by feel and David peddled those products from a pack in Ogden and Brigham City and points between. The family moved to Oregon City in 1867 and William Eccles, David now age eighteen and his younger brother Stewart found work cutting cord wood. The back braking labor of felling and 2 sawing timber became David's entree in to the business in which he grounded his fortune. In 1869 after two years in Oregon the Eccles family moved to Ogden because of the joining of the Union and Central Pacific that same year. Ogden became Utah's transportation center and it surpassed Provo as Utah's second largest city. David and Stewart returned to lumbering. In the winter of 1869- 70, now twenty years old David found additional work in Wyoming as a freighter and in Eden on his father's homestead. The entrepreneurial spirit evidence in his business ventures in Scotland however impelled him to brake loose from working for others. Capitalizing on the skills he had learned in Oregon he negotiated a contract to furnish logs for the Wheeler Saw Miller which was located at the confluence of Wheeler Creek and the Ogden River just west of the present site of Pine View Dam. With his earnings he purchased two oxen. To his great regret an accident killed the oxen as they pulled logs for him. The death of his team forced him to return to work for others. He worked for the Union Pacific and the Alameda Coal Mine in Wyoming. Recognizing David's industriousness the boss gave him a job for which he was not qualified, because of the lack of schooling in Scotland he had not learned to do arithmetic properly and he soon lost the job as a bookkeeper for the company. Soon Chinese workers willing to work for much lower wages replaced the Euro Americans in the job there at the coal mine. The boss fired him and he returned to Eden. After returning to Ogden Valley he again engaged in logging. 3 David recognized the need for better education to supplement his entrepreneurial skills and during the winter of 1872- 73 and again in a later winter he enrolled in a private school in Ogden's old City Hall that was run by Louis F. Moench. Moench a well educated immigrant from Germany's Rhineland later became principal of Weber Stake Academy, and now Weber State University. He's best known today as the lyricist of a familiar Latter- day Saint hymn written first in German as " Sehet, ihr voelker" and translated in to English as " Hark All Ye Nations." Many of you are familiar with that hymn. Although he attended only two terms David learned enough to develop the skill of adding a row of figures in what seemed to observers like lightening speed. The winter of 1872- 73 proved extremely busy for this ambitious young man. In addition to attending school he negotiated a freighting contract to take a load of coffins from Ogden to Pioche, Nevada. You wonder perhaps what all of this stuff that David did during his early life has to do with Utah Construction. Well his earnings in lumbering formed the basis of his fortune. The earnings in lumber provided the funds for his investment in First National Bank and investment in the sugar industry. The investment in the bank then led to his investment in Utah Construction. And the investment in Sugar led to Utah Construction's first large contract. If you don't learn anything else from this presentation today you ought to get those three points. To understand his success then, we need to understand these things. Now during the summer of 1872, David had a contract to furnish logs for a mill owned by Bishop David James on Monte Cristo forty- five miles east of Ogden after he finished the contract he reached an agreement with 4 two colleagues to share the cost of building a mill during the summer of 1873, the next year. He used a loan and the money he'd earned from freighting coffins for his share of the capital for that mill. Firm of Henry E. Gibson, W. T. VanNoy and David Eccles operated the mill and the following year they opened a lumber yard in Ogden. As David managed the mill on Monte Cristo he found time to come down the mountain to Huntsville to dance. There he renewed his acquaintance with a young woman Bertha Marie Jensen whom he'd previously seen in Huntsville and had met at Monech's school. In contrast with David's impoverished family, Bertha a native in Denmark had relatively fixed parents. Then in spite of their social differences the two feel in love and married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on December the 17th of 1885. The marriage produced twelve children. After his marriage David continued in the lumbering business. He logged and processed lumber on Monte Cristo with Gibson and VanNoy and then with Gibson. Then in 1881 after dispute because Gibson traded a span on his horses for some worthless oxen he broke with Gibson and formed his own company and after this time he was independent. Convinced of the need to retail his own products David opened a lumber mill on the corner of 24th Street and Lincoln Avenue in Ogden at which he always considered his primary business. Even when he became bank president and president of Utah Construction he kept his office at the lumber yard. Eccles soon moved his timber operation to Scofield a mining district in Carbon county about fifty miles northwest of Price. Concurrently he opened lumber operations in Idaho. 5 Engaging in business with John Stoddard who lived in Wellsville, he began to taking an interest in one of his fellow Scotsman's daughters, Ellen. That interest bloomed into love between the two. Born in January 1867 and nearly eighteen years younger than David, Ellen was only a couple weeks shy of age eighteen at the time of her marriage to David in the Logan Temple on January the 2nd 1885. Although the LDS church continued to encourage plural marriages in 1884 the federal government had inaugurated an intense campaign against polygamist Mormons and David kept his marriage to Ellen secret. At various times she lived with her father's family in Cache County at Scofield and in Oregon. The marriage produced nine children. Between 1884 and 1889 David continued to run his lumber business, but he entered in to local politics as well. He served as an alderman and mayor here in Ogden. While serving as mayor he bridged the gap between the Mormon and non- Mormon business communities by championing the organization of the Ogden Chamber of Commerce in April of 1887. He also oversaw the construction of a new city hall. At the time David also expanded his lumber operations. Between 1883 and 1889 he opened new timber stands in Oregon the opportunity to market lumber from the lush stands of the mountain west and pacific coast became part of the incentive for the construction of railroads through the west. And the available railroad transportation led to a boom in railroad logging. As entrepreneurs moved into the Rocky Mountains, California and the Pacific Northwest, to harvest evergreens Eccles got in on the ground floor of the logging business. 6 In 1883 he purchased a mill to manufacture railroad ties at North Powder from John Stoddard. Organizing the firm of Spencer, Ramsey and Hall in 1887 Eccles established sawmills at Veneta, Oregon and Chandroth, Washington. Fluming or floating logs to Veneta, the company cut the logs into ties, loaded them on railroad cars and shipped the out to fuel the ever expanding railroads throughout the west. In 1888 Eccles closed his operations at Scofield and moved the mill to Telocaset about thirty miles north of Baker, Oregon, and about eight mile from North Powder on the Union Pacific Railroad. Eccles' loggers at Scofield had been cutting illegally on public lands and after the inauguration of the Cleveland administration in 1885 General Land Office Commissar William A. J. Sparks began a sustained attack on illegal use of public resources. In addition, the General Land Office lumber inspectors had reportedly been extorting bribes from the company. That was somewhat of an incentive to close the operations down. In 1887 Eccles began his associations with Charles W. Nibley and you see the two of them here on the advertisement for the Oregon Lumber Company. Nibley a Scottish immigrant like Eccles earned a fortune in lumbering and in the beet sugar business before he became Presiding Bishop of the LDS Church stockholders in addition to Eccles, who held a controlling interest in the company. In 1889 David moved Ellen's family to North Powder. Eccles and Nibley induced the Union Pacific Railroad to use rails salvaged from other operations to construct in 1890 a twenty mile long narrow gauge railroad from Salisbury eight miles south of Baker northeast through the Sumpter Valley and he himself invested in that railroad as well. In addition the U. P. contracted with Eccles' firm 7 to furnish 500,000 ties each year which they shipped on their new railroad to various destinations. In 1891 the company shipped its first timber from Sumpter Valley and in 1892 Eccles opened a mill at Baker. By 1893 the company had operations at Hood River, Meacham, North Powder, Baker and Pleasant Valley. Eccles' company managed to weather the economic depression that followed the financial collapse in 1893 and the company was able to keep its employees, because they honestly told the workers about the dangers of working for the company under these stringent economic conditions. At the same time they promised the workers that they would treat them fairly. Into the early twentieth century the company continued its operations. In 1902 Eccles opened the mill at Anglish Oregon and about forty miles northwest of Portland. The town again lay on the Columbia River and also on the railroad line. In 1903 Eccles purchased the Lost Lake Lumber Company at Hood River also on the Railroad line and the Columbia River and he consolidated with the Oregon Lumber company. In 1905 Eccles induced the Union Pacific to construct a spur line the Hood River Railroad from Hood River twenty- five miles up to Parkdale. This allowed them to access the lush stands of fir in the region. In the mean time Eccles began to invest in other businesses. He reluctantly bought stock in the Utah Sugar Company, the parent company of Utah- Idaho Sugar. In spite of his reservations about investing in that company his connection with U& I proved a god send for him. He also began to invest in banking and it was the banking business that eventually led him to invest in Utah Construction. In 1881 a group associated with Horace S. Eldridge then president 8 of Deseret National Bank and manager of ZCMI chartered the First National Bank in Ogden. The bank located its offices at the corner of Washington Boulevard and 24th street. At the time the only Ogden stock holder was Neil C. Fliger. In 1883 the First National Bank increased its capital from a $ 100,000 to $ 150,000 and David invested in the bank and was elected to the board of directors. In 1888 the board elected David H. Parry as president of the bank and in 1889 Eccles was elected, or in 1892 Eccles elected vice president. In 1894 he purchased Parry's stock and was elected president of the bank. In 1898 he became a director of the Deseret Savings Bank and Deseret National Banks in Salt Lake City. These banks later became the basis of the First Security Bank system, now part of the Wells Fargo Bank system. As a faithful Latter- day Saint he also responded to calls to help his church. He never served a mission himself but sent sons on missions. He made his initial investment in the Utah Sugar Company because of a request from Heber J. Grant. Later when President Lorenzo Snow decided to issue bonds to help satisfy the church's creditors David Eccles subscribed to $ 200,000 worth of Latter- day Saint bonds. Eccles also paid off a $ 7,000 debt of the Ogden fifth ward by inducing President Lorenzo Snow to allow the ward to credit his tithing toward the debt toward that ward. Imagine trying to do something like that now. While David Eccles amassed a fortune from lumbering, the earning from which he invested in other business, two other young men, Edmund O. and William H. Wattis began to make their mark in business. E. O. and W. H. farmed together in Uintah and you'll hear some more about them from Stan Layton later 9 on, but they also began taking grading contracts often with their uncles George L., Charles J, Amos B., and Warren W. Corey. In 1881 the Corey Brothers and Ira E. Spalding organized Corey Brother Construction Company as a private company. In 1886 the Wattis brothers joined with their uncles and Spalding and incorporating Corey Brothers. The corporation constructed railroads in various states. Sometime after this incorporation David Eccles offered to purchase a share in the company, but reportedly the opposition of Warren Corey kept him out. Already however, Corey Brothers had begun financing their operations by borrowing $ 50,000 from Eccles' First National Bank. For the Portland to Astoria job for which the Corey Brothers contracted to grade the railroad line the contract required the company to pay the contractors at the completion of each twenty mile section of the railroad. As they moved along in the construction the company ran short of funds, in part because they had to front the cost of construction. Financial problems also arose because a company they were doing some work for in Nevada went bankrupt and because of the financial stringency. The depression of 1893 was probably the second worst depression that we had in the history of the United States. When Corey Brothers could find no financing to conclude the railroad contract local authorities auctioned their equipment to meet their obligations. In the mean time, the Corey Brothers soon reached First National Banks lending limit of ten percent of their capital. Warren Corey came to bank to borrow some more money. Well bank officials told him that David Eccles wasn't there. He was in his office over at the lumber company where he always 10 had his office, so Corey went and sought him out. What David did was to say, " Look, I don't want to talk with you. I want to talk to W. H. Wattis he's the general manager of the company." So Wattis came in to Eccles office and Eccles asked him, " Look what's the matter. Why do you need more money?" Wattis replied, " That nothing was the matter if we could get rid of the Coreys." He told Eccles that job wasn't good enough for seven families to live off. Unable to meet their obligations as the depression deepened the Corey Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 1895. To settle their debts the Wattis's and Corey's had to sell a great deal of their property in downtown Ogden and on the bench, east downtown to the First National Bank. As a bankrupt company Corey Brothers passed into receivership and the receiver sold the company assets now totaling about $ 7,000 to a new company incorporated on November the sixth of 1895 with capital of $ 10,000. Significantly with the new Corey Brothers they had a new set of senior partners all officers of the First National Bank. After the reorganization the officers of the bank, Thomas D. Dee, James Pingree, Joseph Clark, and David Eccles owned two- thirds of Corey Brothers Construction Company. Eccles held the largest block of stock with thirty- six shares. Dee, Pingree and Clark each held ten percent among the Corey Brothers only Warren Corey and his wife, Julia, with thirty- two percent and Amos Corey with one percent remained as stock holders and William H. Wattis held only one percent of the stock in this company. In what was an apparent effort to avoid calamities similar to that the company had experience in 1895 David Eccles insisted that company carry no 11 long term debt. In a bow to the Corey Wattis partnership however and because David Eccles had considerable confidence in him William H. Wattis was appointed vice president and general manager of the company. The new owners elected Dee as president of the company and Pingree as secretary and treasurer. Since the company had come under the wing of First National Bank however, David Eccles as bank president and the largest stock holder became a major power in the company. Soon however as Wattis had hoped the new owners of Corey Brothers shut the Corey brothers out of the business. On January the 8th of 1900 E. O. and W. H. Wattis together with their brother Warren L. Wattis incorporated the Utah Construction Company. They subscribed stock worth $ 8,000 from an initial offering of 24,000. Then on February the 8th of 1900, David Eccles, Thomas Dee, James Pingree and Joseph Clark, you'll remember their names from the bank together with the Wattis brothers purchased the remainder of the stock. Utah Construction agreed to purchase Corey Brothers assets except their books, probably weren't any good anyway, for $ 24,000. In the reorganization the Wattis brothers and W. H.' s wife Marie held $ 8,000 in shares, the same amount as David Eccles. Dee held $ 4,000 worth and Clark and Pingree $ 2,000 worth each. The directors reappointed W. H. Wattis as vice president and general manager and Dee was appointed as president. Wattis' reappointment came on the motion of David Eccles who had a considerable confidence in this younger mans ability. Eccles told his wife Bertha that the Utah Construction Company was one business that he did not have to concern himself about and that Mr. 12 Wattis knew the construction business and was competent to handle it. He also had similar confidence in E. O. Wattis whom he eventually place in charge of the companies San Francisco office. Under new management Utah Construction still had to finish the contracts that Corey Brothers had previously negotiated. The one Corey relative that they hired was Lester S. Corey, who served in various positions and eventually became company president. Completing the Corey Brothers contracts, Utah Construction finished a number of jobs including grading a road from Idaho Falls to St. Athenie for the Oregon Short Line, a subsidiary of railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman's Union Pacific Railroad. They also continued negotiating contracts for other jobs. In 1901 Utah Construction took a contract with Oregon Short Line to grade a line from its terminus in Utah to Las Vegas, Nevada. This construction project put O. S. L. and Harriman's Union Pacific system in competition with the Los Angeles and Salt Lake railroad owned by William Andrews Clark, who was a banking and mining magnate from Montana and who served for a time as Montana's senator. The Union Pacific had surveyed a line from Utah to Los Angeles in the nineteenth century, but Clark insisted that the franchise had lapsed because Union Pacific had not constructed the line very soon. This difference in opinion led to a frantic race between the two lines to completely construction through choke points. That is Narrow Canyons where workers could construct only one line. Both the Utah Construction Company and the L. A. S. L had crews that they pushed into the breach. Beginning at choke points construction crews actually graded road beds between places where other crews had already laid tracks. 13 Lester Corey served as Utah Construction's forwarding agent. In that capacity he had to make sure that hay, oats, and other supplies reached the camps ahead of the construction crews. From that vantage point Corey watched the progress and the confrontation between Utah Construction and Clark's company. They sent men and teams over land to places as much as fifty or more miles ahead of the rail end, those are Corey's words as he watched this. Laying rails at the rate of a mile a day the O. S. L people reached a choke point in Caliente Canyon, about sixty miles as the crow flies from Modena, Utah which was the last town in Utah before the tracks went into Nevada. Crows however don't fly the circuitous route that Utah Construction had to take to get into Caliente Canyon and down to Meadow Valley Wash in southern, southwestern Nevada where the town of Caliente was located. The Utah Construction crews reached Caliente Canyon before the L. A. S. L. crews did. Although the story is a bit unclear, Utah Construction must have already graded road bed through the canyon because the O. S. L. crews pulled in laying track on the way. When they got to the canyon they found that L. A. S. L. crews had strung a wired fence across the road bed, behind the fence stood a squad of toughs with rifles aimed at the O. S. L. construction crew. O. S. L. chief engineer, William Ashton, order his men to push the construction cars up to the fence and then he dumped a load of ties across the fence. In the face of these riflemen then, Ashton jumped the fence to call their bluff. Well as it happened the shooters weren't bluffing, at least not exactly. As soon as Ashton reached the other side of the fence the rifle men greeted him with volley of shots. 14 Fortunately the shots were all bang and no lead because the shooters had loaded their rifles with blanks. Both sides laughed at the confrontation and cooler heads prevailed. Utah Construction crews then packed up and returned to Utah and Idaho to carry several bank widening contracts. U. P. and L. A. S. L. took a year to negotiate an agreement and the line eventually became part of the Union Pacific system and Utah Construction returned to finish the road into Las Vegas. Significantly one of the stations in Caliente Canyon is named Eccles probably after David Eccles. After the organization of the company Eccles understood that Utah Construction could not really prosper if they continued to take small contacts for portions of railroad lines or for realigning various railroad lines the way the Corey Brothers had done. He wanted to undertake a very large project, but he needed help to negotiate it. His help came from Henry Havemeyer. As we've noted before through the good offices of Thomas Cutler, Eccles had already met Havemeyer. Cutler's Utah- Idaho Sugar Company had sold a fifty- one percent interest to Havemeyer's sugar trust. In June of 1902 after Cutler had introduced them, Havemeyer left Cutler twiddling his thumbs in the outer office and spent most of the day with David Eccles. The wily New Yorker apparently thought he could wear Eccles down, having cut his teeth though on the rough and tumble of western business Eccles held his own. After having his fill of Havemeyer's tactics Eccles finally told him bluntly, " We don't have to sell. We don't owe a dollar. This is what we'll do and nothing under that." Accepting Eccles proposal Havemeyer purchased fifty- one percent of the Ogden, Logan 15 and Oregon sugar companies that Eccles owned for more than the combined total of the three companies, and he consolidated them into the Amalgamated Sugar Company. Although he stood his ground in these negotiations, Eccles recognized that he could not battle a powerful company like the American Sugar Refining Company, so he bargained for the best deal he could. Significantly instead of detesting Eccles for his unyielding stand Havemeyer found Eccles a capable and impressive businessman and they became close friends. In Bertha Eccles' words, " Havemeyer didn't lose any respect for him because he stood up for what he knew was right." In fact he kept Eccles on as company president. Later when Havemeyer sent one of his technical experts to investigate Amalgamated Sugar Company plants the expert returned with the complaint that Eccles managers and other employees didn't have any advanced education. Havemeyer then defended Eccles, he told him, " Any man Mr. Eccles employs as a superintendent or to work around the mill is satisfactory and you must not interfere with Mr. Eccles." Now Havemeyer's friendship with Eccles proved more that propitious. Following the death of Callis B. Huntington in 1900 Edward H. Harriman gained control of the Southern Pacific Railroad. He already owned a controlling interest in Union Pacific and with the control of S. P. he effectually monopolized all of the railroad traffic from Salt Lake City to California. Previously S. P. had divided its patronage between the Denver and Rio Grande and the Union Pacific. With the 16 acquisition of Southern Pacific however, like a first rate monopolist Harriman began to squeeze the D. & R. G. In the mean time ownership of D. & R. G. had passed from Jay Gould to his eldest son George Jay. George Gould then owned a controlling interest in railroads stretching from Buffalo New York to Ogden Utah and he intended to extend that railroad from Baltimore to Oakland. To accomplish the western leg of his dream Gould turned to E. T. Jeffery who was president of Denver and Rio Grande in which Gould had a controlling interest. Gould and Jeffery tried to conduct surveys in secret over Beckworth Pass and down the Feather River Canyon to Oroville in California. But Arthur Caddy and Walter Barknet who had long planned for such a railroad learned of these efforts. Pressing Gould with claims that they'd already staked. Barknet negotiated an agreement with Gould on February the sixth of 1903 to provide for a new company to build this railroad from Salt Lake City to Oakland. On March the third then, a month after the two had signed this agreement and less than a year after Eccles had negotiated the sale of the controlling interest in his sugar plants to Havemeyer eleven men sat down at the California Safe Deposit Building on California Street in San Francisco. And you should remember that name, California Safe Deposit because it becomes important later on to the company. They signed and agreement to construct the Western Pacific Railroad from Salt Lake City to Oakland by way of Beckworth Pass, the Feather River and Oroville. Beckworth Pass lay more that 2,000 feet lower than Donner Pass which the Southern Pacific controlled. 17 Virgil Boge whom Gould sent out to conduct surveys found that they could construct a road with a grade of one percent, making it much more efficient that the Southern Pacific's grade over Donner Pass. After word of the new railroad reached Ogden the Company Officers learned that the contract for the western leg of the rail road from Oakland to Oroville had gone to E. B. & A. L. Stone of San Francisco. No one however had won the contract for the eastern end of the road which was to cross the Sierra Nevada, span all of Nevada and then cross Utah into Salt Lake City. No one in Utah Construction except David Eccles had an association with anyone with influence who could recommend them to Gould's representatives. He was in the word of Lester Corey, " The only one of our group who was known in eastern circles." Moreover " Eccles firmly believed that the company could do the job, so he agreed to go to New York and see what could be done," those are Lester Corey's words. Since he had a working relationship with Henry Havemeyer Eccles went to see the sugar magnate. Because of Havemeyer's confidence in Eccles' ability he recommended Eccles to the W. P. officers. Eccles said that " Havemeyer told Gould and his associates that anything that Eccles would sign his name to they could be sure he would see it through." Significantly Eccles, personally obligated himself to the successful performance of the contract, gave his personal word for it. In the midst of these negotiations on July eleventh, 1905 Thomas D. Dee contracted phenomena and died. On August seventh vice president W. H. Wattis called a meeting of the board of directors, the directors then elected David Eccles 18 president of the company. On September thirtieth, Eccles met with the board to ratify the first of the results of his negotiations with the Gould people. The directors agreed to sign first what to have been six contracts and seven supplemental contracts that authorized Utah Construction to prepare a roadbed for laying of rails from Salt Lake City to Oroville, California. The first contract obligated Utah Construction to grade between Salt Lake City and Silver Zone Pass, a pathway through the Toano Range about a hundred and ten miles west of Salt Lake City. Readers should understand that Utah Constructions obligation on this as on many previous contract consisted on preparing road bed on which the railroad laid its tracks rather than to lay the tracks as well. It did some jobs where it laid tracks but a lot of these involved grading road bed. Eccles then tasked Andrew H. Christenson with supervising the contract from Salt Lake City end and Edmund O. Wattis to superintend the Oroville end. Each section of the line had its own problems. In crossing the Bonneville Salt Flats near Wendover the construction crews faced a vast span of water soaked salt under pinned by mud. To solve the problem by laying lumber on the salt laying tracks on the lumber and hauling train loads of earth and gravel until the train bed would hold the locomotives and railroad cars. Consulting with supervisors and engineers the company broke new technological ground. This is the old technology, horses and wagons and scrappers. Here's an example on a construction project on the way they went ahead with their horses and wagons. Before 1905 construction company 19 workmen had prepared the road bed with horse drawn plows scrappers and dump wagons. Crews blasted through rock with dynamite but horse drawn equipment did virtually all of the earth moving. Since numatic drills available in the nineteenth century were bulky and difficult to move crews did most of the drilling by hand to place dynamite and nitroglycerin. On the Utah Construction job however, on the western construction job, Utah Construction began to move its technology into the twentieth century. Crews began to use in Lester Corey's words, " Air compressor, power drills, small steam locomotives, dump cars of four to eight cubic yards capacity, and steam shovels." You can see in this picture one of the trains with dump cars and the steam shovel operating, this is at Beckworth Pass. Since much of the hardest work took place in California and Western Pacific had its office in San Francisco as construction near completion in 1908 Utah Construction opened what they anticipated would be a temporary office in San Francisco. Eccles sent E. O. Wattis to head this office which was located in the Flood Building on Market Street between Turk and O'Farrell. After completion of the Western Pacific job the company began to secure contracts for work on the west coast and instead of closing this temporary office, it remained opened. E. O. and his associates Henry J. Lawler, John G. Tyler and John Q. Barlow aggressively sought contracts on the west coast as well. With the exceptions of the difficulties encountered on Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats Utah Construction crews had a relatively easy time constructing the road through Utah and Nevada. The seventy five mile Feather River Canyon in 20 northwestern California between Cady and Oroville however seemed like something from another world. On the surface a span of seventy five miles that dropped only one foot in a hundred seems like a walk in a park, at a glance. If you look at a topographic map of Feather River Canyon however, it reveals something quite different. The canyon is so steep that contour lines seem to lie on top of one another. And photographs from the canyon reveal a gloriously rugged landscape. And you'll see one of those pictures here. In some places surveyors had to hang by cable to drive the center line and field space across the canyon. In some places crews had to work very hard because they had to build a railroad grade with curves of only twenty degrees. Utah Construction blazed a trail and brought supplies in by mule train to set up camps and used these as bases for blasting out wagon road to haul in provisions and equipment. Eleven men lost their lives working on a rope bridge at Cromberg. Five died in and explosion at Beckworth Pass. At the confluence of Grizzly Creek the crews had to raft around shear cliffs. Utah Construction blasted forty tunnels of between forty and 7,500 feet in addition to building bridges, trestles and doing cuts and fills. E. O. Wattis moved his family to Oroville just beyond the north fork of the Feather River and his daughter reported that they could hear blasting from their home. As the construction proceeded, Utah Construction in general and David Eccles in particular faced a new problem caused in large part by the panic and recession of 1907. On October 22nd 1907 W. H. Wattis approached J. Dalzell Brown, Western Pacific's treasurer and asked him for payments due the 21 company. Lying to Wattis, Brown told him that the company didn't have any money on hand when in fact Western Pacific had deposited in the California Safe Deposit and Trust Company in San Francisco. Wattis had to leave San Francisco but Brown promised to send him the checks to Salt Lake City. Later Brown who was also the treasurer and vice president of California Safe Deposit, he had both those companies together, sent Utah Construction two checks totaling $ 236,000 drawn on California Safe Deposit. John Pingree who was the cashier of First National Bank of Ogden had left the business when the checks arrived and James F. Burton who was assistance cashier received the checks and sent them to California Safe Deposit for credit instead of depositing them in the San Francisco banks at the First National generally did business. Dalzell Brown and the other bank officers however knew something that Wattis and Brown didn't know. Through out the month of October 1907 California Safe Deposit was insolvent, in fact only deposits from Western Pacific from failing earlier and the bank apparently tried to protect itself by paying only nominal amounts from W. P. had deposited. More over California Safe Deposit had not kept the more than $ 400,000 required by the state of California for its financial institutions. Thus in an age before deposit insurance First National stood at risk. Employees at California Safe Deposit nicely credited First National's account for the checks, this was on October the 28th 1907 but they paid out no money, they simply credited the account. Safe Deposit proved quite unsafe deposit however because it closed its doors two days later on the October 30th. 22 To compound the difficulty at the same time because of the recession Western Pacific ordered construction curtailed by forty percent. In spite of Western Pacific's curtailment, Utah Construction had obligated its self to pay subcontractors their retained percentages, but W. P. didn't have to pay Utah Construction. In effect Utah Construction faced involuntary bankruptcy. Now David Eccles had guaranteed the contract with Western Pacific personally so he felt personally responsible for the losses incurred by the banks failure and the obligations to the subcontractors. As a result he negotiated a personal loan of $ 100,000 from Desert Savings Bank which he deposited in First National Bank, the remaining $ 125,000 came from Utah Construction's undivided profits. Thus Utah Construction and David Eccles absorbed this loss. Utah Construction however agreed to repay the bank losses and though the documents on this matter are not clear Eccles may have recovered some of the money that he advanced. After the completion of the contract Utah Construction tried to recover its losses from Western Pacific. Western Pacific insisted that since California Safe Deposit had credited Utah Construction with the checks that they gave him that the company had no liability. Safe Deposit was bankrupt of course and the checks were no good. Utah Construction officers believed that Western Pacific should repay the money. Officers of Utah Construction and Western Pacific then agreed to submit their disagreement to arbitration on April 29th 1910 the two companies's turned the dispute over to Charles P. Ells. Ells ruled for Western Pacific and Utah Construction then appealed to the California Superior Court in 23 San Francisco in 1912. The California Superior Court also ruled in favor of Western Pacific and to add insult to injury ordered Utah Construction to pay court costs and attorney fees to Western Pacific. Utah Construction the appealed to the California Supreme Court and on January the 9th 1917, five years after David Eccles' death the Supreme Court sustained the lower court decision in favor or Western Pacific. Now I discussed this case with an attorney friend that told me that a Utah company probably didn't stand the chance of beating a California company in California court in 1912. He said that the company might have stood a better chance had they applied in federal court. In spite of this setback Utah Construction had made its mark as one of the west's major construction companies. The company received $ 22.3 million dollars for a contract that kept its crews and subcontractors busy from 1906 through the end of 1909. The company hired more that 7,700 workers it drew many of them from Europe through an employment agency in Chicago. At about the same time the company contracted to construct this line. It agreed to build a line for the Nevada Northern Railroad in Nevada from Cobre on the Southern Pacific line southward to Ely. Eccles also purchased an interest in a livestock company, which is son and executor of estate David C. Eccles sold to Utah Construction in 1913 to obtain money to pay his fathers inheritance tax. The owners incorporated as the Vineyard, Land and Stock Company. Between 1908 and 1911 the company also undertook a number of smaller projects which kept their crews busy. All of these 24 activities proved extremely profitable. In 1900 the incorporators had purchased the assets of Corey Brothers for $ 24,000, in 1906 the company increased its capital to $ 500,000, on December the 31st of 1912 a few weeks after Eccles' death the company had paid stock of $ 903,000, moreover it had additional resources of assets over liabilities totaling $ 1.4 million. David Eccles had invested $ 8,000 in a company in 1900 that was worth $ 24,000. At the time of his death in 1912 the value of the stock and undistributed profits of Utah Construction Company totaled $ 2.3 million. In 1971 Leonard Arrington interviewed Marriner S. Eccles, the son of David and Ellen Stoddard Eccles. Marriner had had both the Utah Construction Company and First Security Corporation. Eccles told Arrington that Utah Construction was then worth in excess of $ 60 million, this was in 1971. Now I'm quoting from Marriner Eccles, " The Eccles family holding in First Security are chicken feet compared to Utah Construction." David Eccles died on December the 5th of 1912 running to catch a train in Salt Lake City he had a heart attack from which he did not recover. By today's standards where billionaires seem to abound, his estate seems relatively small. David C. Eccles administrator of that estate valued it at $ 7.3 million. In 2007 dollars however the estate would be worth about $ 154 million. Bertha got a widows share of one- third the estate and his children by both Bertha and Ellen received equal shares of the remainder. As a plural wife Ellen received none of the estate. His heirs paid inheritance tax of $ 297,000. 25 At his death Eccles' stock in Utah Construction Company were valued at $ 235,000, that from an $ 8,000 investment. It was the fifth largest block of stocks that he owned exceeded only by Amalgamated Sugar Company, Lewiston Sugar Company, Utah- Idaho Sugar Company, and the Oregon Lumber Company. In effect his $ 8,000 investment in Utah Construction in 1900 had grown 2,938 percent in twelve years. That's a fairly decent return on your investment. Now to what did David Eccles owe his success? The origins of his fortune lay in hard work and thrift. During 1872 while he ran the mill on Monte Cristo he seldom slept in a bed. He worked until dark, laid down where ever he could find a place to nestle himself and began to work again at dawn. He spent virtually none of the money that he earned saving it as an investment to improve his position as a capitalist. Although he accumulated some debt during the early years shortly after his marriage to Bertha he paid that off and he ordered his business affairs so that he carried no long term debt. He had excellent business acumen and extraordinary ability to recognize significant economic trends. He based his fortune on lumbering during a time of cheap or free land and a rapidly expanding market. Then instead of carrying all the all of his eggs in one basket, he diversified into eighty- three companies in a wide range of business ranging alphabetically from Adams Copper Mining and Smelting Company in Washington County to ZCMI in Salt Lake City, that's A to Z. He was an excellent judge of the abilities of people with whom he associated and of the opportunities open to him. He recognized the particular strength of people like Thomas Dee and William H. and Edmund O. Wattis. He 26 knew how to cultivate the friendship of people that could that help him. Without his association with Henry O. Havemeyer it seems unlikely that Utah Construction would have obtained the large contract to build the eastern leg of the Western Pacific Railroad Company. Clearly Utah Construction Company owes much of the credit for the early successes which provided a foundation for its future to David Eccles. Thank you. © 2007 WSU Stewart Library, All rights reserved.

Issue 66.2 of the Review for Religious, 2007. ; Challenges Ignatian Insights Experiencing Prayer Religious Life Perspectives QUARTERLY 66.2 2007 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul Vl said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° Pontifical College Josephinum 7625 North High Street ° Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on stibscription rates. ©2007 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. religious Editor David L. Fleming SJ Associate Editor Philip C. Fischer SJ Canonical Counsel Elizabeth McDonough OP Scripture Scope Eugene Hensell OSB Editorial Staff Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Vdebmaster . Clare Boehmer ASC Advisory Board Martin Erspamer OSB ¯ .Kathleen Hughes RSCJ L~uis and Angel.a Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukerids CSJ QUARTERLY 66.2 2007 contents prisms 116 Prisms 118 challenges Between the Culture of the Satisfied and the Culture of Death John Lydon OSA looks at the challenge religious life faces in the developed world in light of declining numbers of mem-bers. Calling for an .ethic of solidarity, the article proposes not losing sight of our mission to the poor in these difficult financial times. Reflection Questions for Personal and Group Use 130 The Spiritual Blahs--Rejection or Invitation? George Aschenbrenner SJ interprets the painful, empty, dull experience in prayer and finds an invitation to greater intimacy with God. ignatian insights 138 The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises A. Paul Dominic SJ studies the Ignatian Three Methods of Praying in the Spiritual Exercises and finds that they serve to carry the fervor and glow of the retreat into the prosaic chores of daily living. 114[ 154 "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving David L. Fleming SJ explores the notion of "to serve" in the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola through Ignatius's life expe-rience and through the Spiritual Exercises. Reflection Questions and Prayer Mantra Review for Religious 168 176 ~p~rJ~ncin~ pr~yer ~ Prayer Is a Risk Rick Malloy SJ reviews the practical benefits of a daily personal prayer life. Reflection Questions Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross James W. Kinn carefully explains the beginning of contemplation according to the writings of St. John of the Cross and his practical advice for praying this way. 188 rsJigious ~i~ p~rspoctivss ~ Living Religious Life with Chronic Illness Mary Therese Johnson OP shares her experience of how chronic health problems affected her person, her ministry, and her life in the community. 197 Revisiting My Revisit of Religious Life Lucy Fuchs recounts a reunion, after fifty plus five years, of former novices, those remaining in their religious congregation and those who have left it. A deep sharing and friendship is now all the more evident. 2O5 209 214 ~epar~men~s ~ Scripture Scope: The Bible for Meaning and Nourishment Canonical Coun'sel: Conscience Matters Book Reviews II15 66.2 2007 prisms ~here do we find our contact with the risen Christ? When we read the post-resurrection accounts in the Gospels, we are struck by the always unex-pected presence of the risen Jesus to his follow-ers. Their slowness in recognizing him leaves us perplexed. If he still wore the marks of his crucifixion, surely they would immediately know the One they had been with, perhaps for some three years. Wouldn't they recognize his eyes, his smile, his tone of voice? Of course, when he addresses Mary Magdalene by her name, then she knows at once. We might want to consider ourselves as superior to these first followers because we certainly would not be so slow in recognizing Christ. would we? I think that the church has treasured the gospel writings about the resurrec-tion appearances just so that we Christians of all ages can appreciate the difficulties we humans have in recognizing God's presence in our lives. Like the first disciples, we struggle to name our "unusual/divine" experience as an encounter with the risen Lord. Maybe we are afraid of fooling ourselves. Perhaps we have a fear of God enter-ing so closely into our ordinary life. But just as Jesus came in surprising ways and at unexpected Revie~v for Religious times to his early followers, so he continues to come into our lives today, if we but take note. If we look to the most obvious place, Jesus meets us in our praying. Most of us are all too aware that our prayer time can be "ordinary," full of attention meanderings, dis-tracted, heavy in time-waiting. But, then, there are those prayer moments when we are taken out of all time, and we know Jesus' touch, Jesus' presence, Jesus' love, Jesus' calling our name. Even though the experience is immedi-ate, we need to note God,s presence by a review of our prayer or by our journaling. It is when we take notice, looking back, that we acknowledge and make our own that "it is the Lord." There is also the same type of "moments" in the pan-orama of our day where Jesus is present in the comfort-ing kind act or in the challenging question asked by the stranger. There are the moments when we are in the midst of a party or when we are riding on the public transport and we experience that "you are the one I love." Again it requires a looking back, a reflection, on our part, likely a noting through the daily examen or through some brief or extended journaling. We are claiming our experience and "incarnating" it even by our noting the divine inter-vention. Why does the risen Jesus want to enter into our lives? For the same reason that he appeared to his first follow-ers after his resurrection. He wants us to share in his joy of a life forever with God. He wants to confirm our faith. He wants to strengthen us in our own life mission. It is important for us to note how the risen Jesus enters into our lives. Our contact with the risen Jesus is not just through the testimony of others. All of us Christians are the recipients of Jesus' attention and presence--if we only take note. David L. Fleming sJ 66.2 2007 JOHN J. LYDON Between the Culture of the Satisfied and the Culture of Death challenges 118] Let us clarify the terms. "Culture of the Satisfied'? comes from the tide of a book by John Kenneth Galbraith, i a study of how the well-off econo-mies of the world have shaped the .entire world's economic culture. "The culture of death" refers to the poor, who, as Peruvian theologian Gustavo Guti~rrez says, "die before their time." The United States is part and parcel of the culture of the satisfied, yet we as religious are called to bear witness to something better. What are the challenges this poses for us? Can we be relevant in either or both of these cultures? We are challenged by two dominant features of American x;eligious life. First, we are immersed in the culture of the satisfied, in the consumer-ori-ented culture that never seems to have enough. An October 2000 article in the New York Times reported that hundreds of millionaires were asked if they considered themselves "wealthy.". John J. Lydon OSA has been for eighteen years a professor in the Seminary of the Archdiocese of Trujillo, Peru. Email: jlydon@osaperu.com. Review for Religious Of those whose net worth, apart from their home value, was between one million and four million dollars, only a few considered themselves wealthy. The rest said that being wealthy meant having around five million. People having .five million dollars in net worth also said they were not wealthy, just "comfortable." And so it went. People having ten million dollars gave the same answer: they needed to advance one or two steps more up the economic ladder to be wealthy. It would appear that the consumer culture convinces most people that they never have enough even when all of their basic and frivolous needs are satisfied. We American religious, immersed as we are in this culture, may--without a critical conscious-ness-- easily assume these same values and lose sight of our mission. Second, we live in the sociological reality of American religious life. It is a vocational option being chosen by very few. All of our communities are getting older, and many are simply going to disappear. And so the closing of apostolates, the reduction of personnel, the advancing median ages, and the declining health of older members is already a reality. In the middle of that stark reality, it is easy to forget the vast numbers of people who live in great poverty beyond our horizon--and to forget what still remains our mission in the world. The Option for the Poor At its roots, religious life has an evangelical reason for the preferential option for the poor. As the Congregation on Consecrated Life in its document Fraternal Life in Community puts it, one of the marks of religious life is "everyone for the poor," "many with the poor," "some [living] like the poor" (§63). In the light of this, our mis-sion seems clear. It is to somehow challenge those that live in the culture of the satisfied and to reach out in solidar- 119 66.2 2007 Lydon ¯ Between Cultures Solidarity is an attitude based not simply on but also on justice, 120 ity with those who are in the culture of death. Solidarity is the key to understanding our mission, as it is the key to understanding the church's social doctrine, especially under the papacy of John Paul II, who used the word constandy.2 For him, solidarity was intimately related to the cause of peace and justice; this explains its importance in his social doctrine: "The motto of the pontificate of my esteemed predecessor Pius XII was opus iustitiae pax, peace as the fruit of justice. Today one could say, with the same exact-ness and the same power of biblical inspiration (see Is 32:17, Jm 3:18): opus solidaritatispax, peace as the fruit of solidarity.''3 For Pope John Paul, there are two kinds of solidarity. (1) Solidarity is the binding together of people who are disadvantaged so that they can be stronger in the face of injustice. The classic example of this is trade unions, sup-ported by the church since Return novarum (1891). It is no coincidence that the trade union of Poland that went up against and helped bring down the Communist govern-ment was called Solidarity. (2) There can also be solidarity between those who have a great deal and those who have little. This is where the greater emphasis of this term is placed in John Paul's writings. Solidarity is an attitude based not simply on charity but also on justice. The church has always maintained that the goods of the earth are destined by the Creator to be used by all of God's creation. The accumulation of a great part of the goods of the earth in the hands of a small number of people, while the great majority of the Review for Religious world's people live in misery, is an affront to the plan of creation and the manifestation of an unjust social order. "The church's admonition is clear, and it is a faithful echo of the voice of Christ: earthly goods are meant for the whole human family and cannot be reserved for the exclu-sive benefit of a few.''4 What are the temptations we face that can lead us to lose sight of our basic mission? We need to be aware of these because we may be so immersed in the culture of the satisfied that we are no longer a symbol of protest or an authentic invitation to solidarity. Jesus faced three temptations as he went into the desert after his baptism. It would seem that we face at least an equal number of temptations that would pull us away from our mission. Temptation 1: Focus on Ourselves and Not the Mission As we become older and have a rising need to take care of sick or less mobile members, we are tempted to see that as the principal preoccupation of our religious life. We look to build better healthcare units and accord-ingly to find benefactors to better equip them or to pro-vide endowments for them. These are noble concerns that require attention, but the danger is that they become the principal focus. Erik Erikson, the famous psychologist, developed a theory of eight stages of life in which we grow as human beings. Each stage faces its own challenge and thus can involve either grace and sin. Erikson adds that, if we fail at one stage, we cannot hope to move to the next one. The last two stages are of particular interest here. In the penultimate stage we might choose either the grace of generativity or the sin of self-absorption. Generativity is a concern for the betterment of others and of society. We either reach out beyond ourselves in service to better our environment, our world, or we fall into self-absorption. ,121 66.2 2007 Lydon ¯ Between Cultures 122 ]. In the final stage the struggle is between integrity and despair. Those who see that they have made a contribu-tion, that their life has had meaning and they leave .some-thing better behind, .~c~n leave this world in peace. For those who wonder if i~"Fihs been worth it,if they have left anything good behind, the destiny is despair. As much of religious life in the United States and Canada enters the last stages of its sociological growth, Erikson's insights can guide us. If we lose sight of our mission and focus on ourselves and our own needs, all the up-to-date healthcare units, all the endowments in their name, will not bring us fulfillment. Having failed to make use Of the grace of generativity, we cannot move to the final stage, integrity. It is not easy to keep that mission in the forefront ¯ of our existence. John Paul II, then, reminds us to con-front society's consumerism, which leads people to accu-mulate more, believing that their worth is in what they have rather than in who they are. The way to challenge this unbridled consumerism is through a .greater sim-plicity of lifestyle. If.the goods of the world are to be shared with the poor, those who are economically bet-ter off must adopt spiritual poverty and strive to simplify their lifestyles so as to make more of the world's goods available for the poor.s "Evangelical poverty is something that transforms those who accept it. They cannot remain indifferent when faced with the suffering of the poor; indeed, they feel impelled to share actively with God his preferential love for them.''6 Temptation 2: Change the Meaning of the Mission Marshall McLuhan coined the famous adage "The medium is the message" to assert that the mass media have been shaping modern culture. The medium gives any message a new meaning. Similarly, we are tempted to Review for Religious give mission a new meaning because our needs push us to change the meaning of the words. We readily change what we mean when we talk of the "poor." Our evangelical mission as religious is to have a pref-erential option for the poor. But people debate who are poor. (Gustavo Guti~rrez has often pointed out that the poor have no difficulty identifying who are rich.) And so we are tempted to change the definition of who are poor, even to believe ourselves to be "the poor." We think we have a preferential option for the poor because we take care of our weak and infirm members and our parents and family members. We give them "the best of care" and see this as fulfillment of the option for the poor. No doubt they are needy, and we reach out to them. We should, however, avoid the temptation of identifying ourselves as the poor. We may be needy, but we are not the poor. At the Millennium World Summit, heads of state and other officials met at the United Nations to mark the year 2000 ~nd set up goals for humanity over the next quarter century--goals mostly having to do with the poor, the marginalized, those excluded from the benefits of devel-opment. Their definition of "the poor" is those who live on $2 or less a day; remember this. When our mission requires a preferential option for the poor, the question is not what we give to the needy in our own religious family. The question is what we do for the needs of those that fit the world's definition of the poor. What exactly do we mean when we say "preferential option for the poor"? The phrase, like all such terms, has its limitations. Let us examine briefly, the words "option," "preferential," and "poor." Option has not always been interpreted correcdy. It does not mean "optional"---choose according to your own wishes. Option here implies a con-scientious choice of, a profound permanent commitment to, solidarity with the poor. 123 66.2 2007 Lydon * Between Cultures The very word preferential rejects any kind of exclusivity, 124 The very word preferential, as should be obvious, rejects any kind of exclusivity. It highlights who should be the first--not the only--objects of our solidarity. It specifies those most in need of our attention, and is not "exclusive or discriminatory towards other groups.''7 Poor has perhaps been the most misunderstood term here. At times it seems that people do not want to identify the poor, or they identify them as everyone so that the word and the expression lose meaning. The Latin American Episcopal Conference of Medell~n examined this same issue and made it clear who is being referred to by the word poor, making a distinction between three types of poverty. (1) Materialpoverty. This means a lack of what is nec-essary to live a dignified life. It is an evil that is always denounced "as contrary to the will of the Lord, and mosdy the result of man's injustice and sin.''8 (2) Spiritual poverty. A quality to be imitated. The poor in spirit are people open to the Lord's will. Like the anawim of the Old Testament, the poor in spirit are the humble people who put their trust in the Lord. The poor in spirit are followers of Jesus. The Beatitudes indi-cate the attitudes for disciples who welcome the kingdom and show solidarity with the excluded. In this "spiritual infancy," they seek to remain fully available to the will of the Lord. It is a quality that everyone is called to adopt. (3) Poverty of solidarity. This is a free decision to share the plight of those who are victims of material poverty in order to bear witness against the evil that such pov-erty represents and to demonstrate spiritual freedom Review for Religious from material goods. "In this one follows the example of Christ.''9 Likewise, it obviously is one of the principal marks of our religious vows. The "poor" of the "preferential option for the poor" are dearly identified in the Medellin document as being those who lack the necessities for a dignified life. After Medell~n, attempts were made to debilitate this option by broadening the definition to include everyone and thus effectively eliminate the idea of a preference "for the poorest and most needy sectors."~° For this reason, the Latin American Episcopal Conference document of Puebla,11 in one of its most moving and significant sec-tions, precisely explains the identity of the "poor" to whom both Medell~n and Puebla refer. As the bishops mention, the faces of the poor include the indigenous peoples who live in inhuman situations, the campesinos (farm workers) who have no land and are exploited, fac-tory workers with little pay and no unions, outcasts of the cities who have no money, children weakened by poverty even before they are born, and those that are abandoned because they can no longer produce.~2 The poor, then, are not just an economic category but are dominated peoples, exploited social classes, despised races, and marginalized cultures. They are the "excluded," those who have no power, no voice, and for that reason suffer the effects of injustice. Undoubtedly, these groups of people are almost always the economically poorest as well. They are those who suffer unjust death, premature death.~ The Social Viewpoint of the Poor To adopt this preferential option, some attempt must be made to understand reality from the viewpoint of the poor. This requires a change of "social position." Poverty (and marginalization and exclusion) must be seen from 125 66.2 2007 Lydon ¯ Between Cultures the point of view of the poorest, though not necessarily by living among the poor. If economic conditions worsen for the poor while the gap between poor and rich widens, then the situation is unjust, whatever the macroeconomic statistics may say. This "social position" to interpret real-ity is a viewpoint we must all take up, whatever pastoral work we undertake, because only in this way can we be "for the poor." Only thus are we ready to fulfill the man-date: "everyone for the poor, many with the poor, and some [living] like the poor."!4 The church wishes to be a "church of the poor.''Is This means that it gives "preferential attention to the poor, seeking to share time and resources in order to alleviate suffering, [and] works with all sectors of society, including the poor themselves, in search of solutions to the problems of poverty and so freeing people from mis-ery and want. [It means using] the talents and gifts of the poor, relying on them in her mission of evangelization. The church of the poor is a church in which the poor are welcomed, listened to, and actively involved . A true church of the poor contributes decisively to the needed transformation of society, to social renewalbased on the vision and values of the gospel.''16 Those who still lack the means to live are the only measure of whether we live that preferential option or neglect it because we put our own needs (as real or imagined as they my be), rather than the poor, at the center of our mission. 12:6 TemPtation 3: Lose Our Trust in the Providence of God Mark Twain famously remarked, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Numbers have power to persuade, but even accurate numbers may bol-ster inaccurate statements, and so we need a critical eye in examining them. They remain an important tool, but a tool to use only within the perspective of our mission. Review for Religious In our communities we face a clear loss of numbers and an aging population. We.can see that attending to the old and infirm means greater costs while income-produc-ing members are fewer and fewer. In the light of this, we make budgetary decisions to reduce costs, but we also invest more in ourselves. We start to build endowments, and we seek to be "fully endowed" so that we can meet these needs on just the interest generated by our endow-ment portfolio. Yet perhaps the gospel story of the man who has a great harvest and builds storage bins to keep it all should alert us not to make our goal the establishment of an endowment that more or less eliminates a need to believe in God's providence (Lk 12:16-21). If we look at the poorest among even the relatively rich (by world levels) American population, the latest studies of the Federal Reserve show that the bottom twenty percent of the population have an average net worth of only $7,500. At that level they lack any degree of security about the future. If we move beyond the poor-est Americans to average American families, the net worth goes up to $93,000. This is the net worth, including prop-erties, of the average American family. And so, as we build up our endowment portfolios, we need to ask ourselves whether we are a community of faith, vowed to poverty, looking for a.guaranteed future that is not only out of line with the poor, but also out of line with average families in our culture of the satisfied. Does our fear of the future lead us to forget God's provi-dence and put so much en.ergy into building up endow-ments that we eliminate some or all of our programs of solidarity with the poor? Most of our world lives in the "culture of death." Much of the human race lives on less than $2 a day while a few live in the "culture of the satisfied." As religious living in this latter culture, we are still called, perhaps 127 66.2 2007 Lydon * Between Cultures 128 especially in the sunset of pastoral commitments and even congregations, to make a difference in our world. The fulfillment of our mission, to have a preferential option for the poor, requires of us that we do not sacrifice our mission for the sake of our own futures. In the end, that would only result in our losing both. It is in our mission that we realize our dreams and desires for a church that is more eternal than apostolates and congregations. It is in contributing to that mission that we find integrity and peace. Through our acts of solidarity with the poor, with those who "die before their time," we raise a prophetic voice in favor of divine providence and against the con-sumer culture that encompasses us. We tell the world by our actions, by "walking our talk," that joy and peace come from narrowing the gap between the world's haves and have-nots. We recognize and/'eject temptations that can lead us astray, not because there is nothing good in them, but rather because they are not the "walk" taken by Jesus Christ. Notes t John K. Galbraith, The Culture of Contentment (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992). In Spanish it is La Cultura de la Sati~Caccidn (Barcelona: Ariel, 1992) although it is often cited as La Cultura de los Sati~Cecbos. I use this Spanish idea here. 2John Paul II used the word 104 times in his documents related to the social doctrine of the church (Laborem exercens 6, Sollicitudo rei socialis 13, Centesimus annus I 1, 1995 UN speecb 7, World Peace Day messages 67) 3 John Paul II, Sollicitudo, §39. 4 John Paul II, If You Want Peace, Reach Out to the Poor, §3, cites Centesimus annus, §§31 and 37. 5John Paul II, lfYou l/Vant Peace, §5: "In order to promote the social, cultural, spiritual, and also economic welfare of all members of society, it is therefore absolutely essential to stem the unrestrained consumption of earthly goods and to control the creation of artificial needs. Moderation and simplicity ought to become the criteria of our daily lives. The quantity of goods consumed by a tiny fraction of the world population produces Review for Religious a demand greater than available resources. A reduction of this demand constitutes a first step in alleviating poverty, provided that it is accompa-nied by effective measures to guarantee a fair distribution of the world's wealth." See also Gaudium et spes, §88: "The greater part of the world is still suffering from so much poverty that it is as if Christ himself were crying out in these poor to beg the charity of his disciples. Let us not be guilty of the scandal of having some nations, most of whose citizens bear the name of Christians, enjoying an abundance of riches, while others lack the necessities of life and are tortured by hunger, disease, and all kinds of misery. For the spirit of poverty and charity is the glory and witness of the church of Christ." 6John Paul II, If You Want Peace, §5. 7 John Paul II, Centesimus annus, §57. 8 Medellfn, §14, 4. This was held in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968. 9 Medellfn, §14, 4. ,0 Medellln, §14, 9. 11 Held in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979. " Puebla, §§31-39. 13 John Paul II identified the "poor" with the "marginalized." As the new millennium approached, he asked, "How can we fail to lay greater emphasis on the church's preferential option for the poor and the out-cast?" (Tertio millennio adveniente, §51). Such marginalization can be more than economic; it can also be cultural and religious. See Centesimus annus, §57. 14 CICLSAL, Fraternal Life in Community, §63. is CICLSAL, Fraternal Life, §63. 16 John Paul II, address in September 2003 to bishops from the Philippines, §25. Reflection Questions for Personal and Group Use 1. Lydon identifies three temptations that can head us to lose sight of our basic vision. Do you agree with the ones he identifies? Would you want to add other temptations from your own experience? 2. How can religious men and women be relevant to the culture of the satisfied and to the culture of death? 129 66.2 2007 GEORGE A. ASCHENBRENNER The Spiritual Blahsm Rejection or Invitation? /~r some people, spiritual boredom is not painful. hey are so distracted by exciting pleasures and challenges in daily life that an interior emptiness, smoth-ered by all the excitement, is not bothersome to them. They do not even seem to notice. Though they have not overtly denied faith and God, they have become unim-portant realities, rarely experienced in any lively personal way. This is a sign, a sad sign, that both their sensibil-ity and their deeply personal desire have been numbed. Something might snap them out of their stupor, but, until it does, life just rushes on. Crisis of Interpretation For many of us, however, the effect is very differ-ent. The inner boredom is painful. It discourages and stings with frustration. Beneath all the busy concerns, and even the quick superficial pleasures, something seems t30 George A. Aschenbrenner sJ is rector of the Jesuit Community at the University of Scranton; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. This article, published in the fall 2006 issue of Ignatian Imprints, a new publication of the Maryland Province Jesuits, appears here with the permission of its editor and of the author. Review.for tCetigi~us stale, drab. There must be more to life. How to ignite the fire? The issue is a matter of interpretation. Before know-ing what to do, we must honestly feel and face the interior boredom. We must appreciate what it means, what it is saying to us. A quick automatic interpretation rises in the face of this dulling pain. Nothing is going on so why waste time with prayer, with usual signs of devotion? This is not our time. Such an instantaneous interpretation, though understandable, is often misleading, incorrect, even dan-gerous. A more mature and helpful interpretation requires more time and faith-filled reflection. Once we let the quick emotional explanation pass by, we can look more deeply at a larger array of possibilities. In the first place, this may be happening to us because we have not been very serious, very personal, about our faith and have not prayed much. In such a case this festering frustration serves as a wake-up call to get more serious about our relationship with God and not to settle any-more for careless and heartlessly mumbled words. This may be a call to a more lively personal relationship, a call to pray in our own words beyond the traditional ones, a call to listen more openly and interactively to God's Word in Scripture and throughout our whole life. If we are undisciplined and out of shape spiritually, some hard work at tuning up our spirit will be required before the dismal "nothing's happening" lethargy will lift. On the other hand, if the dreary dry condition is not caused by our negligence, then a whole new and more serious possibility presents itself. In this case, we are not out of shape spiritually, nor stuck in complacency with numbed, untended desires. We have personally known God's love. We have .been stirred, .consoled, emotion-ally touched by that love and have fashioned our daily life accordingly. Recently, over days and weeks, that has 66.2 2007 Ascbenbrenndr * The Spiritual Blabs--Rejeaion or Invitation? We must carefully turn to God in faith for appreciation and interpretation of this malaise. changed; a smog has settled in and contaminated the sunny enthusiasm of our faith. It sure seems as though nothing is happening now. And the temptation to aban-don our prayer life stares hauntingly into the eye of our SOU1. Seriously misleading, however, this temptation beck-ons to exacdy the wrong decision. In the awareness of no personal negligence on our part, we must carefully turn to God in faith for appreciation and interpretation of this malaise. This crisis of interpretation is an important point in the spiritual life of the mature believer. The invitation turns our hearts away from the emotional discomfort (oh, how boring and dull it all feels!) to what God is really saying in and through it all. This always involves a second look of reflection beyond the spontaneous disheartening emotional response. In this dark, dreary dryness, God, whose love is as personally present as ever before, is inviting us to draw closer by entering a deeper part of our faith relationship. i32 Invitation to a Deeper Faith Even though the emotion of God's love can be pre-cious grace, this felt sensation of love can easily turn into a golden calf, an idol, a false god for selfish wor-ship. Without intending it and sometimes without even noticing it, we begin to presume on the presence of this emotional grace and cannot imagine life without it. But such emotional experience, grace though it is, registers on the superficial, unpredictable level of our person. God, Review for Religious whose desires for each of us are all-embracing beyond our imagining, is inviting us to an ever more profound and, therefore, more intimate, more personal union. Development of such a union always involves a purifi-cation, a stripping away of selfishness, of too much "me." And, put starkly, this stripping always hurts. In this inter-pretation, which is critical to a deeper, more personal rela-tionship with God, flae dry, stale emptiness of our faith is not a mistake, a negligence on our part, but rather a call from God, our lover extraordinaire. We are being invited to believe beyond our feelings, to enter a realm of pro-found faith. Though it may not emotionally involve lots of fun and intense pleasure, our relationship with God at this level is more trustworthy, more foundational, more dependable than any simply emotional sense. This profound interpretation of God's loving presence does not downplay the emotional, even exciting, experi-ence of God's love. The truth here pushes deeper into our soul than the level of feelings. We see the same truth in our human interpersonal experiences of love. Though the emotional excitement of falling in love can be intense and wonderfully endearing, such goose-bump experiences of love cannot endure forever. No, these beloved emotional experiences must be rooted in a more profound dimen-sion of our relationship. Belief in the Presence of God's Love How easy it is to get stuck in these emotional traps. We want always to feel the fire and comfort of God's love. Because God is so jealous as to desire all of us in relationship, our divine lover must pry loose our emotion-ally fierce grasp, must wean us away from the wonder-ful, but undependably fluctuating, emotional satisfaction. This purification of our experience of God calls us deeper into our person beyond the realm of emotion and feeling. 133 66.2 2007 Ascbenbrenner ¯ The Spiritual Blabs--Rejection or Invitation? This deeper invitation does not kill and bury forever the emotional part of us. But the pain of temporarily letting go of this sensual dimension of our relationship with God hurts--and is risky. What will be left after such a letting go? For this reason, such purification invites and requires grieving. These tears at the apparent loss and absence of God can sting and burn, and should honestly be shared with God. But the tears and ache are soothed finally in a dawning realization: God is more than emotional spontao neity. Such a loving God is our very life. Far beyond any emotional impulse, God's love, intimate and uniquely per-sonal, is profoundly and ineradicably present at our very core, intentionally loving life into us breath after breath. This profound presence gives a peace, a harmony, a humble confidence beyond any intensity of emotion. Such an awareness can quiet us and synchronize us to the divine breath-giver's artful creation of us in the imme-diacy of every moment. Simply to breathe is to be loved, just to exist is to be cherished beyond imagining. This realization is truly awesome: for me as I write this, and for you as you now read it. A centering such as this reveals a foundation, always there, beneath all emotional and spon-taneous fluctuation. The apparent drying up, even death, of emotional fervor does not imply rejection. The belief in the core presence of God's love blessing us with life reveals the emotional nagging dullness as invitation, not rejection, on God's part. This appreciation of God's kind and insistent invitation does not automatically deluge us with emo-tional fervor. Nonetheless, this felt sense of God's love will always be part of our relationship, though now rooted in a more profound and personal dimension. In this deep-ened experience of God, our emotional sluggishness and lack of fervor reveals God's intentional loving dynamic, if joined with other signs: a keen desire for prayer, for Review for Religious simply being with our loving Creator all through the day, and for serving God's will in everything. These signs demonstrate that the sensible dullness is not a matter of divine reiection, nor does it drain our energy for serious effort in response; rather it is a precious moment of lov-ing invitation. Acting as if. Activity, concretely imaginative and bordering on the heroic, puts our faith to work beyond any emotional stimulation. This is a time for "acting as if." While we do not feel like belieying, praying, or serving in love, it is time to act, to act as if we do feel it. Why? Because we are loving, believing, acting out of a genuine experience of our loving God, but from a depth of ourselves more profound than emo-tional. But this "acting as if" can seem insincere, dishonest, even hypocritical. The insinuation of this type of inter-pretation reveals an evil, unholy spirit always eager to mislead and deter us. -- Rather than hypocrisy, we are here in the depths of incar-national, sacramental faith. To cling to and to kiss a cru-cifix when we do not even feel like giving time for prayer, to reach out to the needy person when we rather feel like turning away in withdrawal are not acts of dishonesty. These can be heroic efforts, whether quietly private or publicly observable, to sacramentalize in hope our deepest center of faith and love. Without such quiet heroism, our faith, our intimately personal relationship with God, will not mature and persevere over the long haul of life. An important distinction, however, is at work here. We are not acting as if we believed what we actually do not believe. That is hypocrisy. Rather, we are acting in line with what we deeply believe, even though, at this This is a time for "acting as if " i135 66.2 2007 Ascbenbrenner ¯ The Spiritual BlabsnRejection or Invitation? 136t moment, the emotional drive for such acting is absent. This is mature faith: to act as if we are always feeling what we deeply believe. The ability to believe and sacramental-ize in action what we are not now feeling marks the seri-ous believer. Often we are tempted, quite unconsciously, to identify faith and feeling. This always short-circuits faith, and, though we enjoy the emotional intensity, such an identification of faith and feeling often precludes the permanent fidelity of a mature faith commitment. Couples, for whom the honeymoon is long past, know, live, and act from a depth of love, mutual trust--and a more mature emotional caring for one another--devel-oped over years. In the hit Broadway musical "Les Miserables," Jean Valjean, the central obvious Christ figure, promises to care for the daughter of the dying and poverty-stricken Fantine with these words: "I swear this on my life." This promise cuts far below any momentary surge of emotion. And the beautiful climax of the show reveals Valjean's fidelity to this promise through a great variety of chal-lenges. Mature adult believers know the challenge and the blessing of acting what they believe, and acting it as if they felt what now, as a matter of fact, they are not feel-ing. This faith-filled acting is always blessed over time with an emotional fervor which, at certain times, in God's mysterious loving ways with us, seems absent and lost. A Presence in Faith A lack of accustomed satisfaction and felt closeness to God in our prayer and ordinary devotions when accom-panied by a lively desire, on our part, not only to be with God but also to serve the justice of the Risen Jesus in our world, reveals finally a clear message of divine endearment for us. Beyond the realm of graced emotional intimacy lies a presence in faith sometimes too deep for words, but Review for Religious more trustworthy and dependable than the fluctuations of graced feeling in our relationship. This is often a rather new land for many of us. It is a land where God is always with us inviting our trust. It is a land where our identity, satisfaction, and fire for generous service most deeply and personally reside. A spiritual staleness, when insightfully investigated, is always an invitation, never a rejection--an invitation to greater intimacy with God, whose love in the Risen Jesus is serving us, at every moment, in a more charming fash-ion than we could ever fully realize before we die. Couldn't You Return? You came to be with us. From strips of linen to strips of linen, swaddling to shroud, You began and ended as the least of us, a man martyred in a power game you wouldn't play. Now we must put ourselves where You can find us, with the least, the last, the lost: children of the homeless, pawns of politicians, those religion oppresses. Dear manger-born, martyr-torn One, we are small again today. Couldn't you return now? Bonnie Thurston 137 66.2 2007 A. PAUL DOMINIC The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises ignatian insights "It is relatively easy to live a life of clarity.and peace if you take yourself on retreat to a moun-taintop. But how do we bring the fruits of that stillness and clarity into the rush of the modern world?" The question is raised by a travel writer about his writings taking on a spiritual tone.l How much more would St. Ignatius have been seized with such a question in relation to the Spiritual Exercises! Given his thoroughness, he would have left his own answer to it. The last of the formal exercises, the Contemplation to attain love.would seem that answer. But after it come "three methods of praying" (§§238-260).2 Lowly compared with the Contemplation, they too may serve to carry the fervor and glow of the Spiritual Exercises into the prosaic and profane chores of daily living. A. Paid .Dominis SJ last wrote for us in early 2005. His address remains c/0 Missionaries of the Poor; Fatima Nagar; Warangal 505 004; India. Re'vie'~ for Religious . Prayer after the Thirty-Day Retreat This thought impressed me more and more as I sought to understand the place of the unsung "three methods" in the whole ensemble of the Exercises. The first method is four modes of examining our conscience; the second and third are ways of praying orally. The question of these methods in the overall progress of the Spiritual Exercises came to me in a practical way as I planned a course of meditation and prayer for a group of novices whom I had directed some months earlier in the full Exercises. I asked the novice mistress if the three methods of praying would satisfy her expectation. However she envisaged it, it was clear to me that, to do anything really useful for her nov-ices, I had to teach them to pray as people who had made the full Exercises more or less well according to the mea-sure of grace given them by the Lord. I do not remember having heard anything special about the three methods from the "specialists" with whom I had either made the Exercises or studied them. An exception was the unassuming, unlearned specialist my own novice master, who after the long retreat kept us novices praying for some days using the three methods, in the best tradition of the Exercises (§256), though with-out explaining why. That tradition is worth discovering, recovering, and pondering. The Three Methods as Part of the Exercises First, as the various methods of meditation and con-templation are part and parcel of the full Exercises, so are all three methods of prayer without exception, though not in the same way. All appear in their proper order. Meditation comes in the First Week of the Exercises and contemplation runs through the remaining Weeks, the three methods emerging towards the end of the full Exercises. They are clearly and cleverly appended to the [139 66.2 2007 Dominic ¯ The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises 1401 Fourth Week. What is more, the three methods form an "inclusion" with the early sentence that defines and explains the phrase "spiritual exercises" (§§238 & 4). Polanco's witness is consistent with this in letter and spirit; he says: "The Fourth Week is completed when he [the exercitant] is judged to have made sufficient progress in the exercises on the resurrection and on enkindling the love of God, as well as the methods of prayer.''3 Of course, The threeme ho'dS lend themselv, es~to.different levels of exercising and experienCihg them, the three methods may be detached and used for those who go through the partial Exercises restricted to the First Week alone (§ 18). That only suggests and emphasizes that the three methods lend them-selves to different levels of exercising and experi-encing them. The level at which the exercitants will ben-efit to the full, however, is when they make use of them as the last part of the full Exercises of roughly one month. Such an understanding is in accordance with what has been called the circular nature of the Exercises.4 The idea of circularity, I believe, implies that the principles and practices with which the Exercises begin run all through the Exercises with an ever greater intensification and leave their effect even afterwards. That is to say, the aim is the same in the beginning and the end; in the beginning it is present at least as an urgent desire, and at the end, hope-fully, it finds its actualization. Thus, for example, though no one can begin the Exercises without some magnanim-ity and generosity toward God as expressed in offering God one's entire will and liberty (§5), no one is expected to make the offering of the Sume et suscipe (Take and receive) right at the beginning, but only after a month Review for Religious of maturation, with or without struggle, climaxing in the Contemplation to attain love (§§230-237), a part of the finale of the Exercises. In the same way, if the three meth-ods of prayer (examen and vocal prayer) are practiced at the beginning, they ought to provide the exercitants a far greater relish and perfection at the end, with no abrupt ending, but rather a continuation. How that happens is the matter for consideration now. The First Method The first method of prayer (§§238-248) appears to be at first sight a plain and simple examination of conscience, making use of various headings: laws (decalogue) or gifts (three powers of the soul and five senses) or related topics (capital sins). Given the usual emotional perception of most people, the examination of conscience does not pass for prayer. But in the Exercises it is out-and-out prayer, albeit of a particular kind; St. Ignatius mentions it first in his list of prayer exercises (§1). No doubt a conscientious examina-tion yields an account of our soul during a certain period of time, but not all on our own; it involves attentiveness to God's presence from start to finish, and so it qualifies as prayer. It begins with gratefulness for God's benefits and asking for grace to know our general ingratitude or our unfaithfulness in a particular matter; it is followed by asking God's pardon and receiving grace to do better (§43). This prayer practice of the examen twice daily all through the Exercises is deepened towards the end by the first method of prayer, engaging the exercitants with focused soul-searching under the guidance of the Lord, who has sought and found and accompanied them for as long as a month. This argument gains further force from the fact that, like the other methods of prayer in the Exercises, the first method has its bwn assigned subject matter: the ten commandments, for example, to focus the prayer of 141 66.2 2007 Dominic * The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises interior purgation. This prayer leads us to beg first for a complete understanding of the commandments as expres-sions of God's good pleasure (well enunciated in the first two modes of humility, §§165-166) soas to arrive at a greater recognition of one's failures and the correspond-ing need of forgiveness. The aim is "to keep them [the commandments] better for greater glory and praise of the Divine Majesty" (§240). If anything, the expression Divine Majesty suggests the awesome holiness of God (the mysterium tremendum) and calls for our correspond-ing reverence. To this must be added what may not be so apparent. For Ignatius, the designation "Divine Majesty" also invites devout retreatants' more personal approach to God, resulting from God's winning presence and initiative as mysterium fascinans.S Those who have felt such reality in the Spiritual Exercises are bound to respond with repentance and rev-erential love worthy of our God of majesty of love. The plaintive prayer of the converted soul--"Against you, you alone, have I sinned; O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin" (Ps 5I:2,4, Grail)mis not for just a moment or occasion. Although the purga-tive way of the First Week leads on to the illuminative way of the Second and the unitive way of the Third and Fourth Weeks, the exercitant is never beyond the purifi-cation that is ever refreshing and re-creative. Indeed, it is those who have experienced the illuminative and unitive ways who appreciate all the more the need to get rid of even the least sin or imperfection. The first method of prayer, with its varied subject matter listed by Ignatius and added to by ourselves, wonderfully meets the never ending need of exercitants who have learned discernment in the Exercises. The first method of prayer is, then, not only "a com-plete examen"6 that keeps exercitants from slipping back; Review for Religious it is also an aid to progress. For example, bringing the five senses to this method, we do not stop with mere examina-tion of ourselves, but go beyond it. Intent on doing some-thing more, we pass on to the imitation of Jesus and his mother in their use of the senses. Ignatius mentions this explicitly. "He thereby recalls the exercitants' attention to their strivings during the last Three Weeks to behold, observe, and contemplate either Christ, the model of all perfections, or those holy persons whose life most faith-fully mirrored Christ's perfections, in order that they may learn from this how to perform all their actions more perfectly, day after day.''7 The Second Method The second method of prayer consists in contemplat-ing the meaning of each word of a familiar prayer such as the Our Father. I wonder if there has been much serious appreciation of the explicit Ignatian directive to conclude all daily examens, meditations, and contemplations in the Exercises with the Our Father. Anyway, those who have been faithful to Ignatius in this small detail will have an occasion now to discover its sense and intrinsic usefulness, and so come to pray it better with greater understanding and relish. In this second method, Ignatius offers a way to find depth in set routine prayer. It happens not by reflecting on but contemplating the meaning (significaci6n) of each word of the Our Father or other vocal prayers used in the triple colloquies. Contemplating the words of a prayer is certainly something new at this point. It consists in opening ourselves to the "meanings, comparisons, relish, and consolations connected with it" (§252). It is a matter of sensing and entering the evocative aura of each word. Coathalem has spoken of this as penetrating, assimilating, and tasting each word.s Though this method is new at this 66.2 2007 Dominic ¯ The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises 144 point, still it is not unlike what has transpired all through the contemplations of the Exercises as the exercitants lis-tened to the words uttered by the persons in the scene. Anyway, in the second method of prayer, exercitants contemplate as their own words the words of a traditional prayer they know by heart. In their devotion they may go on to recognize and appreciate the words as hallowed because of the hitherto unsuspected personal import they have. They may become sensitive to the human words now bringing them unction from God, along with God's embrace and the grace to give God better service (§15). The words have been given to them by none other than the Spirit (see Rm 8:26). Thus privileged and engrossed, the exercitants make bold at the end to ask for whatever virtues and graces they feel greater need of (§257). This is a colloquy in the usual terminology of the Exercises. But, according to Peters, its purpose and its way are markedly different from the col-loquies mentioned throughout the Exercises. Given the second method of prayer as not only a contemplation but a high contemplation--shown by the person practicing it being called not the exercitant but the "contemplant" or contemplator (persona que contempla, who enjoys devo-tion, relish, and consolation, §§254, 252)9--the needs here are greater than any experienced earlier. Peters argues: "One would think that the exercitant had been taken into the seventh heaven, that he did not lack anything at all. Evidently, at the height of contemplation, he feels more than ever his own insufficiency; he realizes how he falls short in virtue and is in dire need of special help. Close union with God goes hand in hand with a profound sense of one's own unworthiness and even helplessness.''1° In other words, even as we are delighted immensely by the nearness of God, we are distressed by the spec-tacle of our own sinwall the more disturbing because of Review for Religious the .contrast. In this situation, reminiscent of Paul and his visions (see 2 Co 12:2-9), what need could be greater than overcoming the lingering failings that frustrate our desire to be united with God? While experiencing such a need, the praying exercitant descends into silence, and the silence speaks louder, and there is no need for many words. As Peters points out, Ignatius directs the exercitant to ask en pocaspalabras, that is, in a few words (§257). The Third Method The third method of prayer is simply an inward reci-tation of a known prayer, slowly synchronizing each word with one's respiration. Since this method uses the same material for prayer as . the previous one, a natural way to under-stand it suggests itself. .~ The third method is a repetition of the sec-ond, in the spirit of what Ignatius consis-tently advocates for every meditation or contemplation. 11 We come to savor ever more what we have already prayed more than once. The whole exercise unfolds and rests in contemplative peace, poise, and relish. If each word of prayer is uttered with the breath, it rises from silence and ends in greater silence of repose. It is the receptive silence of the human word answering the penetrative silence of the divine Word or Spirit and turning into silence of communion, as when a drop of water falls into a sponge (§335)--that is a simile, coming from the unpoetic St. Ignatius himself. In this way, whatever word keeps us praying and imbibing The third method is a r~etition of the second, in the spirit of what Ignatius consistently advocates for every meditation or contemplation. 66.2 2007 Dominic ¯ The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises becomes more and more part of ourselves; the very prayer makes a home in those who pray. Whoever prays thus not only prays but becomes the prayer by virtue of one's very breath. Anyone who has reached the stage of the third method of prayer knows how "to join the praying man to the breathing man, or more accurately the other way about: take the breathing man that he is and gently make him into a praying man as well.''12 Whether directing our attention to the word's meaning or the person addressed or our own lowliness (§258), we are inhaling and exhal-ing rapt in contemplation of the divine in and around ourselves. 146 The Three Methods as "Repetitions" The three methods taken together provide three perspectives on the full Exercises. First, they appear as concluding repetitions of the entire month of Exercises. Right from the First Week (§§62&64), Ignatius directs and insists that individual exercises be repeated once or twice or thrice so that the exercitant may reap ever greater fruit from them. The three methods he proposes towards the end of the Exercises may well be viewed as repeti-tions, not of one or another exercise, but of the whole of the Exercises as orie-prolonged prayer experience. If the Exercises as a whole aim at removing all dis-ordered affections and so ordering our life according to God's will, the first method finds its place as a compre-hensive examen. It brings the daily examens to comple-tion, shaping a greater, more sensitive response to what must have been grace upon grace for a month (§238).13 If the subject matter of the second and third methods is mostly the vocal prayers that conclude contemplations of the mysteries of the Son, these methods together certainly provide ready repetitions of the manifold experience of the Second, Third, and Fourth Weeks. Such repetitions Review for Religious will be at once evocative and expansive, delightful and deepening, looking back and looking forward. The Three Methods as "Review" The three methods may be viewed in terms of another typical Ignatian practice too, namely, the review following every meditation or contemplation. As there is no spe-cifically mentioned last exercise in the Exercises, there is no specific reminder to review it. Another closely related fact worth thinking about is that, though there is no specified last exercise, there is a concluding tempo. This tempo may be observed right at the start of the Fourth Week, with the omission of the midnight contemplation and the reduction of the daily exercises from five to four. Whatever happens after the exercises of the resurrection in the Fourth Week definitely concerns the retreat's final days. The lack of detailed direction may well suggest the importance of the very content available for those days. While the Contemplation to attain love revolves round grateful love to the God of all gifts, the three methods of praye~ aim at exciting the same kind of response to God all holy and all loving, in and through Jesus. Viewed thus, they cannot but lead the .exercitants over all they have done in the preceding long period of grace, resulting in an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love. Come to think of it, all who have faithfully reviewed their meditations and contemplations four or five times daily ought to have learned and could not but have learned the dynamism of review for their spiritual practice. And so they are likely to hold on to the same dynamism as, rather reluctantly or not, they finish their retreat. Almost all retreatants, even those who have not been fervent enough all along, would, I believe, wish near the end that the retreat would not end. How much more, then, might the enthusiastic exercitants miss those days of 147 66.2 2007 Dominic ¯ The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises fervor. But such a feeling is not altogether a true conso-lation, and discerning exercitants would avoid it, sensing that their real consolation is in God and God's pleasure. They know that the period of grace and consolation must end, not abruptly, though, but gradually and gently. In this situation the three methods as review of the whole Exercises can help. To appreciate this, remember that the ordinary reviews of meditation or contemplation during the retreat bring the exercitant slowly from prayerful absorption to the ordinary activities of eating, drinking, resting, and so forth which we cannot do without.~4 Given devout per-sons' absorption in God at the end of the Exercises, there is all the more need for them to pass smoothly from the retreat to ordinary engagement and activity outside the retreat. This very need is filled by the three methods serv-ing as review of the whole course of the Exercises. The Three Methods as Reformation Corresponding to the "gradual lessening of bonds with the four preceding Weeks" evinced by the three methods, there emerges "an ever-increasing occupation with the duties of the exercitant's normal life.''~5 Though St. Ignatius does not say anything so explicit, his entire exercises are directed to that, namely, leaving the retreat and beginning our life anew as we have discerned God inspiring us. The genuine exercitants cannot but be con-cerned positively and negatively about their life after the retreat. Negatively, they may be anxious about the uncertainties of daily life after the peaceful certainty of the Exercises. Positively, they may be zealous to live for the glory of God. In this struggle between leaving Tabor and returning to their trade, the three methods bring a stabilizing sobriety. The first method of prayer helps their still weak selves to remain steadfast. The second and Review for Religious third methods, with their peculiar combination of famil-iar words and a fresh interiorizing of them, sustain and nourish their trustfulness by disposing them to receive the lights and consolations of God's love and grace.16 The conviction grows that the God of the Exercises will be their God after the Exercises. Thus they ready themselves to take up again the humdrum of day-to-day life with the zeal of a contemplative. It should be no surprise if their enchantment with God enhances their enchantment with the world they return to. Passing through the in-between period, the exercitants exercise themselves in faith, hope, and love, not from any nostalgia for the month gone by, but with a simple examination of conscience or with age-old prayers prayed contemplatively,j7 If the main value of whatever is done during the Exercises is "for living a Christian life after the Exercises are completed,''18 as Jules Toner says, this living clearly stems from the Exercises and is confirmed as the retreat's last days and hours run their course. St. Ignatius says something very practical in his directive for the three methods: before entering prayer one should recollect oneself in spirit, either sitting or ambling up and down, and consider where one is going and for what (§239). On the face of it there is nothing special here, but one familiar with the spiritual genius of Ignatius may discover something more. If the instruction here under consideration corresponds to the usual second additional direction (§§74-76 & 131), it nevertheless differs from it in its advocacy of recollection and suggestion of suitable posture (sitting or walking) different, from before. From this, one may suspect that the regularity of the Exercises is giving way to ordinary life, as Peters argues clearly and cleverly before concluding: "The pattern of the Four Weeks has completely gone, and yet the retreat itself con-tinues under totally different circumstances.''j9 There is .149 66.2 2007 Dominic * Tbe Finesse at tbe Finisb of tbe Exercises There can be intense Chris tian !i iyg without constant prayer: I50] no better way of envisaging how one ideally passes from the time of the retreat to the time after, neither needing nor wanting an exit. There are convincing reasons here that retreats last indefinitely, there being no last exercise prescribed as such by St. Ignatius. Since the Exercises train people in profound prayer over a long period, they surely will want to continue it even in, or in spite of, their changed circumstances after-wards. There can be no intense Christian living without constant prayer (see 1 Th 5:17). The third method trains the exercitant in such prayer. If it does not have the pre-ludes of the usual Ignatian meditation or contempla-tion, the reason would seem to be that it is done in the midst of a busy life. It can and ought to be done any-where and anytime for any length of time, directed always by discreet charity. If the prayer of the Exercises has grown all along through a regimen of do's and don'ts, it can now dispense with them all. The contemplatively trained exercitant can rejoice to find God in all circumstances and enter into silent collo-quy as constant as breathing. So, depending on the grace of the moment, the third method can be as simple "as a spirit of recollection floating, as it were, upon the rhythm of one's breathing"; and it can also be--here Peters is per-fect-- as profound as reliving the Exercises "to the extent of their being integrated into the quiet and tranquillity of one's breathing.''2° If earlier the exercitants went by the principle of sensing and savoring much in prayer rather than knowing ever more (§2), now they ought to have arrived at a new principle: "Brief time and bounteous con-solation!" Review for Religious The whole of life after the Exercises may be expressed as continuing the reforming of our life (§189). One may find this confirmed by what St. Ignatius designed for his young men after their noviceship, which included the long retreat. Besides attending Mass, they were to spend no more than an hour in prayer. The prayer was to include first the examen twice a day and next reciting the Office of Our Lady,21 both of which cotild certainly be done fol-lowing the three methods. St. Ignatius writes, echoing St. Thomas Aquinas, "In the midst of actions and studies, the mind can be lifted to God; and by means of this directing everything to the divine service, everything is prayer.''= Obviously for Ignatius formal prayer, like everything else in our life, must be not for itself but for God, as is well expressed in the unchanging preparatory prayer of every exercise (§46). That constitutes the sublime fruit of the Spiritual Exercises. The exercitant desires to persevere in it after the Exercises. For this the single-minded exercitant needs noth-ing more than the three methods of praying that are at once simple and sublime. When no surprise sublimity of the Spirit is manifestly active, we are to be content with the ready-made prayer that the vocal prayers are, know-ing that they come to our breath because of the Spirit's breathing in us. The Ending Finesse The three methods are perhaps like the performance of the circus artiste Philippe Petit. He had walked on a high wire between the towers of the World Trade Center in August 1974. Some time afterwards, on a much lower high wire between two "towers" in a circus in New Haven, Philippe walked and jumped and danced playfully, mak-ing it look easy. But more surprising was the ending. He began walking down a wire from one of the towers to the 151 66.2 2007 Do~ninic * The Finesse at the Finish of the Exercises ground. This was not easy. "Attention as well as tension grew and all kept their eyes on his outstretched arms. Everyone was so engrossed in his act that no one real-ized that for five seconds Philippe had been walking on the safe floor. Only after he himself looked down to the floor with a puzzled face and then up to the stands with happily surprised eyes did the tension break and everyone explode into roaring applause.''23 The applause seemed to be no less for walking on the circus floor than performing on the high wire--no less than when we managed to walk for the first time. If the thirty-day retreat is a feat, its success lies in making the days following it no less a feat and a feast to boot. The three methods help in accomplishing this. Notes ' Pico Iyer to a columnist. See Pradeep Sebastian, "In Autumn Radiance," The Hindu Literary Review, 5 November 2006, p. 6. 2 Such numbers in parentheses refer to the paragraph numbers in The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. 3 See Martin E. Palmer, On Giving the Spiritual Exercises: The Early Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of l Y99 (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 126 (emphasis added). 4 See Gilles Cusson, Biblical Theology and the Spiritual Exercises (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1988), pp. 155-156, 327-330. 5 See William A.M. Pet~s, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: Exposition and Interprdtat~on (Rome: CIS, 1980), pp. 51-52. 6 Jos~ Calveras, Th~ Harvest-Field of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius (Bombay: St. Xavier's College, 1949), p. 251. 7 Calveras, Harvest-Field, p. 252 (with a change of singular to plu-ral). 8 See Herv~ Coathalem, Ignatian Insights (Taichung, Taiwan: Kuangchi Press, 1971), p. 235. 9 This does not appear so clearly in English translations: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius by George E. Ganss (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1993) or by Louis J. Puhl (Bombay: St Paul Publications, 1965). ,0 Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 175. Review for Religious ~t See Calveras, Harvest-Field, p. 248. ~2 Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 177. 13 Taking the cue from the comment of Calveras as found in Ganss, Spiritual Exercises, p. 186, n. 127. t4 See Peters, Exercises: Exposition, pp. 41-42, 178. ,s Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 179 (though he excludes the first method here). 16 See Calveras, Harvest-Field, pp. 245,249. 17 See Calveras, Harvest-Field, pp. 245-246. ~8 Jules J. Toner, A Commentary on St. Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits (Anand: GSP, 1982), p. 39. 19 Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 172. 20 Peters, Exercises: Exposition, p. 179. 21 See The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans. George E. Ganss (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), §342. 22 See Constitutions, trans. Ganss, p. 183, n. 4. ,3 Henri J.M. Nouwen, Donald P. McNeill, and Douglas A. Morrison, Compassion (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1982), p. 77. In Impressione Ss. Stigmatum S. Francisci wings and wood, fire and air and the pain goes right through it is harder to bear, Francis told a brother, "than any martyrdom. I am not speaking of the reward, but only of the intensity of suffering it causes" (Thomas of Celano, Vita Prima S. Francisci, ii, 7). love into blood, blood into love and the pain goes right through Sean Kinsella 66.2 2007 DAVID L. FLEMING "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving 1541 One of the key phrases capturing the charism of Ignatian spirituality is "to love and to serve in all things." In Ignatius's Spanish it reads "en todo amary ser-vir." The phrase is used in describing the grace we pray for in the prayer exercise the Contemplation on the Love of God, the final exercise within the Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius lets us know how he is considering the verb, to love, by his prenote of two points in this exercise. He tells us that love is shown more in deeds than in words in the first point. Then in the second point he says that people in love share what each has with the other. The Ignatian Spanish word we translate in English as "to share" is comunicar. And so in a paradoxical way, though Ignatius does say deeds express true love more than words, he goes on to say that what lovers do for each other speaks or communicates love. David L. Fleming SJ delivered this presentation as a keynote address for the first Ignatian Spirituality Conference for Asia, held in Hong Kong from November 24 to 27, 2006, with the theme "Finding God in the 21st Century." His address is 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, Missouri 63 I08. Revie'w for Religious Although Ignatius helps us in some way to appreciate his understanding of to love, I do not find him as helpful in letting us know what he might mean by to serve. It is true that we find some thirty-nine uses of the words ser-vice or to serve in the Exercises, but we do not find a kind of definition. If we can cite some seventy times a form of the word service being used in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, we still are left to imagine what the word itself means for Ignatius. I want to explore with you this notion of Ignatian service. Ignatius the Mystic Ignatius Loyola is numbered among the great Spanish mystics of the 16th century. Although he did not reflect in writing on his mystical experiences in the way that Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross did, Ignatius takes his place with his own spiritual legacy alongside these two great Carmelite mystics. A most important mystical experience for an under-standing of Ignatian spirituality happens to Ignatius in 1537 as he is journeying to Rome with his companions in order that they might offer themselves to the pope for his missioning. Ignatius makes reference to this vision in his Autobiography §96, but he does not expand on it. He makes even a more passing reference to it in his Spiritual Diary when he writes, "i recalled the day when the Father placed me with the Son" (§22, 23 February 1544). At a shrine at La Storta, Ignatius received an extraordinary response to his novena-like prayer to Mary, "Place me with your Son." Ignatius describes his experience in these words: "He experienced such a change in his soul and saw so clearly that God the Father placed him with Christ his Son that he would not dare doubt it--that God the Father had placed him with his Son." In the "seeing" (Ignatius's 155 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving vision), Jesus was carrying his cross. The Father addresses Ignatius and says, "I shall be favorable to you at Rome." Then the Father turns tO Jesus, who is carrying his cross, . and makes this request: "I want you to take this man to serve us." Jesus, with his cross in hand, looks at Ignatius and says, "We want you to serve us." The vision is an obvious answer to Ignatius's prayer to Mary. He is con-firmed in his being placed with Jesus. But the placement is made with Jesus in action--Jesus carrying his cross. This vision becomes an icon of Ignatian spirituality. The vision is about Ignatian service. A Spirituality of Service Ignatian spirituality, always identified as an active spirituality, finds expression in the phrase "to serve." Many commentators on Ignatius have noted that the you in Jesus' invitation to Ignatius "We want you to serve us" is plural. You would ~opnras~s~'-e~' --- e~"~-e . seem to point not only in . 0" roe,. '~i to Ignatius but also to all the people who find life in Ignatian spiritu-ality. As we try to live Ignatian spirituality, we want to be a people who serve. We are moved, then, to ask what does service or to serve mean in Ignatian spirituality? Does Ignatius help us to understand what service might include? Is it confined to tasks performed or work accomplished? Is service always about a project or jobs? Is service restricted to certain kinds of actions or deeds? I am suggesting that we might follow Ignatius in some of his experiences as recorded in his Autobiography to see a R~iew for Religious development in his own life about what it means to serve. Then we might return to the Exercises themselves tO see how Ignatius incorporates an openness to God's invitation to serve the Kingdom. Ignatius's Experience The young Ignatius was a man of great ambition. He was one who could dream of doing great deeds, being recognized for signal service in the service of a king, and perhaps by glorious accomplishments he might win the hand of a noble lady. The cannonball in the siege of the city Pamplona by the French forces against the Spanish shattered not only Ignatius's leg but also his dreams. During his long recovery at the family castle of Loyola, he had only two books--a Life of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony and the legendary .tales about many saints by Voragine--to fill his reading time. But through these two books Ignatius's dreams returned, only to be fired by the challenge to do glorious deeds like the saints, glorious deeds in the service of Christ, his king. Although service was still caught up in glorious deeds and accomplishments, Ignatius also found himself listening to the still, small voice of God calling within him. Little by little, he began to pay attention to the different spirits that stirred inside him, some leaving him to feel sad and desolate and others giving him joy. He began to under-stand a language of God through a process of. discerning these spirits. He would spend long hours gazing at the stars in the skry, and felt within himself a great drawing to serve the Lord. In the midst of his dreams, he asked him-self what was it that he really desired to do. As an answer, Ignatius felt that the content of his dreaming was to be a pilgrim, one going to the Holy Land where Jesus lived. Ignatius at this time represents all those first aposdes called by Jesus in the Gospels. He is like the fishermen 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving Peter and Andrew, James and John, and like the tax collec-tor Matthew, who heard Jesus say "follow" and they did. A!though Ignatius still harbored his idea of great deeds, at this moment of recovery at Loyola castle, he knew only that he wanted to follow Jesus, and somehow this follow-ing seemed to lead him to the land called "holy" because Jesus was born and died there. He wanted to be identified with Jesus. That would be service enough, and perhaps he could help souls. "Following" is a way of serving. But it is not so much our doing some deeds as it is an active passivity on our part, just to let someone take the lead and we come behind. But, for the apostles in the Gospels and for Ignatius at Loyola, the first form of his newfound service of Jesus is just to follow, wherever he may lead. Manresa becomes another stage in Ignatius's growth in understanding service. At Manresa, through a long and sometimes zigzag forming by the grace of God, Ignatius becomes available, available to go wherever God may lead him. At Manresa, Ignatius was initially self-determining his way of serving Christ. He set himself some seven hours of prayer each day. He fixed on his way of getting God's grace by a total fast. A major temptation was phrased in the question: How will you be able to endure this life for the seventy years you have to live (Auto §20)? When he was beset by debilitating scruples, he correctly took all the human means he could to rid himself of them. But finally he had to cry. out to God for help only God could give. In a dramatic image of being a child, Ignatius tells God that however God wants to work with him, he, a grown man, would chase after a puppy dog if that is how God would give him a healing remedy (Auto §23). Immediately he reflects that God was at this time treating him like a schoolmaster with a pupil. Why was God teaching him Review for Religious this way, he asks. Because of the strong desire that God himself had given him to serve him (Auto §27). Manresa became the schoolhouse where Ignatius began to learn that serving is not focused on our own predetermined efforts. To serve God means first of all to be available to God's direction and grace. God is the master, the teacher, and we are the disciples, the learners. To bring home the fact that God is the director, Ignatius recounts five special mysti-cal experiences--all of them pointing towards an under-standing or grasp of the deepest of faith realities: God of serving Christ. as Trinity, creation as worked by God, the Eucharistic presence of Jesus, Christ and Mary in their holy human-ness, and finally insights into spiritual matters as well as matters of faith and scholarship (Auto §§28-30). God was making Ignatius his disciple, a person available to God. For Ignatius, to be available is to serve. He would reflect this stance particularly in the attitude of the third class of people in the exercise "The Three Types of People," in the Exercises. As Ignatius moves to the next phase--the pilgrimage to Jerusalem--he opens another door which leads to a notion of serving. He discovers through many experiences of being the pilgrim that a way of serving comes from faith--believing and trusting. Whether it be with the use of money (prudently having some or not), or with the choice of boat (going with the bigger and better outfitted one or not), or with weather at sea (cold and stormy or beset by pirate ships), or with church authority (allowing or not allowing his stay in Jerusalem), Ignatius came to a realization that believing God and believing in God and Ignatius was initially self-determining his way 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am". Ignatian Ways of Serving trusting God and trusting in God was to serve God. This understanding of seryi.'ng is reflected in Ignatius's contem-plative approach to the Gospels. When Ignatius determines that studies were impor-tant for carrying out his desire to serve God and others, he slowly moves to another stage of serving. Although it is at Salamanca that he evidences his desire to have companions with him in service, the realization of this desire will have its fruition during the time of his stud-ies in Paris. There it was that Francis Xavier and Peter Faber and four others form the nucleus of the "friends in the Lord." Whether it is the call of Christ coming to every person to be with and to work with Christ reflected in the Call of the King exercise in the Spiritual Exercises that inspires Ignatius to seek to serve in relationship with others, we can only infer. ¯ But, whatever the stimulus, we see another stage in Ignatius's own growth in understanding and practicing service. To serve is to be in relationship with others. It is to accompany and to be accompanied. This is the root foundation for the Company of Jesus, the Jesuits, ones who call themselves companions of Christ and so companions with one another. The service of the Society of Jesus mirrors always men-in-companionship, not the individual aposde. Ignatian service historically is people working together because of their working with Christ. I believe that Ignatius's growth in understanding ser-vice came out of his experiences which we have pointed out through the citing of certain incidents recorded in his Autobiography. Ignatius reflected upon his experience in terms of being helpful to others, and the result was his writing of the Spiritual Exercises. The Exercises, then, I believe, become a summation of what Ignatian service is. Let us look more closely at the Exercises. Review for Religious The Evidence from the Exercises What Ignatius discovered and what he hands on to us is that God is the One who first serves. This is the vision that Ignatius shares with us in the Principle and Foundation and in the Contemplation on the Love of God. Ignatius begins his Principle and Foundation state-ment with the catechism-like answer to the unspoken question "why did God make us?" Ignatius writes: God creates human beings to praise, reverence, and serve God, and thereby save their souls. Ignatius goes on to say that God gifts human beings with all their personal talents and presents everything in creation as gifts to help them to come to know, love, and serve God. Our human response is to choose among the many gifts which ones help us in our direction towards life-with-God forever. God is the first to serve us by gifting us with an abundance of gifts so that we can make the choice among them which ones better help us seek and find God. Ignatius makes his approach eminently clear in the final exercise, the Contemplation on the Love of God-- what I call the "other bookend" of the Exercises similar to the Principle and Foundation. We are praying for the grace to be empowered to love and to serve in all the .ways that God does. All four points outlined by Ignatius are pictures of God serving us. Of course, by his prenote on love, Ignatius has prepared us to see that God shows his love in deeds--in all the ways that God continues to serve us. These deeds, these giftings, speak out and com-municate to us how much God loves us. In loving us, God is the first to serve. As directors, not as first-time retreatants, we are aware that the vision pieces that mark the beginning and end of the full Spiritual Exercises are about a God who gifts, a God who loves, and a God who serves. In every way God communicates his love for us and so serves us. If God 161 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving is the first to serve, then how better can we learn what service means than by perceiving all the ways that God communicates his love for us by his deeds--all of which are meant to speak. Just as there has been a tradition of the four points of the Contemplation on the Love of God being a rtsum6 of the Four Weeks of the Exercises, so we might review some aspects of the Four Weeks to obtain, perhaps, a better grasp of how God serves, with the result that we might learn to serve. I am selecting a few key images that speak of ways of serving. In the First Week, we might turn our eyes to Jesus nailed to the cross as we are asked to image him in the colloquy in the first exercise. When we are caught in wonder that Jesus, being the Word made flesh, the Word in whom all things are created, is being crucified, we are open to hearing his response to us as a part of our prayer conversation. Jesus would tell us that his hanging on the cross is a way of his serving. Moved by love of God his Father and focused in his love for each of us, his brothers and sisters, he gives himself over to us, holding noth-ing back, even allowing us to put him to death. Sin in our lives is the way that we keep trying to pot him to death. But Jesus waits for us, Jesus' arms are held wide to embrace us, Jesus offers us his forgiveness. How does Jesus (God) serve us? Jesus serves us by his patience, by his ever-present welcome, by his words of forgiveness. Jesus loves and so he serves. In the Second Week, we might look at and listen to Christ issuing his call to every man, woman, and child today. The exercise is called the Call of the King. This is the risen Christ, the one who is still busy about the king-dom to come. This Jesus personally invites each one of us to be with him and to work with him. God's kingdom will come, the victory is assured in Jesus' resurrection, Review for Religious and life forever with God is our realizable goal. How does Jesus (God) serve us? Jesus serves us by calling us to an intimacy with him, but being with Jesus is not enough. Jesus serves us by asking us to work alongside him as together we serve the kingdom. Jesus loves us so much that he wants us to be _~ right alongside him as we act together in our work for the kingdom. Just as Jesus' being caught up in love of God his Father has him serving just by being with him, so too our being with Jesus models this divine intimacy--essential to all other forms of serving. In our eagerness to work as our form of ser-vice, we often forget that service of God demands a loving relationship with God. In the Third Week, we are struck by the first exercise as imaging service in a special way. In his points for the Last Supper contemplation, Ignatius highlights the pas-chal meal context, the washing of the disciples' feet by Jesus, and the Eucharist as the greatest mark of his love. The paschal meal is a liturgical context in which Jesus, known as the Lamb of God, will bring to a fulfillment the Mosaic celebration so that it becomes a celebration of a new covenant "in my blood." Jesus serves us by entering us into the liturgical celebration of the covenant between God and humankind. Celebrating liturgy, then, is a way of serving. In washing his disciples' feet, Jesus clearly identifies himself as teacher and wants to expand their understand-ing. He wants, above all, to broaden their understanding of what it means to serve. Jesus is not asking them to fix their attention on one action of a good deed done to We often forget that service of God demands a loving relationship with God. 163 66.2 20O7 Fleming * "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving understand service. He has them first of all reflect on the One who serves. Created in God's image, just like the eternal Son, our very being is realized in our being people who serve. In challenging their understanding, Jesus is exploding whatever restrictions these first apostles and then all of us later ones humanly use to limit our notion of service. When Jesus institutes the Eucharist as the greatest mark of his love, Jesus again shows his love by his deed. The Eucharist is the ever-making-present total gift of self that the risen Jesus continuously makes to his Father and to us. The actuality of the event of the cross, limited in time and in space, receives its "now" reality and meaning in every celebration of the Eucharist--the greatest mark of Jesus' love. Jesus is forever giving over himself to us. Jesus shows us that service is embedded in surrender, a giving over of self, with nothing ever held back. In the Fourth Week, once again it is the first exercise that is most suggestive of our drinking in ways of serving. The first exercise is the appearance of the risen Jesus to Mary, his mother. Ignatius dismisses the fact that there is no scripture passage to support this contemplation by claiming that Scripture says that there are other appear-ances and that we have understanding. By having us con-template the risen J~sus appearing to his mother, Ignatius brings home to us the newness of the risen life and the change in relationship that it necessarily entails. Jesus' intimacy with Mary his mother, before his resurrection at a level incomprehensible to us, is taken to another, wholly unimaginable, level at this resurrection time. This Jesus, whose risen body knows no natural, physical boundar-ies, meets his mother in an intimacy that can only be described with explosive joy. Jesus shares with his mother the joy of the resurrection as his way of se]'ving. Mary, then, becomes our key to something of the newness of Review for Religious our relationship with the risen Jesus. We experience Jesus' way of serving us sometimes by this gift of joy, at other times by his gift of consolation. In joy and in consolation, we feel a oneness with the Lord that leaves us faltering in our language to describe our experience. This brings us back to our two "bookends" of the Exercises, the Principle and Foundation and the Contemplation on the Love of God. We realize now more fully that the phrase "to love and to serve in all things" has a necessary proper sequence. To love comes before to serve. With Ignatian insight, loving always is the root and foundation of serving. If we love, then we will be serving people. Ignatius sees that God loves, and so God is the first to serve. As he has experienced God in his own life, he has come to a wholly new way of under-standing service--a transformation of the great deeds and accomplishments that made up so much of his dreams. God has taught him, and now he knows that by drinking in God's actions, by watching Jesus in the Gospels, he has expanded his notion of service and has taken in its breadth, its length, its height, and its depth. Ignatius writes into the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus the richness of this understanding of service. Some would complain that the Jesuit order has little specifica- ¯ tion for its mission. Although the Formula of the Institute (like the basic Rule of a religious order) does describe the mission of the Jesuits, we Jesuits must confess that it does not so much restrict our activities as open up many doors to the needs of our world. The Key of Helping A part of Ignatius's first insight into the service of following Christ never left him. The Spanish verb ayu-dar, meaning to help, is the kernel of all Ignatian service. Ignatius always wanted "to help souls." His Exercises 66.2 2007 Fleming ¯ "Here I Am": Ignatian Ways of Serving are written to be a help first for the director and then through the director for the retreatant. Consistently Ignatius urges the director of the retreat to use or not use material on the basis of whether it is "helpful" for the one making the retreat. In terms of the special vow of obedience of the professed Jesuit, the mission was to be determined by the pope, who saw where the need was greatest and, as a result, the Jesuits could be of greater "help." "To help" is hardly an exalted notion of service. It does not conjure up great deeds and accomplishments. But it is a way of serving as God serves. What have we learned about Ignatian service? First, by looking at God, who is the first to serve, we begin to learn about service. Second, from God, we learn that love is the foundation and love is the stimulus for ser-vice. Love is expressed in deeds--in acts of service--more than in words. And yet our service should speak out and communicate the love that is at its source. Third, service cannot be restricted to certain actions or deeds, to certain results or accomplishments. From Jesus and the Gospels, we learn that to follow is to serve, to be available is to serve, to believe and to trust is to serve, to accompany is to serve, to forgive and to be compassionate is to serve, and to celebrate the Eucharist is to serve. We also learn to serve is always to share what we have been given. That is why serving always follows upon loving--because lovers share their gifts. After our explorations of this idea of service, we find that Ignatius again leads us to the grace that we prayed for in the Contemplation on the Love of God. We pray for the grace that we might be empowered "to love and to serve in everything," "en todo amary servir." Our ways of serving will be as rich and deep as our ways of loving. We are acting with God. We are God's servants. We stand ready and willing. We say: Here I am. I want to serve. Review for Religious Reflection Questions 1. How do I define or describe what it means to serve as a Christian? Do I find myself making changes in my thinking as I reflect on the Ignatian ways of serving? 2. "God is the first to serve." What has been my experience of God serving me? Prayer Mantra Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve. The Christ of Psalm 19 Champion. Waking to his strength and the morning's grace he seizes the radiant sun as it sets out on its way, and runs, runs and leaps, clasping it joyously to his breast. The light f!lls him, glows from his hands, haloes his footsteps, shines in his exultant laughter. Climbing, bounding across the sky, he spreads lavishly the beneficent light to mirror his heart's fire. Kate Martin OSC 66.2 2007 experiencing prayer RICK MALLOY Prayer Is a Risk ¯ 168] At a community meeting when I was a Jesuit nov-ice, someone asked our provincial about the big-gest problem he faced. His blunt answer startled me: "Jesuits not praying." As novices, our lives were so structured that not praying was impos-sible. After the novitiate I learned, painfully at times, that the demands of the apostolic works easily crowd out the time for prayer (although I always seem to find the ten minutes to catch Jay Leno's monologue). Why is it so difficult to engage in prayer, contemplative prayer? We know that many people pray, that prayer is something we as Catholic Christians ought to do, and we hear that prayer can change things. But many of us are conflicted and confused when we go to pray. Does God really respond to our prayers? Does God really listen to, or care about, what we say? If we prayed some other way, or Rick Malloy sJ is professor of anthropology at St. Joseph's University; 261City Avenue; Merion Station, Pennsylvania 19066. Review for Religious prayed more regularly and faithfully, would we be better people? Can our praying make the world a better place? In our age, which tends to elevate activism to ethereal heights, would our time not be better spent serving the poor or doing something for somebody in need? Would God not be interested more in our doing something "worthwhile" than in our sitting in silence and trying not to pay attention to the random thoughts rumbling end-lessly around in our heads? And when we get right down to it, do we all not ask ourselves sometimes, "Does prayer really work? Does prayer really do anything?" The way to move forward and avoid getting lost in the flurries such questions generate is to realize that prayer is a risk. There is no science of prayer. Just as you cannot prove sci-entifically the worth or effects of real love, the day in and day out lov-ing and caring and living with other persons, you cannot prove the worth of prayer, the practice of paying attention to God day in, day out. If we could prove prayer's value scientifically, it would not be prayer. Pyayer is a risk because it is a lifelong, life-changing act of faith. The word "believe" comes from the German belieben, meaning "to belove." Prayer is all about the risks involved in loving. Much of our reluctance and resistance to pray is in our fear that God might really respond to us. On one hand, we fear God will not take us seriously. On the other hand, we are afraid that God may take us very seriously, as seriously as we take ourselves and our loved ones. Prayer is a risk because the God who calls us to conversion and Much of our reluctance and resistance to pray is in our fear that God might really respond to us. !169 66.2 2007 Malloy ¯ Prayer Is a Risk 1701 change takes us up on the invitation to get involved in our lives. VChen that happens the adventure begins. To be Catholic is to be aware of our call to great trans-formations, transforming us over our lifetime into persons incorporated into the reality of God--the promise made to us all, that we may "come to share in the divine nature" (2 P 1:4, NAB). Our personal transformations are part of larger cosmic processes: the transformation of all human history and all creation (Rm 8:21) into the coming king-dom of God, where God will be "all in all" (1 Co 15:28). Right at the beginning of Lumen gentium, the great docu-ment of Vatican Council II that describes what the church is and ought to be, we are told what Catholicism is all about. God's plan is "to dignify men and women with a participation in his own divine life" (LG §2). This is not some radical, unorthodox, crazy, Jesuit spin on spirituality. Back in the early days of the church, St. Athanasius said the same thing I am saying here: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §460). Prayer makes us aware of, and committed to, this transformation in Christ. Risk comes in refusing to cooperate in the offered transforma-tions. There is also risk in yielding to the transformation, freely accepting who and what God is making of us and our lives. Prayer Is Relational. MI prayer is relational. By pray-ing, we relate to God, our God who loves us passionately, consistently, challengingly. When we truly relate to any-one we love, we may be called to change. The parent who loves a child suffering from cystic fibrosis changes in many ways. The son or daughter loving an aging mother or father makes many unexpected life changes. Such changes always call us to deeper, more active love. Knowing that extreme poverty in Africa can be alleviated changes one who prays about it. Witness Bono and the ONE campaign Review for Religious to eradicate extreme poverty (www.one.org). When we pray we risk changing and being changed. Prayer may make us know that we need to change. Prayer may make us able to change things, from addictions to relationships to social problems. Prayer may make us willing and able to do something for God and others we never imagined doing. Prayer is relational because we relate to God on both personal and communal levels of reality. We never pray alone. Always, and in all ways, we ourselves and someone else are involved. As soon as we try to pray, God takes us up on our effort. Prayer is neither a competition nor a goal-oriented activity. To try to pray is to already have "won." Prayer is much _ __ more like making love, or hitting a baseball, or learning to play a musical instrument (even loudly and badly) than it is like getting a promotion, or achieving a goal, or mas-tering a skill. Prayer is more like floating on water than paddling strenuously to get somewhere. Prayer is more "letting go" than "holding on." Prayer is a journey on which we are simply "there" while paradoxically always being "on the road." Prayer is allowing our lives to be har-monized. Prayer is getting our lives and loves in order, and prayer is inviting God's ordering of our loves and lives. We are all being divinized. Pray-ers know this truth. To be aware of and cooperate with divinization takes work. Real prayer is work; it is spirituality that is disciplined as Catholicism is disciplined. We find ourselves recognizing that consolation is not always comfortable, and desolation is not always disagreeable. Being disciplined about prayer is essential and beneficial just as regular physical exercise Prayer is the effort to consciously experience God. 171 66.2 2007 Malloy ¯ Prayer Is a Risk 172 gets and keeps our bodies in shape. The more in shape we are spiritually, the more we are likely to realize and recog-nize God in our lives. Prayer is the effort to consciously experience God. Praying is consciously paying attention to the central relationships of our lives, with ourselves, with others, and with God. Our relationship with God is the one that makes all these other relationships possible. With conscious attention to our relationship with God, we find whispers of God's presence in the other relation-ships of our lives. We speak to God in prayer, and the word God speaks back is our life. Prayer is paying attention to what is really real. Prayer is not just finding God in all things. It is more than that. Prayer is seeking God in all realities, realities that were, are, and are to come. Our heart's awareness of God and God's ways of divinizing is evident in how we make choices. At the moral level, prayer leads us to wisdom and cor-rec~ choosing. When I was a little kid, in wintertime my mother used to dress us up in those bulky blue snowsuits that made us look like midget Michelin men. She would let me and my siblings out along with the dog. As soon as I was out in the snow, I would reach down and grab a mittenful of the cold, delicious snow and begin to eat. My mom would yell, "Ricky, don't eat the yellow snow!" Prayer is learning what is, and is not, "yellow snow." What is not good for us is whatever frustrates and foils our trans-formation in Christ. For serious pray-ers, life becomes a series of exercises for discerning in God what we truly and deeply desire. Such holy desires reveal God's will for us, and prayer, mediates the grace that helps us choose what we deeply desire and thus make the right choices. Prayer, practiced regularly and faithfully, can become the pivotal center of our daily lives, keeping us on plan and focused. Prayer, even engaged in sporadically and Review for Religious frenetically, is valuable. Annie Lamott, one of the most refreshing if iconoclastic contemporary writers on prayer, says the two best prayers are "Thank you" and "Help." How to Pray. Prayer does not have to be elaborate to be the stream carrying us through life to life eternal. There are many ways of praying: prayers of petition (probably the most common form of prayer), Mass each day, the Liturgy of the Hours, daily spiritual reading, sys-tematically and slowly working one's way through various books of the Bible, reading beforehand the readings for the upcoming Sunday, the rosary, Eucharistic adoration, the utterly simple practice of centering prayer. These are all valid ways to pray. Prayer groups are helpful for many people. Choose freely what you find agreeable. No one stays with a prayer practice they find tedious and frus-trating. Experiment with unconventional methods that make use of and stimulate the imagination. See a movie with Jesus, write someone a letter while in prayer mode, create a dialogue with the Holy Spirit, draw pictures for God. The imagination is the arena where we can often most powerfully experience God. Ignatian contemplation of gospel scenes is a tried and true example of using our graced imagination in prayer. Prayer Guides. Many have traversed the paths through the forest of prayer. Do not feel you have to reinve'nt the wheel. For the beginner, Jesuit Mark Thibodeaux's Armchair Mystic is an excellent book. Pushing Jesuit works on prayer may seem too much like I am pushing the fam-ily business, but anyone who knows about free and flee-ing spirituality will agree that anything by Tony DeMello sJ is worth reading and pondering. Franciscan Richard Rohr's amazingly brief and deceptively simple Everything Belongs is the best book on prayer I have ever read. Rohr orients the 2 lst-century person to what prayer is and can be. The Cloud of Unknowing is a classic on prayer and is 66.2 2007 Malloy * Prayer Is a Risk 174 the inspiration for the contemporary Trappist method of Centering Prayer. Annie Lamott's Traveling Mercies is a wild zany take on everything from prayer to writing to parenting to eating disorders. Kurtz and Ketcham's Spirituality of Imperfection is a real jewel. There are many more good books one can read. Magazines like America and Commonweal are excellent sources and guides for spir-itual reading. The Internet, where so many young adults spend their reading time, offers great sites like the Irish Jesuits' "Sacred Space" (http://www.sacredspace.ie) to ori-ent you in prayer. What Does Prayer Do? Ultimately the practice of real and consistent prayer changes our desires. When we find ourselves wanting what God wants, we are in right relationship with God, and that is the experience of jus-tice on the personal level. Prayer practiced over time will lead us through the process that the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius aim to elicit. Prayer will free us from, free us for, and free us to be with. This means free from all that frustrates our transformation in Christ, from addictions to personality faults; free for service and the righting of relationships on many levels, which ultimately denotes social justice for all; free to be with God as the Holy Spirit transforms us in Christ, and thus free to be our deepest, truest selves in relation with others. Real prayer is about deep transformation and everyday mysticism; it is not some kind of magic or tawdry grace. Prayer does not do anything if we do not pray. I go to the gym three times a week, once a year. The results, or lack thereof, are rather predictable. Regular, consistent, committed prayer is worth the effort, but we never know it until we do it. That means going ahead and taking the risk. Then we can authentically urge others to follow our example. Review for Religious Reflection Questions for Personal and Group Use 1. In view of the title of this article, do I feel that I am risking anything when I pray? 2. What has been the most helpful insight about praying that Malloy has offered to me? 3. In trying to help another person in their prayer life, what two or three points would I want to share? Ubi est mors victoria tua? (1 Corinthians 15:55) Who is this jealous Lover, leaving to any Shylock his pound or two of.flesh, but coming himself and claiming ALL? Who, this unknown Knower, sounding the yearning depths of hearts that run, pursued, from that Encounter (frightful!) which ends at some strange Jacob's-ladder dream (or game)? See: the brand burns deep! No doubts remain; the claim is made; the stake is driven. Take, Lord, receive. (What did Ignatius say?) All is yours, now. Agnes Cunningham SSCM 175" 66.2 2007 JAMES W. KINN Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross 176 SDt. John of the Cross deserves the title Mystical octor. His writings are profound and original. He is without parallel in his rich content and brilliant teach-ing on the mystical life. To many, however, his writings seem almost opaque. They include tedious repetitions, disproportionate emphases, misplaced material, unwieldy sentences, and imprecise language. For example, John often speaks of "this night" without specifying the active night of sense, the active night of spirit, the passive night of sense, or the passive night of spirit. We can determine what night he means only by careful study of the con-text. Spiritual writers who interpret John often confuse his meaning instead of clarifying it because they mix the nights indiscriminately. The focus of this article is quite narrow: it centers on John's description of the beginning of contemplation. James W. Kinn is a retired priest of the Chicago Archdiocese. This article is a further development of his book Contemplation 2000: St John of the Cross for Today (Saint Bede's Publications, 1997). He can be addressed 6318 243rd Court; Salem, Wisconsin 53168. . Review for Religious First we will try to clarify his mystical teaching on the dark night as the actual beginning of infused contempla-tion. Then we will describe his practical advice for pray-ing this way. John treats this beginning of contemplation especially in his Dark Night, Books I and II. Spiritual writers agree with John of the Cross about the general description of contemplative prayer. They see contemplation as an integral -- development of prayer. That is, ¯ mental prayer exhibits a natu-ral progression from discursive mental prayer to more affective prayer to simpler prayei" and then to more passive prayer, in which God takes over our prayer in contemplation. Writers agree that the beginning of contemplation is generally dark and gentle; the first experiences are so subtle and tenuous that we hardly know what is occurring. Writers also agree with John on the three essential characteristics of infused contemplation: (1) in contem-plation we have some vague experience of God as present within us; (2) this direct contact with God is general and dark in the beginning; it is not accompanied by images or distinct notions, but consists of a simple and dark intuition; (3) we receive the experience passively, not as a result of our own efforts. We cannot obtain it, retain it, or recall it. We no longer meditate by means of ideas, images, or affections. John's Teaching on the Beginning of Contemplation The Dark Night, Book I, is titled "a treatise on the passive night of the senses." John says, "this dark night signifies . . . purgative contemplation.''l The memory, understanding, and will are dark and empty. That is, just as actual night leaves our eyes dark and unable to func- 177 66.2 2007 Kinn ¯ Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross tion, so dark contemplation leaves our memory, under-standing, and will dark and unable to function. And John calls this the night of the senses because "at this time God does not communicate himself through the senses as he did before . . . but begins to communicate himself through pure spirit by an act of simple contemplation, in which there is no discursive succession of thought.''2 This night of the senses consists essentially in our inability to meditate, becaus~.e all our natural faculties (memory, intellect, wi!l.,.-affections) are now darkened. This very inabilityAs'the necessary condition for the new form of prayer that God is beginning to bestow. John insists that this new way of prayer is properly called con-templation: A person should not mind if the operations of his fac-ulties are being lost to him; he ought to desire rather that this be done quickly so that he may be no obstacle to the operation of the infused contemplation which God is bestowing., and make room in his spirit for the enkindling and burning of love that this dark and secret contemplation bears and communicates to his soul. For contemplation is .nothing else than a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God) John wants us to know that this dark prayer is actually the beginning of contemplation: This food is the beginning of a contemplation that is dark and dry to the senses . Now in this state of contemplation, when the soul has left discursive medi-tation and entered the state of proficients, it is God who works in it .At this time a person's own efforts are of no avail.4 That is, this prayer is not just a period of transition between meditation and contemplation nor a proximate prepara-tion for contemplation; rather it is the very beginning of contemplation: "At the time of the aridities of this sensory night, God [withdraws] the soul from the life of the senses Review for Religious and [places] it in that of the spirit that is, he brings it from meditation to contemplation--where the soul no longer has the power to work or meditate with its faculties on the things of God.''s He teaches that this is actually something new in the soul, a new experience; it is not simply a deep-ening of what has gone before, not just a continuation and further simplifying of meditation. We have seen our own personal activity in meditation become more simple and even reduced to nothing. The old world of our senses and intellectual ideas is now remote and useless. We no lon-ger meditate by means of ideas, images, or affections. Now God begins to act, though darkly. God almost impercepti-bly infuses himself into our soul and awakens a new level of awareness. This is the actual beginning of contemplation. We experience this night of contemplation as darkness, because we have only an undefined intimation of God's presence. The experience itself is ineffable, for it is void of any intermediary of sense or image. The critical point, which John of the Cross often repeats, is that this dark, pas-sive, and simple form of prayer is truly contemplation: In this state of contemplation, when the soul has left discursive meditation and entered the state of profi-cients, it is God who works in it. He therefore binds the interior faculties and leaves no support in the intel-lect, nor satisfaction in the will, nor remembrance in the memory. At this time God does not communi-cate himself through the senses as he did before., but begins to communicate himself through pure spirit by an act of simple contemplation, in which there is no discursive succession of thought. John takes great care in repeating just what this begin-ning of contemplation consists in, because it is not what most people understand it to be. They hear about more advanced forms of contemplation such as raptures, ecsta-sies, and visions. They do not understand that those are not at all the experiences at the beginning of contempla- 179 66.2 2007 Kinn ¯ Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross tion. They do not realize that their natural progression of prayer from meditation to affective prayer to simpler prayer leads them to this very next step. They see their own personal activity reduced to nothing; their reflec-tions, personal affections, and quiet insights have mostly disappeared; God no longer seems to touch them through ideas, images, or affections. They find themselves in front of a wall without any satisfying thoughts and they wonder, "Where did I go wrong?" John wants us to know that this troubling development is not a dead end, not a wall at all. It is actually the natural development of our prayer and the necessary condition for God to act in us in a new way.7 As long as we filled our minds with all our rational ideas, images, reasoning, . and affections, there was no room for a new and infused way of experiencing God. Only when we admit that all our rational efforts can take us no farther do we willingly let God take over and let ourselves be peaceful and atten-tive in that dark night. Then God begins to act and show his presence, though obscurely. God almost imperceptibly infuses himself into our soul and awakens us to a new level of awareness. God opens a new door for us. At first we experience this as darkness because the experience itself is so subtle and elusive. In addition, we have no words to describe it; we use words such as "know, see, feel, sense, perceive, touch," but they are not adequate to express how we experience God now; they are only metaphors or analogies. The experience itself is ineffable, for it is void of any intermediaries of sense or image. But this direct inflow of God is actually the beginning of contemplation. Over a period of time, this new way of experiencing God will gradually reach some degree of clarity. Only little by little does this gleam in the night seem closer and some-what distinct. God only increases his light according to our ability and our faithfulness in this way. Review for Religious How to Pray in the Beginning of Contemplation What is John of the Cross's advice for those who can no longer meditate and are beginning contemplation? Fortunately, he is entirely clear and simple: The attitude necessary in the night of sense is to pay no attention to discursive meditation, since this is not the time for it. They should allow the soul to remain in rest and quietude, even though it may seem very obvious to them that they are doing nothing and wasting time. ¯. Through patience and perseverance in prayer, they will be doing a great deal without activity on their part. All that is required of them here is freedom of soul, that they liberate themselves from the impediment and fatigue of ideas and thoughts and care not about think-ing and meditating. They must be content simply with a loving andpeaceful attentiveness to God and live without the concern, without the effort, and without the desire to taste or feel him. These desires disquiet the soul and distract it from the peaceful quiet and sweet idleness of the contemplation which is being communicated to it.s John teaches here that, once we can no longer meditate with sensible images, imaginations, rational thoughts, and affections, we should not continue to struggle with our natural faculties but "remain in rest and quietude" with "a loving and peaceful attentiveness to God." Very simply, we should remain peaceful and attentive in God's presence. Again and again he assures us that the primary agent in this contemplative prayer is God:. The principal agent [now] is God, who secretly and quietly inserts in the soul loving wisdom and knowl-edge, without specific acts . Thus the individual also should proceed only with a loving attention to God, without making specific acts. He .should conduct him-self passively . . . without efforts of his own but with simple, loving awareness.9 That is, all our activity can be summed up in this one 181 66.2 2007 Kinn ¯ Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross 182]. word: attentive. Since the natural operations of our intel-lect and will are helpless to attain the direct knowledge of God, all we can do is put them at rest. Only when we put to rest all our sensible ways of knowing will there be room for this direct, infused experience of God. Our whole effort is to remain quiet, peaceful, open, and recep-tive to this new experience. Various metaphors might help to describe our situ-ation in this beginning of contemplation: (1) There is nothing we can do to water this garden; we can no longer even bring up buckets from the well of meditation. We have no control over the rainwater that comes from God's infused contemplation. (2) We need a new way of breath-ing in this rarefied air; only the pure oxygen of God will sustain us at this altitude. (3) We are beyond our ability to swim any more; all we can do is float in the water and wait for God to carry us along. (4) All our efforts cannot open this door to the new experience of God; the most we can do is remove all the obstacles of our mental images and rational thoughts. (5) God is the sun ever shining; he will certainly shine in our soul once it is empty of the clutter of sensible images and natural reasoning. And these same metaphors may help us to be patient in this passive form of prayer--content to be peaceful and atten-tive in God's presence. John wants us to know that, once we no longer have the power to work or meditate with our faculties, God will soon bring us from meditation to contemplation: "As soon as natural things are driven out of the enamored soul, the divine are naturally and supernaturally infused, since there can be no void in nature.''1° Again he repeats his assurance: "Little by little and very soon the divine calm and peace with a wondrous, sublime knowledge of God . . . will be infused into his soul . Learn to be empty of all things--interiorly and exteriorly--and you Review for Religious will behold that I am God.''~1 John's words, "there can be no void in nature," remind us of the familiar experience of opening a can of vacuum-packed coffee; as soon as we puncture the can, the air fills the void with a hiss of air rushing in. The image suggested by John, then, is that, once we have learned to remain in the presence of God peacefully and attentively, God will soon fill this void with an infused sense of his presence and love. Now, if this dark and passive prayer is really the beginning of contemplation, then what is the source of that infused grace? John answers clearly: "The principal agent and guide and mover of souls in this mat-ter [at the beginning of contemplation] is . ¯ . the Holy Spirit. ¯ When the soul frees itself of all things . . . it is impossible that God should fail to do his part by communicating himself to it, at least silently and secretly.''12 That is, instead of relying on our own rational faculties and efforts, John tells us to rely on the infused wisdom of the Holy Spirit, who is "the principal agent and guide and mover" in all of contempla-tive prayer¯ Throughout this dark night, the Holy Spirit continues to infuse this contemplative prayer in our soul: "This communication [of dark contemPlation] is secret and dark to the work of the intellect and the other fac-ulties insofar as these faculties do not acquire it but the Holy Spirit infuses it and puts it in order in the soul." Finally, throughout The Living Flame of Love, John identi-fies the source of further union and transformation of the soul as the Holy Spirit: "This flame of love is the Spirit of its Bridegroom, which is the Holy Spirit.''~4 We have no control over the rainwater that comes from God's infused contemplation. 183 66.2 2007 Kinn ¯ Beginning Contemplation according to John of the Cross I84 So, in this beginning stage of contemplation and in all the stages of contemplation, our singular effort will be to be quiet and attentive. At first, our usual sense of God's presence will be dark and unsatisfying; we will feel weak and empty. Yet this is the only way we can learn not to rely on our rational faculties but only on the Spirit of Jesus. In Scripture, Jesus promised us this "Spirit of Truth" who will "be with you always" (Jn 14:16-17); "he will teach you everything" (Jn 14:26) and "will guide you-to all truth" (Jn !6:13). Certainly this "everything" and "all truth" include this wonderful infused contemplation. We can trust in Jesus' assurance: "How much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Lk 11:13). One Example of Contemplative Prayer V~hen we reach this dark night of the senses, we can feel lost in our prayer because all our faculties, are dark and all our efforts are useless. Despite the guidance of John of the Cross, we would like to have some example of just how to proceed in this beginning of contemplative prayer. Here is one example. Receive, 0 Lord, my whole freedom--my senses, my imagination, my affections, my reasonings. All these faculties l have received from you. I renounce the use of all of them during this prayer, unless it be according to your will. Grant me only the inspiration of your Spirit, nothing more. Lord, I am content to dwell in this dark night in which all. my faculties are helpless. This dark-ness is my friend, for on!y in this night can your new light become visible; this silence is the.way to wisdom, for only in complete quiet can the gentle voice of

Issue 66.1 of the Review for Religious, 2007. ; ' Spiritu:alilty Perspectives Community Tod:ay~s Saint QUARTERLY 66.1 2007 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the" holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul Vl said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: ~w.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious - 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° Pontifical College Josephinum 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ RO. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2007 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. eview for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff l~ebmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell 0SB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehmer ASC Martin Erspamer OSB Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 66.1 2007 contents prisms 4 Prisms 19 spirituality Aging and Christian Spirituality: Joy and Resignation Matthias Neuman OSB explores two challenges of aging, namel.v, the ability to enjoy and the need of resignation. Dreams in Prayer and Discernment Jennifer Constantine Jackson examines the human experience of dreams as one resource from the Lord that can assist us on ¯ the road to spiritual maturity. Reflection/Discussion Questions 3O perspectives Confessions of a Franciscan Ethicist Rende Mirkes O~'S shows how being Franciscan can and does affect the way she does ethics. Review for Religious 40 58 Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue Colleen Mary Mallon OP explores dialogical communion, from the writings of the French Dominican Yves Congar, and reflects upon specific practices of discipleship that promise to deepen communal conversion while offering prophetic witness to a global world. Personal Reflection/Group Discussion community Rose Hoover RC says that being together on the inward journey is a subtly rigorous togetherness not to be missed. 64 An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers Robert Schieler FSC describes his congregation's Holy Week retreat in which three provinces saw a happily workable way to be energetically together as one. 74 today's saint Mother's Quest and Bequest: Theodore Guerin's Sainthood Mary Roger Madden SP provides a historical vignette of her congregation's recently canonized American foundress to show the greatness of her spiritual bequest. departments 90 Scripture Scope: The Bible and the Church 95 Canonical Counsel: Bona Ecclesiastica 101 Book Reviews 66.1 2007 prisms Do I want to be holy? When we ask our-selves the question, the answer would seem to be obvious. Since we believe in God and we want to enjoy life forever with God, we are trying to be holy. Probably many of us would find it a bit pretentious to say that right now we are making the effort to be holy. Why is it so off-putting for us to admit simply that we want to be holy? Trying to be holy sounds, well, sanctimonious. We judge that we are priding ourselves on some-thing we are not. We don't want to be people setting ourselves down at the head of the table in Jesus' parable, only to be told to take a lower place. All too often we think that to be holy includes all the things that we are not: unfail-ingly pious, always prayerful, never offensive, and ever patient and long-suffering. Perhaps images like the eyes-rolled-up to heaven, the hands folded, and the pallid face featured in many portraits of our saints hold us off from identifying with holiness. We likely need a reevaluation of what it means to be holy. God is the holy One. If God is by nature holy, then we are not naturally holy. But God calls us to be holy and empowers us to "be holy as I am holy." In the sacramental life, we identify these key empowerments in baptism, confirmation, and eucharist. God the Father, in the identifying of us with his Son and in the gift-ing of their Spirit, has truly made us sons and daughters. Being part of God's family--the ones adopted in Jesus' name--we merit being called holy ones, the saints as St. Paul frequently refers to his fellow Christians in the various churches to whom he writes his letters. Review for Religqous We might believe that we are called to be holy, in fact, that we are children of God. But what we are and how we act might be two different things. What does it mean for us to act like holy persons? Jesus is our way that we come to understand and live a divine holiness. Holiness, above all, is rooted in our love relationship with our triune God in Jesus. By watching Jesus in action, we discover how we are to live and act holily. Let's take some examples that we ordinarily do not associate with holiness. Jesus lives his holiness in his presence and in his participation in parties such as the Cana wedding feast and in banquets of all kinds, sometimes held in houses of those consid-ered public sinners such as Matthew and Zacchaeus and at other times in the homes of his pious "betters"--like Simon the Pharisee. Holiness, we see, is made real and strengthened in enjoying life, like parties and banquets. In all kinds of circumstances, Jesus expresses holiness in breaking the rules--usually surrounding Sabbath obser-vances- because of his compassion and love. Jesus, we see, teaches us that holiness is not to be identified just with "keeping the rules." Priests and Levites--good peo-ple- kept the rules of not contaminating themselves by helping a wounded traveler, but it was the foreigner, a false-believing Samaritan, who acted holily. Jesus says that we must act as one who loves neighbor as oneself. Jesus shows us that holiness grows in the conversations and interactions with all different classes of people, sometimes with people who think quite differently from him--the ways of Jesus' ministering in the gospels. Jesus shows us that dealing with others who think differently from us is a part of our being holy. Simply said, to live holily, as Jesus shows us, is to live an everyday kind of life, graced always by the love of God and love of neighbor. David L. Fleming SJ 66.1 2007 MATTHIAS NEUMAN Aging and Christian Spirituality: Joy and Resignation spirituality Aging, that universal human experience, is one of life's great mysteries. Why the various stages in the human life cycle: infancy, childhood, ado-lescence, adulthood, and old age? Why should human life be like that? Why do we grow up and then slowly break down, piece by piece, until death comes for us? Our creative God could have arranged matters differently. But the real-ity remains that human life, unless tragically cut short, ends with old age, dissolution, and death-- years that people often find extremely troubling. Old age is where aging really hits home. Aging, especially the last phase, "old age," has become a major social issue for many Western countries. The graying of populations looms in many of them as a social and economic issue. The recent report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Taking Care: Ethical Caregiving in our Aging Society, puts it pointedly: Matthias Neuman OSB has written for us often. His pres-ent address is Our Lady of Grace Monastery; 1414 Southern Avenue; Beech Grove, Indiana 46107. Review for Religious There is no question that we are on the threshold of a "mass geriatric society.," a society of more long-lived individuals than ever before in human history. For this great gift of longer and healthier life for ourselves and our loved ones we are, and should be, enormously grateful . At the same time, however, there are good reasons to be concerned about the human and moral shape that a mass geriatric society will take, especially if the "price" many people pay for the added years of healthier life is a period of protracted debility, demen-tia, and dependence stacked up at the end before they eventually die. Such a reshaping of the life cycle will create enormous challenges for nearly every family and for the entire society.! The Catholic ethicist Daniel Callahan pinpoints some of those troubling issues. By 2030 almost 20 percent of the American population will be over 65; the combined costs of Medicare and Medicaid will double; close to half of those over 85 will suffer from some form of dementia. He says: "The projected long-term institutional costs alone, quite apart from medical expenses, will be astronomical.''2 Aging also appears as an increasing pastoral care issue for the church. The 1999 document of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, "The Dignity of Older People and Their Mission in the Church and in the World," says that the increasing number of aging people in the developed coun-tries of the world will cause some significant shifts in the style and opportunities for pastoral care: The ecclesial community, for its part, is called to respond to the great participation which older people would like to have ih the church by turning to account the "gift" they represent as witnesses of the tradition of fai.th, teachers of the wisdom of life, and workers of charity. [The Church] must therefore reexamine its apostolate on behalf of older people, and open it up to their participation and collaboration.3 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian Spirituality Aging doqs not need o be a series of losses th'a can only be eiid ¢ed::i In this article I explore two challenges that aging pres-ents for Christian spirituality. These challenges touch individuals, families, parishes, and the church as a whole. Aging does not need to be a series of losses that can only be endured. Indeed, it offers genuine possibilities for spiritual growth. I came to be interested in this topic for several rea-sons. Seven years ago my father fell on some ice and broke his hip. He never really recovered from that, and spent his last two years in a nursing home. In those two years my parents, my sisters, and I talked much about the reality of nursing-home life, about how many things aging compels the elderly and their families to give up. A year after my father died, my mother fell inside her house and broke her hip. She recovered much better than he did. She had observed the nursing home firsthand and had no desire to go there: "The smells and the food would kill me for sure." Her great effort to do her therapy and avoid the nursing home enabled her (at age 86) to finish the rehabilitation program three weeks early. She was able to return home, but my sisters and I felt she needed a watchful presence around her more than a duplex could-provide. So she moved into a home for the elderly, and Ibecame chaplain for the Benedictine sisters who run the home. My mother and I walk together frequently, our conversations returning now and then to the trials and opportunities of aging. At ninety-two she feels them acutely. I must face my own aging too. At sixty-four, I have had to accept it for some time now. In the last twenty years, I have given up physically competitive sports; my Review for Religious football, baseball, and basketball gear were given away long ago. I still have golf and the treadmill, but the clock is ticking there too. For the last three years, back prob-lems have cut short my summer golf. What encouraged me more than anything else to do some spiritual reflection on aging was a little pam-phlet titled The Grace of Old Age by Father Vincent M. O'Flaherty SJ. He.wrote a series of reflections while a patient in a nursing home himself. His view of aging is special, and he provides some excellent thoughts on the spirituality of aging. Here is one: "When I look at my tensions from the point of view of detachment, I see that each tension is a fear of losing the power to enjoy one of the goods of this life. As a grace, aging is a slow death of the power of enjoying this world.''4 That last cuts deep. But, as Father O'Flaherty adds, it also makes more spiritual growth possible. But wherein does that spiritual growth consist? Throughout Christian history, old age has not stimulated a lot of sustained reli-gious thinking.5 In developed Western countries, that is due in part to the fact that, until the latter part of the 20th century, most people did not live to old age as we know it. In 1790 the U.S. population over age 65 comprised only two percent. By 1980 that was eleven percent, and in 2004 it was approaching fifteen. The President's Council on Bioethics says that the fastest-growing age group in the U.S. is "the oldest of the old (people age 85 or over).''6 In the last quarter century, the increasing percentage of older people has created much investigation into all aspects of growing older. But there is a counterbalance to this increasingly aging population. As the number of older persons in the U.S. increases, the inherent value of any one of them decreases. Previously the elderly's very "scarcity" was a value. A household with an elderly per-son, with someone who could tell the family's history, was 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian Spirituality considered honored and blessed. In our own day people are more likely to worry about how many older people there are and how they are going to be cared for. Both the joys and resignations, " of old agk can be seen~ hs ways of deepenin~ g onr . relationship with~ God. Perspective People generally have two ways of considering the onset of old age. Both appear in scientific as well as common thought, and both are mentioned by the Pontifical Commission's document "The Dignity of Older People.-7 The first way is to anticipate joys, to expect that each age possesses its own blessings, its own joys and achieve-ments. The last years of life offer particular graces: the joy of grandchildren, lessening responsibility, time for relaxation, oppor-tunity to do some things you always wanted to do. The Christian tradition often encouraged this, considering old age a blessing. The Bible provides some examples: "Gray hair is a crown of glow" (Pr 16:31). "You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old" (Lv 19:32). Older persons are presumed wise, from their great store of life experience. A second way to deal with aging is resignation. This seems the predominant way. People work at accepting the inevitability of aging, and its conclusion. Aging always involves loss. People must give up many things along the way. At each stage of life, valuable and dear things are left behind. Resignation includes a fearful looking ahead to possible situations that one would rather not face. The fear of helplessness, of being a burden to others, remains Review for Religious extremely troubling for many people. With resignation, one tries to be ready for inevitable losses without becom-ing angry about them. There is a whole body of literature on "disengagement theory.''8 As they advance in age, most people probably experience some joy about their future and some resignation regarding things they fear. All of us have to learn the proper proportions for ourselves. This is a matter of our religious response. Both the joys and resignations of old age can be seen as ways of deepening our relationship with God. Enjoying Joys As people grow older, they do not lose their right to joy in life. They can still partake of joys and pleasures, simple though they may be. The church's teaching on pleasure and joy has not always been as positive as it might have been.9 From the perspective of Vatican Council II, people are beginning to see life's legitimate joys as our ini-tial sharing in the resurrection. A nursing-home resident make this point directly: "Despite pain, I am experiencing joy. If that is so, I am experiencing God. I am delighted to wake up in the morning, to have another day to experi-ence God in joy. The simplest things--the weather, the barren trees of winter, the sports scores, reading, staying in touch with families and friends--all give me joy. In all I find a taste of God. Yes, it is tough to grow old, but I have found joy that I did not know in my youth.''1° Some of the sharper slants of disengagement theory would urge the elderly to disengage themselves from any joys that keep them attached to this world. But a Christian spirituality would encourage older persons to enjoy what they still can. Indeed, other scholars of aging would assert that older people who are not too old can develop abili-ties that they never knew they possessed. Studies suggest that the brain's left and right hemispheres become better 66.1 2007 Neuman * Aging and Christian Spirituality integrated during middle age, making way for improved creativity in one's older years. Age also seems to dampen some negative emotions, making it easier to get rid of anger.1~ My own mother in her eighties developed a bet-ter attitude toward death than she ever had previously. It happens to others as well: An editor I know at a New York publishing company provides a case in point. He was in his sixties and con-templating retirement when he realized that he had finally matured into his job. Despite a sharp intellect and a passion for excellence, this man had spent much of his career alienating people with brusque, critical comments and a lack of sensitivity. Now . . . he was finally beginning to master interpersonal communica-tion. As his emotional development caught up to his intellectual development, he morphed from a brilliant but brittle loner into a mentor and a mediator of con-flicts . His best work was still ahead of him.12 This potential to be creative and surprising is some-thing that those who work with the elderly need to be more aware of. Often they do not give aging people a chance. Sometimes the elderly do not give themselves a chance. Learning new abilities, arriving at positions we could never previously attain, constitutes a great joy of one's older years. The Vatican document "The Dignity of Older People and Their Mission in the Church and in the World" urges that the legitimate charisms of older people be recognized. These gifts can be real blessings for the entire church.~3 The charism of disinterestedness, the ability to give some-thing or to give of themselves without any thought of return, is a special gift that older people can share with younger generations. Another charism of the elderly is memory, in particular carrying the past forward and creat-ing a shared identity for a family, a parish, or some other group. Similarly the charism of interdependence, the ability Review for Religious to overcome individualism and self-seeking and enter into genuine interactions with others, becomes very specific in the lives of the elderly. In many ways elderly people have a need of being interdependent. Their deeply felt awareness can teach :., ,-,, -. - o o., :::c~umauitz~te'sloysi~ndpteasures. nity, and integrity in being old and being old in public. That witness amazed many people, and there is much we still need to learn from it.~4 Let us consider some of the joys that are specific to old age. One is reminiscence--thinking back to the happy and satisfying events of one's life. That can surely be a genuine joy. My mother has often said that the vacations my family took together give her much to remember and delight in. (For twenty years we went on a week's vacation each summer.) Another joy as a person ages is to anticipate the contributions one can make by instructing a younger generation and see them grow to maturity, surely a joy for one who looks back on a lengthy teaching career. Father O'Flaherty reminds us that certain joys, although genuine, are limited: "Part of the confusion over the question of happiness in old age comes from a rela-tive definition of fun. Thus we might ask whether living in Sun City is fun. If we look at it from the point of view of entertainment, Sun City has everything. But we should not exaggerate fun in old age; it peaks out with grandma knitting in a rocking chair. Neither a young nor a mature man would be attracted by the fun in Sun City.''s 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian Spirituality Christian spirituality invites the aging to have a deeper appreciation of human life's joys and pleasures. There are created joys appropriate to each stage of life. These should be identified and savored, even or especially by the elderly. Here Christian spirituality can take a hint from Jewish spirituality: A characteristic attitude is taken up by the Talmud towards the pleasures of life. Recognizing that what has been created by God for man's enjoyment must be essen-tially good, it not only counsels men to indulge in them but even condemns those who abstain from them. The rabbis assume the standpoint that God wants his creatures to be happy, and it must therefore be sinful deliberately to shun physical happiness and material well-being.~6 Vghile traditional Christian spirituality would allow a much more positive place for asceticism, s011 there is room in Christian spirituality for legitimate joys and pleasures at each stage of life. This means acknowledging and delighting in the pleasures (a sunny day, an exciting sporting event, a glass of wine). Then, going a step fur-ther, it means giving praise to God for these gifts of joy. Enjoyment is a part of God's providence for us. Facing Resignations Enjoying what pleasures one can in old age is part of Christian spirituality. Nonetheless, at the center of a spirituality of aging remains the reality of facing the many resignations life demands. No matter how great the joys are that elderly people may delight in, acts of resigna-tion are perhaps unavoidably greater. Giving up various pleasures of life is a never-ending part of aging: driving at night, strenuous or agile physical movement, certain well-liked foods, traveling to visit distant friends. The list goes on and on. To recall clearly something you have loved to do for Review for Religious twenty, thirty, or forty years and say "No more" both scares and humbles. So, as Christians, how do we deal with these resignations in ourselves and in others? First we admit that they are difficult and frightening. People coping with them should be patient with themselves and with others. Instant or pat answers like "Christ gave up everything, so should you" can do more harm than good. Elizabeth Kiibler-Ross showed five stages that people may experience as death comes closer: denial, anger, bargain-ing, depression, and acceptance.~7 These may be present when people have to use a walker all the time for mobility or have to enter a nursing home. We can help people to acknowledge the pain and loss they feel; denial does not help. We can be there with them, what Sheila Cassidy has called a "Stabat Mater" spirituality, a simple, silent, stand-with-them presence.~8 After each acceptance of loss, people may feel a loss of integrity. To their mind they will seem to be "less," "needier," a "bother" to others. The helping spiritual task assists them to regain a connectedness with people and things, to help them see that their life still possesses a fundamental meaning and purpose, that their own inner life will always have value in sight of God and for those who love them. We think back to Father O'Flaherty's comment: "Aging is a slow death of the power of enjoying this world." In our later years, aging is dominated by physical and mental decline and the giving up of many pleasures. There is also the fear of facing significant pain; that takes serious resignation as well. Father O'Flaherty puts it well again: "Modern medicine has increased my tensions. I am on 'their' side when they prolong my pleasures, but I classify them among nay enemies when they propose to prolong my pains . My fear is that they would lengthen my three hours on the cross to six.''~9 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian Spirituality Vatican Council II's Constitution on the Church has some fine insights about offering our lives to God as spiritual sacrifices: "For all [the laity's] works, prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accom-plished in the Spirit--indeed even the hardships of life if patiently borne--all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (§34). The chal-lenge is thus to see each resignation as a spiritual sacrifice. In their later years people offer their life's troubles. Their fragile and failing bodies and minds become gifts pleasing to God. Father O'Flaherty notes: "'vVhen a man gets old and his mind gets foggy, he cannot formulate flowery prayers. At the beginning of the countdown (age 65) he should start saying the prayer of simple presentation so that he will be in the habit of using it when his faculties are not keen. Just present yourself to God . Push your wheel-chair into the chapel and show your broken hip to our Lord. This throws the burden of giving you a cross on Almighty God. It is the resigned way of praying, with full resignation to the will of God.''2° " When people are young, faith shows itself in a lot of activity, vision, building. But in old age faith turns much more around seeking the peace of God. In facing the res-ignations of aging, giving up and faith are almost indistin-guishable. Sometimes all the elderly can do is bring their broken bodies as their spiritual sacrifice; that is their way of building the kingdom of God. The Constitution on the Church notes, too, that suf-fering can be a way to holiness. "In a special way also, those who are weighted down by poverty, infirmity, sick-ness and other hardships should realize that they are united to Christ, who suffers for the salvation of the world" (§41). In old age, that suffering becomes very real Review for Religion, s and sometimes omnipresent in aches and pains, some-times very severe pain. One of the challenges that aging presents to Christian spirituality is coming to believe and assert that pain in old age becomes a genuine prayer. In dealing with the many resignations of aging, we are always working toward that confession of Christ in the garden: "Not my will, but yours be done" (Mt 26:39). From a Christian perspective, that is the result of every resignation: it becomes a holy resignation, the offering of our lives as a spiritual sacrifice. Notes ~ President's Council on Bio-Ethics, 7~;king Care Ethical Caregiving in Our Aging Society (2005), pp. xvii-xviii. 2 "Curing, Caring, and Coping," America (30 January 2006): 13. 3 Pontifical Council for the Laity, "The Dignity of Older People and their Mission in the Church and in the Vqorld," in Autumn Blessings: Living Old Age in Faith (Little Sisters of the Poor Publications Office, n.d.), p. 43. 4 Vincent M. O'Flaherty SJ, The Grace of Old Age (Franciscan Herald Press, 1976), p. 31. s An overview of this topic may be perused in K. Brynolf Lyon, Toward a Practical Theology of Aging (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), "Aging and the Christian Theology Tradition," pp. 31-53. 6 Taking Care, p. 7. 7 Autumn Blessings, pp. 15-16. 8 Lyon, Toward a Practical Theology, pp. 64-66. ~ Jacques-Marie Pohier, "Pleasure and Christianity.," in Franz B6ckle and Jacques-Marie Pohier (eds.), Sexuality in Contempo~w~[y Catholicism (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), pp. 103-109. m Frank Moan SJ, "Prayer and Pain," America (19-26 June 2006): 19. ~ Gene Cohen, "The Myth of the Midlife Crisis," Newsweek (17 January 2006), p. 82. 12 Cohen, p. 12. ~s Autumn Blessings, pp. 18-20. ~4 Robert Proctor, "A Farewell to Remember: \~That John Paul II's Death Taught Us," Commonweal (3 June 2005): 19-25. ~s O'Flaherty, Grace, p. 20. 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian SpMtuality 1~ A. Cohen, Eve~yman's Ta&md (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), p. 230. ~7 Elizabeth Kiibler-Ross, On Death and Dying (Touchstone, 1969, 1997). ~s Sheila Cassidy, Sharing the Darkness (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991), p. 66. ~90'Flaherty, Grace, p. 17. :o O'Flaherty, Grace, p. 55. via dolorosa it is their sorrow I bear yet they will never know how they have been beaten like a hanging rug stripped bare they are unaware of their nakedness and this is their anguish to thirst and not know why to bleed and not see the wounds Lou Ella Hickman IWBS Review for Religious JENNIFER CONSTANTINE JACKSON Dreams in Prayer and Discernment /~lthe past forty years, writings on Christian spiritu-ity, particularly on prayer and discernment, have given renewed attention to dreams (Doran 498). This article elucidates some movements in this area of study and then invites spiritual directors and discerners to make use of them in Ignatian spirituality. Dreams represent a way of true responsiveness, especially for the laity, to the church's call to an authentic obedience, an obedience that is at all times discerning and fulfilling God's will in the world (Lumen gentium, §37). Some of the earliest contributions to this recent attention to dreams are John A. Sanford's Dreams: God's Forgotten Language (1968) and Morton Kelsey's Dreams: The Dark Speech of the Spirit (1968). The key insight that begins with these works is captured in 1978 in Kelsey's Dreams: A Way to Listen to God (p. 9) and again in 1991 in his reflections on his teaching at the University of Notre Dame: "As I listened to my dreams, I found a presence Jennifer Constantine Jackson, a teacher, is currently a student of theology and Ignatian spirituality. Her address is 333A Harvard Street, Apt. 1A; Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. 66.1 2007 Jackson * Dreams in Prayer and Discernment wiser than I trying to guide me through my difficulties to wholeness, a wholeness that was possible only when I con-tinued to be in touch with the infinitely loving Holy One" (God, Dreams, and Revelation, p. 213). Dreams take place within one's relationship with God. They invite listening in a process that seems to be initiated and sustained not by the dreamer but by God. Kelsey says that the current ambiguous, even fearful attitude about dreams in Christian spirituality is very dif-ferent from that of the first millennium of Christianity: "The early Christian church viewed the dream as one of the most significant and most important ways in which God revealed his will to human beings . We find this view in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and in the church fathers up to the time of Aquinas" (God, Dreams, p. 17). Kelsey and others cite many church fathers acknowledging dreams as helpful for growing in relation-ship with God. In his response to the Epicureans' denial of this possibility, Tertullian "specificallysuggested that dreams have various levels of interpretation, and finally he asked, 'Now, who is such a stranger to human experi-ence as not sometimes to have perceived some truth in dreams?'" (109). Kelsey also cites the fathers' reservations concerning dreams in the life of faith. Clement details what must be the formation of one who interprets dreams (106), Origen says that evil spirits can enter dreams (108), and Gregory emphasizes the dangers for those not aware of the illusory nature of dreams (142). It is clear from these cautionary words that there was a shared under-standing that dreams must be discerned within faith. Concerning attentiveness to the needs of Christians today, Kelsey's emphasis on "wholeness" seems to be echoed in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality. In its entry on "dreams," James L. Empereur SJ cites "the sig-nificance of dream work for spirituality and personal inte- Review for Religious gration" as "based on the conviction that every dream is in the service of wholeness through the integration of the inner and outer lives" (296). At the close of Empereur's four-page entry, the reader still wonders how the "service of wholeness" intentionally involves a participation in the life of the Trinity on the part of those involved in the work of dreams. In Spirituality in Depth: Essays in Honor of Sister Irene Dugan RC, Michael Cooper SJ's reflections on "A Spirituality of Balance" provide some assistance. Cooper says: "At the end of the 'discourse of antitheses,' the Beatitudes in Matthew, Jesus sums up all he has just said by exhorting his disciples, 'You must, therefore, be perfect, just as your heavenly Abba is perfect (Mt 5:48)'" (57). Contrary to the "strict and demanding tone" that the Greek word telios has often taken on, Cooper says that "the actual Greek New Testament meaning of telios is whole, complete, balanced!" (57). Herein lies a key to actualizing "that divine balance which lies at the heart of his gospel call to relationship and discipleship" (59). Highlighting the early communities devoted to religious life in the church, Cooper shows how an attentiveness to dreams in a community's faith life could contribute to this "divine balance": The hermits--male and female--lived alone but never too far from each other, so that they could cry out and be heard in case of threat or illness. Because of the isolation and sensory deprivation, some underwent the equivalent of today's Jungian analysis as their dreams and halluci-nations brought their demons and forgotten memories to the surface. Those who survived this descent into their own netherworlds and who were deeply grounded in their own humanity and in their own Christian faith eventually gained renown as wisdom figures. Individuals would come out to the desert to seek spiritual counsel and often stayed for weeks or months as they pursued their own spiritual conversion. (59) 66.1 2007 Jackson ¯ Dreams in Prayer and Discernment For those committed to religious life in the first centuries of Christianity, the fruits of attentiveness to dreams could be pursued successfully only through grace and only if the purpose was life in Christ. As Kelsey notes, this very purpose brought St. TMr~se of Lisieux spiritual consola-tion through her own dream near the end of her short life (God, Dreams, 164). Are these matters relevant to Ignatian spiritual direc-tors and discerners today? In a 1979 series of lectures on For those committed. to religifus life in thee first centuries of Christi~nity)_ the fruits, of attent, iveness to dreams could.~be pursued, Successfully only through grace only, if the .purpose. was life in,Chris "Jungian psychology and contemporary Christian spiritual-ity," published in Review for Religious, Robert Doran SJ noted that, reserva-tions about Jungian psychology notwith-standing, "there is much that we not only can, but indeed must, learn [from Jung] in developing both a theology and an ascesis of spiri-tual transformation in the context of the contemporary world" (499). Working in the tradition of Bernard Lonergan SJ, and noting as well Karl Rahner sJ'S work in Ignatian spirituality, Doran provides an essential guide especially in the matter of dreams and discernment. Doran found himself more and more convinced that "a psychological understanding of the development and flow-ering of human affectivity., is pertinent to our spiritual self-understanding" (857). Both spirituality ("grace, the Review for Religious supernatural, self-denial, the following of Christ" [858]) and psychology are involved in the "realm of interiority," which is also the reahn of dreams and desire (500). "It is the task of spiritual theology," he says, "to mediate these two conceptual worlds [spirituality and psychology], the one with the other, by taking its stand in interior experi-ence, which is the dimension to which both sets of con-cepts refer if they are talking about anything real" (858). Doran emphasizes such a task because of what he has noticed as two severe problematic positions concerning the relation of spirituality and psychology. The first is "the reduction of spirituality to psychology" (857), and the second, "a tendency, once, perhaps, pronounced in Christian spirituality, [and] still to be found," divorces "spirituality from psychology so completely that discern-ment itself becomes impossible . Such an orientation, when put into practice, leads to a split consciousness and a compartmentalized life" (858). The tendency toward this second extreme, he thinks, is because of an ambiguity concerning, in particular, the work of Carl Jung. Here lies Doran's important contri-bution. He precisely identifies Jung's contributions to an Ignatian discernment of spirits, and he shows clearly where Jung failed to be true to his own scientific method. How Jung contributes to spirituality, he says, is rather by "helping us to recognize inordinate projections and disoriented affections, than in orienting us positively to the God of Christian faith and to Christ"; for, in this area of faith, "Jung, I find, is quite deficient, and his thought derails him from the appropriate orientation to the real-ity of God" (858). Doran emphasizes that, if it is clear where Jung's thought fails, Jung's con(ributions can be much more fruitfully employed. And so he elaborates with a special concern for how a false appropriation of Jung can seriously affect an authentic discernment of spirits: 66.1 2007 Jackson ¯ Dreams in Prayer and Discernment Jung's theological ambiguities, and the alternative inter-pretations and evaluations that are offered of his work, are symptomatic of an underlying spiritual conflict that can be mediated only in the context of the dialectic of grace and of sin, of the standards of Christ and of Satan. David Burrell has indicated correctly that one cannot fail to meet God if one goes on the inner journey to individuation. But one will also meet much that is not God and that is even opposed to God. Not only does Jung not help one to discriminate these forces as they operate in the psyche, but he also contributes to and even encourages the confusion that can be experienced in such moments that call for discernment, and thus mires one in the conflictual forces that wage an ultimate battle in the depths of one's psyche. Jung's work, if left uncriticized, leads one into a psychological cul-de-sac that can assume demonic proportions. (499) Jung sees the issue of good and evil as something to be reconciled within the self, rather than acknowledging that the problem of evil remains and is not within our capacity to resolve. The only. solution can come from redemption, and redemption can come only from God, and God's exis-tence, knowledge, ~nd goodness are offered to us to be accepted or rejected: If we accept it, [it] will involve us in a whole new area of growth and transformation, an area which we would not even know in any explicit way if God had not come to meet us. This distinct area of development is related to our cognitional and mora.1 development. It is not the product of our knowing and our choosing. It is not something that we vainly imagine, or that we produce by wishful thinking. Rather, it is offered to our knowl-edge and our freedom as a gift. (501) Our acceptance of this gift means we are in the realm of "faith, which Lonergan defines as 'the eye of love,' the eye of the love that is ours, that is the atmosphere in which we live, when we know ourselves as uncondition- Review for Religious ally loved by, and rooted in, the love that is God's alone" (501). Any true attentiveness to dreams must take place in this context, where, as Rahner knew well in the tradition of Aquinas, "even in the direct vision of God, God will remain for us an incomprehensible mystery" (858). Now more than ever in history, says Doran with Rahner and Lonergan in the tradition of Ignatius, Christians long to see God and to know that God is the mystery that engulfs them and also to know what they are knowing and feeling. This, says Doran, involves not only self-transcendence, "an accepting of God's offer of both salvation and vocation," but also self-appropriation, which "is a matter of self-knowledge, of self-discovery, of self-understanding" in this acceptance (504) and which also constitutes for the Christian a commitment to prayer and discernment. He says that some factors of modern life make this self-appropriation necessary. His reason for seeing dreams as an important component in prayer and discernment, especially the discernment of spirits, is that they involve feelings, and, applying Lonergan's thought in the tradition of Ignatius, he says: To name one's feelings is to discover the dynamic images, the symbols, that are associated with them. To have insight into one's feelings is to understand the symbolic association. To tell one's stoW is to narrate the course of one's elemental symbolizing. And where does one's elemental symbolizing occur in its purest form, untainted by the biases that, in waking life, can lead us to distort our stow? The place . . . is in our dreams. It is in the dream that we first are conscious, and it is in the dream that we find a "stow" going for-ward that we cannot distort without being aware that we are doing so. If we want to know our "story"--the story of insight, the story of judgment, the stoW of decision, and the stoW of prayer--we can find it in our dreams. There is a psychic conversion that puts us into contact with that stoW. It affects us deeply once it has 66.1 2007 Jackson ¯ Dreams in Prayer and Discernment occurred. For it enables us to judge ourselves in our waking life as authentic or inauthentic in our pursuit of understanding, in our seeking of truth, in our decisions, and in our search for God. (510) Dreams offer one way of being attentive to this mystery that is God. The dreams from the lives of the saints come to mind, and their careful, caring, detached attentiveness to them serves as a model for all Christians committed to a life of prayer and discernment. Since a way is clear for an authentic use of Jung's con-tributions concerning dreams, how such contributions can be employed in the service of prayer and discern-ment should be regularly considered and shared. Maureen Dreams offeron way of being at tentiVe . to this mystery that i God.:. Conroy RSM attends to this question and begins to answer it (by reflect-ing on anima and animus in relation to desolation) in the final pages of her book where she reflects on contemporary issues in the ministry of spiri-tual direction (236-238). First and perhaps most important in aiding "the soul to rid itself of all inordinate attach-ments" (SpEx ~5), dreams can invite people to notice whether anything other than God is at the center of their life. Dreams brought to discernment can serve as personal parables, offered intimately by the Lord for the discerner to explore. Conroy gives instances where discerners on their own initiative mentioned dreams in speaking of their prayer difficulties. In one case, the dream helped the discerner realize that she was "playing God" by try-ing to control the events of her life at the time (182-183). In another case, the dreamer felt wounded by someone he may have been trying to substitute for God, a situa- Review for Religious tion causing unrecognized angers inside him (232). Both Conroy and William Barry SJ (God and You, 52-53) note that such emotions can block prayer. The dreams, then, would be ways that the Holy Spirit invites us to bring our lives to Christ. Kelsey reminds us that dreams come as "receptions"; in the New Testament, visitations are generally received with some fear--and with the message "Don't be afraid" (173). Dreams may offer the gift of spiritual consolation. In the final chapter of his Weeds among the Wheat, Thomas Green SJ describes a woman's dream after the death of her husband, a dream that is clearly a spiritual consolation for her (163-164). In the "afterglow" of the consolation, "it seemed to her that this experience of God's love, of confident hope in bereavement, could not be merely for herself alone, and that it must be the Lord's intention that she write about it and thus provide hope and strength to others similarly bereaved" (165). As Kelsey recounts the dream of St. Thdr~se of Lisieux (God, Dreams, 164), it is clear that her dream, too, was a gift of consolation from the Lord. Dreams can beg contemporary pray-ers to be listen-ers. Attending to dreams requires making time for listen-ing, and, in a culture where people are not easily "hit over the head" with Scripture (Shannon 8), dreams can teach us how to be more receptive to God's word. "Authentic silence," Shannon says, "is pregnant with words that will be born at the right time" (3). Authentic listening is con-nected to authentic vision; both are arts we need to cul-tivate if we wish to be open to the Holy Spirit. As Jules Toner SJ says in his commentary on being open to the Holy Spirit in the Spiritual Exercises, "there is a factor in openness to the Holy Spirit which . . . is closely related to readiness to seek counsel . Sometimes, even with-out our noticing it, one or other of [our] prejudgments 66.1 2007 Jackson ¯ Dreams in Prayer and Discernment 28 can play a major role in blinding us to the evidence for the decision to which the Holy Spirit is leading us" (96). Being open to the "evidence" of our dreams, and pray-ing for this openness, are authentic ways of becoming genuine listeners and persons of vision in every aspect of our lives. Dreams also can teach us to trust in the Lord. With dreams as with other data from our lives that we bring to discernment or direction, there are times when we simply cannot see and do not have the answers. The data of a dream may simply be too confusing or unclear. At these times discerners must wait and trust in the Lord. A renewed attention to dreams in Christian prayer and discernment is a way of true responsiveness, especially for laypersons, to the church's call to an authentic obedience. Thomas Green says that "religious congregations' ideas of common life and obedience have often been distorted in such a way as to canonize the annihilation of personality" (38). In our day, prayerful exploring of dreams may be unique expressions of the life of the Spirit in the church. This can be a new way for the laity to participate more integrally in the life of the church, a wonderful oppor-t- unity for a new level of sharing gifts. At the same time, we continue to be called to greater participation in the life of Christ, who Willingly took the cross so that we might share in his resurrection. If a greater attentiveness to dreams in prayer and discernment is going to achieve anything, may it be to give greater glory to God through a radical participation in the life of him who gave himself for us. Bibliography Barry, William A., SJ. God and You: Prayer as a Personal Relationship. New York: Paulist, 1987. Conroy, Maureen, RSM. The Discer~ting Heart: Discovering a Personal God. Chicago: Loyola, 1993. Review for Religious Cooper, Michael, SJ. "A Spirituality of Balance." In Spirituality in Depth: Essays in Honor of Sister h'ene Dugan RC, ed. Avis Clendenen. New York: Chiron Publications, 2004. Doran, Robert M., SJ. "Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: I, II, and III." Review for Religious 38 (1979): 497-510, 742-752, and 857-866 respectively. Empereur, James L., SJ. "Dreams." In The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, ed. Michael Downey. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993. Green, Thomas H., SJ. Weeds among the Wheat--Disce~vm~ent: Where Prayer and Action Meet. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1984. Kelsey, Morton T. God, Dreams, and Revelation: A Christian Interpretation of Dreams. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1991. Shannon, William A. Seeking the Face of God. New York: Crossroad, 1988. Toner, Jules, sJ. Discerning God's Will: Ignatius of Loyola's Teaching on Christian Decision Making. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1991. Reflection/Discussion Questions 1. What does it mean for me to listen to my dreams? 2. Have I had the experience of a dream influencing a significant change or decision in my life? What were the circumstances? 3. Can I relate to the statement "Dreams may offer the gift of spiritual consolation"? If so, let me review the experience. 66.1 2007 RENEE MIRKES Confessions of a Franciscan Ethicist perspectives Confessions are never easy. Typically, the stage is set by a .collage of eye-openers. In my case, the events that propelled me headlong into this pub-lic disclosure are interlaced with the common thread of what-it-means-to-be-a-Franciscan. First, some while ago, a new acquaintance of mine innocently asked, with clearly spoken ital-ics, "So, what's it like to be a Franciscan ethi-cist?" Second, for the last fifteen years or more I, together with all the members of my religious congregation, have been encouraged to immerse myself in, and be formed by, not only the ideals and vision of St. Francis of Assisi, but also the eponymous religious tradition fathered by him. And, third, while reading several months ear-lier Cardinal Ratzinger's 1996 address critiqu-ing moral relativism, I was revisited by an old uneasiness.~ I kept asking myself: Are you suffer- Ren6e Mirkes OFS, a Franciscan" Sister of Christian Charity, is ethics director at Paul Vl Institute; 6901 Mercy Road; Omaha, Nebraska 68106. Review for Religious ing from some kind of Franciscan schizophrenia or what? My difficulty, in a nutshell, was this. From one side, I was perfectly at peace with the fact that new pope's exposition confirmed me in the way I help my clients, students, and readers to identify the fallacies of moral subjecfivism. But, from another side, I was unsettled by realizing that my way, like the pope's, was not Franciscan in approach but Dominican and Thomistic. The first incident urges me to confess--t0 acknowl-edge- that until I was questioned I honestly never thought of making a practical connection between being an ethicist and being a Franciscan. The second experience encourages me to confess--t0 declare my si,l or failing--that I have dragged my feet when expressly recalling how Franciscan spirituality actually shapes the here-and-now manner in which I "do" ethics. The third episode prompts me to confess--t0 admit my belief--that Franciscans and Dominicans can learn a .lot from each other, specifically from the charisms of their respective traditions. For the details of this tripartite confession (and a summary critique of moral relativism to boot), I invite you to read on. I confess that I previously neglected to give seri-ous thought to whether my being a Franciscan could affect my ethics work. Learning from the lessons of life is a lot about making connections. And making con-nections is all about understanding what things mean. Before facing the question I began.with, I confess that "Franciscan" is not on.e of the adjectives I routinely used to describe my avocation. I was a Catholic ethicist; I was a Christia~? philosopher; I was an ethicist who is a vowed re/igio~ts. But I had just not taken that seemingly small step toward saying--and comprehending what it means to say--that I am a Francisca~z ethicist. In other words, before I did some careful analysis of the matter, being a 66.1 2007 Mirkes ¯ Confessions of a Franciscan Ethicist Franciscan was just a footnote of, rather than organically related to, my work as a vowed religious ethicist. So, wittingly or unwittingly, the questioner forced me to confront a real hiatus in my thinking and action. Why did I fail to connect the dots of being a Christian, an ethicist, and a Franciscan? The longer I thought about it, the more deeply convinced I became that the crux of my problem was not a rift between my avocation and vocation but my intellectual failure to link my Christian and consecrated-life vocations to my Franciscan calling. I was letting my Franciscan identity wither, and so it was not having its full effect on my life and apostolic work. Lacking attention from me, it was overshadowed by my Christian and religious vocations, becoming a dim sem-blance of what it should have been. Suddenly all those instructions I had received before and during my formation began flowing through my mind. To live as a Franciscan is to respond to Christ's call to follow him, to follow the universal call to holiness, the call I received at my baptism, the call to live and think with the church. To be a Franciscan sister is to incarnate the gospel life that inspired Francis to total discipleship through the vows: ."go and sell," "take nothing along," and "deny yourself." Hence, distinct but interrelated com-ponents simultaneously guide my following of Christ. I have dedicated myself to the evangelical call to holiness, to the long church tradition that draws on prayer and the authentic sources of Christian spirituality, on the recent instructions of the church on the vowed life, and on the particular lifestyle proposed by St. Francis of Assisi. There it was: the proper frame within which I could think anew about being Franciscan in my work as a Christian ethicist. And, for me, seeing Franciscan identity against its proper background was to understand, as if for the first time, its close relationship to my Christian and Review for Religious consecrated vocations. Within this frame, I understood why being a Franciscan is essential in my avocation, my vowed life's apostolic mission to be a Catholic ethicist. I confess that I had never given serious thought to the manner in which being Franciscan did, does, and will affect the way I do ethics. I am confessing here my past failure to explicitly recall the leaven of Franciscan values in the dough of my apostolic service. You see, I had forgotten to note their here-and-now effect, not so much on the content and method of my profes-sional activities, but on the style, manner, and spirit in which I do my work. Once I had explicitly adverted to that leaven, however, I realized I had here a virtu- '.tion on.,[rn .,iFra ci can Values ever more ous circle. Frequent meditation on my Franciscan values fostered an ever more Franciscan self. The more spirited my Franciscan heart, the greater likelihood its values-- continual conversion, poverty, humble "minority," and prayer--would be evident to those I serve.2 First, take the Franciscan charism of pove~-ty. Where every consecrated religious takes vows to live as the poor, chaste, and obedient Christ lived, followers of Francis embrace his special love for poverty. Note that, for il Poverello (the little poor one), poverty was a code word for living the gospel. As such, the vow encompassed not merely being monetarily and materially poor but also the more demanding challenge of imitating the kenosis, the radical self-emptying, of Jesus. For Franciscans, then, special esteem for the vow of poverty means asking for the grace to be formed into the image of the Servant- Lord who washed the feet of his disciples and gave up his 66.1 2007 Mirkes ¯ Confessions of a Franciscan Etbicist life out of love for sinners. For this Franciscan, then, the ethics consults that are "baked in the cake" of my every-day service afford me the precious gift of correcting and encouraging, praying with and, yes, sometimes sharing a good cry with, my clients, moving them ever more surely, moral choice by moral choice, toward their ultimate end of the Good. I frequently remind those who consult me that, because their love of the Truth and the Good is so profound, our exchange puts me in their debt. Indeed, these consultations provide me and them the double blessing of serving Christ in each other. Second, while every religious order requires its mem-bers to conform to Christ by living virtuously, Francis put humilit.y at the top of his list. Imitating Francis, I am called to give first place to the truth about myself as well as my abilities. The former lets me see that God can sing through this poor instrument as long as it is emptied of self; the latter helps me to know that all is gift. While it is true that God has blessed me with the ability to inspire people in their pursuit of the Good, I pray that my being a Franciscan shines through in the way I respond to acco-lades. After a lecture, for example, I always, but always, turn people to the real source of their inspiration: "Oh, I am so pleased you were moved by the truth of Humanae vitae! Isn't it a powerful document?" or "I see that the wisdom and holiness of Edith Stein really spoke to you. Thank God for the living witness of his saints." Third, all religious congregations encourage living in community as an explicit way to serve fellow religious and strengthen them in their service of the larger society. But Francis wanted friars and sisters to be minores, persons who lived together and claimed no special rule or domi-nation or power over anyone. Striving for that attitude as an ethics consultant, lecturer, and teacher, I provide knowledge and advice not in an imperative or domineer- Review for Religious ing way, not in a manner that makes nay moral authority felt, but in a way that appeals to the freedom and dignity of others. In doing so, I reflect and "preach" the value of "minority" by being submissive to those I serve for the sake of God. Fourth, where the church has always encouraged reli-gious to a deep conversion and self-emptying, St. Francis insisted that penance/continual conversion take primacy of place in the mindset and practice of his followers. Pursuant to a Franciscan vocation, the disposition of metanoia means letting one-self be totally cap-tured by Christ. It means unremitting movement toward the Good and avoid-ance of evil. These are the very desires I continually try to foster in those I serve. Frequently I exhort couples, "You will be tempted to give up, to cease wanting to convert to the Lord in the midst of challenging procreative issues. But resist the quick fix 'solutions' of contraception, ster-ilization, abortion, and IVF. The trade-off for expediency in these matters is an attenuated spousal relationship, a weakened family bond, and lost opportunities to lay down one's life for the other out of love." Finally, from his lived experience of the gospel, Francis understood that love must include mission. To demonstrate this he turns our attention to Mary, the per-fect disciple. Francis's way of being Marian was to emu-late the boundless love of Mary for her Son, love which flowed into the spiritual and corporal works of mer#. . Francis God ~ombats evil through holy~,-rn~n and: women, ~ ,.~.aro~gh tho~ who are dedicated 66.1 2007 Mirkes ¯ Confessions of a Franciscan Etbicist encourages every follower of his to frequently recall the scene of Mary standing beneath the cross, standing in the center of the struggle between good and evil, reminding all--but especially a female Franciscan ethicist like me-- that God combats evil through holy men and women, through those who are dedicated to instructing the ignorant by teaching morality. I confess my belief that today's moral climate requires me to morph into a hybrid ethicist: a Franciscan-Thomist. Recall that my uneasiness with the pope's response to moral relativism was largely because his position--and mine--were in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition rather than in the Franciscan tradition. If we had sought a Franciscan answer, it would have come from Bonaventure or his theological successors, Duns Scotus or William of Ockham. Had these men fought a heresy of relativism in their day, they would characteristically have appealed to a voluntarist solution. That is, the best way to avoid the errors of relativism comes from the Platonic way of understanding universal truth, namely, participation in innate ideas. In sum, to avoid the intellectual pride all too easily associated with philosophical speculation, these Franciscan theologians would have insisted that people do best by simply submitting their wills to the universal moral truth brokered by the church's magisterium. The Franciscan/Augustinian solution to moral relativism, then, would not have included rational arguments that yield a reason why people should submit their wills to the church's objective moral teaching.3 Against this background, I take personal solace from a central theme of the pope's theology (which is Augustinian, after all): the need to return to reason as a first step in combating moral relativism. The pope proposes, not naked reason, but reason purified by faith--or clarified by the God who is Logos, who is reason and the Word. A Review for Religious faith that opens people to the living God "liberates reason from its blind spots" so it can be "more fully itself.''4 Implicit in Benedict xvI's critique of relativists--those who contend that judgments about good or bad, right or wrong, are time-and-circumstance matters of personal opinion--is his reliance on Aquinas's philosophical vision of human nature and its transcultural basic needs.5 Since all persons unhampered by ideology, bias, or intellectual sloth can see that these natural needs/goods apply to every human being irrespective of time and culture, they should also agree that these goods ought always be pursued and honored and never denied or suppressed. With these objective human goods in mind, one can set up a series of syllogisms whose conclusions define them as objectively true and universally normative--employ-ing a first premise that has the certitude of self-evident truth and a second premise that cites an observed datum about human nature.6 The following example focuses on the human good of life. First premise: self-evidently, all human beings ought to do all those things and only those things that are really good for them. Second premise: as experience demonstrates, being alive is really good for human beings. Conclusion: every human being ought to seek life and vitality. When we apply this syllogistic argument to other human goods such as wealth, family, procreation, friends, society, play, and the higher goods of wisdom, worship, and contemplation, a set of goods emerges that is not relativist, that is, good for this or that person because of his or her desires or cultural pref-erences, but objectivist and universal, that is, good for all human beings whatever the time and circumstances. Furthermore, since all human beings have a right to this set of real goods, they also have a duty to require legisla-tures and judiciaries to enact and uphold laws forbidding their destruction or suppression. 66.1 2007 Mirkes * Confessions of a Franciscan Ethicist Pope Benedict XVI understands why a Dominican and Thomist solution to moral relativism is the way to go. It offers a discussion matrix within which to address the many fellow pilgrims of his who, by dint of being mari-nated in the skepticism and moral relativism of our day, require cogent persuasiveness for submitting to universal moral norms. And so I must be Aristotelian and Thomist in the content of my moral methods, all the while endeav-oring to have the Franciscan spirit shine through the way I do ethics.7 To conclude, then, I need only repeat my opening statement: "Confessions are never easy." But I can honestly add that this tripartite confession has con-tributed mightily to the lived mission of this Christian, religious, and F~:anciscan ethicist. Notes ~ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "Relativism: The Central Problem for Faith Today," available through http://www.ewtn.com. See also The Ratzhlger Repo~7 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985); Priuciples of Christian Morality (Ignatius Press, German 1975, English 1986); Without Roots (New York: Basic Books, 2006), and Values in a Time of Upheaval (Ignatius Press, 2006). 2 For an historical analysis of Franciscan charisms, I recommend an article by Raffaele Pazzelli TOR on Franciscan spirituality at www.fran-ciscanfriarstor. com/vocations. Mso the commentary at another section of the same website: www.franciscanfriarstor.com/resources. -~In the 13th century, the Dominican Albert the Great produced vast commentaries on Aristotle. In them Albert took full account of the work of the great Aristotelian translator and commentator Averroes (Ibn Rushd), while not neglecting to cgrrect his anti-Christian errors, hnportantly, Mbert began to clarify, why Aristotle criticized Plato. The latter had a dualistic notion of the human person that made a correct theory of the human body impossible. It was, however, only with Albert's pupil Thomas Aquinas that this point was fully developed. Unfortunately, Aquinas's work got confused with Averroism in the list of propositions condemned by the archbishop of Paris in 1277. As a result the Franciscans thought it best to retain their dedication to St. Augustine and to minimize the influ-ence of philosophy on theology. This is evident in the great works of St. Bonaventure, who tended to think of philosophy as a pagan tradition and Review for Religious strove to keep theology free of the errors of that tradition. Later Blessed John Duns Scotus and V~illiam of Ockham made more use of Aristotle, hut still remained skeptical of the power of human reason. Consequently--and tragically--the Franciscan and Dominican traditions were never recon-ciled. Ockham became a Nominalist and finally schismatic, and his distrust of reason to prove the existence of God was basic to Luther's thought and the split in the church brought about in the Protestant Reformation. 4 Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §29. SMortimer Adler, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (New York: Touchstone Books, 1995), p. 13. Perhaps the most egregious example of judicial moral relativism is encapsulated in the opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: "At the heart of liberty, is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of the meaning of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." (' Mortimer Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes (New York: Touchstone Books, 1985), p. 126. Y The Franciscan tradition has made great theological contributions to the church: the understanding of the doctrine of Mary's Assumption, St. Bonaventure's reflection of the Trinity. in creation, remarkable advances in natural science in the 14th and 15th centuries, and influential tracts on spirituality. On the other hand, as regards the theology of the body and virtue theory in ethics, the Dominican Thomas Aquinas has been con-stantly praised as the Common Doctor of the church. Since I work princi-pally in bioethics, I use his contribution and assimilate it to my Franciscan tradition in a harmonious, and not merely eclectic way. I encourage more Franciscans to do research in this field. Franciscan humility, it seems to me, demands as much. 66.1 2007 COLLEEN MARY MALLON Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue To recent experiences frame my reflection on pe in a global world. Recently, as part of a theo-logical update program for our diocese, I spoke on the Spirit and the chui'ch, focusing on themes that emerge from Yves Congar's great work I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Following the presentations, a number of the participants told of having new sources of hope opened up to them. I, too, was struck by the longing of these faith-filled minis-ters to connect to a vital and vibrant hope, to be deeply, ecclesia@ alive in the Spirit, and to share that life with others. There were charisms in that room that, wisely nurtured and supported, could set the diocese ablaze with the Spirit. Clearly, the desert is seeded; with more water, what a riot of flowers there would be. My second experience comes from St. John's University in New York, where I teach the introductory Colleen Mary Mallon OP first presented this essay as a talk on 21 April 2006 at Molloy College's Women of Spirit symposium. She is assistant professor of theology and religious studies at St. John's University; 8000 Utopia Parkway; Jamaica, New York 11439. Review for Religious course in theology. Early in the semester the students discuss Marcus Borg's explication of religious faith. Borg speaks about faith as assensus, intellectual affirmation, fiducia, complete trust, fidelitas, loyalty, and visio, how a person perceives the world from the perspective of faith.~ In each class the difficulty is not faith as trust or loyalty; it is faith as vision. Their vision of faith is stymied by the suffering, the struggle, and the pain that they encounter in the world. At best they hold a cautious hope that God might be at work in it all, but for most of them we live in a thoroughly indifferent universe. The fundamental faith/ hope in a gracious universe is all but nonexistent. These experiences press me to reexamine my own sources and senses of hope. With what theological visio do I see the present moment? How do I bear witness to gospel hope in these times: war in Iraq, worldwide trafficking of women and children, irruption of sectar-ian violence, the ever escalating divide between the have-mores and have-nots, the continuation of white privilege. And, closer to the bone, how do I claim a gospel hope in a church beset by the scandals of abuse and neglect, by clericalism, and by the antipathies of diverse members of the Body of Christ. My search for a response to these questions brought me back into the work and thinking of the French Dominican theologian and ecclesiologist Yves Congar. His experience of intense social, political, and ecclesial upheaval tempered his own sober confidence in the church as the continuing event of Jesus Christ in the world. I believe his perspective brings gospel hope and historical reality into a fertile, albeit tensive, dynamic. He and other French Dominicans contributed in no small way to the refashioning of theology in the 20th century. Their pertinence to wise theological vision in a global world is not to be overlooked. Using a feminist methodology which asserts that 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue "God is be discovered in human experience," let us look at the hungers and obstacles that we face at this time both as individuals and as members of a diverse and complex Christian tradition.2 Seeking what the Divine Presence desires of us at this time is, I believe, the very stuff of engaged discipleship. Discerning how contradictions and struggles mark our ecclesial experiences calls for both vir-rue and skill. I propose that the virtue is hope and that the skills include practices and behaviors that witness to our hope and even expand the horizon of our own gospel faith. If we listen carefully to what lies beneath our experiences so as to attend to the Mystery--infinitely beyond and yet intimately present to our present--we may encounter, even in "the incomplete" and "the lack," a power and a grace worthy of our freedom. I want to sketch a little more thoroughly thesigns of these global times and then turn to Yves Congar for his theological vision, for how it may inspire hope in the church today. The Signs of These Global Times There is no lack of scholarly analysis of globalization and the religious questions that emerge from the unprec-edented movement of people, ideas, and commodities.3 I want to look at the challenges that living in "glocal" presents.4 The anthropologist Roland Robertson uses the term "glocal" for the juncture where the global and local meet.5 Our contemporary experience of this global-local situation is a significant historical factor in our lives today. This is where we discern signs of the times and make decisions as disciples of Jesus. The theologian David Tracy is famous for the claim that we live in an age that cannot name itself.6 Our global-human existence contains such conflicting world-views that no one way, no single story, can hold us as a human family. Moreover, the very stories that perceive Review for Religious individuals and communities in significant patterns have become mobile. Peoples once geographically distinct are now mixing, interacting, and living in patterns that may be completely foreign to their nextdoor neighbor. Sociologists and anthropologists tell us that we, as global residents, are experiencing "flows" of people, resources, and information in ways never before experienced on the planet.7 Dual factors, media and migration, cause the global experience of compression and expansion? We experience global compression whenever we become aware of the nar-rowed space between once distant geographic entities. Exotic strangers now live close to each other in global cities that have drawn peoples together for a host of different reasons: as tourists, as migrant workers, as refugees, as executive elites. Globalization is reshaping our economic, political, and cultural worlds, and this brings a variety of ways of perceiving and evaluating the production of today's tech-nologically sophisticated societies.9 The flow of the classic Enlightenment notions of "democracy," "freedom," and "sovereignty" into new global spaces stirs in them new instances of these Western ideas. What would "democ-racy" look like for women'in a predominantly Shiite Iraq? What does the "sovereignty" of a Palestinian state, led by a newly elected Hamas government, mean for the established national states of the world? In truth, there is no longer one kind of modernity; many modernities are competing around the globe.~° These observations point to the growing tension between the global and the local which Roland Robertson describes as the "contemporary manifestation of the universal-particular dilemma.''~1 We 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue live in a world where we truly grasp universals (such as freedom, peace, prosperity) only in particular instances. And there seems to be no end of particulars; we keep discovering uniqueness, singularities, and individualities. We have come to accept, in a sense, one universal: that there are limitless particularities.~2 As Christians we recognize something of this dilemma in the wide range of our ecclesial experiences: the rise of local, base communities of gospel reflection, the renewed focus on particular denominational identities (what does it mean to be a Catholic college or university or hospital?), young people's search for their Christian identity, the rise of religious fundamentalism. Even the concerns regarding the proper role of local episcopal conferences expresses this global-local tension. The question of subsidiarity and collegiality is a much different question today than it was forty years ago at Vatican II. The experience of great diversity raises new questions about the "taken-for-grantedness" of the underlying unity of humanity. Various interpretative frameworks and femi-nist, postcolonial, and postmodern sensibilities foster a new global consciousness of "the other" and "difference." Indigenous stories, newly valorized, emerge on the global scene and inspire local resistance to ideas from outside; these "new primordialisms," freshly reshaped and refash-ioned cultural identities, whet deep appetites for mean-ing and consequence that seemingly transcend, for some people, their own existence.~3 Suicide bombers testify in ways we never expected to the power of meaning in human lives. Disconnected in their storied worlds from wider significance, people become anxious, aggravated, even deadly. New claims for authoritative traditions raise all sorts of questions about identity and symbols and whether our belonging to a particular group prohibits other kinds of Review for Religious belonging. It is in these particularisms that we often expe-rience the tensions of our ecclesial life. Can I be a Catholic and a Democrat? Can I be a feminist and "pro-life"? Like the world we are inescapably a part of, our ecclesial iden-tifies feel the pressure of the global-local predicament and challenges to past certitudes. As these new horizons open, our shared understandings of the gospel cross over into disputed spaces of lived experiences. Within those spaces there appears to be diminishing tolerance among us. Our particular community niche imposes limits on both our imaginations and our practices of tolerance. Many within the church find it increasingly difficult to engage in civil conversations across the wide diversity of perspectives. As the theologian Joseph Komonchak noted in an address to the Catholic Common Ground Initiative, "to judge from a few Internet discussions., many Catholics could learn a thing or two about elementary courtesy, about how to listen and how to speak, about give and take.''14 What hope can we have for a truly "catholic" future when our practice of dialogue mirrors the enclave mentality of our global world? Yves Congar's Incarnational Approach What might a thoroughly 20th-century, white, European, friar-preacher and theologian offer in support of hope in these times? Congar's incarnational, historical approach to theology certainly contributed to the theol-ogy in his day. Early in his theological vocation, Congar understood that he was called to serve the unity of a pain-fully divided Christian community.is Within this call grew his conviction that the dominant mode of doing theology was unnecessarily abstract and all too disconnected from the lives of ordinary people.16 His approach to theology developed from his fraternal relationships with Marie Dominic Chenu and Henri Ma]'ie Feret. Living and 66.1 2007 Mallon * Reclaiming Hope, Recovetqng Dialogue teaching at the French Dominican studium Le SaulchoiT; these three Dominicans plotted the demise of what they called "baroque theology." Congar recalls a particular day when they conceived of a research project on the history of theology. One day, chatting at the entrance of the old Saulchoi,; we found ourselves in profound accord--at once intel-lectual, vital, and apostolic--on the idea of undertaking a "liquidation of baroque theology." This was a moment of intense and total spiritual union . It was not a question of producing something negative: the rejections were only the reverse of aspects that were more positive. One day the balance will be drawn up, but already the positive quality can be sensed. What would a little later be called "ressourcement" was then at the heart of our efforts. It was not a matter either of mechanically replac-ing some theses by other theses or creating a "revolu-tion" but of appealing, as P4guy says, from one tradition less profound to another more profound.~7 This historical approach, learned at Le Saulchoh" and prac-ticed throughout his life, allowed Congar to develop a theology that was more deeply rooted in revelation and at the same time open to the pressing questions of the 20th century.~s It is Congar's approach to revelation that I believe is a critical point of departure. Many theologians regard Congar as the foremost expert on the Christian tradition, and anyone engaged in a theology of tradition cannot pro-ceed without Congar. Some contemporary scholars have noted that, while Congar's view of tradition is stunningly comprehensive, it lacks a necessary attention to the way in which meaning and power are inexorably intertwined. One theologian calls Congar's approach highly idealistic.~9 I have wrestled with this critique because, in some sense, it is a legitimate one. Clearly, Congar missed the post-modern critique of power/knowledge, and his very small Review for Religious reflections on women in relation to ministry and God-language betray his incomplete grasp of feminist concerns and questions.2° I do believe, however, that Congar's intu-ition concerning revelation and history is still significant because it is a profoundly catholic intuition. By this I mean that part of Congar's genius is his confi-dence in the fertile ground found at the intersection of the gospel and the ultimate concerns of people. As I read his theological project, I believe that the starting point of the-ology for Congar is the God-human relationship. Only in and through this relation-ship is knowledge of God possible: a relationship initiated and realized in history, in specific bodies, within unique and diverse human cultures. To make the God-human relation-ship the starting point ointp theologyfor Congar is the ,;, !GOd h :r an Telationship. of theology is to refuse to dissolve the tension between transcendence and immanence; it is, in fact, to claim that tension is integral to our graced existence in this world, in these bodies, at this time in history. I believe that this is a remarkable source of hope for us today. The mind-numb-ing, spirit-quenching materialism of much of our world has laid us low. Our own mystery as beings-made-for-love-and- truth is threatened by the pervasive consumerism that warps our sense of what it means to be human and happy. Our wishes are marketed to us as needs, things we lack are represented to us as inalienable rights, our unwise choices are blindly considered joys of freedom. The God-human Relationship To make the God-human relationship the starting point of our reflection is to reclaim both history and mys- 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue tery, and to do so in a way that is not naively romantic nor overconfident either, overreaching our finitude as crea-tures. If we allow materialism to flatten our perceptions, we lose the .meanings and values that animate our worlds of sight and sound, the very worlds through which the Divine Life communicates. In the words of Congar, "the regenerative power that will finally operate is already at work in our world, transiently, precariously, fragmentarily, and generally unperceived.''2~ This power is nothing less than the life of God poured out so that all may have life in its fullness (Jn 10:10). The "good news" manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus makes explicit this divine intention for all creation, overcoming every possible alienation, division, obstacle, and separation. For Congar, this is the heart of the incarnation. God's involvement with creation is utterly personal and pro-foundly existential. "God is not the 'eternal celibate of the centuries,' but love and goodness," who creates beings "animate[d] . . . with a movement and., a desire that is an echo in them of [God's] own desire . . . revealed to us as [God's] spirit.''22 48 The Gift and Task of Discipleship For Congar, we cannot speak properly of the human outside the graced relationship that has called all creation into existence for the divine purposefulness that is agapic love. To be human is to have as gift what grace alone brings to completion.23 For Christians, the deepest, truest realization of the project called "humanity" is in receiving the embrace of a Trinity-imbued life; nothing less than the Word and the Spirit continue to effect the fulfillment of "all things in God.''24 And this fulfillment is not some-thing abstract or ethereal. "The Spirit makes it possible for us to know, recognize, and experience Christ. This is not simply a doctrinal statement. It is an existential reality Review for Religious which comes from a gift and involves us in our lives.''2s Our lives, lived Godward, immerse us in the Christian mystery that is simultaneously a gift received and a task entrusted. For Congar, the gift character of Christian life lies in Jesus' mystery becoming our mystery.-'6 Our immer-sion into Christ makes us new creation, or, as Joseph Komonchak says, "Faith discloses a new world of great depth and breadth and a new self within it.''27 In a global world where the media and the Internet hawk lifescripts to eager, vulnerable consumers, we must not lose sight of the liberating gift disclosed in Jesus; we must never forget Jesus' attractiveT~ess. Through his life, death, and resurrection, we encounter the agapic love that alone is worthy of our freedom. Moreover, we touch upon what Gustavo Gutidrrez has called the first step of all theo-logical reflection: adoration.28 The gift character of our discipleship opens us to God's utterly gratuitous love for all creation. Our only adequate response is the searingly silent gratitude of the mystic heart. To be found by this love is to find ourselves in a new relationship with all of reality, and to allow it to govern our existence both individually and communally, as both mystery and history. The gift given in revelation and received in our very being discloses to us the potential within all creation. We can only know a small part of this all-surpassing gift, but the task entrusted to us, to realize the potential of our graced existence, is of utmost importance for humanity. Our global-local world teaches us that particularity counts, that only in the bodies and histories and cultures of actual, unique persons can the transformation of the whole happen. The gift inspires the task. The gift of God's agapic love points and directs us towards the places where mercy, peace, justice, and reconciliation ache to be realized. Our 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue hope does not lie in some perfect world without the great risks that our freedom in history poses. Our hope lies in our unflinching reliance on the gift of the Spirit as we humbly and confidently put our freedom at the service of in some perfect wqrld without the great risks our freedom in history po eS.- the Love that has called us into existence. We recognize today, more than any other time, just how difficult that is. Our freedoms are conditioned by diverse worlds of meaning, some of which do not easily or comfortably coexist. We acknowledge an exasperating pluralism: global technologies that isolate just as much as they bridge. What ways of being disciples might help our hope and deepen Love's grasp, of our lives? Can diverse Christian reflections on the meaning of Jesus speak to each other? Can we practice curiosity and abstain from obstinate judgments? To imagine our discipleship as gift and task in a global world demands, I believe, a new asceticism that curbs our penchant to overindulge in communities of like-mindedness, that calls us to be different from nar-rowly framed groups around us, that calls us to the hard work of dialogical communion, expressed in new practices of ecclesial hospitality. The Task of Dialogical Communion There are behaviors and skills that can show widely that "the regenerating power that will finally operate is already at work in our world." There are disciplines that, if embraced, can witness to human life as dialogical communion. The diversity of the cosmos is authored and authorized by the Source of all life, in whose Mystery Review for Religious diversity poses no threat to unity. In the divine economy, unity stimulates diversity. The gift inspires the task. Dialogical communion challenges us to attend to how the Spirit continues to communicate God's life in and through our historical unity, a unity that is more than mere uniformity. Emerging from enclave mentalities into the liminal spaces of dialogue is, indeed, risky, business. Transgressing the boundaries of worlds of shared commitments and understandings takes great courage, and not only because of the encounter with difference. In a recent talk at St. John's University, Gerry Adams, leader of the Sein Fein party, spoke of the Irish Peace Process. The single most important element of the peace process, according to Adams, is dialogue: getting people to step out of their hard-fought divisions and to speak to each other. But Adams insists that the hardest dialogue is not with the perceived enemy; it is with your own group. Transgressing the boundaries of our habitation disturbs our communi-ties of like-mindedness. We put our identity at risk; our loyalties may be questioned; we may seem to have lost our regard for once-shared values and visions; we may be accused of undermining the very distinctiveness of our group. And we may become agents of change: midwives to the gestating life of redeemed humanity. If our diversity is no mistake, if our global-human condition confronts us, not only with challenges, but with the deep truth that our differences and particularities are the only way we have to express our essential humanity, then we will have to practice a new ldnd of countercultur-alism. When we become aware that the very diversity that delights God troubles and disturbs us, we have stepped into a moment ripe for conversion. I have the privilege of being a board member of the Parable Conference, an organization whose purpose is to make space for dialogue 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue Embracing the task Of_ dialogical commun_ion mopes us from false impressions and prejudgment~ to respect and curiosity. among all the branches of the Dominican family in the United States. No other entity for that dialogue exists in the United States. I remember the moment when I saw how mistaken my perceptions of the Dominican laity were. My prejudgment was an obstacle mercifully revealed and dispelled by new relationships with women and men whose embrace of the Dominican charism is truly inspiring. The Parable Conference struggles to keep the dia-logue alive among U.S. Dominicans; it is not an easy task. Ideology, apathy, and enmity challenge our attempts to be in authentic communion across the wide scope of the Dominican .family. Yet the very existence of this group is a good example of the order's preaching charism. Without the witness of an actual, historical community struggling to hold and engage the truths emerging from diverse God experiences, our words are empty and ~ our witness a mere shadow of what it could be. Embracing the task of dia-logical communion moves us from false impressions and prejudgments to respect and curiosity. In a contentiously divided global world, the practice of dialogical commu-nion bears witness every time we risk the hospitable effort to "make space" for each other. In his book Exc&sion and Embrace, the Lutheran theo-logian Miroslav Volf writes, "The will to give ourselves to others and 'welcome them,' to readjust our identities to make space for them, is prior to any judgment., except that of identifying them in their humanity.''29 When I attended Good Friday services last April, I observed a Review for Religious couple in the pew ahead of me struggle to "make space." It was an odd scene, because clearly there was enough space for everyone in the pew. For some reason, however, the woman-already-seated would not move all the way over; when another couple arrived, they had to practically sit on each other. I waited, thinking she would see the problem and adjust, move over just a bit more. No. She looked, made a fussy little head movement, and remained; eventually the intruding couple sat elsewhere. Then she moved over! Now there was plenty of space, and a few minutes later two others filled the pew. Why is it so hard to make space? Why is hospitality so difficult at times? I do not pretend to have a simple answer. I only know that there is a simple answer, and that this incident serves as a parable about the demands of dialogical communion. We need to secure a place where dialogue can happen. We have to cultivate the skills and disciplines that allow for the dignified existence of oth-ers. Without this space we risk the loss of real encounter and the grace it may hold for us. We lose an opportunity to witness to an authentic faith-filled visit, a gospel hope worthy of our fragile freedom. Congar reminds us that theology is not a deadly repetition of neatly worked out dogmatic statements. Disconnected from the existential reality of "someone's living thought," theology "will not bear its fruit.''3° We stand in danger, today, of losing that precious space where we respectfully, thoughtfully, and critically engage the "living thought" of someone else. Dialogical communion might be thought of as the inten-tional practice of hospitality towards those with whom we may not fully agree, or simply do not understand. People securing space for the complex and contrasting truths that emerge from deep diversities are signs of these times: "deep diversity" calls for an equally deep curiosity.3! 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue If our starting point remains the God-human rela-tionship, then we will be convinced that Mystery touches us only in history. The truth that embraces us in each encounter with the God of life is one, but its manifesta-tions are multiple. Indeed, genuine engagement of the God-human relationship continues to yield wise and chal-lenging expressions of Christian discipleship: the irrup-tion of the poor into history and the holistic vision of the reign of God as presented in theologies of libera-tion, the gospel reflection of women bringing forth new constructive theologies and the prophetic link with eco-logical consciousness and responsibility, the theologies of human rights that seek out space where diverse religions may work together for peace and the dignity of human life, and the emerging reflection on the other face of rac-ism, namely, white privilege and continuing exclusion of people of color. These truths of discipleship call us to examine anew the precious gift of our graced and historically precarious human existence. They call for a deeper asceticism and humility; they inspire a wondrous reverence for God and a curiosity about the things of God. They invite us to sus-pend our judgments so as to make space for each other and, in the very act of "maki~g space," encounter the God, who does more in us and with us than we can ask or imag-ine (Ep 3:20). "Making space" may well be the greatest and most fruitful spiritual discipline we can practice as a global church so as to be genuinely attentive to the Spirit in a world newly awakened to its divinely conceived diversity. Hope lies in our courageous and sober confidence in the Spirit's power to bring all that is God's to fullness. In the spaces where fragile human hearts meet the Love and Truth that alone overcomes all alienation, there is the hope for a different kind of history, a different kind of humanity. The gift inspires the task. Shall we take up the task? Review for Religious Notes ~ Marcus Borg, "Faith: The \a, ray of the Heart," in The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 25-42. 2 Mary Catherine Hilkert, "Tradition and Experience," in Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective, ed. Catherine Mowry LaCugna (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 60. 3 For an overview of the many facets of the phenomenon of glo-balization, see The Globalization Reader; ed. Frank J. Lechner and John Boli (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000), and Patrick O'Meara, Howard D. Mehlinger, and Matthew Krain, eds., Globalization and the Challenges of a New Centmy: A Reader (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). 4 See Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997). s Roland Robertson, "Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity- Heterogeneity," in Global Mode, v,ities, ed. Scott Lash and Roland Robertson (London: SAGE, 1995). ~ David Tracy, On Naming the Present (New York: Orbis Books, 1994), p. 3. 7 See in particular Arjun Appadarai's seminal essay "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy," in Mode~vtity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1996), pp. 27-47. s See in particular Robert Schreiter, "Globalization and the Contexts of Theology," in his New Catboliciq, pp. 1-27. 9 See Saskia Sassen, Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobiliq of People and Money (New York: New Press, 1998). ~0 Mike Featherstone, Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmode~ism, and Identity (London: SAGE Publications, 1995). ~ Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: SAGE Publications, 1992), p. 100. 1, As Roland Robertson expresses it, "there is virtually no limit to particularity, to uniqueness, to difference, to otherness." Robertson, Globalization, p. 102. ~3 See in particular Benedict Anderson, hnagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationali.~n (London: Verso, 1991). ~4 Joseph Komonchak, "Is Christ Divided? Dealing with Diversity and Disagreement," Origins 33 (9): 140-147. ~ In a number of interviews, Congar traced his lifelong devotion to the unity the Christian churches to a siugular moment of contemplation. "It was while meditating upon the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue that I clearly recognized my vocation to work for the unity of all who believe in Jesus Christ." Yves Congar, Dialogue between Christians: Catholic Contributions to Ecumenism, trans. Philip Loretz SJ (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), p. 3. ~'~ "We are too prone to be satisfied with a dogma in itself, which has not to be worked out but is all laid down in the catechism or the theologi-cal manuals. We retail it, we are purveyors of orthodox theology, and that is all. We are in the process of finding that a dogma must be someone's dogma or someone's living thought, otherwise it will not bear its fruit." Yves Congar, Priest and Layman (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1967), p. 209. ~7 Yves Congar, "The Brother I Have Known," The Thomist, 49 (4): 495-503. 1~ For an excellent essay on Congar's life as a theologian, see Etienne Fouilloux, "Friar Yves, Cardinal Congar, Dominican: History of a Theologian," U.S. Catholic Historian 17 (2). ~9 Vincent Miller, "History. of Geography? Gadamer, Foucault, and Theologies of Tradition," in Theology and the New Histories, ed. Gary. Macy (Maryknolh Orbis Books, 1999), pp. 56-85. 20 Congar, however, was not in any sense na'ive with regard to abuses of power, particularly in his ongoing concern for a dialogical church. "In polemics., or in any form of controversy devoid of dialogue, I interpose my own personal power, or rather that of a social formation whose views I am defending, such as a nation, a church, a culture, a social group or class, or a nexus of collective interests. Certain questions, such as that of colonialism in its most absolute form, might be approached from this point of view." Congar, Dialogue between Christians, p. 55. :~ Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church, trans. Donald Atwater (~'Vestminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1957), p. 86. 22 Yves Congar, 1 Believe in the Holy Spirit, Vol. 2, He Is Lord and Giver of Life, trans. David Smith (New York: Seabury Press, 1983), p. 67. ~3 Yves Congar, This CT;urch That I Love, trans. Lucien Delafuente (Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1969). 24 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, p. 12. 's Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, p. 37. z6 Congar, Lay People, p. 57. 27 Komonchak, "Is Christ Divided?" p. 76. :s The "adoration of God and the doing of God's will are necessary. conditions for thinking about God." Gustavo Guti~rrez, The T~vah Shall Set You Free: Conf!'ontations, trans. MatthewJ. O'Connell (Maryknolh Orbis Books, 1990), p. 55. Review for Religious 2,; Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Emb~wce: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otberness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), p. 29. 30 Congar, Priest and Layman, p. 209. 3~ See Charles Taylor's discussion of "deep diversity" in "Shared and Divergent Values," in his Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993), pp. 155-186. Personal Reflection/Group Discussion In today's church do I find in myself a growing inability to listen and to dialogue with others about my own beliefs and values? What can I do to develop a more tolerant attitude in myself and so help others to become more tolerant? Do I understand dialogical cornmunion? What are some of the challenges ! would face with the people with whom I live and work? 66.1 2007 ROSE HOOVER Why Do We Gather? A Journey Together community We live in an age when young adults rarely consider religious life an option for themselves. Are we dinosaurs with primordial behavior pat-terns? Do we know why we come together in religious communities in this day and age--or in any day and age? There are varieties of commu-nity, but in this article I simply want to reflect on religious community's purpose, whether we are talking about community under one roof or community in a broader sense that does not nec-essarily mean living together. Why do we gather together? For example, are we brought together as religious for the pur-pose of a particular task? Do we form commu-nity for thesake of the ministry we do? Many people get together for special endeavors and enjoyments--music groups and sports teams, for example. Some groups even live together, like Rose Hoover RC last wrote for this journal in March-April 1992. Her address is Cenacle Sisters; 505 Northeast 5th Avenue; Gainesville, Florida 32601. Review for Religious the ad hoc assemblages on some reality shows. We too have tasks we desire to accomplish, tasks not only pre-cious to us but valuable for the people of God. We know that good community life can help us in our ministries. But is ministry the reason we come together? Today other people do the same ministries we do, and do them just as well, without being members of religious communi-ties. If religious community is for the purpose of carrying out ministry, and if the ministry no longer necessitates coming together in community, then is our gathering as consecrated religious also unnecessary? What about forming relationships? There was a lot of talk a few years ago about relational communities as distinct from task-ori-ented communities. A quick Internet search shows that concept to be far from dead today. As Christians we are indeed called to be in relationship both with God and with other ~ i."~ W:~t~hou~t~:i')ood "rdationships, ,- iydividuals and communities Christians. Without good relationships, individuals and communities are bound to be lifeless. And so compan-ionship, relationships, belong in consecrated life. In fact, loving presence is necessary in consecrated life. But com-panionship, even deep companionship, can be had in other ways, some of them far easier than religious community. Neither friendship nor c6mpanionship, of course, can be the main purpose of religious community. As Antoine de Saint-Exup~ry writes in l/Vind, Sm~d, and Stars, "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction." In Christian community, if our primary gaze is on each other rather than on Christ, we are not on the way to true communion. 66.1 2007 Hoover ¯ Why Do We Gather? Religious cOmmunity is no way to flee,the,World; the world walks right-inl Wit,h,us.o Can religious community exist for the purpose of mak-ing the practical details of life more economical or more simple? It certainly can, though it does not always do so. In our university town we see students who live together to save money and make life less burdensome, leaving more time and energy for studies. Religious communi-ties, too, can live simply and economically--and even live gospel poverty. But is this all there is to it? Communities, even small ones, can provide security. People throughout the centuries have banded together for the sake of security. Gated communities thrive today. California lays claim to at least three gated cities--in effect, walled towns: Rolling Hills, Hidden Hills, and Canyon Lake. Probably some peo-pie enter religious life to be safe from the dangers of the "world" (or other dangers they somehow perceive). We know from experi-ence that religious community is no way to flee the world, if for no other reason than that the world walks right in with us. Security, then, cannot be the purpose of coming together as religious. There has to be more to religious community than any of these reasons, more even than all of them together. Parker Palmer, a Quaker, who at the time of writing an article for Desert Call (1987) was part of an intentional community, puzzled over the historical longevity of monasticism, given the difficulties of community life. He concluded that it is because the monks "created a form of community that brings them together not for the purpose of togetherness but to support each other in the rigors of the inward journey.''~ Review for Religious To support each other on the inward journey, the spiritual journey, is indeed rigorous. It has no less a goal than transforming union with Jesus Christ. That, after all, is the Christian call. The road can be rocky, and pitfalls can lie along the path. There can be pain and discourage-ment, but also joy, peace, and love. Moments of grace can astonish, but then there may be long and numbing stretches of boredom. At times we wish to shuffle along complacently, and at other times we are strong against the enemy's wiles. We have glimmers of understanding and then clouds of miserable confusion. The journey is truly rigorous. There is no way to make it alone. Whether we thought about it this way or not, this is the reason we entered religious life. God knew the pur-pose even if we did not--the call to give ourselves wholly to God by following a path of transforming union in love. This path not only blesses us with love and forgiveness, it also demands much of us. It requires prayer. This needs to be said bluntly here because, though for some people prayer is pure joy, for others it is a demand, a rigorous one. And, as for praying together, some find it no bur-den at all, while others are being sorely tested. The need for prayer implies the need to find time for prayer, the courage to carve a quiet niche for it when society--and sometimes religious life as well--would instead reward us for constant activity. How many times have we heard someone say with a hint of pride in her voice, "I haven't had a day off in months"? Or maybe we have even made that boast ourselves. As our life goes on, we have opportunities and duties to learn compassion toward the uncompassionate and to love those who do not love us._We learn to see loveliness in those who appear unlovely, sometimes being surprised at seeing our own kind of goodness in someone we never even liked. We find ourselves acknowledging our own 66.1 2007 Hoover ¯ Why Do We Gather? sinfulness, our helplessness, our inability to understand ourselves or the God who loves us and in whose image we are made. The spiritual journey brings people to a better vision of life--but usually without visions. Along the way we more and more take on the mind of Christ, who emptied himself. We learn not to cling to anything, not to hold anything back. We take one step at a time, without know-ing where the road winds and often without being sure that the next step is the right one. The road through our interior landscape may lack clear markers; misty weather may obscure them and make us forget the presence of God. Formidable though the way may be, it is precisely here that we find our delight. The God who created the universe, who fills the cosmos, who was and is and ever shall be, this God is both our companion and our destina-tion. After beginning on this path, any other way seems dull and senseless, hardly worth the trouble of putting one foot in front of the other. To make the most of this wondrous journey and to smooth its progress, we gather together. We support one another by our words, our prayers, and our presence, and we grant one another the silence and solitude we all need. And, when we become discouraged like Elijah lying under the broom tree, we take for each other the role of the angel who said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you" (1 K 19:7, NRSV). We have to admit, though, that sometimes our sisters and brothers the~nselves can be part of the "burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day."-' The com-munity may be the very reason we long to crawl under the broom tree and disappear in sleep. But the burdens and the blessings of the road are intermingled and often indis-tinguishable from one another. What seems like a bur-den may in reality be a blessing, and each blessing tends Review for Religious to bring with it its own weight, imperceptible at times, greatly evident at others. In community, as we accompany each other along the way, as we support each other, we bring ourselves to the mix of people, we give ourselves as gifts. As with ordinary gifts, we do not know if we have chosen the right gift for the right person. We sincerely hope we have, and that we are not bringers of burdens or disappointments. In this we all develop subtle social gifts of giving and receiving, giving benefits shyly and having doubts beneficially, all the while sharing in mystery. What, then, is the role of our ministry? Is the value of ministry lessened if the work we are called to do is not our chief reason for coming together? Not at all. Without the inward journey, our ministry lacks integrity. A reli-gious community with a task--even a noble task--as its primary purpose risks allowing both community and task to become sterile. The apostolate is inseparable from the path of transforming union. Like cotton canvas garden-ing gloves, our ministry, hand in hand with prayerfulness, brings our patient dedication to flower in ways beyond imagining--more .and more the work of Christ. We our-selves are transformed into the compassionate and merci-ful Christ for each other and for the world. Notes ~ Parker Palmer, "The Monastic V~ay to Church Renewal," Desert Call, ¼qnter 1987: 8-9. 2 Elizabeth C. Clephane, "Beneath the Cross of Jesus," 1868. 66.1 2007 ROBERT SCHIELER An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers During Holy Week 2006 three hundred De La Salle Christian Brothers gathered in retreat to discern a future together. Under the banner "An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers," we brothers from three East Coast provinces~ and Toronto, Canada, desire to imagine more of a future than merging our provinces into one. As in other congregations, the reason for con-sidering a shared future is the diminishment and aging in our provinces. In recent years the provinces have spon-sored joint formation programs, retreats, workshops, and council meetings. This gathering helped us become even more familiar with one another and our hopes and dreams. From the beginning we wanted to explore creative approaches to consolidation. We saw the merging of provinces as perhaps an administrative necessity but no guarantee for future viability and vitality. Our goal was to Robert Schieler FSC writes from Christian Brothers Provincialate; P.O. Box 29; Adamstown, Maryland 21710. Review for Religious make our network of ministries more effective. These ways were to include a renewed passion for our life together as brothers in community and for our consecrated life in the following of Jesus. The aim of the communal retreat was to facilitate achieving these goals. In the preceding eighteen months, a planning com-mittee guided local community conversations around the Triduum. Four prayer services with reflection questions were prepared for Trinity Sunday, when communities nor-mally .plan for the year, the first Sunday in Advent, and the first Sunday in Lent. Reflection questions sought to mirror sessions that would take place during the retreat: remembering our icons and dangerous memories; discern-ing who we are today and our potential for tomorrow; and deciding on a direction for a shared future. Being pragmatic people, a good many brothers had reservations about this process and the value of the retreat itself. The retreat began on Wednesday evening with over three hundred brothers processing into our prayer space for an opening prayer service and a motivational presen-tation celebrating five brothers identified as icons from our five provinces. During our days of retreat, we would recall icons from Scripture, our Lasallian heritage, and our brothers. Icons, as windows to the interior, help us get in touch with the deeper forces operative in our lives. An icon can help us transcend the immediacy of our pres-ent life situation. By touching the core of our being, icons stir up an interior movement that allows us to go beyond our immediate landscapes. At the opening prayer service we heard read: We gather tonight to remember, to celebrate, to grieve, and to dream. This is our Lasallian heritage. It is rich, indeed! It is composed of individuals, communities, and ministries that at one time listened to the whispers of a radical spirit, a spirit that opened to us new venues and invited us to launch our boats in uncharted waters so 66.1 2007. Scbieler ¯ An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers as to serve better the children of the poor and working class. We celebrate tonight our Lasallian icons. They are stories, people, events of the original foundational journey of our community as De La Salle Brothers that become like windows breaking open the deepest mean-ing, revealing a prophetic insight, full of memory and hope, about the present. They help us to get in touch with our dangerous memories., our wildest dreams. They connect us to our institute, to our church, and to the mystery of God's kingdom here on earth. Brothers, they do not exist to reassure us. Sometimes these icons will destabilize us and challenge our current views and understandings. If we let them, they may stir up in us the deepest movements and yearnings of the Spirit! Seeing men we have lived with or heard about and recalling how they lived as brothers and what they accom-plished stirred us, prompted reflections, and encouraged conversations about our fraternal life together and the mission for which we consecrated our lives. As the open-ing evening came to a close, brothers retired to their rooms in a "wait and see" frame of mind. Dangerous Memories Under the day's theme of "Remembering where we were and refounding our hope. for the future," we met on Holy Thursday morning as provinces to recall our respec-tive dangerous memories. The theologian Johannes B. Metz saw dangerous memories as: memories in which earlier experiences break through to the center point of our lives and reveal new and dangerous insights for the present. They illuminate for a few moments and with a harsh and steady light the questionable nature of things we have apparently come to terms with, and show up the banality of our supposed "realism." They break through the canon of the prevailing structures of plausibility and have certain subversive features. Such memories are like dangerous Review for Religious and incalculable visitations from the past. They are memories that we have to take into account, memories, as it were, with a future content.: One province, in the activities leading up to the retreat, highlighted as one of its most dangerous memories a 1920s decision that resulted in a quick move from primary to secondary education. In 1926 and 1927 the province withdrew from thirteen elementary schools to staff two new diocesan high schools. While reluctant at the time to leave elementary education, the province would realize from these two schools several hundred vocations during the next four decades. This decision is part of the prov-ince lore and often recalled at fraternal gatherings. On this Holy Thursday morning, however, it was about another dangerous memory that several brothers spoke with pas-sion. This dangerous memory was still very much in the present. It was from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Like many congregations and the church in general, the province was caught up in the euphoria of the Second Vatican Council, but was also beginning to witness the fallout: departures, the drop in vocations, and polariza-tion. Between the start of summer 1969 and the end of summer 1970, the province would lose nearly a hundred brothers, including the provincial and much of the prov-ince's leadership. In the coming decade nearly thirty men would leave to enter the priesthood. The novitiate that had served the province since 1880 closed in summer of 1969. At the same time the renewal and updating of our religious life, the principle of subsidiarity, and personal responsibility versus directives from the top were going forward. So was empowerment of young over those with seniority status. While this province would struggle with fundamental issues of religious life through much of the 1970s, by the end of the decade a new formation program was bringing 66.1 2007 Schieler ¯ An Experience of yesus and His Brothers from our pas that we wanted tocar or ard fewer but excellent candidates. Commitment to its tradi-tional educational ministries remained strong while being open to new and sometimes individual ministries. The mental health of the brothers would be honestly faced and addressed. After considerable neglect, personal and communal prayer returned. The morning session was both invigorating and inspir-ing. Table conversation at lunch was animated as other brothers were proposed as icons and further dangerous memories shared. Following lunch and prompted by a presentation on passing with Jesus from death to life and by a video on our roots, we reflected on the values from our past that we wanted to cel-ebrate and carry forward into the future. These included accomplishing our educational mission as a community that can adapt and innovate, the diversity of our educational delivery sys-tems, our formation as educators with a Christocentric spirituality, and our recent establishment of national for-mation programs to share our charism with our lay col-leagues. As Thursday afternoon gave way to evening and din-ner, the brothers seemed to accept that we were on a retreat, not at an assembly. Conversations were more hope-filled, and the feeling now being expressed was "Yes, it is good to be together." This was evidenced by the number of brothers coming.before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer and silence throughout the evening. Finding a seat in chapel for adoration on Holy Thursday had not been difficult for a long time! Review for Religious Three Hundred HistoriesmOne Voice, One Spirit While on Wednesday evening and Holy Thursday we celebrated and remembered those brothers who shaped us and our provinces, on Good Friday we would behold the men we are today. How are we different from those we had honored and recognized? What had we lost? What do we take to the cross? Whom do we take down from the cross? What do we bury? To stimulate our reflection we viewed the film Romero, suffering servant in our time, and listened to a presentation on the crucifixion of Jesus, the Suffering Servant for all time. These enriched our table conversations later, but something else in that afternoon proved transformative. The image of three hundred brothers one by one ven-erating the crucified Christ on Good Friday afternoon was a powerful one. We witnessed three hundred histories that have faithfully lived their initial "yes" given to God. There was much gray, but the talent and energy in that long gray line was palpable. One brother reflecting on the experience wrote: "I found that long line of brothers inspiring. Each of us brought our stories to that moment, and I knew many of the men and their talents, the ~ailures they and I faced, the challenges they and I met, the stu-dents they and I inspired, the communities we had lifted up, and our struggles with various demons. Some were my teachers; others were my mentors in community. There were international, national, and district leaders. Other brothers were and are colleagues and confreres. Yet all our various paths pointed us in the same right direction that afternoon. All of us bowed before the same cross, individually and collectively, confessing our belief in Jesus our Savior. What richer image could we have of our vow formula than that we brothers accomplish our educational mission not as individuals but 'together and by associa-tion' with one another?''3 66.1 2007 Scbieler ¯ An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers This kind of change stimulates resistance because it challenges peopl e's habits. Holy Saturday Holy Saturday morning began with a presentation that many brothers found realistic while others found challenging and some even disturbing or out of sync with the spirit of the retreat. That presentation revealed the harsh demographic realities that nearly sixty percent of the membership is over sixty-five years of age with only twelve of the 420 brothers in the three provinces and del-egation under the age of forty. It spoke of the hope lost after the heady days of the council. It spoke of halfhearted efforts at amalgamation in the 1990s and the first cou-ple of years in this new ~ century. It spoke of the ~' difficulties and chal- !enges of what Heifetz . and Linsky call "adap-tive change" versus "technical change"; change at the core of persons or organizations as opposed to the simple rear-ranging of things.4 This kind of change stimulates resis-tance because it challenges people's habits, beliefs, and cultures. The presentation offered elements of hope and a plan for the future, but for some it stood in contrast to the good feelings generated from the storytelling and shar-ing of experiences from our various provinces. Perhaps we were experiencing the stone being placed at the entrance to the tomb. There was a period of questioning, self-doubt, and waiting. What direction would the retreat now take? We had reached a critical moment, and it took all the facilitators' skills to maintain a retreat atmosphere and not slip into a workshop or assembly one. We pre-pared the brothers to opt for the direction they preferred. Review for Religious The answer would come in the afternoon, after the "three hundred stories" had processed in once more. Five possible directions for a shared future were iden-tified, including remaining as separate provinces or unit-ing in a totally new structure. The five possibilities were posted at the front of the hall, and each brother was given a colored dot to place next to his choice. Again three hun-dred men walked up quietly and indicated their choice. At the end, it was overwhelmingly agreed: to create one province with new structures for the vitality of commu-nities and ministries of the three present provinces and delegation. The key phrase was "new structures." In a letter he sent to the brothers at the retreat, our superior general wrote: Our times demand not only that we change current structures, as if by doing only this we could revitalize ourselves. It is not about simply creating larger prov-inces that are the same as those of the past. We have to reinvent what it is we understand by the term "prov-ince," and create new structures that will allow us to be rnore visible and more effective in the way we manage and accompany Lasallian association throughout the world,s The stone in front of the tomb was being removed along with self-doubt and waiting. We embraced the possible. It is always Holy Saturday whenever people push back the creeping boundaries of the world's fear, making room for irrepressible hope; where people live the long darkness of original sin while believing in the possibil-ity of the deeper light; where people discover the touch of an invincible spring on the bare branches of their winter lives.6 Easter Vigil The Easter Vigil was a most joyous occasion. All three hundred brothers had donned their new sport shirts with one of our familiar congregation logos. In his sermon the 66.1 2007 Scbieler ¯ An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers 72 celebrant for the vigil beautifully summarized the previous several days by recounting a conversation he had earlier in the day with a young man staying at the same resort. I walked by. "Hi," I said. "'Sup. You one of Jesus' brothers?" I knew what he meant because I live in the 'hood. "Sorry?" "You one of Jesus' brothers? I saw the sign: 'Jesus and His Brothers.'" "Yeah, yeah, you are too!" Never miss a catechetical moment. "So you pastors or something?" "No, mostly teachers-Christian Brothers." "That's nice," he said. "I've been watching