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Interview with Atillio and Robert Antonioni. Atillio is an attorney in Leominster, MA and Robert is a Massachusetts legislator. Topics include: The family restaurant business: Atillio's mother opened a pizza shop called Lazy A and then the Il Camino. Importance of education for the family. What the neighborhood was like when Atillio was a child. How the neighborhoods in Leominster have changed. Robert was elected to the Leominster city council in 1984 and then went on to become a state representative and senator. What it means to be Italian. Atillio's work as a lawyer in Leominster. ; 1 SPEAKER 1: [Unintelligible - 00:00:03] with the Center for Italian Culture at Fitchburg State College. It's Friday, January 25th, 2002. We're at the Offices of Atillio and Robert Antonioni, 42 Main Street in Leominster. So I'll ask both of you to um, just tell me your name just so I can… ATILLIO: Atillio Antionioni. ROBERT: I'm Robert – Robert A. Antonioni. SPEAKER 1: Okay, usually I interview people [unintelligible - 00:00:33] closer and then back to you. I was telling your father that I've interviewed a lot of people in your family, okay. So I got a lot of the history from your brother as far as your mother and the restaurant business and – and uh, I thought it would be interesting if you could just tell me your memories of that, um, not necessarily dates because I really have that but just your memory of uh, her opening the restaurants and – and cooking. I believe she began with pizza? ATILLIO: Yes. Yes, she did uh, prepare pizza for the various people at the uh, the Dupont Facility that is back of us down there on Lancaster Street and the business to get into. We used to drive through the center of Leominster at night and there was the – that was a line outside there and she always felt that if uh, they could do it, she could do it. And so uh, they did. They opened a restaurant down there on Lancaster Street, the Lazy A. It was lazy because they worked very long hours but uh, we did have the restaurant there. That was when I uh, back at college at Holy Cross. We, she commuted to school each day and then worked in the restaurant at night. My brother and I used to alternate nights there working in the restaurant, everything. We were chief-cooking, [bottle] washers. We would uh, help cook the food, prepare it, uh, uh, clean up. I mean if it's done in a restaurant, we did it. SPEAKER 1: I guess it's important to know there are reasons for that?2 ATILLIO: The long hours, it's enough to discourage anybody. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: Then we did that one 'bout a number of years there and uh, until my folks retired. But uh, they were out of the business for five years or so, and my mother was always itching to get back in. So they built the El Camino Restaurant down on Central Street – sold the Lazy A, which is now known as the Gondola, sold it to the same people the El Camino that we sold it to. SPEAKER 1: Oh. ATILLIO: So that was extremely important to my mother. Unfortunately, she had to leave school early and go to work. And she was just [unintelligible - 00:02:54] felt that education was extremely important so that she's determined that we were going to go to school. There was no question about that. SPEAKER 1: And idea of when you were in high school, what would a day be like if – well, actually she didn't open up the Lazy A until you were in college. Is that what you said? ATILLIO: Till I graduated from high school. And the Lazy A was opened, I think, in the spring of 1948. After that time, however, we – father used to work at the DuPont. And he would work the 4-12 shift, I mean, because that paid a little money. And at that time, we were – she was also cooking pizzas at home that we would deliver to the Foster, to the cafeteria at the Foster Grand company. And so before I went to school in the morning, we would deliver pizzas there at the Foster Grand and then go to school. So when I was… SPEAKER 1: And when did you study? ATILLIO: Oh, in the afternoon and evenings. Well, I worked in the afternoon. I worked at the A&P. So we worked every afternoon then, but at night, we would study. It was always important to my folks and we did it. SPEAKER 1: Now was it only you and your brother in the family?3 ATILLIO: No, I have two sisters. Margaret and Margaret's husband own the [Volero] Insurance Agency. He passed away several years ago, and she sold it after that. And my sister Janie is [unintelligible - 00:04:31] thirty years, doing accounting work for them. SPEAKER 1: What was life like as a child? Can you tell me about the neighborhood that you lived in? ATILLIO: It was a good neighborhood. Life, I think, was much better for us than for many other families. My mother was an extremely hard worker. She knew how to stretch things considerably so that – I recall going to school during the depression there. There were many other children that weren't well-dressed as well as they could be and so forth, but we always had decent clothes. My mother made a lot of them. We lived on [unintelligible - 00:05:16] Avenue at that time. We had a large yard there, and we had – always had a large vegetable garden. There were fruit trees there and my mother would can all types of vegetables and fruits and things of that nature. So actually, I always thought we lived very well as compared to a lot. SPEAKER 1: Now when you would work in the afternoon, were you expected to put, let's say, the money on the table? ATILLIO: Oh, yes. The money was turned over to my folks. We got spending money, of course, but we turn the money. It was saved and [unintelligible - 00:05:54] so forth. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: I mean they were never using it to – for daily expenses, I'm sure of that. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: I mean they didn't confide in us. That's just the way everything went, but they had to save money in order to send us to school. SPEAKER 1: What kinds of leisure activities were you involved in?4 ATILLIO: In those days, we did a lot of visiting, obviously, because you didn't have any television. It was visiting with relatives and friends and playing with other children and so forth. And my father's club had an outing every year at Sima Park at Fitchburg, which was a big event and so forth. We go on picnics. We went on many of picnic at the [unintelligible - 00:06:40] Park. It was very enjoyable. But mainly, it was visiting with relatives and friends. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm, were you living in a predominantly Italian neighborhood? ATILLIO: Oh, no. We used to call it the League of Nations that was – there were Italian people there, but there were Irish, German, French –there was everybody. SPEAKER 1: At Longwood Avenue? ATILLIO: Yes. SPEAKER 1: So is it safe to say that you had friends of all ethnic race? ATILLIO: Oh, yes, absolutely, absolutely. There's always somebody around there that, you know, different people, obviously most of the relatives, well, all the relatives, will tag in but friends and so forth with everyone. My mother worked at the DuPont previously, and there were a lot of French-speaking women there and so forth and she learned to speak French working in the factory, so that she could speak… SPEAKER 1: How did as children, how did you really identify your differences? ATILLIO: With regard to ethnic backgrounds or whatever? SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: Oh, we never even thought about it. As I say, there was everybody there. We went out in the street and played. SPEAKER 1: Uh-huh. ATILLIO: And everybody played, regardless of what your background was. And there weren't any problems.5 SPEAKER 1: Oh, there wasn't any tension? ATILLIO: No. SPEAKER 1: Or dissension? ATILLIO: No, no, no. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: No. SPEAKER 1: How about your decision to go to Holy Cross? ATILLIO: Well, my brother was going there and so, you know, little did I know about schools and so forth but he went there so I figured out it would be a good place to go also. There was a question about whether I was going to be able to afford it and so forth. But they made it. SPEAKER 1: Now were you commuting with him and others? ATILLIO: Yes. I had an uncle from Fitchburg, actually, yes, who was the – you indicated that you would interview my Aunt [Doras] and Aunt [Via]. There was my Uncle Charlie who could tell from Fitchburg, and he was going to Holy Cross also. And he had a car and we commuted. There were other people from Leominster that he would pick up in the morning also and, you know, drive to [unintelligible - 00:08:55] after we had the restaurant then there was a little more money around and I had a car to drive back and forth in my senior year. SPEAKER 1: Now were you working at this time also? ATILLIO: Oh, yes. In the restaurant, yes, every other night. SPEAKER 1: Every other night? ATILLIO: Every other night, we worked in the restaurant, yes. But you had the study done during the day at school, during off hours and so forth. SPEAKER 1: What was Sundays like? ATILLIO: Well, when I was small, it was very enjoyable. There was always the big Sunday meal. And, of course, everybody go to church in 6 the morning and come back and there was a big Sunday dinner. And usually in the afternoon, it was lying around, taking it easy, going to visit people, listening to the radio and so forth. In later years, of course, once we had the restaurant, there was work because the restaurant was so full on Sunday. SPEAKER 1: Now was religion important to your family, your parents? ATILLIO: Absolutely. My mother was an extremely religious woman and we were on a very short leash; we didn't stray very far. She was, as I say, she was watching us all the time and brought up in a very religious manner, yes. SPEAKER 1: Were there any gender differences in the family as far as what the boys were expected to do and girls? ATILLIO: Well, not really because there were almost two families there. My brother and I, the girls didn't come along until 15 years later or something like that. And so it's just my brother and I, and we grew up doing housework and everything else. Before we had the restaurant, Saturday was a house-cleaning day, and we did dusting and everything else. And we washed dishes like everybody else. The girls came along at a later time but by then we just couldn't – just dropped the so-called family life because we're working. The girls didn't grow up the same way that my brother and I did because of my visiting and so forth so. But the restaurant was closed on Mondays, and every Monday, I would take the girls – SPEAKER 1: Oh, is education important for the girls to have too? ATILLIO: Oh, yes, yes. My sister Margaret went to Rivier College in New Hampshire, and Janie went to [unintelligible - 00:11:32], did a very good job with the [unintelligible - 00:11:35]. She's been with them a long time, she's almost… SPEAKER 1: Bob, are you bored yet, just sitting there? ROBERT: I'm all right.7 SPEAKER 1: So I thought maybe I could ask you about your childhood. First of all, were your grandparents alive? ROBERT: Yes, they were, yeah. SPEAKER 1: Can you tell me what you remember? ROBERT: My dad's mother didn't pass away until 1997. SPEAKER 1: Don't know, for some reason. The only thing that's been put there – I'm not sure why this is happening. ROBERT: Usually on Sundays… SPEAKER 1: I'm fine, but I'm trying to get in, if you can tell, as close as possible to – so never? ROBERT: Never. SPEAKER 1: You have had something to do with that or…? ROBERT: No, but I, you know, I could see that the hours there were really long, were very long. But no, it's not something I ever thought about up here in town, in Leominster. There were quite a few of us kids there so it was a busy place – a lot of children in the neighborhood too, so it was – well, I'd say we were all pretty much, you know… so, that's what I remember about that. ATILLIO: Well, in a sense it was that because the Oliviers have a French heritage and the [unintelligible - 00:12:55] were Irish and… ROBERT: Right. ATILLIO: We were [turning] to 22 children in those four households or five households, I mean… ROBERT: Well, that's probably true, I think growing, we didn't think so much about our heritage. It wasn't something that really… you know, we go to different churches, I suppose you could say, but that was it. ATILLIO: Well, in my day, of course, you had mostly the first generation… the parents were all immigrants. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm.8 ATILLIO: And obviously they tended to live with other people of their own heritage as a street area. The French were all congregated in Plains. And then that was only because I think you tended to stay among the people that you know and you were comfortable with, so to speak, because you had – many parents spoke only their ethnic language. My grandmother could speak a little English, but not much. It was mainly Italian and she had been in this country for many years. She was 99 and a half and still speaking Italian. And if you go down to, down on the hill, there'll be older people that are still speaking French all the time. So it was just – it isn't like today where everybody's just spread out and has gone everywhere. You tended to stay among the people that you knew and have been and so forth. SPEAKER 1: Is there a – a still… ATILLIO: Some of the old timers, but some of the old ones, yes. And my wife delivers communion to elderly in [unintelligible - 00:14:37] so forth, and some of them only speak Italian – prays in Italian so that she could say the prayers with them. And that was so they knew what to [unintelligible - 00:14:46], not too much. SPEAKER 1: And did your parents –? ATILLIO: Yes, but not always no. No, no – mainly with them it was English. But obviously they knew Italian very well because they were born in Italy and came to this country. But in the home and most of the time, 90 percent of the time, they were speaking English. If they visited other people, they would speak Italian to them depending on, you know, who they were. Those days a lot of the people, the people are a lot more comfortable with their native language. So they – there's not too many of those. SPEAKER 1: Italians? ATILLIO: No, no, no. SPEAKER 1: English?9 ATILLIO: We spoke English all the time. But they never spoke Italian in the house to us. Well, they tried to teach us Italian, but Mother bought books and we took lessons and things of that nature but… ROBERT: Yes, I think we – I think my folks expressed that with us certainly and you know, we would watch very much of, a factor. Yes. ROBERT: Well, I'd set an example I suppose and just seemed more of a natural fit for me than any other … ATILLIO: Oh, there was really no good reason for it. After I graduated from Holy Cross, I went into the service. And when I get out of the service, I didn't really know what I wanted to do and law school. You know I said not like being [unintelligible - 00:16:21], so I went to law school. It was that simple. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: Oh. SPEAKER 1: Mentor? ATILLIO: No, because I didn't even know any lawyers in those days. I didn't know one, graduated from law school and started working. SPEAKER 1: That's pretty courageous, I think. ATILLIO: It's been a good life, I've enjoyed it. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: Yes. [Angst] instead of leaders, there's no question about that from the way I used to practice, but it's enjoyable. I think when he was in college, he indicated that he wanted to become a lawyer also and I do law schools. I have a daughter who's an attorney. She graduated from [unintelligible - 00:17:09] in nursing and she practiced nursing for several years, but then decided she wanted to go to Arlington and [unintelligible - 00:17:24] John was in Bentley and Christina's wished to stay. All gone to school, but so when you talk about education, yes, we felt it was an… SPEAKER 1: You're the first Italian in Leominster and Fitchburg to graduate from law school?10 ATILLIO: No, oh no. No, there was a – in Leominster there was a Gene Oliver, he was the – when I started he was helping [unintelligible - 00:17:53] and then he was probably in his sixties then. Johnsberg, Paul San Clementi, a number of different Italians as attorneys – many, many more so since then, but they're all over the place now. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: Hmm, you know… SPEAKER 1: What were Sundays like growing up? ROBERT: Some days, everyone was around. It was a family day, you know, we'd usually go to, have a big lunch at home. At times we'd have relatives that would visit or we would go there, maybe – I'm guessing maybe once a month or something. But it was a time that we'd spent at home really. That was my recollection. We could play outside, but it was more of a family day, to be honest. That's what I remember. SPEAKER 1: What are Sundays like? ROBERT: Sundays are a day to relax, you know. You go to church in the morning probably… Well, we don't do that as much. My wife Priscilla and I will spend the day together, because work's in Boston and we don't see each other until, you know, seven, eight o'clock at night usually. And Saturdays, I typically work for at least half the day. So, Sunday we'll probably spend some time together or maybe take a ride or… My Uncle Ed was a fellow who was married to my Aunt Margaret; he had been a city councilor. And I think I always knew growing up that politics would be an interesting thing, like the fun thing to do. I always thought that that would be something I would try, be something I could do on my own so, I decided to run for the Leominster city council. It was a [unintelligible - 00:19:47] after I got out of law school, I graduated in '83 and I, city council in I guess it was '84 because I was elected on the city council. It wasn't really after I got out of 11 law school that I ran for office. And then state representative in Leominster, Angelo [Pacuzzi] passed away. He had been there for, passed away. It was an election year and I decided to run with a number of other politicians, and I was lucky enough to – we have the senate seat opened up and I ran for that too, so that's how it… SPEAKER 1: Um… ROBERT: I think that when Angelo Pacuzzi passed away, my Uncle Ed might have said to me "Gee, you should think about that." And I had to do it, you know. And he was, he was very helpful to me, I couldn't have done it without him. He had been a reporter at Leominster years earlier and he always enjoyed politics too. And he actually helped Angelo Pacuzi when he ran for the seat, you know 15 or 17 years earlier. And there was another guy by the name of [Chockie Antonucci], who was a firefighter, retired firefighter in town. I mean, Chock and Ed, you know, they really helped me out a lot. I never raced – they were actually involved in both of them. They were involved in the city council race, the state representative race and then the senate race; they were great, you know. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: I think so. I mean, I think that the ethnic factor certainly helped in Leominster, no question because, as my dad said there are it's a big [unintelligible - 00:21:22], and I think that that is a – from a politician's standpoint, the ethnic vote is still important and people, particularly those who are older, are certainly willing to consider someone of their heritage. Ethnic factor is a big thing, sure, even today. ATILLIO: I remember the incidents and so forth with all the happenings, yes. We were in Leominster at the time so, you know, we didn't take that much interest, as they would in Fitchburg. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm.12 ATILLIO: But in those days, he mentioned Chock Antonucci and Buck became a fireman. And a big party down there, because I am going on the, into the fire department; there weren't many around even beforehand or something like that, and so this department had a number of Italians. As I say it today, nobody looks at those things anymore. And I think it's for the better, obviously, because it shouldn't make any difference who you are; you know, as long as you are qualified, you should be in these positions. But again in those days, there were close-knit groups than there are today. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. What does it mean to you to be Italian? ROBERT: I had my identity. You know, it's a connection by, you know, cousins and, you know, part of your identity. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: You know, special thing, it is. And it's something you can, well, like I think I would want my children to appreciate. Oh I think you, you learn as you get older that there are people that share a different background with you and you come to appreciate [unintelligible - 00:23:10] that too. And as a legislator, you travel around a bit, you meet a lot of different people from – that's a – so you begin to, I think you appreciate the differences in people, too, that you know otherwise; it gives you a lot of perspective. SPEAKER 1: Now… ROBERT: Actually my wife is half Italian. SPEAKER 1: Is she? ROBERT: Yes, her grandparent – Boston, believe it or not, they were protestants. Her grandparents were Protestants when they came over. I think, Boston – the community in Boston were very supportive of grandparents. I imagine at some point they were Catholic in Italy, but that's just the way it was. And her grandfather was an Italian lawyer in Boston, and she's very proud of that.13 SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: And she's an attorney too. SPEAKER 1: Oh, not moving back to Leominster? ROBERT: Well, I think that being in politics – well, no really. Because when I graduated from law school, it was my intention to come back and work with my dad. So I intended on living here, but now being in politics and serving this area, Leominster, I expect that I'll continue to live in Leominster or the surrounding communities. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: Or one of the surrounding communities, sure. SPEAKER 1: I'd like to continue with… ATILLIO: Leominster, of course, has grown considerably. When I was in high school, there were only about 17,000 people in town. I remember one brochure describing it as a semi-agrarian community. We still had a lot of farms though, yes. Entire outlying areas were all farms here. SPEAKER 1: Uh-huh. ATILLIO: But now 30,000 people now. So the city has grown tremendously; there's no question about that. And the law profession, when I – so 17 lawyers in town and it must be 50 now anyway, tremendous increase in the number of attorneys all over the place now. And the law profession itself has changed. In those days, [aces and] things of that nature, now the actual in case that we take up 10 percent of the law work. You have so many more fields that have opened up. Environmental issue… SPEAKER 1: How is Leominster changed in just the period of time that, you know, you've grown up here and now as far as ethnic composition or is it – does it still have a hometown feel to it? ROBERT: You know that depends on who you ask. If you ask my wife, she'd tell you that it looks like something out of the '50s, you know. But I think it's changed quite a bit. You know, as my dad said, it's 14 really grown. And that I've, you know, come back to practice in the last 17 years or so, it's grown dramatically. I think that you've got many, many people coming from outside the city to live here and work because of its location on route two. And you got many of the developments that were built up on the farms and the old ski area here in town. They tend to be high-priced homes, at least as this area had known the housing scale. And you've got many people coming who didn't grow up here, who really had no connection to Leominster. And that's true, in fact, of the whole area here, the system migration west and because people are looking for affordable housing. Leominster's changed considerably. You know, I still think of it obviously as home. But it's a much busier place. I mean, you can't drive downtown on Saturday without waiting in traffic 10, 15 minutes. Friday afternoons as well, it gets awfully busy – sign of the times. SPEAKER 1: Now I wish [unintelligible - 00:27:24], did you have Italians coming in to be serviced or was it about… ATILLIO: No, not here. I never – quite frankly, we relied on the Italian community for my livelihood. I'm more – Italians, I think the one reason for that might be that my mother and father came from Fitch – Leominster people. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: So and at the time that I was starting, Jimmy Oliver was representing all the Italian people in town and John [unintelligible - 00:28:05] was. And they got the bulk of the Italian trade, so to speak. So it was just regular people, all kinds coming in to different things. The last 25 years or so, I haven't been to court in 20 years now because all I do is mortgage work for banks and probate work for those in the States and things of that nature, so that that in itself is literally with me. Like I said before, he handles far more different things than I ever did. And obviously it won't, 15 well, because I'm reaching the end of the trail here; I've been around 45 years now. But as I say with my work, with doing just mortgage work for banks and things like that, I handled dozens of closings for residential houses and lawns, shopping malls, the whole [unintelligible - 00:29:10] people needed. SPEAKER 1: Oh and initially when you began – I guess this is progress, all that noise outside, right? Anyway, when you first began business, how did people pay for your services? ATILLIO: Well, I was never one to get paid up front, because I knew a lot of the people didn't have a lot of money. And I never lost a lot. I mean I – some bills have gone sour but I never regretted that – I never had a real problem with regard to it. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: But it's interesting, you've just indicated that, the noise of the traffic outside. Well, when I started, we didn't have I-190 or any other highways. And all the traffic used to come right through town here. Everybody going from Worcester up to New Hampshire or through this entire area, they all used Route 12. And Route 12 goes right through the center of town here. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: And you got the traffic light there and you got the traffic light there. And it was amazing, even in those days, the number of trucks that you had. And everyone of them was stopping here and I started out across the street there. And – well I had an office at [unintelligible - 00:30:37] at 39 Main Street. And [unintelligible - 00:30:42] time you have the window opened and it was just trucks, trucks, trucks. And they stop for the lights and they rev the motors and so forth, so you had to close the windows [unintelligible - 00:30:52] try and do anything. So this is nothing compared to what it used to be like. SPEAKER 1: Did you begin by yourself?16 ATILLIO: No, I started next door in this building over here with Isidore Sullivan. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: And I was with him for five years and then I went, branched off on my own. Went across… SPEAKER 1: What's it like working with your son? ATILLIO: It's good, it's very good. I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it. We don't have any problems. ROBERT: No. ATILLIO: We understand each other. We ask each other for advice and opinions and so forth. ROBERT: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: And I think the main thing is that it's, you know, we trust each other. ROBERT: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: So that when we ask a question, we're getting a truthful answer, you know for us, in our circumstances and so forth. So that…no, I've enjoyed having him with me tremendously. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't come here, because I wouldn't have lasted this long, I'm sure of that. ROBERT: And it's been good, it's been very good. If my dad hadn't been an attorney, I don't know what I would have done too. But it's good, you know. I keep telling him that he can retire anytime he wants, although like I secretly don't want him to go. But no, it's been very good, you know. It's been a comfortable place to work. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: You know, I've never really thought of not doing this. The political job has enabled me to do other things, but still allowed me to stay here. And you know, I never thought of going someplace else, you know. It's a very comfortable place and, you know, we know each other obviously and… good, it's been good; I'm glad.17 SPEAKER 1: What happens when he retires? ROBERT: I don't know. [Laughter] He promised me… ATILLIO: I won't be far away. ROBERT: He promised me he won't. So, I don't know. I don't know what I –honest to God, I really haven't thought about it. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: And I keep telling him that, you know, whatever he wants, that's okay. He can do that. But I think my dad, this is like his, it's part of his work, but it's kind of his hobby too, I think really, you know. You know, I like to go fishing and stuff; he doesn't fish. So I think this is…I hope they say I'm honest, you know. I was sensitive to their situation. I guess that's what I would hope they would – I think education seems to have become the real big issue today, at least as I've been there. It's just really grown, you know, both in terms of prominence, in terms of the money that we've committed to it. It really is that the issue people seem to care most about fall pretty close to the other thing by healthcare. That's how it changed a lot. People tend to come to us for just about everything; you'd be surprised. The calls that we get from people that are having a problem with the Registry of Motor Vehicles or the Department of Social Services or traffic light or – you'd be amazed with some of the calls we get. And sometimes if they won't find me, they'll call my parent's house, you know, looking for me. They'd call like late, in the middle of the night sometimes, yes. ATILLIO: Yes, quarter to four the other day. ROBERT: Yes. SPEAKER 1: Quarter to four? AM? ROBERT: In the morning. ATILLIO: In the morning. ROBERT: Yes.18 SPEAKER 1: What happened? They can't wait or something? ATILLIO: We got to talk to the senator. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: But not at that time. ROBERT: I think my mother hung up on them, which is pretty unusual for my mother to hang up on anybody but… ATILLIO: No, she said, "Call the office in the morning, not now." ROBERT: Ah, right. ATILLIO: You realize what time it is? My wife is a much nicer person than I am. [Laughter] ROBERT: I was friendly with Paul. I always liked him. He had been a legislator for a long time. We have a number of mutual friends, so I didn't endorse him when he ran as a Democrat. SPEAKER 1: Okay. ROBERT: He really – but I didn't endorse the Democrat either, who's running against him last time. You know, I think that on Beacon Hill, a lot of the partisan stuff is put aside most of the time. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: When the governor takes a position, very often it's partisan with the speaker or the senate president, but for the average person out there, you know, I think that you've got to have your eyes open and just kind of do what you think is the right thing and not so much what the political thing is, or what the partisan thing to do is. I think people don't really care about that a lot. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: So I didn't have a hard time working with Paul Cellucci or Bill Weld or James Swift. I got along well with Mike Dukakis too. It didn't really matter who the governor was, or the party so much, I don't think. Once they ran, you know. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: I mean you got to work with people. SPEAKER 1: So do you ever reflect on…19 ROBERT: Oh yes. SPEAKER 1: Where you are now? ROBERT: Sure, yes. I'm sure for them it was a real – I'm very lucky, you know. I know that. We were brought up, you know, our parents were there and they gave us a great education. We had a great family life, there was a lot of love there and that made all the difference. We all went to good schools. We had advantages that my grandparents never had, you know, on either side of the family, in terms of education and the ability to provide for ourselves. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: For most of us, I think it really hasn't been a struggle. And that's, you know, that's a credit to my parents and my grandparents, to set out and establish a home someplace we don't know anyone or maybe they don't even speak the language. People wouldn't think of doing that, but back then it was fairly commonplace with [unintelligible - 00:37:36]. SPEAKER 1: That… ATILLIO: No. SPEAKER 1: That – you know… ROBERT: No, I don't – you know – I don't know. I… ATILLIO: No, that's all right. Marie married… ROBERT: Right. ATILLIO: Someone with no faith. An extremely, extremely good man, don't misunderstand me. But I mean he's not – she's happy and she has beautiful children. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: So… in those days my parents were – well, probably would have been shocked by it, but I mean it's –we're not today. I think one of the big difference is that, is the outside the religious aspect of it, but my graduating class at Holy Cross in 1951, 90 percent of the fellows in that class went into the service – ninety percent. Now I 20 think that's an extremely high percentage. And also that you had handicapped people in the class that were physically unable to go into the service and things like that, or the number of fellows that went into the seminary and so forth. Today, I think you have some patriotism around because of that September 11 incident, but people just don't look at it the same way today as they did. [Unintelligible - 00:38:55] Canada to avoid going into the service, whereas at the draft, they're doing the Vietnam War where you have any number of people that were – there are a lot of changes in the world, there's no question about that. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm [unintelligible - 00:39:09] know? ROBERT: Fortunately I am. SPEAKER 1: And you? ROBERT: I think you've covered it pretty well. SPEAKER 1: [Continuation] of the interview, the senator had to leave and I have just one more question for Atillio and that is, what does it mean to be an Italian? ATILLIO: Oh gosh, what's it mean? When you talk about Italian people, the first thing that comes for me is the warmth. It comes from within the people, from within. I think they generally love other people – most definitely strong believers in the family. And Italian mothers, don't cross them or their children because no telling what would happen. There is a great love of the children in Italian families. There's strong family feelings; I grew up with strong family feelings. A week, it was – over any great period of time when we didn't see our grandparents. Fortunately that was just on my mother's side because my father – I'm just happy, I enjoy it. I [unintelligible - 00:40:31] for life, their little [unintelligible - 00:40:34] Italian wedding, you would have fun. There's no question about that. Like to party, they like to eat and drink. And they're the warm, warm people, and I've enjoyed it.21 SPEAKER 1: What for your children? ATILLIO: Well, I hope that my wife and I have gotten along extremely well. And we've lived our years together, now we'll be in July and we've had six children and happy. I would hope that they would have the same happiness that we had, but as I say, unfortunately it's a different world out there. We intended to have as many children as the good Lord sent us and he sent us six. And we've been very happy with that, but I think the – I have two daughters that have children, most of them today and been running around that everybody does today, just the frantic pace out there now, that fortunately most of us did – everybody wants and all the new cars and so, they're cheating themselves in some form, but that's their decision and they do what they have to do. My wife didn't work; when the children were older, she used to help me out in the office and so forth. But it was the same with my brother, his wife worked with the children at home. She took care of the home and – because when I was sick, my wife took care of me, and I… SPEAKER 1: To take care of each other? ATILLIO: Yes, yes. Take care of each other and take care of your family. And that was the important thing. That's about it. Oh yes, I think you've covered everything. I'm sure I'll think of a thousand things after you're gone, but… SPEAKER 1: You can certainly call. ATILLIO: But, no I'm a – as I say, as far as – I've been very happy being Italian. I've grown up with a lot of wonderful people and workers. Kevin, my cousins, they are the Ballerin sisters; they're both doctors so on, so forth. Their parents worked extremely hard [unintelligible - 00:42:49], and then she had the bakery there. They get up at [three] [unintelligible - 00:42:53], taken several trips to Italy now, and they've been friendly to us, always been warm and…22 SPEAKER 1: Your ancestral village? ATILLIO: Oh, yes, as a matter of fact last fall. SPEAKER 1: Last fall? ATILLIO: Last fall we were there. With the trip to the lakes where [unintelligible - 00:43:11] in Italy and then we went to the house of my wife, my mother was born in, in Revine Lago. And that's a swirl of mountains there. They lived in what they call 'the castle.' It was a castle [unintelligible - 00:43:29] in the center of the town – that lives there. Seventeen hundred years old. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ATILLIO: You know, last fall. My wife and I have been there before, but this is with the rest of the family. SPEAKER 1: Did you ever meet any of your cousins? ATILLIO: Oh yes. SPEAKER 1: Yes? ATILLIO: Yes, I've met many of them. Very hospitable to us when we went there last fall and so forth, having the – and they've come here and they stayed at my mother's house and… SPEAKER 1: And [unintelligible - 00:44:04] speaking, how were they different as far as lifestyle? ATILLIO: Well, I think the only difference is they don't go to the malls like we do all the time, because it's not in the large cities. They're working, they have decent jobs – well, some of them have done very well for themselves and all well dressed and they all appear to eat well – even, I'm sure that if you go up to New Hampshire from here, the people in some of those small towns lived differently than we do here in Leominster. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm, interesting. ATILLIO: That's all. SPEAKER 1: Well, okay, well, I thank you very much./AT/ee

Interview with Mary Anne Taylor and Rosemary Mazzaferro Pepin. Topics include: Memories of their grandmothers. Their parents spoke Italian. The difference between children in Italy today and children in the United States. Living close to family. The work Mary Anne and Rosemary do. What their mother is like. Italian food and cooking. Faith and going to church with their families. The importance of education, getting good grades, and going to college. Mary Ann and Rosemary went to Holy Cross. The differences in how Mary Ann and Rosemary were raised compared to their brothers. The support of their parents. Memories from living on Central Street. Growing up with their cousins nearby. What their Italian heritage means to them. The immediate impact of September 11th. Mary Anne's hair accessory business. Their parents' strong work ethic. ; 1 INTERVIEWER: …with the Center for Italian Culture at 12:55. And [unintelligible - 00:00:10] at their parents' house at 575 West Street. If you could just tell me your names, just so I can make sure this is being recorded. ROSE MARY: Rose Mary Peppin. MARYANNE: Maryanne Taylor. INTERVIEWER: Okay, now it's working. I'll be asking questions. MARYANNE: 'Cause I don't know what this is about… INTERVIEWER: Now, I'd like to -- I'll go out with, first of all, tell me a little about you grandparents if you remember them at all. MARYANNE: The only ones we could remember is our grandmothers. Both are grandfathers were passed on before we were born. Our grandmothers were elderly when we were small, right. So as far as I remember, my grandmother, my father's mother, [unintelligible - 00:00:57], she stayed at home and she cooked and took care of her family, and it was the same with my mother's mother, Carmela Guglielmi. She did pretty much the same thing. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Were they living close by to each other? Or… ROSE MARY: My dad's mother, [unintelligible - 00:01:18], she lived not far from Saint Andrew's Church. And [unintelligible - 00:01:24] about her because she passed on when I was… MARYANNE: I was eight. ROSE MARY: So I was like six. I just remember her being in the kitchen and just kind of stirring things around. I don't really have a great recollection… MARYANNE: She used to make Italian cookies. That's the one thing I remember about her. She always made the best. And she always had [unintelligible - 00:01:49] or very often when we came to visit. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember [unintelligible - 00:01:53]?2 ROSE MARY: They spoke English, but they spoke Italian with their children. They spoke English to use, but they didn't speak it very well. A bit of a broken English. Not extremely, but -- and Italian accent. MARYANNE: Broken English for sure with dad's mother is what I would always remember, and pretty good [unintelligible - 00:02:15]. ROSE MARY: Right. They would always speak Italian to each other when they didn't want us to know what they were talking about. We remember that. Do you remember that? MARYANNE: I remember that. INTERVIEWER: Your parents would speak Italian, in the house with the kids? MARYANNE: I don't remember that. But I remember with their friends that were Italian, and again, if they were explaining something that was not for the kids' ears, they would get into Italian. ROSE MARY: They would speak Italian with their parents but not with us. And not with each other, I don't think. Not with their brothers and sisters. They spoke English. INTERVIEWER: Do you ever wish that you had learned? ROSE MARY: Definitely. I have learned a little bit of Italian myself. MARYANNE: I did learn a little bit myself also. ROSE MARY: I spent a couple of years living in Italy. And so -- and at that time I could speak Italian. Not fluently, but enough to get by. But that was in the early '80s, and because nobody speaks Italian, I have forgotten just about everything. But I do very much wish that I had Italian. I'm in touch with my Italian relatives in Italy. A lot of them speak English because they learned it in school, but it would be nice to be able to speak Italian to them also. It would be easier to communicate. INTERVIEWER: Why did you live in Italy? ROSE MARY: Well, my ex-husband was in the military. He was in the Navy, and we were stationed there for two and a half years. So we were stationed in Naples, Italy. So at that time I spent a lot of time 3 visiting relatives. And I got to know them and maintain those friendships right up to today. Last summer, my son and I—my son just turned 14—we went to visit with them. And the neat thing about it is that it is hard to keep in touch with people that live in Italy because the long distance phone calls and everything. But now because of email, my son, who is 14, has a teenage cousin over there that they can email each other back and forth, and it's no more expensive than talking with your friends through email. And they can communicate on all different levels. Some of them are very good with English. Some of them are really struggling, but they all study it in school. So they are able to communicate. It's a little strained with some of them because they really have to think about what they want… INTERVIEWER: What were the years that you lived in Italy? ROSE MARY: It was 1982 to 1985. INTERVIEWER: Getting back to your son, and we will get back to the other things, I'm sorry but, your 14-year-old son. Do you see any differences between him and… ROSE MARY: The ones that live in Italy? Yes, I do. Maybe actually I don't. In some ways I think that their families are a lot closer there. I mean, we have a close family, but I think that -- for example all the cousins in Rome, they all live very close to each other, and they want to be that way. None of them want to leave Rome. They all want to be with their family and live near the family. Whereas I think these kids, they want to go off to college, they want to go live somewhere else, they want to experience things that are away. Other than that they seem very similar in a lot of ways in that they love the same things. They love rock music, they love going to the beach, they love going to the clubs, you know. 4 A lot of the Italian kids listen to American music. So they have that in common. Video games, they play video games. They have a lot of things in common. There is not drinking age in Italy. And according to all my Italian relatives there is no problem with alcohol. Alcoholism is rare in Italy. And kids wanting to drink, they are able to drink. They are able to go to bars from their early teens, pre-teens, and they aren't that interested in drinking. But they may order a drink at the age of 14 or 15 but they don't get drunk. And we did go to bars when we were visiting them last summer. They were all about the same age 14, 15, 16 to 18, and they would order a drink or two drinks at a bar, but they would never get drunk. INTERVIEWER: What about your son? ROSE MARY: My son isn't really interested in drinking. He's, you know, like I said, he just turned 14, so he was actually only 13 last summer. He would try them, just take a taste, to have the taste of the Italian liquor that, you know, we can't get here, but that's all. He wasn't really interested in drinking. He is still very young for that. MARYANNE: Something that you mentioned about the kids now, with your son and the numerous [unintelligible - 00:07:17] to my parents. I think what you said about them wanting to go experience new things, I think college and then, you know, look for different jobs than we are, I didn't have any interest in being back in Leominster. I wanted to, you know, live elsewhere and just from where college took me to different jobs. And then just 10 years later, I am back in Leominster, and you know, just the way things happened. And then, and you look at and you value the families more, I think when you do have kids. And I think with my mother and father it was just totally different world then, but they -- just the way things happened, Leominster boy meets Fitchburg girl, and they marry, 5 and everyone is from the same area. So I think that's just the change… INTERVIEWER: What do you think is the stimulus for that? MARYANNE: Education. I think the opportunity you can do whatever… ROSE MARY: And also, I think that the generation that is growing up right now [unintelligible - 00:08:22] our generation is more like my parents' generation. For example, my mother's family, my mother has three sisters and herself. She's the one that moved farthest away, moving from Fitchburg to Leominster. But her sister, one of her sisters never got married and stayed right in the house and still lives there today. You know, she has been living in the same house for 70 something years. Her other sister moved next door, built a house next door. Her other sister moved just up the street. My father's side the same way. His father and mother had a house. One of his brothers moved next door. One of his brothers moved behind the house, and the others were all kind of in the area. And the people seem to be like that still. They get married but they just move very close by. In fact, my cousins in Italy -- I don't work, we have a big family business with the plastic factory. I don't work in the family business. And my cousins in Italy had a hard time understanding that. Why, because when there is a family business in Italy, the whole family works in the family business, and it doesn't make sense to work somewhere else. They couldn't, you know -- it's a different kind of thinking. They couldn't understand that oh, well I want to do something different. INTERVIEWER: Did your parents? ROSE MARY: Oh, yes. They don't have any problem with it. Like my sister just said, she never even thought that she would come back and work in the family business. And it wasn't really a thought that we had to work in the family business growing up. We could do whatever 6 we wanted. But in Italy it's just more expected that you work in the family business. They still have that kind of thinking, I think, that, you know, they're all tied up with their families and all working together, all living close by each other. INTERVIEWER: How is it that you both ended up back in Leominster even though you didn't foresee that? MARYANNE: I went out to college and then got a journalism degree in Chicago. And then from that I was looking for jobs in the newspaper industry, and the job I got took me to Florida. So I lived in Florida for about three years and got a little discouraged with that just because of the -- it just wasn't a great fit for what I wanted to do, and the pay was not very good in Florida and also in the newspaper industry. So I started doing different sales jobs. And so I did that for a while, and then my mother was calling and saying come back, come back, and I just was -- I was happy there; I just wanted to experience life outside of the area. But then my brother, who was actually working in the family business, he was saying we really need some help in the family business doing sales. And so I thought about it and thought about the climate, because also the Florida heat was not grand. I did like the skiing and all that, so I just, I came back at that point and lived in different, lived in the area, and then lived in the Boston area for a little bit. And that's how I came back. INTERVIEWER: So then you ended up marrying someone? MARYANNE: Actually, I married someone from, who grew up in Westborough, Mass. We just met at a local health club. And we just were friends and then we got married and ended up finding a house in Leominster. And now, I actually -- well, now I don't really work in the family business, but I used to be part of it, and I bought part of the business, and it's a hair accessory business. And then -- so 7 that's still based in Leominster and is -- because it's tied into plastics, and I used [unintelligible - 00:12:12] some of the products so it just made sense that I'm here and being now 40. But even at 30 I could just see the benefit of Leominster, the town of Leominster, versus living in Boston with the traffic and all that. And it's a nice place to raise kids. So that's why I'm back here. That's the long story. INTERVIEWER: Does your husband work in the business? MARYANNE: Right before the birth of my second child he left his job to work with me, which -- it would have been a hell of a business because I couldn't do it with two kids and using daycare as we wanted, limited daycare. So he did join the business, and now the two of us are together. It's called Good Hair Days, Incorporated. INTERVIEWER: I love that name. Who thought up that name? Did you think of that name? MARYANNE: Yes. It's six years old now, and it started in 1996. INTERVIEWER: How did you end up back in Leominster? ROSE MARY: It was really just kind of by chance. I did want to come back to New England because I live in different places that didn't have any seasons. I loved the change of seasons in New England. And I just wanted to come back to New England, and it just turned out that it was convenient to live in Leominster. You know, the housing market at that time was good for me. One I got settled in, I just didn't move. INTERVIEWER: Were you still married at that time? ROSE MARY: At that time I was still married. Yes. But not now. Though it kind of worked out for me to stay in Leominster. I mean, I had a very small child, a one-year-old, on my own, so it did help to be around family. INTERVIEWER: And what business are you in? You're in real estate?8 ROSE MARY: I'm in real estate. Real estate broker, and -- no, I don't. I work at the Boss realty group in Leominster. INTERVIEWER: What's the name of it? ROSE MARY: Boss, B-O-S-S. That's my life in English, certified to be a high school, English teacher. But I haven't done it. I've actually done teaching when I was in Italy. In fact I taught English as a second language at the adult night school, which is a very fun job. When I came back here I was actually going to go into teaching, but at that time I was starting to go on my own at that time, so I went into something else where I could make a little more money. INTERVIEWER: Thought of the plastics industry? ROSE MARY: Yeah, I thought of it. I did work for a little while in it, when my son was young, but it's just not something I wanted to stay with. And I do like what I do. And it's working out well for me. INTERVIEWER: In fact, you invest in real estate property. ROSE MARY: Right. Mainly I do real estate investments. I do brokerage also but mainly I do investing. And it's been working out very well, so. I'm my own boss, which I really like. You know, I do work for a company, but as a broker you're an independent contractor, so you do your own thing pretty much, your own hours, things like that. INTERVIEWER: Your family rarely spoke about your father's mother. What can you remember about your mother's mother? ROSE MARY: Mother's mother was living until we were well into our twenties, probably mid or late twenties. 1983 is when she passed away. [Unintelligible - 00:15:32] MARYANNE: We visited, and she used to come around. She had a lot of energy, like my mother, is what I remember. Going to the Cape house, a weekend on the Cape. And I can remember going shopping. We were teenagers or adults or something, and it would be my mother, my mother's mother, and, you know, several kids. And I can 9 remember my grandmother just wearing everybody out shopping. She kept going and going. ROSE MARY: She loved to shop. MARYANNE: Picking out for her, however many grandkids she had. She just, would keep shopping. ROSE MARY: Going and going. MARYANNE: [Unintelligible - 00:16:15] Christmas tree shops and wherever else and just shop. And also she would always, whenever we visited, she would have Stella Doro cookies, and we had to take them home. No matter if we were on diets. ROSE MARY: She loved us like that. MARYANNE: You gotta eat. You gotta eat, and that's the way my mother is, too, with us, I can remember. And now with our kids, trying to eat lunch, early supper. ROSE MARY: Very religious, she went to mass every day, which my mother does now too, every morning. She would walk to church all the way up until she was well into her mid to late eighties. She would walk to church. INTERVIEWER: And what street was that that they lived on? ROSE MARY: She lived on Belmont Street, and she would walk down to Saint Anthony's Church. Actually, one year she did fall and break her hip on it. But she -- we used to visit her every Sunday. It was a regular routine every Sunday. We would go to church and then we would visit the grandmothers. One or the other or both. INTERVIEWER: Would she have a big dinner for all of you? ROSE MARY: There would be a lot of food and she would love to feed us. She would just keep offering food. And I remember one occasion when my brothers decided they wouldn't say no, they would just keep eating everything that was offered. MARYANNE: I think I remember that.10 ROSE MARY: And she never stopped offering and they just kept eating. I don't know how it finally stopped. They just couldn't do it anymore or something, but she was like that. INTERVIEWER: What was the relationship like between your mother and your grandmother? MARYANNE: They visit each other like once a week. I don't remember if they did talk every day. ROSE MARY: Yeah, they would. You know, that's what I recall, my mother calling at least every day on the phone. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any similarities between the relationship with your mother that she had with hers? ROSE MARY: Yes. Yeah. I say I see a lot of similarities between the way my mother is and her mother is. They both go to church every day, every morning. My mother, you know, they like to tell you how to raise the kids and that kind of thing. And her mother would do that to her. And Ma will do that to us, shoes and those kinds of thing. And my diet and the children's bedtime. All those things, you know. Not in a bad way. Same kind of thing. I think the grandmothers, they like to tell their daughters how to, the best way to raise their kids. MARYANNE: I've had -- you've had 14 years with it. My kids are young, 18 months and three, so. ROSE MARY: Oh, when they're little, I guess. Not as much now. And my [unintelligible - 00:19:07] loves to cook. Every time the kids come in she cooks. It doesn't matter what time it is. She gives them food, she feeds them. You know, feeding them all the time is a really important thing. Especially when they were little. She always had food for them, made a lot of pasta for them. There was always a lot of pasta when we were visiting our grandmother's. And there's a lot for our kids. 11 INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:19:35] have you tried to keep up that tradition? ROSE MARY: A little bit. Not like my mother. My mother does cook Italian food. And her mother cooked Italian food… MARYANNE: I know my mother has a meatball recipe that was given to me, and I made it. ROSE MARY: And lasagna recipes. MARYANNE: I know that Nana Mazzaferro had some kind of Italian soup that is a combination of everything [unintelligible - 00:20:02]. My father's sister has that recipe, and she makes it now and then. ROSE MARY: [Unintelligible - 00:20:10] we've taken, and [unintelligible - 00:20:12]. And I love Italian. A lot of the foods that I -- I've actually learned to cook some Italian food when I was in Italy, from my cousins, actually, or just from people that I knew. And I do have those recipes at home. And a lot of the Italian food that you can get in Italy are ingredients, you can't find them here. So, I do try to carry on, I mean, just because I enjoy it. Not really for the sake of the tradition, but I do enjoy the food. You can't, you have to go to the north end, in Boston, to find them, some of the ingredients. [Unintelligible - 00:20:51] I don't know if you ever heard of that. But that's hard to find. INTERVIEWER: What other kinds of traditions to do you try to carry on? What about church? ROSE MARY: I'm not really a regular, but you know, we do try. MARYANNE: [Unintelligible - 00:21:12] about getting there. But you know, we talk about God and Jesus. But they're only… she's only three and one and a half. So one and a half. INTERVIEWER: Whether or not you go to church, that's kind of irrelevant? ROSE MARY: Oh yes, yes. Faith is important. MARYANNE: I believe in God and I believe in teaching them about that.12 ROSE MARY: We would say our prayers every night before going to bed, and I carry that on with my son. Even at 14 he says his prayers every night. You know, we do have faith. A lot of activities. MARYANNE: I remember as a kid growing up that whenever we had -- our cousins would attend, I'd say, my mother -- when we were little I see movies. They were big movie takers, my parents, it seems. The birthday parties were celebrated. And I think we try to do that now with the grandkids. But as they get older they don't want a birthday party, so that's understandable. But for the young ones we still do get together. MARYANNE: As they get older they just want to have birthday parties with their friends. When they were little they all, we all, had birthday parties and we'd all attend. All the aunts, uncles, cousins, so. INTERVIEWER: While you were in school did she work outside of the home? ROSE MARY: Probably when we all reached about junior high school level, and not when we were in elementary school. But she worked with my father in the family business, the plastics business. That's mainly what she did. MARYANNE: I think when I was around 14 or so I think is when she went to college for the first time. So she started studying. Even as we were young kids, babies and all, she would help my dad with any of the accounting business, and just doing some paperwork after the kids were in bed. ROSE MARY: She helped my father all along. She would do paperwork and things on a fulltime basis. Once we got to the junior high school level, and then like you said, when we even got just a little bit older she went back to college. INTERVIEWER: Tell me about that, her going back to college. MARYANNE: I thought it was great. It was something that she wanted to do, and I thought it was great.13 ROSE MARY: Yeah, we thought it was something she always wanted was a college degree, and she was finally able to do it. We were all old enough to take care of us once in a while. We were all in high school. I was in high school at the time. My older brothers were in college. It certainly wasn't a burden on us, not that we couldn't get our own meal or do things like that, so. It was her first opportunity to do it. She would fall asleep at the kitchen table, I remember that, studying. MARYANNE: She'd have her book in front of her and be asleep at the kitchen table. She was doing school plus taking care of the household and the kids and all. She knew it was important, so. INTERVIEWER: What kinds of things can you -- college, was it an option? MARYANNA: Good grades or that sort of thing. ROSE MARY: If we fell below As and Bs, if we got Cs, we were, you know, we had to bring them up. We had to bring our grades up. As and Bs were fine, Cs weren't. They didn't make us crazy about it or anything, but you know, we might have to go and go for some extra help to get that C to a B at least, you know. So yeah, it was always very important that we did very well. She would look at our homework. We were all good students on our own pretty much. On our own we did it, I think. But if we were struggling at any subject she would make sure that we would get extra help and get the grade up. But for the most part we were pretty good on our own. College, yeah, college was just kind of automatically we knew we were going. MARYANNE: As long as we tried, and [unintelligible - 00:25:23] remember getting Bs and Cs, but when you are in grammar school, it's no big deal. But we would try and, like she said, we did pretty well. What I remember though, I guess when I became a teenager, I wanted to earn money and was able to work in the family business, and they sent me to work summers in packaging. And when I 14 experienced working in the packaging department it would be assembly line work, doing the same thing eight hours a day, five days a week, all summer long. I was like, "I'm not gonna do this, I'm going to college." That was my understanding. I wasn't going to stop at high school because I didn't want to work in a factory for the rest of my life. That's kind of what stuck in my mind. And then being the fifth, follow the leader kind of, it just was assumed and I wanted to go. But in retrospect I think if I had waited a year that probably would have been real good, try out different jobs and get direction, but then… INTERVIEWER: Did all of you go to Holy Cross. Did I already ask that question? ROSE MARY: Yes, we all did. INTERVIEWER: How did that… ROSE MARY: That's where they really wanted us to go, and we all just went. INTERVIEWER: Oh, because your father went there, right? ROSE MARY: Right. INTERVIEWER: Because I forgot about that. ROSE MARY: Yeah, he went there. And he's still involved in the college, so. I don't exactly know what he is on, but he's on something. MARYANNE: I think just an alumni; I don't know, like, club or something. ROSE MARY: Right, so. That's where they wanted us to go and… MARYANNE: I think it was just always a backup. I think, you know, they really wanted us to go there, but we had other choices. I don't know if in your situation, but when you got into maybe one or two schools… ROSE MARY: I think that my mother probably didn't want us to go to school in Boston. I think that would have been my choice, but she was a little was a little nervous about Boston. So we ended up at Holy Cross in Worcester, so. It really [unintelligible - 00:27:36] old-fashioned Italian. Right, right. They don't want their daughter going off to the big city. But… INTERVIEWER: Were that many other Italians there?15 ROSE MARY: Actually, no. There weren't. It was mainly Irish Catholics. But all Catholic, but Irish. I think I probably was one of the few 100 percent Italian. MARYANNE: I think I generally -- except maybe this area, that there's not a lot of Italians. ROSE MARY: By the time you get to this generation it is kind of unusual to meet someone all Italian. MARYANNE: There are a lot of French Italians in this area. But, college I don't recall anything unique about being Italian in college. There were not Italian clubs or anything like that. ROSE MARY: There were a few Italians there, but I think the majority weren't. But it really didn't matter, you know. It wasn't a problem. INTERVIEWER: So by that generation… ROSE MARY: I don't think so, no. MARYANNE: It is just having a little bit of Italian in you. ROSE MARY: [Unintelligible - 00:28:40] read the Italian menu in the Italian restaurant a little better, but no, I really -- there was really no difference. INTERVIEWER: Was it important to you? ROSE MARY: Yes, that was probably part of the reason we ended up going there. Religion has always been important. My mother's always wanted us to go to Catholic schools. You know, we started out at Catholic elementary school. Couple years there before we went to public junior high school, just because there was no Catholic junior high school. Otherwise we probably would have ended up in a Catholic junior high at that time. Then we went to a Catholic high school and a Catholic college. My mother's the one that had more to do with our education. Definitely, you know, roles, my mother, the kids in the house, my father's role was earning the money. So yes, [unintelligible - 00:29:28] she wanted… MARYANNE: My mother.16 ROSE MARY: My mother, yeah. Probably not because of Italian, just their personalities. You know… MARYANNE: And then just being home, my dad, I just remember him working all the time. ROSE MARY: Right, dad worked a lot. He was always working. So, mom was home. So mom was the one that took care of the kids. You know, made sure the homework was done. Mom was always involved with educations, whereas dad was busy working. Not that education wasn't important to him… it was, but you know, working full time doesn't leave helping kids with their homework and making sure everything gets done. INTERVIEWER: Oh, why? SPEAKER 1: Maybe it was my. INTERVIEWER: Maybe your parents had different goals. Did the children also -- were there big gender differences growing up? ROSE MARY: I think when we were younger I would feel that -- I have three brothers, and I think the girls always have to do the housework. MARYANNE: Setting the table, clearing the table… ROSE MARY: Setting the table, clearing the table, Saturday morning vacuuming, dusting, and my brothers basically didn't have to do any of that. It was just the way it was with my parents. My mother took care of the house. My father took care the outdoors. My brothers had to take the trash out and mow the lawn. But… MARYANNE: Snow blow. ROSE MARY: Snow blow the drive way. They never really did any work indoors. And yeah, I remember I used to feel that it was unfair because we seemed like we had more work to do than they did. But, I mean, they got -- they were raised that way but now that they're older and they're -- they're not that way at all. They do, you know, housework and everything else, but they were raised 17 definitely for the girls to be trained in doing this and the boys to be doing that. INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:31:14]. ROSE MARY: No. I only have one son, and I do have him do some cooking so he learns how to cook and he does some housework so he learns how to do housework. He doesn't do a lot. I mean, typical 14-year-old, right? But I do have him do some things so he'll know how to do things when he has to do them on his own. INTERVIEWER: Were their expectations different? ROSE MARY: No, I don't think so. I think we were all expected to get educated, and it just was around the house, I would say that we were definitely doing the housework. The girls, yeah. MARYANNE: Yeah, I agree with that. INTERVIEWER: What about socializing? Could you go out as much or date as much, or…? ROSE MARY: And my brothers, I think there was a lot more protection for us. We weren't allowed to do as much. MARYANNE: You're older and you remember… ROSE MARY: I was the icebreaker… ROSE MARY My older brothers Abel and Tony doing things and probably, you know, wearing down our parents a little bit, and then, you know, the first son does something and the second son wants to do this. But then when the first daughter comes along, she had [unintelligible - 00:32:29], and then by the time I came along it was like, oh okay, you know, it's okay, Maryanne did that and I can do that. But there weren't as many battles for independence. ROSE MARY: But I think when it was my turn I wasn't allowed to do things my brothers got to do at the same age, so. INTERVIEWER: Then to college. Were you expected to do certain things on the weekend? Did you -- were you expected to come home on weekends?18 MARYANNE: No. No. They never expected us to come home on weekends unless we wanted -- stay there and do whatever we want. Go to the sports events. Go to the parties. Socialize. Be involved in whatever. No, there was no pressure to come home. No, there was no pressure to marry an Italian. But I heard my father say once, "It would be nice to have one of my kids marry an Italian." But there was never any pressure. INTERVIEWER: Did that happen? Are there any Italian spouses? No. ROSE MARY: No. No. Not one. Not even part Italian, I don't think. INTERVIEWER: But did you marry in the same religion? MARYANNE: I think yes. For my mother, especially. Yeah. ROSE MARY: That didn't happen either. Not with everybody. Ed's married to a Catholic. Abel's married to a Catholic. I wasn't married to a Catholic. Three out of five. Not bad. INTERVIEWER: Do you find that important to your children to marry the same faith? ROSE MARY: No. I don't think so. I think what's more important to me is that, you know, something that's extremely different would probably be a little difficult for me just because we didn't -- take Christmas. If my son were to marry somebody that, for example, was Jewish, and didn't celebrate Christmas, and you had [unintelligible - 00:34:27] because a lot of people do. They marry somebody who's Jewish, and then he didn't celebrate Christmas anymore. It would be a little difficult, because you know, we enjoy celebrating [unintelligible - 00:34:37] holidays together, and a lot of them are based on the religion—Christmas, Easter and -- so that would be that be a little hard not to be able to celebrate those things with him anymore. But I would accept it, totally accept it if that's what he wanted, if that's what made him happy. 19 MARYANNE: Yeah. I think the person that they marry and the relationship that they have, you know, [unintelligible - 00:34:59] would react today. [Unintelligible - 00:35:03] family together. ROSE MARY: You know, my [unintelligible - 00:35:09] both my parents, you know, it's important. MARYANNE: I think that they supported us a lot. I know just like we supported each other. My brothers were active in sports, and they, you know, basketball. My brothers were in high school, the whole family would go and watch the games and that would happen frequently. They just did that. So we knew that we were important to them. In college they would drive out to the games and try to go watch the games or the games so they could watch their son or daughter. Family just was normal. INTERVIEWER: Because it didn't all get picked up. Just about your parents going to see the games. MARYANNE: With my brothers, and they would just follow the family. If it was a sporting basketball games or football games, they would drive wherever if it was going to Worcester, they would just go and watch, and they did that in college, junior high school, and grammar school and when the kids were young, the kids would go right along. So we were just together as a family. And it was just -- that was normal life for us was to go and watch the brothers and sisters play basketball. ROSE MARY: Plus they treated us all family, so there wasn't -- the family relations were always important, and we were raised and taught that from a very early age: be good to your brother, be good to your sister. Watch out for your sister, you know, watch out for your little brother, whatever, kind of thing, so. INTERVIEWER: Do you feel that's an Italian-related trait? ROSE MARY: Yes, I think so. I mean, not just Italians. I'm sure there's probably lots of groups that, you know, the family is very important. But 20 yeah, I think there are a lot of families that the family is not important at all. But I don't see that that much in Italian families. I see that the family is there. When someone has a problem everybody supports them and helps them out or whatever. And probably when we were growing up, when we were little, you know, Sundays. Sundays, it was the same routine every Sunday. Get up. Go to church. Go out to lunch after church or go to the grandmothers. And that would be the Sunday. But that's when we were little. Then when we get older, everybody's got their own activities, sports events, whatever. So everybody, once we get older, we didn't really have a special family… MARYANNE: While everyone else in was the country, we used to watch Walt Disney. I remember playing cribbage. I'd learned how to play cribbage with my dad and used to on occasion play blackjack with pennies at the kitchen table and the whole family would do that. It all kind of goes by. I mean, it just goes by in a blur. INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:38:07] important to your family? ROSE MARY: Yes. My mother wanted us all to learn to play the piano, right? So it was important that we could read music and play an instrument. INTERVIEWER: I got the impression that you quit, maybe? ROSE MARY: Oh, sure. Like every other kid. Actually, I was [unintelligible - 00:38:27] but that's how you feel when you get older, right? MARYANNE: I taught my daughter that. ROSE MARY: I know. Yeah, you can tell your daughter that. MARYANNE: Yeah, and expose her. She wanted to expose us to different things, and my dad also would as we got older, he'd want to take us to a different restaurant, and [unintelligible - 00:38:42] something unusual. Just -- and have a well-rounded background. And always the one thing and then Maryanne and I, we just left them. But we continued with it to the point where we wanted to. It wasn't like they expected us to perform or the same thing with piano. If we 21 had natural ability, great. But there was some exposure. And, you know, I'm glad about that. INTERVIEWER: How did they make each of you feel special? [Unintelligible - 00:39:19] But, I mean, think of it, five kids. ROSE MARY: We used to all feel special. Gee, how did that happen? Well, I think that if we did something that deserved a compliment, we would get a compliment. I don't think that they ever praised us when we didn't deserve any praise, but they would, you know, say things like better, or I would expect something better from you or something like that. MARYANNE: I can just think of some specifics. Just little compliments that when you get to the age that -- and this would be probably in the mid to late ' 60 where my mother had [unintelligible - 00:40:08] home from school and then I could go run to the post office and then she could just drop me off and I'd run do that and say, "Oh, good little helper." INTERVIEWER: But just like little things like that? ROSE MARY: Right. Yeah, little compliments here and there, you know. I always made my bed in the morning and put all my things away. I'd hear, you know, that you're always as neat as a pin, you know, or things like that, just little -- on everyday kind of activities, every day, everyday things. MARYANNE: Didn't realize when it was happening, but now you think back… ROSE MARY: Right. Right. Exactly. You just have to think about what did they do to make me feel special. INTERVIEWER: Can you think of anything. a big event that stands out in your mind? Just little everyday things that add up over time. What's your hardest experience growing up? ROSE MARY: I'm trying to think, my hardest experience. MARYANNE: I have to get going in a short while because I'm away from work.22 INTERVIEWER: Okay. MARYANNE: Is there something that you wanted to ask specifically? INTERVIEWER: I want to ask about Central Street. How long did you live there? ROSE MARY: I was eight when we moved out. MARYANNE: So that was 1960… ROSE MARY: Seven. August of '67 is when we moved here. I remember we had not moved in. I had my 6th birthday party here before we moved in because we moved in, in August, so. MARYANNE: I remember running around in the backyard at Central Street and my aunt lived over the hill in the backyard, and running over there. I don't remember a whole lot being that age. INTERVIEWER: Italians living around here? ROSE MARY: Yeah. I think at that time there were a lot of Italians in that area. And our aunt, again, lived right behind us. And I had a uncle that lived just a little ways across the street, down the street a little bit. I remember a lot about living on Central Street because I was a little bit older. It wasn't like a heart-wrenching thing to move or anything, it was actually a very tiny little house, and my parents [unintelligible - 00:42:17] one child. When they moved out they had five children. INTERVIEWER: So a small… ROSE MARY: It was a very small ranch, and we were very crowded in there. And I can remember my mother just constantly arranging the furniture. Everything was like it happened all the time to me, but it probably didn't happen that often. Just trying to fit things in, you know, having to move the boys to another bedroom, because now there's three boys, and that's what I remember. So it wasn't -- we really needed a bigger house. So when we moved here, it was amazing. This house is three times bigger than the other one, and we had just one bathroom at that house. And there was five children and two adults living there. 23 So we have four bathrooms here. And I remember the first time I went to the bathroom, I had a hard time deciding where to go, which one to use. It was like I never had a choice before. But it wasn't an upsetting event or anything. It wasn't hard. It was really exciting. It was really exciting to move into a bigger house. Maybe I was nine years old when we moved. But I do remember being very crowded at that house. It was a three-bedroom ranch. One bedroom was used as an office for my father because at that time he was doing a lot of CPA work, so it was really just two bedrooms. MARYANNE: And my parent's bedroom was the living room. You walk in the front door and that was their bedroom. ROSE MARY: And my parents used the living room as their bedroom. And my brothers, for a while, they were out on this addition, which was like a porch but it was like a three-season porch. It was heated, but it was my brother's bedroom for a while and then we rearranged the whole house again, and you know… INTERVIEWER: Maybe we don't remember just the feeling that you had living in that neighborhood compared to this. ROSE MARY: Right. MARYANNE: Maybe that house wasn't even built before. I don't know. ROSE MARY: Yeah. I guess I remember that neighborhood really knowing everybody—mom, the kids. I could go door to door there. In this neighborhood, it took a while for meet people, and I didn't know, I don't even know the young people next door, but I might know the people two doors down or three doors down because they had kids. But in that neighborhood, I can remember back to when she was very little and she started to walk, now she must have been one. I can remember taking her for a walk around the whole 24 neighborhood, going from door to door to door, because I knew all the neighbors and showing them her. MARYANNE: I was her baby. ROSE MARY: She was my baby, right, and she was walking. You probably were a year old because it was summertime, and you were born in August. You were probably just a year because I was probably like three and a half, so. And that's the kind of neighborhood it was. I mean, I knew all the mothers. I knew all the kids. It was very safe. Can you imagine letting a three-and-a-half-year-old take a one-year-old for a walk now? But I did. . MARYANNE: There weren't a lot of houses though, I mean, it was… ROSE MARY: No. MARYANNE: It was Basset Street, which was just Aunt Eva's house. ROSE MARY: Right. MARYANNE: I don't know if you know that area, but with the [unintelligible - 00:45:19] is. INTERVIEWER: Your mother took me a long time ago. MARYANNE: It's a very short street, and then there's Christie Street, which probably at the time there was only about six houses on there. MARYANNE: Yeah, most of the houses are [unintelligible - 00:45:30]. ROSE MARY: Now, it's much further developed. MARYANNE: But still, I would never allow my three-year old out of sight… ROSE MARY: Right. And I was completely out of sight from the house. I mean, you couldn't see where I was from our house was. Yeah, [unintelligible - 00:45:47] in those days, or in that neighborhood. INTERVIEWER: You must have cousins, right? ROSE MARY: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: That are living, that grew up in Leominster in that small neighborhood… ROSE MARY: There's no differences between myself and my cousins and my father, probably the only one in his family that went to college, 25 right, I think? No. There's a big difference in the way, you know, his brothers lived compared to him. But I think their kids, for the most part, have gotten, you know, my cousins have gotten education and jobs, and you know, we're all living about the same. I mean, some people have more, some people have less. There isn't a big difference between myself and my cousins, but there is a difference my parents and their siblings and cousins. INTERVIEWER: How about growing up? MARYANNE: Every kid growing up, we just were playing with our cousins ,and what my dad did and their dad did didn't really -- we used to be able to play hide and seek a lot more, run around in the yard. ROSE MARY: Right. There was no judgment at all. And I don't think we really noticed a difference when we were growing up. It's true that we did, we probably the biggest house, but I don't think we had more than my cousins. We probably had the same amount. We didn't have better clothes or better toys or anything. We had about the same. You know, the kids all had about the same. We didn't have more clothes and more toys because my parents had more, but we probably did live in a bigger house. But kids I don't think noticed that as much. I don't remember noticing any difference. I think that actually my parents are very successful, but when we were growing up, they were building their business and they were building up their [unintelligible - 00:47:30], you know, so I think that a lot of money they had was really tied up in the business. So it never felt like we had a lot of money. I mean, it felt like we had everything we needed. We were perfectly comfortable. We had some luxury items, you know, my family had some luxury items, but I never really felt like we were rich or anything like that. I mean, I don't [unintelligible - 00:47:50]. But I never really felt 26 that, I mean, but the house, yeah, you might say that, you know, we would know that. But I think that a lot of money was always tied up. And probably when we got into our 20s, it seemed like suddenly that they had more money, because I think at that time, the businesses really just boomed, and that's like 20 years ago. But by that time we were already grown, you know, and on our own. Half of us were on our own, at least. Other than we had the big house where we usually the holiday parties were here and everything. Yeah, there was a tennis court. I guess that would make us seem like we had a lot. But it was different in those days, too. I mean, it was just a hard top, but it wasn't -- it wasn't beautifully sealed and painted and striped and fenced in. It wasn't. It was just like a black top. Really, it had a tennis net going across it, but it wasn't as nice then as it is now. We would just ride our bikes on it. We would play chicken. MARYANNE: Chicken, four square. ROSE MARY: Yeah. You had -- we didn't use it for tennis that much. I mean, a little bit but… MARYANNE: When we got older we did. ROSE MARY: Yeah. And then we'd just ride our bikes out there. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So [unintelligible - 00:49:13] a hard question? MARYANNE: It's really not something that I think about. You know what, I'm just who I am, and I have to think family is important to me. But my husband, who's French, and his family is very close too. So I don't see a difference… SPEAKER 5: Only your kids are too young. They wouldn't even know. ROSE MARY: My son, you know, probably considers himself Italian. He's half Italian, because I'm 100 percent Italian, but the other half is a lot of 27 different things. He says he's half Italian, you know. Plus that we've been to Italy and he has formed a bond with his cousins in Italy. Been there twice, so. He likes his Italian heritage. MARYANNE: I could see that, but first I have my own business and I have friends, so I scramble every day for time. So I would want to take care of both of those things first and as they grow, I can see myself doing some of that, but not to the extent that she does. Traveling -- she's what, 79? But to see them and be part of their lives. ROSE MARY: For me, I probably just see myself, I'd say, would have more time on my hands and do some volunteer work. Probably not to that same extent, 'cause my mother has a lot of energy. But I do see myself doing some things, yeah, definitely. When I have more time. I think that Leominster's very worthwhile. I don't have time to enjoy it, you know. I like the open land that we're trying to preserve through the Open Land of Leominster. I think that's really being developed, and we've really wiped out all our open space. So we're down to our last apple orchard, which at least we've saved. You probably know about Sowan Farms? I'm very glad that we saved that. It was one apple orchard, one apple farm. So I can see myself getting involved in things like that, plus the Historical Society of Leominster does a lot to teach people about Leominster's past, which I guess the city's changing a lot, it's really developing. Something like that. Right now, like I said, I'm totally consumed with work and being a single parent and not just having much time for anything, but as things get easier, my son gets older, I have more time, maybe I can be involved with the Center for Italian Culture. Actually, I love Italy. I've spent some time there and I've traveled back a couple of times. I do speak some Italian, but like I said, I've lost it over 28 the years, but I would love to get it back so that when I go to Italy and visit I can have a little… INTERVIEWER: To have a Center for Italian Culture? ROSE MARY: No, it's preserve history for the future generation. INTERVIEWER: Do you feel that way? MARYANNE: Yeah, I think so. I think it's good. I don't know a whole lot about what's being done, but I think it's good that people will have questions. The next generation, a terrible tragic thing that happened for the whole country. I think there's [unintelligible - 00:52:52] in the paper last night about dollars this anti-terrorism campaign is costing. I have a lot of customers in New York, and they were greatly affected. And everywhere, it touched everyone in the world, something like that happening. ROSE MARY: That thing, I feel, is very heartbreaking to imagine happening. It has changed, probably, my activities a little bit as far as going on vacation this year and getting on a plane. I don't feel it's a very good job of wiping out terrorism. We haven't done it yet completely. MARYANNE: It did make me think about family quite a bit more because I've passed on two opportunities to fly since then, and I weigh what to do, and one would be -- oh, and they were both for business -- but if it was just a decision about going on vacation somewhere, then I look at what my first job is, and it's to stay alive and raise my kids. The business, I'm going to do all that I can by phone and email and websites, and I'm going to avoid traveling until things are better. But then it can change at any time. They might change later, but I don't have a desire to getting in an airplane. ROSE MARY: Plus, actually, my oldest brother lives in New York City and when we first heard the news, of course we didn't know, and it was a while before we could get through on the phone because all of the 29 phone lines were jammed up to find out that he was actually traveling on business that day. MARYANNE: Actually, he traveled the day before, flew To California on the Monday. ROSE MARY: Right. He was nowhere around. He doesn't work in the building, but he does go by that train station, right? He gets off the train there every day. So I mean, the first initial reaction to hear that was, "Is he okay?" And the panic, you know, and then to find out that he's okay, but then to think about all the people that found out that their family members were gone, too. INTERVIEWER: How did you get the idea for the hair accessories? I realize the family owned the plastics business, so… MARYANNE: Well, I worked at Cardinal Comb & Brush, and they made combs, a couple of brushes, and they had some hair accessories. I did a lot of different things there, but I worked in sales and I created a hair accessory product that did quite well, and it sort of opened my eyes, because the hair accessory portion of Cardinal Comb was very small. And after that product did real well, I started thinking, "Oh, I should create other products," and this and that, but the products that I was creating were of a better quality, more upscale, and the combs that Cardinal were making were more -- good-quality but much lower in cost. It just was something -- I didn't think about having my own business, but it just kind of happened. My brother had said, "Oh, why don't you take a hair accessory business and do this and that," and it just worked out. So we talked about it, we figured out what to do and we made the deal. They continued to manufacture the plastic for me, and probably 1994 that the product got started, and at the time there was a product called Topsy-Tail, which was that you make a 30 ponytail and you put this little plastic needle with a loop. That just opened my eyes more. INTERVIEWER: So that wasn't your product… MARYANNE: That wasn't my product, no, but suddenly the whole marketplace was looking at hair accessories as something. So after the product I created did well in '94, we just started talking, and by '95 we had decided to split that portion of the business, and that's when the hair things got started in January of '96. It was called the French Twist kit, and what it did was it combined some really handmade side combs with hairpins in one package, and then on the back gave very detailed instructions and illustrations of how to put your hair into a French Twist. That's really the product that sold in many different markets, and from that I said, "Oh wow. You should keep doing more." INTERVIEWER: About the products, called, are they Good Hair Days? MARYANNE: The name Good Hair Days is on all the packaging, and there's another brand called Grip-Tuth, which are these handmade combs I'm talking about. So there's always Good Hair Days on the card, but in some products there's Grip-Tuth as well. Some of the products are sold without the name; they're just plastic parts that are sold in the bridal industry or the craft industry by the designers. They're taking the combs and putting them… INTERVIEWER: Right now, who owns the company? MARYANNE: Well, I'm the President of the company. I do the sales and marketing of our new products. Whatever it takes. Production -- my husband now is doing production, shipping, all the day-to-day paperwork you know. Payables, receivables. And we have someone who works part-time for us. I know, we have a running joke. It's like, "So, good morning! How was your weekend?" But we get along. We're probably -- few. We get along, we laugh with each other. 31 We actually value the time with our kids. I was lucky I was able to bring my daughter into the office and take care of her, and she didn't start daycare until she was 15 months. I would take care of her, work the phones. I had a playpen set up in the office. She'd fall asleep, take a nap, I'd run out and do shipping or whatever needed doing. So that's very fortunate; may people have to put their kids in daycare. I kind of set up home, also, to work, so I was able to put time in the office and time at home. Technology today is great because you get messages, you get paged; you can take care of business on your own hours and in between diaper changes. INTERVIEWER: You both live in Leominster? ROSE MARY: I live on the other side, right neat Lancaster. MARYANNE: I live probably, like, a mile, two miles, a mile and a half or so down this way. I think what I've gotten from him, if that answers the question, is they both have a very strong work ethic. What I remember about my dad is that he was always leaving, going to work on Saturday mornings. It was like a, "Where are you going?" kind of thing, and just doing what it takes. And Mom would do everything it took in the house so they wouldn't need to do anything, and they worked and take care of -- hardworking, and that would be one thing I want to carry on. ROSE MARY: Both had a lot of integrity. Honesty, integrity. MARYANNE: And work integrity. Honesty. That sort of thing. INTERVIEWER: Tell me about… MARYANNE: I couldn't even think of what you asked to begin with. INTERVIEWER: Well, thank you very much. ROSE MARY: Okay, you're more than welcome. INTERVIEWER: It's hard to do./AT/pa/cs/mfb/es

Tradicionalmente solo las grandes empresas se han vinculado a las Bolsas de Valores para la negociación de sus acciones y demás títulos valores emitidos por ellas. Por consiguiente los requisitos para las cotizaciones y, en general, para las transacciones se han fijado según sus características. Sin embargo, existe una nueva realidad económica que impone la necesidad de abrirle espacio a las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (MIPYMES) en el mercado bursátil. Esta realidad esta compuesta por los siguientes hechos: • Este tamaño de empresas ha tomado una gran importancia en la estructura productiva del país. • Las pequeñas y medianas empresas industriales tienen gran potencial exportador. Tienen importantes requerimientos financieros que no se pueden satisfacer exclusivamente en el sistema bancario, ya sea por los costos, por los plazos o por los montos ofrecidos. • Poco a poco se rompe la resistencia al cambio así como al temor de los pequeños y medianos empresarios a dar a conocer su información con la sospecha de darles gabelas a la competencia. • El favorable tratamiento a las acciones. En estas condiciones, la Superintendencia de Valores ha planteado la conformación de un mercado paralelo al tradicional (o primer mercado) que se denomina "Segundo mercado" o "Mercado Balcón", al cual pueden acceder los títulos valores de micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (MIPYMES) para inducirlas a una ampliación de la oferta de títulos, en beneficio del ahorro y la inversión. Las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (MIPYMES), son aquellas que se definen a partir del tamaño de su planta de personal y del tamaño de sus activos ( medidos en salarios mínimos vigentes S.M.L.V ), según la ley MIPYME ( LEY 590 de Julio 10 de 2000. Las MIPYMES representan el 96 % de las empresas existentes en el país, éstas contribuyen con el 63 % del empleo nacional, con el 25 % del PIB, con el 25 % de las exportaciones totales y con el 50 % de los salarios generados de la nación. Los problemas que en general enfrentan las MIPYMES son los siguientes: Acceso limitado al financiamiento y en condiciones desfavorables, deficiencias de administración de sus unidades productivas, complicados procesos de legalización y falta de liderazgo gremial, se presentan disgregados, lo cual ocasiona desinformación de las medidas del gobierno. Con la presente investigación y teniendo en cuenta el marco conceptual anterior, se trata de responder a las preguntas siguientes: 1- ¿ Cómo facilitar a las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (MIPYMES) el acceso al capital en condiciones favorables de manera que les permita desarrollar sus proyectos ? 2- ¿ Es el Mercado Balcón, el medio efectivo que ofrece el Mercado Público de Valores, como alternativa de financiamiento para las MIPYMES en Colombia ? 3- ¿ La actual legislación sobre la promoción y participación de las MIPYMES en el mercado de capitales del país, ofrece garantías de participación y desarrollo en ese mercado ? ; Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM); Corporación Universitaria Autónoma de Occidente ; INTRODUCCIÓN 19 1. MARCO DE REFERENCIA 23 1.1 ANTECEDENTES 23 1.2 DESCRIPCIÓN DEL PROBLEMA 25 1.3 FORMULACIÓN DEL PROBLEMA 26 1.4 JUSTIFICACIÓN DEL PROYECTO 26 1.5 OBJETIVOS DE LA INVESTIGACIÓN 26 1.5.1 Objetivo general 26 1.5.2 Objetivos específicos 27 1.6 MARCO METODOLÓGICO 27 1.6.1 Fuentes de información 27 1.7 MARCO CONCEPTUAL 27 1.7.1 El mercado público de valores 27 1.7.1.1 Ventajas que ofrece el mercado público de 27 valores. 28 1.7.1.2 Definición de inversión 29 1.7.1.2.1 Rentabilidad de la inversión 30 1.7.1.3 Superintendencia de valores 31 1.7.1.4 Registro nacional de valores e intermediarios 32 de la superintendencia de valores. 32 1.7.1.5 Títulos valores 33 1.7.1.5.1 Circulación de los títulos valores. 34 1.7.1.5.2 Clases de endosos 34 1.7.1.5.3 Títulos valores en los cuales se puede invertir 34 1.7.1.5.3.1 Acciones 36 1.7.1.5.3.1.1 Tipos de acciones 37 1.7.1.5.3.1.2 Características de la acción 38 1.7.1.5.3.1.3 Función económica de la acción 38 1.7.1.5.3.1.4 Ventajas que otorga la acción 39 1.7.1.5.4 Bonos y papeles comerciales 39 1.7.1.5.5 Sociedades y tipos de títulos que puede emitir 40 1.7.1.5.6 Pagos a seguir para emitir valores 40 1.7.1.5.7 Exigencias de la superintendencia de valores 40 para autorizar una oferta 40 1.7.1.5.8 Otras opciones de emisión de títulos valores los 41 inversionistas. 42 1.7.1.5.8.1 Inscripción anticipada 42 1.7.1.5.8.2 Segundo mercado 42 1.7.1.5.9 Requisitos especiales que las empresas 44 inversionistas deben cumplir para emitir títulos valores. 44 1.7.1.5.10 Inversionistas institucionales 46 46 1.7.1.5.10.1 Sociedades fiduciarias 46 1.7.1.5.10.2 Operaciones permitidas 47 1.7.1.5.10.3 Operaciones prohibidas 48 1.7.1.5.10.4 Operaciones prohibidas con los recursos del fondo común ordinario. 48 1.7.1.5.10.5 Posibles inversiones 1.7.1.5.10.6 Con recursos propios 1.7.1.5.10.7 Con recursos del fideicomiso 1.7.1.5.10.8 Con recursos del fondo común 1.7.1.5.10.9 De que pueden ser dueños 1.7.1.5.10.10 Posibles inversiones 49 1.7.1.5.10.11 Sociedades administradoras de fondos de pensiones y de cesantías 49 1.7.1.5.10.11.1 Operaciones permitidas 49 1.7.1.5.10.11.2 Operaciones prohibidas 50 1.7.1.5.10.11.3 Posibles inversiones 1.7.1.5.10.11.4 De que pueden ser dueños 1.7.1.5.10.12 Fondos mutuos de inversión 1.7.1.5.10.12.1 Características 1.7.1.5.10.12.2 Objetivos socio – económicos 51 1.7.1.6 Bolsas de valores 51 1.7.1.6.1 Orígenes de las bolsas de valores 52 1.7.1.6.2 Funcionamiento de la bolsa de valores 53 1.7.1.6.3 Características de las bolsas de valores 54 1.7.1.6.4 Funciones de la bolsa 55 1.7.1.6.5 Importancia de las bolsas en el desarrollo económico del país 55 1.7.1.6.6 Inicio de las bolsas de valores en Colombia 1.7.1.6.6.1 ¿Qué razones motivaron la integración de las bolsas de valores de Bogotá, Medellín y Occidente? 1.7.1.6.6.2 ¿Qué beneficios traerá la integración para Colombia, el mercado bursátil, los emisores y los inversionistas? 55 1.7.1.6.6.3 ¿Para qué sirve? 56 1.7.1.7 Compra y venta de títulos valores 56 1.7.1.8 Indicadores bursátiles 57 1.7.1.9 Indicadores para el mercado de renta fija 59 1.7.1.10 Indicadores económicos más utilizados 59 1.7.1.11 Escala de calificación de valores 59 1.7.1.11.1 Escala de certificación para títulos a largo y corto plazo. 60 1.7.2 Matriz para la formulación de estrategia. 62 1.8 MARCO TEÓRICO 64 1.8.1 Teoría Q de la inversión 65 1.8.2 Aspectos generales de la teoría de la valuación de las acciones. 65 1.8.2.1 Valuación de acciones comunes 65 1.8.2.1.1 Crecimiento nulo de los dividendos 67 1.8.2.1.2 Crecimiento constante de los dividendos 68 1.8.2.1.3 Valuación de las acciones con base en el valor futuro de la acción 68 1.8.3 Otras teorías generales sobre costo de emisión y el costo de capital. La estructura óptima de capital 70 1.9 MARCO JURÍDICO 71 1.9.1 Código de comercio 72 1.9.2 Decreto 400 de mayo 22 de 1995 73 1.9.3 Decreto 1200 de diciembre de 1995 75 1.9.4 Ley 590 de 2000 76 2. EXPERIENCIA DE SEGUNDOS MERCADOS EN EL MUNDO 78 2.1 FRANCIA 79 2.2 ESPAÑA 79 2.3 INGLATERRA 79 2.4 VENEZUELA 79 2.4.1 Importancia de la PYMI en el desarrollo económico y social 82 2.4.2 Componentes esenciales para incorporar las PYME al mercado de capitales 82 2.5 COSTA RICA 84 2.6 MÉXICO 85 2.6.1 Antecedentes 87 2.6.2 Definición 87 2.6.3 Propósito 88 2.6.4 Participantes 89 2.6.5 Requisitos de inscripción y mantenimiento 89 2.6.6 Procedimiento para la inscripción de acciones 90 2.6.7 Sistema de operación 90 2.6.8 Reglas básicas de operación 91 2.6.9 Suspensión de operaciones 91 2.6.10 Suspensión de registros 91 2.6.11 Índice de precios 92 2.6.11.1 Expresión matemática 92 2.6.12 Instituciones reguladoras 93 2.6.13 Marco jurídico y normativo 94 2.7 PORTUGAL 94 2.7.1 Requisitos para la emisión de títulos valores 94 2.7.2 Requisitos para la emisión de acciones 95 2.7.3 Requisitos para la emisión de bonos 95 3. CARACTERÍSTICAS PROPIAS DEL SEGUNDO MERCADO 96 3.1 GENERALIDADES 96 3.2 INVERSIONISTAS CALIFICADOS 96 3.3 TÍTULOS A NEGOCIAR 96 3.4 DOCUMENTOS REQUERIDOS PARA HACER PARTE DEL SEGUNDO MERCADO 97 3.5 EL PROSPECTO 98 3.6 PROCESO DE OFERTA PÚBLICA 101 3.6.1 Autorización de la oferta por parte de la superintendencia de valores. 101 3.6.2 Inicio del proceso promocional a través de comisionistas de bolsa, dirigido a potenciales inversionistas poniendo a disposición, información sobre la empresa emisora. 101 3.7 PROCESO DE OFERTA PRIVADA 102 3.8 PERIODICIDAD DE ENVIO DE INFORMACIÓN EN EL SEGUNDO MERCADO 103 3.9 CUADROS COMPARATIVOS ENTRE EL MERCADO PRINCIPAL Y EL SEGUNDO MERCADO 104 3.10 DERECHOS DE INSCRIPCIÓN Y LOS VALORES DE CUOTAS QUE DEBEN CANCELAR LOS EMISORES DEL SEGUNDO MERCADO. 104 3.10.1 Derechos de inscripción 104 3.10.2 Valor de las cuotas 104 3.10.2.1 Costos comparativos al emitir acciones y bonos 105 3.10.3 Periodo de liquidación 105 3.10.4 Derechos por reasignación de oferta pública 106 3.11 INTERMEDIARIOS FINANCIEROS 106 3.11.1 Sociedades comisionistas 107 3.11.1.1 Operaciones permitidas 108 3.11.1.2 Operaciones que pueden realizar por cuenta en el mercado primario. 108 3.11.1.3 Límites de estas operaciones 109 3.11.1.4 Operaciones que pueden realizar por cuenta en el mercado secundario 109 3.11.1.4.1 Segundo mercado 109 3.11.1.4.1.1 Inversionistas que participan 3.11.1.4.1.2 Títulos que pueden emitirse 109 3.11.1.4.2 Principios generales que se deben cumplir cuando se realizan estas operaciones 110 3.11.1.4.3 Límites que deben cumplir estas operaciones 110 3.11.1.5 Posibles inversiones 111 3.11.1.6 Inversiones prohibidas 111 3.11.2 Sociedades administradoras de inversión 112 3.11.2.1 Operaciones permitidas 112 3.11.2.2 Posibles inversiones 112 3.11.2.3 Límites de las administradoras de inversión 113 3.11.3 Sociedades fiduciarias 114 3.11.4 Banca de inversión 114 3.11.4.1 Actividades principales de la banca de inversión 115 4. EXPERIENCIA DEL SEGUNDO MERCADO EN SANTIAGO DE CALI 115 4.1 EXPERIENCIA DE LA BOLSA DE VALORES DE COLOMBIA 115 4.1.1 Motivos de la poca efectividad del segundo mercado en Santiago de Cali 115 4.1.1.1 Motivos Operativos 116 4.1.1.2 Motivos macroeconómicos 117 4.1.1.3 Motivos mesoeconómicos 117 4.1.1.4 Motivos macroeconómicos 119 4.1.1.5 Motivos del mercado 119 4.1.1.6 Motivos coyunturales Valle del Cauca 121 5. PLAN ESTRATÉGICO Y MERCADEO PARA LA REACTIVACIÓN DEL SEGUNDO MERCADO 121 5.1 CARACTERÍSTICAS GENERALES DEL ENTORNO DE LAS MIPYME EN SANTIAGO DE CALI 125 5.1.1 Entorno económico 126 5.1.1.1 Crecimiento económico 126 5.1.1.2 Comportamiento del sector industrial en el Valle del Cauca 127 5.1.1.3 Comportamiento del comercio en la ciudad de Cali, primer trimestre de 2000 128 5.1.1.4 Inversión neta de capitales en sociedades de Cali, enero – mayo de 2000 132 5.1.1.4.1 Índice de desempeño patrimonial de las sociedades de Cali 132 5.1.1.4.2 Concordatos 132 5.1.1.5 La inflación en Cali 133 5.1.1.6 Sector Externo 134 5.1.1.7 Política fiscal 135 5.1.2 Tamaño del mercado 140 5.1.3 Fuentes de financiación 141 5.1.3.1 Entidades (actores) públicas financieras 143 5.1.3.2 Entidades (actores) privadas financieras 143 5.1.3.3 Entidades (actores) públicas no financieras 149 5.1.3.4 Entidades (actores) privadas no financieras 151 5.1.3.5 La ley MIPYME y el entorno favorable a la creación 152 5.1.3.6 de nuevas empresas en Colombia. 160 5.1.3.7 Productividad 160 5.1.3.8 Tasas de Interés de colocación y captación 161 5.1.3.9 Entorno legal 161 5.1.4 Cultura bursátil 161 5.1.5 Entorno competitivo 161 5.1.5.1 Amenaza de nuevos entrantes 164 5.1.5.2 Poder del cliente 166 5.1.5.3 Amenazas de productos sustitutos 169 5.1.5.4 Poder de los proveedores 169 5.1.5.5 Rivalidad entre competidores 169 5.2 ANÁLISIS INTERNO 171 5.2.1 Definición de segundo mercado 171 5.2.2 Portafolio de servicios 173 5.2.3 Difusión 174 5.2.4 Dirección y manejo 174 5.2.5 Operación 174 5.2.6 Recursos 175 5.3 DIAGNÓSTICO 175 5.3.1 Oportunidades y amenazas 175 5.3.1.1 Amenazas 176 5.3.1.2 Oportunidades 176 5.3.1.3 Matriz de evaluación del factor externo (EFE) 176 5.3.2 Fortalezas y debilidades 177 5.3.2.1 Debilidades 177 5.3.2.2 Fortalezas 177 5.3.2.3 Matriz de evaluación del factor interno (EFI) 177 5.3.3 Matriz TOWN (DOFA) 177 5.4 PLAN ESTRATÉGICO Y DE MERCADO 178 5.4.1 Objetivo del plan estratégico y de mercado 179 5.4.1.1 Objetivo general 179 5.4.1.2 Objetivos específicos 179 5.4.2 Estrategias y programas 179 5.4.2.1 Disminución de costos 180 5.4.2.2 Fondo de garantías 182 5.4.2.3 Emisiones conjuntas 182 5.4.2.4 Vinculación de los inversionistas al segundo mercado. 182 5.4.2.4.1 Inversión del 1% de utilidades 182 5.4.2.4.2 Market makers 183 5.4.2.5 Captación de MYPIMES con apoyo de gremios y asociaciones. 183 5.4.2.5.1 Difusión y sensibilización de MIPYMES 184 5.4.2.5.2 Difusión y sensibilización a inversionistas institucionales 190 5.4.2.5.3 Capacitación y seguimiento a MIPYMES 196 5.4.3 Control 200 5.4.4 Cronograma de actividades 204 5.4.5 Caso práctico de apalancamiento (endeudamiento), con emisión de acciones o acudir a la consecución de pasivos. 207 CONCLUSIONES RECOMENDACIONES BIBLIOGRAFÍA ENTREVISTAS ANEXOS 208 ; Maestría ; Traditionally, only large companies have been linked to the Stock Exchanges to negotiate their shares and other securities issued by them. Consequently, the requirements for quotes and, in general, for transactions have been set according to their characteristics. However, there is a new economic reality that imposes the need to open space to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MIPYMES) in the stock market. This reality is composed of the following facts: • This size of companies has become very important in the country's productive structure. • Small and medium-sized industrial companies have great export potential. They have important financial requirements that cannot be satisfied exclusively in the banking system, either due to costs, terms or the amounts offered. • Little by little, the resistance to change is broken, as well as the fear of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs to disclose their information with the suspicion of giving away to the competition. • The favorable treatment of the shares. Under these conditions, the Superintendency of Securities has proposed the formation of a market parallel to the traditional (or first market) called "Second market" or "Balcón Market", which can be accessed by the securities of micro, small and medium-sized companies (MIPYMES) to induce them to expand the supply of securities, for the benefit of savings and investment. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MIPYMES) are those that are defined based on the size of their staff and the size of their assets (measured in current minimum wages SMLV), according to the MIPYME law (LAW 590 of July 10 from 2000. MSMEs represent 96% of the existing companies in the country, they contribute 63% of national employment, 25% of GDP, 25% of total exports and 50% of wages generated from the nation. The problems faced by MSMEs in general are the following: Limited access to financing and under unfavorable conditions, deficiencies in the administration of their production units, complicated legalization processes and lack of union leadership, are disaggregated, which causes misinformation of the measures of the government. With the present investigation and taking into account the previous conceptual framework, the aim is to answer the following questions: 1- How to facilitate access to capital under favorable conditions for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) so that they can develop their projects? 2- Is the Balcón Market, the effective means offered by the Public Securities Market, as a financing alternative for MIPYMES in Colombia? 3- Does the current legislation on the promotion and participation of MSMEs in the country's capital market offer guarantees of participation and development in that market?

Part one of an interview with Julia Casey. Topics include: Julia's service as a clerk stenographer in the Civil Service Commission. Family history. Her parents came from Italy; her father was from Crenna and her mother was from Milan. The arranged marriage between her parents and their immigration to the United States. Her grandfather's work at a gas company in Italy. Her relatives worked in an embroidery business in Massachusetts. What it was like for Julia to grow up in Boston. Speaking proper Italian. What their neighborhood in Boston was like. The social club nearby. The foods people cooked and ate. The Christmas traditions of her family. How to prepare and serve polenta. Celebrations for patron saints. ; 1 LINDA: Okay. JULIA: All right. LINDA: So why don't I just start by saying this is Linda Rosenlund with the Center for Italian Culture at Fitchburg State College. It's Wednesday, November 16th, 2002. We're at the home of Julia Casey at 700 Pearl Street in Fitchburg. And Julia is just filling out the biographical information sheet, but I decided to turn the recorder on because she has some interesting anecdotes while she is writing. So she was just about to fill out the work history portion, and she began telling me that she worked for the War Department Chemical Warfare Services in Washington, DC, and you started 10 days after Pearl Harbor. JULIA: Yes. I had -- after high school, I had gone—and it's not noted here—to the stenotype school in Boston. And in the course of learning, they sent us to take a Civil Service Examination since [stenotypee] is a type, is machine shorthand. And in October, I took the [unintelligible - 00:01:13] Civil Service Examination in Boston, and then when the war broke out, I received a telegram to report to Washington by the 17th of December. And so 10 days after Pearl Harbor, I found myself at the War Department for assignment in the Civil Service Commission and the War Department. They sent me there, and then they assigned me to the Chemical Warfare Service as a clerk stenographer. LINDA: Does that mean it wasn't a choice? JULIA: No. No. There was no choice. They assigned you -- thousands of girls were pouring in from all over the country to, to man the increased offices for the War Department. The war was on, and every department in the government needed extra help, and so they took Civil Service Exams all over the country and the girls that were registered were sent telegrams to come in, and then they sent you wherever they needed you. So I worked there until I think October of 1944, and then I was transferred back to the Boston Procurement Office for the Chemical Warfare Service. LINDA: -kinds of things did you learn? 2 JULIA: It was straight stenographic work—filing, clerical, and stenographic work. I worked for a number of different people who dictated letters, and we typed them up and did general office work. LINDA: Were you ever learning anything interesting? JULIA: No. No, except the names of the various gases that they were using at the time, which was still pretty much what they had from World War I—mustard gas and things like that I haven't thought about it in years—but they had arsenals of gases all over the country. And so the correspondence mainly had to do with shipments and [unintelligible - 00:03:30] get into any of the research part at all. Men from major chemical corporations around the country came in to handle the government's program. Beyond that, we have no way of knowing. Things were either stamped secret or confidential. But the correspondence was so voluminous that things that came in, the regulations from the government had to all be filed and none of us did that and read anything like that. It was secret confidential, general -- you just filed it or you did whatever clerical work was assigned. LINDA: Obviously, war is such an uneasy time anyway. It must have been… JULIA: It was very exciting because we were young, and I eventually lived with four roommates in an apartment, and we worked almost six days a week. And because of the wartime, you didn't have as many things open to you. You couldn't visit the White House. For a long time, I never even got to see the Houses of Congress. We lived a very good life. We took care of our apartment. Each of the girls that I lived with, with whom I'm still closed friends, came from the different parts of the country except one who came from my own neighborhood. She lived with us. I lived with the girl from [unintelligible - 00:05:10], Missouri and a girl from Sunnyvale, California, and a girl that had come from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we kept house, we shopped, we did laundry and we wanted to work in a 3 different agency and went to work with public transportation. We lived in Washington, and then we lived in Arlington, Virginia in an apartment. And we all came back to Boston together. We all arranged for transfers to various agencies in Boston. LINDA: Were you ever questioned about your Italian background? JULIA: No. I never was questioned. The questioning had to do with various organizations that you might have belonged to where they found your name. I mean, I was 18 years old when I left, so… And then I continued my Federal Civil Service until about seven months after I was married. LINDA: And that was in 1951? JULIA: 1950, yes. In April, I think I left my job, and I didn't work just for Chemical Warfare Service because after the war, they had what they call Reduction in Force, RIF. In other words, all the people that had been hired for the war were then let go, but you could go to other agencies that were getting rid of all of the stuff that the government had bought during the war, and one of the agencies I went to was the War Assets Administration in Boston. I forgot the name of the original name of the agency. They are in charge of reselling all of the machine tools that had been bought for the war plants, and New England was a very heavy industrial area for machine tools and machine and all kinds of things. So I went to work for the War Assets Administration, and then I think I put in sometime with one of the Air Force for terminal agencies here at the army base in Boston. And I was pregnant almost immediately after I was married, so I left in April of 1952. My first child was born in June of '52. LINDA: Are you okay? JULIA: Excuse me. I have a dry cough. LINDA: Okay. JULIA: [Unintelligible - 00:08:17] administration. LINDA: Okay. JULIA: I'll put CWS. That's the Chemical Warfare Service. LINDA: Okay.4 JULIA: And then War Assets Administration… and the Air Force. I still have all my papers, so I can check if we have to. And then I left in April. Our church, Catholic. That's all you want, isn't it? Or do you want… LINDA: Well, why don't you tell me where you go now? JULIA: All right. LINDA: -instead of Boston. JULIA: Okay, St. Camillus. LINDA: Okay. You have lived in Fitchburg since '68? JULIA: Yes. I've lived in Fitchburg since -- we moved here because my husband obtained the position of Director of the Library at Fitchburg State College in 1967, and he commuted about a year, and it was too much for him to commute to Boston. So, we had to sell -- we decided to sell our home, and we've lived here since March of 1968. LINDA: Okay. JULIA: Okay. Social clubs, wow. All right, I was a member, and still am, actually, of the League of Women Voters. LINDA: Okay. JULIA: Boston and Fitchburg. [Unintelligible - 00:10:07] Garden Club, where I was president for about four years. It's 1963, 1993, the June of [unintelligible - 00:10:30] Club. LINDA: I'm not familiar with that. JULIA: It's a Catholic layman's organization. I was actually the first woman admitted in the Fitchburg area. Would you mind opening the door? Letting the dog… LINDA: Oh okay. The dog is going to be [unintelligible - 00:10:48] with me now? JULIA: It's cold. She might just -- come on, sweetheart. Come, darling. Come on, Sasha. What a good [unintelligible - 00:10:59]. What a lovely dog! That would be on the tape. LINDA: That's okay. JULIA: All right. Let me…5 LINDA: What's that? JULIA: It's very cold in here because I turned down the heat, and the stove is not on. Let me just turn the heat up. Okay. Hold on. LINDA: Okay. What's the… JULIA: [Unintelligible - 00:11:24]. Ooh, my kids are [unintelligible - 00:11:29]. LINDA: Say what? JULIA: My [unintelligible - 00:11:33]. LINDA: Oh, who cares about things like that? Thanks for showing me all of the photographs. Julia just showed me the photographs that had been in her family since your mother passed away, I guess. What year was that? JULIA: My mother died in 1989 in Windsor, Vermont, because my sister owns a nursing home there and my mother went to live with her. But my mother lived alone on 11 and 13th Pompeii Street in Roxbury until she was 89 years old. My father had bought a six-family house on Pompeii Street, which originally was Lansdowne Street, and she lived in that house until she was 89 years old. Then she came to live with me for a year, and my sister took her up with her right after my son Steven's funeral in August of 1985. I treasure the artifacts, the furniture, and the pictures that I have. I have a whole collection of photographs from Italy which I'm hoping to organize before I die and so that the descendants will have some idea of who they came from. LINDA: Well, tell me a little bit about your parents. Were they born…? JULIA: My father was born in Crenna, Gallarate, C-R-E-N-N-A. It's a small town or village, and it's right above the city of Gallarate, G-A-L-L-A-R-A-T-E, which is a part of the Malpensa Airport in Milan. LINDA: Okay. JULIA: They are Lombards. My mother was born -- Lombardi is the province. My mother was born in Milan on December 5th, 1893. My father was born in Crenna, Gallarate on January 30th, 1891. And the family had lived there for a number of generations, and there are records in the church in Crenna. 6 LINDA: And their last names? Your father's last name is… JULIA: [Tomasine]. LINDA: Tomasine. JULIA: Yeah. LINDA: Mother's? JULIA: Seminario, and it was an arranged marriage. LINDA: So tell me a little bit about that. Did your mother tell you that was an arranged marriage, or…? JULIA: Most Italian women had to have the approval of their families before they married. It's a little complicated. When my father was an infant, a young girl baby was… I do not know the circumstances. She was assigned, she was asked -- no, that's wrong. She was given to my grandmother in Crenna, who was at the time nursing my papa. In other words, she was a nursing mother. And oftentimes when babies were either abandoned or the mother died or was too ill to take care of them, they were given to a nursing mother, who brought that child up along with the child she was nursing. In other words, she became a wet nurse. And if she had sufficient milk—since there were no formulas or bottles at the time—then she nursed both children. And this little girl, whose name was Carolina, she was brought up with my father until she was 18 years old. And then she was given her freedom, her choice to do whatever she wished, and at that time of course, girls, they went to work or they married. And she went to Milan to work, and she met one of my mother's uncles and married him, and as a result of this marriage, the two families were connected, not by blood, but because this girl had been raised with my father. And they have a child of their own, a little girl. And when the little girl was 9 years old, when [unintelligible - 00:17:15] was 9 years old, Carolina, her mother, died. And at the funeral, 7 which was during World War I, my mother went and my father went, because they were from the two families. My father went because she was called his sister of the milk, [foreign language - 00:17:45] de latte. That means that his mother nursed the two of them together, [unintelligible - 00:17:52] de latte. It was quite common, if there was no other way for these little babies to survive. Many women didn't have enough milk to feed their children, and my mother told me that in Milan, there were professionals wet nurses, and they used to come into the city on trams from the surrounding villages, and they wore special headdresses so they were recognized as women who were going to nurse babies in private homes. And this was their profession as long as they could. They would go to the home of somebody who could afford it and nurse a child whose mother is not able to feed a child, and they were honored. They were very respected women, recognized. They used to come in on the trolley cars into the city. And so I thought that was a very interesting thing. I have never heard of it myself. But I know I had another aunt on my father's side who went to South America and who could not nurse her first child and took her to a wet nurse in the country to nurse, to be fed. So it was not an uncommon situation at all. LINDA: So now your parents got connected at the… JULIA: They're only connected -- it's not a blood relationship. LINDA: Right. JULIA: It was marriage. And… LINDA: So you were telling me that it was arranged. JULIA: Yes. When my father came, my father came to America in 1912 with two brothers, two brothers were here, but America was a very tough place to be if you didn't speak English, and he didn't have any high skills. My father was trained as an embroiderer, because that was his father's cottage 8 industry in my [unintelligible - 00:20:23] in Crenna. But he couldn't get that kind of work in America, and so he did heavy laboring, washed dishes and did anything he could. And being the oldest son, when the family in Italy needed him, he went back, but he went back unfortunately in 1914. I think he told me that he went back in April, and in August the war broke out. And his youngest brothers were taught in the Italian army, and his two brothers in America joined the American army. So there were two brothers in the Italian army in the infantry and two boys who had a wonderful time in the American army and never was sent overseas. So when his sister of the milk died, then he met my mother at that funeral, but right after the war's conditions in Italy were very bad, he came back to America in 1919. And he felt that he was then about 26, 27 years old, and he felt that it was time to settle down, and he wrote to his mother. And his mother arranged with my mother's father and asked my mother if she would like to go to America to marry her son. And my mother agreed even though she didn't know him and had only met him at that one time, and so she came to America. LINDA: Did she come by herself? JULIA: No. Italian women did not come by themselves, unlike the Irish, who did. She came with -- by this time, the two boys, Vincent and Peter Tomasine, who were in the United States, decided that they wanted their mother to come. My grandparents were separated at that time, and so they made arrangements. One son Vincent had a girlfriend in Italy that he had more or less grown up with, and he sent for her. And then my uncle Peter and -- let's see, my grandmother came. They sent for their mother and Maria [unintelligible - 00:23:12], who married Vincent, and then my grandmother brought her youngest daughter, Mary, who was not married, and she brought her son-in-law, Angelo [unintelligible - 00:23:25], who 9 was married to my father's sister and had gone back to Italy from South America during the war. And after the war, he wanted to come to America. But the men always came first. So he came with his mother-in-law, who was my grandmother. LINDA: So your father returned in 1919. How long did he take him to save enough money to send for these? JULIA: Well, he worked very hard and the passage was very cheap, and so he sent money for them and sponsored my mother. And when she came here, they were married. There wasn't any big ceremony or anything like that. They lived with his mother and Maria [unintelligible - 00:24:24], who then married my uncle Vincent, and my father's youngest sister, Mary, Maria, and his brother-in-law until they all got settled. They lived in Roxbury in a flat. And then… LINDA: And what year was this that your mother came over JULIA: It was 1920 and '21, 1921. She arrived on October 12th in New York the same day, because she always said she came the same time as Christopher Columbus, on October 12th, 1921. By the way, I have a tape here that I -- of a family history that I wrote up in 1981, and we played it at Christmastime. And the whole story is on this tape. LINDA: Oh, interesting. JULIA: As far as I can remember—and I don't vouch for extreme accuracy in anything, because by that time, my mother was pretty well along in years in the late '70s. And she was 80. My mother and I, I went to Italy for the first time when I was 50 years old in August -- September of 1973. I went back with my mother, and I was in time to meet her brother, Raymundo Clemente, her brother, Umberto. His name was Umberto Seminario, the father of the boy who was lost in the Second World War, and his wife Osana, and my mother's half sister, Anna. And I say half sister because my mother's mother died at the age of 25 from consumption, when my mother was only four years old and her brother was two. And my grandfather, Raymundo Seminario had to remarry. He married within six 10 months so that he could keep his two children. Then there were two girls born of that marriage. LINDA: Did you mention the name Clemente? JULIA: Clemente was my grandfather, Raymundo Clemente Juliano Seminario. LINDA: Okay. JULIA: Yeah, three names. And sometimes they call him Clemente. Sometimes they call him Raymundo. But I was named for him, and my brother was named for him. LINDA: Well, that brings up an interesting point. I see that your name is spelled J-U-L-I-A, and Italian… JULIA: They Americanized it. LINDA: … didn't have J. JULIA: Yes. They don't have a J. LINDA: So when did that happen? JULIA: Probably when the birth certificate was sent into city hall. I was born at home, and the doctors who came in attendance didn't speak any Italian, and so they just put down what they heard phonetically. My brother and sister, all of us were born at home. So the records at city hall were just deplorable. They're awful. Then, of course, when we were baptized, then the names were different even on those baptismal records, which I have, because then we were baptized in the Italian churches in Boston. LINDA: So let me get back to the birth certificate. It's been my experience where the birth certificate actually has the Italian name, but it's later in school. Not yours? JULIA: No. I'd have to look it up, and you know, I'd have to look it up. But I think that the birth certificate -- it might be. LINDA: Well, it's just interesting that you [unintelligible - 00:28:52] change. JULIA: I also have my mother's, her brother's, and their half sister's report cards from their Italian elementary school in Milan, Italy, all signed by their father, my grandfather. I have it right around the corner. They're in the back.11 LINDA: Very interesting. JULIA: I went to visit the schools that they attended when I went to Milan. LINDA: So now your experience seems very different from many of the Italian Americans that I have, and their family is situated [unintelligible - 00:29:33] north. JULIA: Yes. Yes. Most of the Italian immigrants were from the central and southern part of Italy. From the north, the population there was more educated, and there was more industry, so jobs were plentiful unless, like in my grandfather's case, you had an industry where he was an embroiderer at many areas that have cottage industries. He worked out of his own home, and he was not a particularly good business man. So when the wars came along and he lost a lot of money, building an apartment house, so the boys decided that they would all come to America. LINDA: But they actually left the first time before the war. JULIA: Yes. Three of them came before the war, and my father was the only one that went back because he was the oldest son, and he must received word that things were not going well at home. And so he went back to help out for a time, but then after the -- he had to go into combat. Then when he came back after the war, things were not much better, and he joined his brothers in America again. LINDA: What did your mother's people do for…? JULIA: My grandfather started at the age of eight carrying bricks. He came from a large family in [unintelligible - 00:31:20], which is in Lombardi. It's the same town where Mother Cabrini was born. She was a modern Italian saint. And because child labor was very common, he went to school to learn to read and write, but then he got a job carrying bricks to build the gas company, and I just recently found out that the gas company in Milan was built by a French firm. 12 And so after the building was built, he got a job in the company. I don't know what he was doing, but he probably started out by shoveling coal or whatever. They made gas out of burning coal. And eventually, he worked his way up in the company until at the age of 54, he was in charge of sending out the gas to the entire city of Milan. They had huge gasometers in which they stored the prepared gas, and it's very strange because when my mother and father bought their house in Roxbury right across Massachusetts Avenue, which was the main street outside—their street connected to Massachusetts Avenue—there was a huge gasometer meter that was owned by the Boston Gas Company. And so all of my early life, I saw the same huge gasometer that my grandfather was a part of in Milan. LINDA: Interesting. JULIA: Right. It's gone now, as they put in the southeast expressway. They took it away, and they have different -- now they bring the gas in by pipeline, so they don't store it. LINDA: Did you ever have any discussions with your parents about the fact that it was an arranged marriage, or was it just so common then? JULIA: It was very common. You married people that you were introduced to, or there wasn't any of this thing of going out on dates. The expression in Northern Italy for a couple who were interested in each other was [foreign language - 00:34:04], meaning they speak to each other. That was the expression. They stayed in groups. They're amongst the families, and a gentleman, once a young man was interested in a girl, his only access was through her family. LINDA: Now, what brought your father to Boston? JULIA: Because his brothers were here and he figured he could -- he was very, very nervous. After the war, he came back in a very light post -- what do they call it? LINDA: Post-traumatic syndrome? JULIA: Post-traumatic… LINDA: Syndrome, I think.13 JULIA: They didn't call it that at the time, but he couldn't stay at home. And so, he came here and he did mostly have [unintelligible - 00:35:04] for the rest of his life. LINDA: But initially, when he came in 1912 with his brothers, what brought them to Boston? JULIA: Because they -- the Italians had started coming to America around 1890, 1888-1890, and the word got back that you could earn a living, and his brothers happened to be there. They had an aunt, their father's sister, Luisa Milani, came around 1880 or 1890, and she was married to a man who was a stonecutter, and of course, marble and granite. They have quarries in Massachusetts and Vermont, and her husband was a stonecutter. In fact, he died of silicosis. And these men were skilled laborers, and they worked in -- where they made cemetery monuments and they carved, they quarried stone for buildings. So their aunt was here, and they have to have someone to sponsor them. So my first two uncles came under her sponsorship, and so did my father under her sponsorship. Then a younger brother came around 1928. He had remained in Italy after the war. He was the youngest, and he came later than they did. And he became an automobile mechanic, a very skilled one. So that's right. And then my father, he bought these two houses for $1,700 apiece, and his brother Vincent gave him a down payment to put down so he could get settled. They bought homes almost immediately after they arrived. LINDA: Is this on Lansdowne, which later became Pompeii Street? JULIA: Yes. Well, my father did, and then his two brothers bought homes in other places. And his brother Vincent started up the same family embroidery business that he was -- that was his trade the rest of his life. He had a factory in [unintelligible - 00:37:36] where he did a great deal of 14 [wobbler], the embroidered patches that they used to distinguish outfits and military units and all types of things like that. LINDA: What's the name of that company? Do you know? JULIA: It was Vincent Tomasine Embroideries. And in fact later, after the war, long after the war, he sold it to someone else. LINDA: I'm wondering why your father didn't… JULIA: He couldn't stand it. After the way, he couldn't stand indoor work. He just couldn't. He was too nervous, and the business of course was run very differently from what his father had run in Italy, a one-man shop, whereas my uncle, all of my aunts went to work for my uncle, and they would get contracts. Say, women will embroidered slips and embroidered underwear, and the manufacturers in Boston that were making rayon, nylons, shorts would send -- they would stitch up the fronts of the slips, then they would send them by the box-loads to my uncle, who would put them on frames and do the embroideries on the front, then they went back to the factories to be re-stitched, to be stitched and completed. So he did all the embroidery, work whether it was blouses, whether it was slips, whether it was anything else that had to be done. As I said, during the war, it was military patches. LINDA: Now, about your mantle, you have a beautiful piece of embroidery. Who did that? JULIA: My mother. Because her mother had died so young from consumption, my grandfather refused to allow his daughters to work in large factories, in a factory. He didn't want them to do factory work. And so at that time, clothing was made almost custom. They didn't have huge factories that churned them all by the thousands, and fine clothing for girl who was going to be married, her [foreign language - 00:40:00] was made out of fine cloth and linen. And there were many, many -- again, it's a type of cottage industry, but small shops that were girls that were hired for this skill in stitching and 15 attaching tucking, attaching waist, and my mother worked in a place where they made shirts, and all kinds of skilled work was done by hand on single machines. And then every year for the month, they were allowed to vacation. My grandfather took them to the mountains, and that's still customary today. Every summer, most of the Italians go off to the mountains of the seashore for vacation. They believe in that. Most of them can afford to do that. If they can't, then they go away for a week or two. LINDA: So let's talk more about Boston. What was it like living on Lansdowne Street? JULIA: We loved it. It was a good street, and the same people that lived there when I was a child, the girls that grew up with me, other than one or two who have died, are still my friends. I still maintain contact even though they might have been a year or two younger or older, that contact with those families have never really been broken. There were about 60 families on two streets in a very -- they were part of [war day], but they were off of Massachusetts Avenue near the south end of Boston, although it was officially Roxbury. And all of the landlords on those two streets were Italian, and they came from all parts of Italy from the Piedmont to Lombardi down to Abruzzo down to the southern part all the way to Sicily. LINDA: Yeah. JULIA: So I grew up learning many dialects, hearing many dialects, and my mother kept in touch. She wrote letters to her family and friends in Italy and relatives until she couldn't see anymore 65 years later. So I would see my mother sitting there late at night, midnight, writing to Italy, and then the letters would come back and… LINDA: Did she save those?16 JULIA: No. I did it. She didn't. I saved quite a few. I have quite a lot, and as a matter of fact, one of my mother's girlfriends, [unintelligible - 00:43:10], I think, married a man named [unintelligible - 00:43:18], and her descendants lived in a part of Milan, and our children, which would represent the fourth generation, this lady's grandfather worked with my grandfather at the Milan Gasworks. And my mother kept in touch all those years with his daughter, with her friend, because they were neighbors. LINDA: Let me just slide you hand through here. Okay. JULIA: And my daughters and my sister's daughters had gone to Italy after college and met them and stayed with them. So there were four generations whose friendship has stood the test of time. LINDA: That's remarkable. JULIA: They came to visit two years ago, and I've been there to visit twice with my mother. LINDA: So what was it like when you went back? JULIA: It was like déjà vu. I knew everyone that my mother introduced me to. I'm very fluent in the dialect, which is very seldom spoken now anymore, because after Mussolini came in, one of the ways that he tried to unify the country of Italy was to insist that they all speak proper Italian, whereas everyone who came to America during the '20s and before spoke the dialect of their own region, or their own village. In fact, many people on Pompeii Street could not understand my parents. No one could if they spoke in the Lombard dialect, because it was so different. LINDA: How did they communicate? JULIA: Because they did have a common -- they could speak in proper Italian. Many of them had gone to school. And I mean, they could -- if they went to school in Italy, then they could read Italian, but there was a common thread. It was very difficult though, because they usually never spoke in proper Italian. But the southern Italian spoke closer to the proper language.17 LINDA: The southern? JULIA: Yeah. The southern and central ones, they spoke in a manner that was a little bit closer, closer to proper Italian. And my mother wrote in proper Italian, and most of them have had elementary school educations so that they could communicate with their families in Italy. LINDA: Did your parents learn English? JULIA: Yes, they did. My father could read the American paper. They listened to the news on the radio, and of course, we grew up and went to school in America. And my mother was forced. It was very, very difficult adjustment because she frequently misunderstood what I said in English, and it made for a great deal of friction until enough years went by that my youngest sister came along 13 years after I did. By that time, my sister came to understand the Italian because in the family, my mother and father still spoke in dialect and all of my aunts and uncles, the same dialect. So we got it through hearing it. It wasn't until I went back to Italy the first time in 1973 that we went back for three or four weeks, and it was the first time that I had what you call an immersion, where everybody spoke proper Italian and I suddenly understood. Like a person who plays the piano by ear, I understood the Italian. And then, when I went back in '76 with my mother and sister, again I was exposed to about three weeks or so, or a month, of everyone speaking proper Italian, except in mountain villages, where I visited with my mother—they still spoke dialect. And of course, I was fluent, and I still am. LINDA: So let me see though. Do I understand this correctly? Your mother spoke the dialect, but she came to… JULIA: But she could read and write proper Italian. LINDA: Right. So when she returned, and people were speaking more proper…18 JULIA: Right. But we only did family visiting. LINDA: Okay. JULIA: And so everyone she could understand because she could write and she had learned proper Italian. And my mother remembered the lyrics, the words to the songs she had learned from nursery school. She was sent to nursery school. Remember, my grandfather remarried, and his second wife had two babies. And nursery school, [foreign language - 00:49:00], it was called. [Foreign language - 00:49:04] is the proper Italian word. And they had very fine nursery school for children, and so my mother and her brother and sister were sent to nursery school, and -- my mother told me a very interesting thing. Up until she was 15 years old and went to this private Catholic school that was run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Milan, even then, they had a woman who was referred to as [foreign language - 00:49:43]. And I haven't exactly known how to spell it, but a woman accompanied all these children to all their homes. The school was not far from their homes, but the children were accompanied to their homes by a lady. Even when she was 15 years old, someone accompanied all these students to their homes. LINDA: So when they walked home… JULIA: Right. Unless the parents came to get them; and if they couldn't, then somebody took them home. LINDA: Wow. So getting back to Boston, do you have all of these different regions where they are different Italians… from different regions is what I mean… JULIA: And all we young girls, all of us, we would play together, and then we would compare how our mother said things, how we would, you know, be there laughing, and then we [unintelligible - 00:50:48]. My mother said it like this. My mother said it like that. And all of us learned the different dialects, or they understood them even if they didn't try to speak them. 19 We had an awful lot of fun. We played on the street. We played street games. We learned to dance on the street. Our mothers taught us to crochet and embroider. That was another way that we passed the time. And the mothers, because this was small street, when the housework was done or the middle of the day, they came out, and when they weren't arms akimbo leaning out of their windows, they were down in the doorways, and we were watched all our lives, all of those young years. Somebody was always watching and looking out on the street, so nobody got away with anything. LINDA: Now, do the mothers socialize together? JULIA: Yes, they visited each other's little lots. As I said, I think I counted one time; there might have been 60 flats. It's still in existence, that neighborhood. But it's been bought by a developer. In fact, my brother still owns my father's house. He doesn't live there, but he still owns it. LINDA: So you had all different kinds of generations… JULIA: And all different kinds of cooking and all different generations; and when they died, they were waked in the apartments. They were not waked in funeral homes. Many children were born on the street, so we saw it all. We experienced it all. And young people died. I had two friends who were wonderful, lost a sister. Both of them lost sisters at 21 years old, and the whole street was born. It was complete support from everyone, because these girls had been -- one died in childbirth at 21 years old, and the other one died from apparently a blood clot just after some surgery. And everyone went to Boston City Hospital because we were only five minutes away from it. LINDA: Were the mourning traditions different between different regions? JULIA: They wore black. Some of them never took off that black. Even in the north end, most women who lost their husbands would wear black for the rest of their lives unless they remarried. Some of them did the same thing 20 on my street; if they lost their husbands they wore black housedresses. It was just the custom. But several children died, two of them from spinal meningitis, which at that time was fatal. And I think one was nine and one was 14. And of course, women, they mourned. They wept. They cried. That was a terrible thing. It was a part of life, and they didn't try to gloss over it. They lost a child in childbirth. You could hear them sometimes screaming from the pain even though doctor might come, an intern might come from Boston City Hospital. I remember that one of my friends' mother gave birth, and she lived on the third floor across the street. It must have been an extremely painful experience. My mother was marking the floor gray-faced, remembering her own. LINDA: So there was very little privacy. JULIA: The flat was small, and there was very little privacy. We knew who got along, who didn't get along. And some of them, even though they came from the old country, if things got too bad, they will separate. But for the most -- and the women as they got older, our parents, not my mother -- my mother went to work during the Depression when my father had an accident and broke his leg. He couldn't go to work. My mother went to work at the army base stitching uniforms. But it was only for a short time. As soon as my father was well enough to go back to work, then she had to stay home. LINDA: … in that area generally help each other? JULIA: To some extent. I will say this. When the Depression came, even though we lived in an industrial neighborhood, there were many pieces of vacant land. We have no idea who belonged to them, whether they were city owned land or belong to the neighboring factories. We had two very huge laundries which are still in existence. They were linen services. They 21 serviced hotels, restaurants. They did that kind of thing, places that used a lot of uniforms. So the girls who were brought up just ahead of me, many of them went to work in the laundry. I did too for a short time, while I went to night school after high school, and then as I said, when I passed the civil service exam, then I went to Washington. And after that, I did office work. But as the women grew older and their children were out of high school, many of them went to work either in the laundry or in a box factory. But during the Depression, every family sectioned off some small piece of these vacant lots and grew gardens. That was natural for them; even my father had an enormous garden from a piece of land that was vacant near our home. And according to my sister—this was while I was in Washington—and my mother, he just grew marvelous vegetables. Everybody grew, even in their backyards. No piece of land went to waste. So I never knew anyone who went hungry during the Depression. They would find jobs for each other. You just have to let -- they worked for private contractors, and Italian contractors were making their way up succeeding the Irish. So if my father was out of a job, he would notify the Italian men in the neighborhood and somebody would find him a job. LINDA: Now, did you notice that these people from different regions, did they kind of stick together? JULIA: Yes, they did. They [unintelligible - 00:58:30] somebody bought houses close together and lived in -- and people from the Piedmont occupied apartments kind of close together. But it was a tiny street. It was very small. So you were all -- you just grew up together. And as the women, as the families lived there longer 22 and longer, they got closer to each other, so they learned to respect each other. LINDA: What do you think the unifying factor would be, would have been? JULIA: The fact that they were all immigrants, and that they were locked into these -- they were a part of this small neighborhood. So you have to get -- men played bocce at the end of the street. Then they set up a social club. A few of the men from Abruzzo belonged to the Sons of Italy. And in the summertime, they would have a bus come to the street, and all the Italians who wanted to would bring watermelons and macaroni and meatballs and Italian bread and cheese and salami. If you want to tour, you can get on the bus and they would go to public parks where the Sons of Italy would have a big day. There would be a dance pavilion. They would dance to all this Italian music and have picnics, and the young kids would let them go [unintelligible - 01:00:15]. LINDA: Now, did people growing up here, did they begin their own social clubs depending on regions? JULIA: No. There was just one, and most of them were… I think the ones that belong to it mostly were from the Abruzzo. My father belonged to it a little while, but he wasn't really active. But there were quite a few families from the Abruzzo region of Italy and they belong. And they drank wine; they made wine in the house. The grapes would come into Charlestown, Massachusetts on the trains, and every October they would go to Charlestown and they would order a truckload of grapes. Then they would borrow grinders—my father did too—and grind the grapes. They might make a [unintelligible - 01:01:08] with boxes of grapes and make wine. So whenever you went to visit then [unintelligible - 01:01:16] you were an adult, they always offer you a glass of wine. Everybody's cooking was different because they came from different regions. My mother never learned to make what we refer to at the time as pasta [foreign language -23 01:01:33]. But today it's knows as spaghetti and meatballs. My mother had to learn after she came to America. That was not part of our Italian food culture at all. My mother came -- Milan is near a rice-growing area. So in Northern Italy, you eat cornmeal, polenta, and rice were the staples, soups. But in Southern Italy, they were used to for special occasions, they would -- it was always with tomato sauce that was the standard pasta with tomato sauce. Very seldom, they eat rice. None of us ate much meat. Meat was eaten very sparingly. In the Lombard region, the main dish which is now becoming, and again, has become very, very popular is called risotto. That was one of the staples that I grew up with. And the holidays, we had -- at that time, some of the delicacies that are important today were not important. Things like [foreign language - 01:03:10] was not important, but my mother told us about the Christmas customs in her home. She always mentioned this [foreign language - 01:03:19]. Now you can buy it anywhere. They import it, because the fly it in, and we had special things that we ate on holidays. And my mother told us about the Christmas customs of her family. LINDA: So was that a strong tradition on Christmas Eve celebration? JULIA: Christmas Eve was considered even by the Church as a day of fasting and abstinence. Christmas Eve, when I was growing up, was a non-meat day, and amongst the Italians, who were not accustomed to dairy anyway, they use cheese. But on Christmas Eve, you ate neither milk products nor meat. You ate fish. Now, the southern and central Italians would celebrate. They might cook six or seven, in some families, 12 different kinds of fish dishes. In my family, we observe Christmas Eve very quietly with no kind of celebration at all. The next day on Christmas, then we would have -- we might have polenta, which I made this Christmas, by the way. 24 LINDA: Oh, you did. JULIA: Yes. LINDA: Now, how did you serve it? JULIA: I plugged in? LINDA: You are. Just having system -- hang on. Okay. JULIA: Polenta is made—and I can assure you because I still have a package of flour there. You can buy it today under the Goya brand; it's the only place I find it. But in my father's day, you went to the various Italian markets and they would have barrels of it, and you bought course ground corn flour, cornmeal, and then you just put it into -- I still have my parents' cup of polenta pot. Everybody brought their polenta pot from Italy. It was called, in the dialect, the parieu. LINDA: How do you spell it? Do you know? JULIA: Parieu, P-A-R-I-E-U. It's how you pronounced it. That's in Lombard dialect. LINDA: And that's the polenta pot. JULIA: Right. Let's see, how did they say it in Italy? Paiolo is the proper Italian word, I think, if I can find it in here. Paiolo, P-A-I-O-L-O or P-A-I-U-O-L-O; it's a boiler, a copper, a cauldron, a kettle, that they used for polenta. LINDA: So how did your family used to serve the polenta? JULIA: The polenta was made in this copper pot that had a rounded bottom designed to hang from a crane on a fireplace. Because in Italy, they didn't have stoves, not even my mother's family, who lived in an apartment in the city, had a stove; they had small gas light burners. But if you have -- we have kitchen rangers, black iron ranges, and they would remove the round top on one section of it in the front where the fire was farthest, and boil a certain amount of water when you have much water to boil. And then you very, very slowly added the cornmeal. You added salt, maybe a little piece of garlic, and you slowly add in the cornmeal. 25 Now, one person has to hold the pot so it wouldn't tip over. And my father, that was my father's job, to stir that cornmeal until it was very thick and firm, and used an old piece of broomstick to do this, a [canalla], a piece of stick, like a piece of broomstick. Then when it was very firm, they would put down a cutting board, a piece of board on the table, cover it with a flour sack that had been -- a clean dishcloth. They used to make dishcloths out of flour sacks, the women, unbleached muslin. And my father would take that big kettle of polenta and dump it over on top of this cloth and then cover it. Then they use the string to cut it. You cut it because it would slice down with the string. And I've met many people in Fitchburg who remembered that same system of cooking polenta and cutting it with the string and dumping it over onto something. And we served it with various kinds of stew. Now, the southern and central Italians would most likely serve it with a meat ragout or Italian tomato sauce that they might use for any pasta dish. We served it with a stew that was called cassoeula, very difficult to spell, C-A-S-S-O-E-U-L-A. It was made from savoy cabbage, Italian sausages, spare ribs, and cooked with carrots and onions and garlic into light -- but no tomatoes, celery, into this wonderful stew, and I made it this Christmas. So from now on, as long as I'm alive, that's what we'll have for Christmas, and that's what we ate. Or they would make a rabbit… make a stew out of rabbit or chicken. But that's how we ate it. Then my father would eat it with gorgonzola cheese. And the next day, you sliced it and cut it and fried it with eggs for lunch or supper. I had an uncle, an old uncle, who lived with me after he was widowed, and he used to slice it the next day and layer it with milk and onions and bake it. And you can use polenta like you can use potatoes or rice with anything. It's delicious. My Irish husband loves it. Right, the kids love it. And you can make it out of a Quaker oats cornmeal too, but I don't like it as well as I 26 do the coarse meal. It has become quite popular again in upscale restaurants. LINDA: Now, when your mother would serve it on the board at the table, did… JULIA: Yeah. Put your dish there, and my father would take the string and the slice would fall on to the dish, then she'd serve the stew from the bowl or the pan. LINDA: I've also heard of people in Fitchburg, their mother would lay it out on the board, and then everyone would kind of eat it… JULIA: I have all that. Now, the first one I met since I've been here that tells me that, but I have a very close friend whose parents have 13 children, and the father made a big, long table to accommodate them. They lived in my father's, one of my father's flats, and when they made the polenta and the tomato sauce, he would lay it out on this table, and every child would have, every person would have a section and would eat with his fork or spoon, then they would put the tomato sauce over it. Right. LINDA: That's interesting. JULIA: Right. LINDA: So now, living with all these different regions or people from regions, were there different patron saints or celebrations? JULIA: A lot of them had relatives in the north end, and the north end was really the center of the Italian religious community, and so some of them would visit their relatives on feast days. Some of the Sicilian women who had relatives in the north end, they would go to the north on feast days. But we didn't do that. They would celebrate the feast days now that I think of it by cooking special foods, and a lot of them have like little [plaster] saints, and they would always keep votive candles, which was strange. They were little wicks that floated, little wicks, and you lit the wick, and they'd have like some kind of maybe a little asbestos washer, some little washer. I haven't seen those for 50-60 years. I haven't seen them. But I remembered the women used to keep -- a lot of the Southern Italian 27 women would keep votive lights. They would pray for their families and pray for good health, and they were attached to devotions to these different saints, or St. Joseph or the Virgin Mary, and they would keep little votive lights. I'm trying to think what -- they didn't have racks in them, but I don't know what the liquid was in these -- I mean, they still have the same candleholders. I got them on my dining room table right there, but they didn't have -- I don't remember the candles. I remember these little wicks./AT/jf/lk/es

Issue 61.6 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; DECEMBER 2002 VO~,UME 61 'NUMBER 6~ Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: 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 Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. view for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 6 contents 566 579 ignatian spirituality Ignatian Invitation: Remember and Imagine David L. Fleming SJ sums up the contemporary relevance of Ignatian spirituality in the dynamic movements of remembering and imagining. Ignatian Indifference and Structural Constraints Ignatius Jesudasan SJ enters us into the contemporary struggle to apply indifference as understood in spirituality to the various structural situations of authority and obedience. 585 594 ministry formation The Emergence of the Contemporary Traditionalists David M. Whalen OSFS presents certain "verbal snapshots" of young people identified as contemporary traditionalists whose interim theology includes an exemption or "notwithstanding" clause. A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation Guy B. Wilson ST explains a model of formation for the men candidates of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, which involves the collaboration of the Trinitarian family of men and women religious and lay persons, following the inspiration of their founder, Father Thomas Augustine Judge. 602 sisters and brothers Mary Magdalene: An Icon for Women Religious Mary Kay Dobrovolny RSM, by using the resurrection story found in John 20:11 o 18, presents Mary Magdalene as an icon for celibate loving and apostolic mission for women religious. Review for Religious 615 Lonely and Small: Religious Brothers' Situation Philip Armstrong CSC makes a case for religious life, the vowed commitment to a life of service to the church and to the world through the public profession of the evangelical counsels, to be raised to the status of a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church. 624 God and us The Birth of Christ in the Human Person Janet Sullivan OSF brings home the faith reality that God asks of us what he asked of Mary: to allow his Son to come to birth in us. 631 Reading/Reciting the Psalms: Some Reflections Roland E. Murphy OCarm offers, from his lifetime of study and prayer, a bright sprinkling of information and intuition about the psalms. 64O Eucharistic Faith: Jesus' Bread-.of-Life Discourse Dennis J. Billy CSSR reflects upon Jesus' Discourse on the Bread of Life On 6:22-71) to emphasize the call to faith which every Eucharist celebrates~ departments 564 Prisms 649 Canonical Counsel: 656 Book Reviews 666 Indexes Mandatory Dismissal November-Decentber 2002 prisms After sixty-one years of publish-ing on a bimonthly schedule Review for Religious begins a quarterly schedule of publication beginning in the year 2003. As our readers may well surmise, rising costs of publishing and mailing have played a signifi-cant role in leading to this decision. As editor, I have explored, with the help of my Board members and staff, various options. We could raise the subsdription price and still be competitively equal to other jo.urnals ~nd magazines. But since women and men religious with their religious vow of poverty make up the larger part of our readership, I want to keep the cost as low as possible. Perhaps even more importantly, fi large number of foreign sub-scribers, especially in India and in the countries of Africa, would find any increase in price unbearable in terms of currency exchange rates. We thought of reducing the size of the journal from 112 pages to 64 or 72 pages, a common pagina-tion for journals of our kind. A cheaper production and a lighter weight for mailing would save some expense, while at the same time allowing us to main-tain a bimonthy schedule. After serious discussion among Board members and staff, we decided that the continuity of appearance and quality of material should not be sacrificed for the sake of economy. As we considered the quarterly schedule, the Board encouraged us as an editorial staff to try to Review for Religious engage our readers in a more interactive way with follow-up questions or reflection/prayer helps and, perhaps, with some sort of readers' forum or letters-to-the-editor column. As we reduce the number of regular issues of Review for Religious from six to four times a year, we intend to provide a 32-page supplement issue for the seasons of Lent and Advent which will allow us to experiment. These supplements will be included in the regular subscription price that remains the same as it has been. Since we are an international journal, we will not try to des-ignate our quarterly issues by seasons since they vary with our readers' northern or southern climates. Instead we will identify the volume number and then each issue as "Quarterly" num-bered from one to four in every year. The two supplements will be identified by the church seasons of Lent and Advent. We are grateful to you, our subscribers and readers, for your loyal support. We intend that you will find the same con-sistent high-quality articles in every issue. We also will be look-ing forward to your response to our interactive supplements, whether for possible publication or not. In fact, we welcome comments from our readers even now. We are always seeking to increase our readership and so we continue to encourage you to give a gift subscription or sug-gest that a friend or colleague subscribe. If you or your com-munity could provide a gift subscription for those financially limited communities or individuals, usually in countries other than the United States, your charity would be much appreci-ated. Either designate the gift-recipient or allow us to fund the many requests that we receiveand do not have the resources with which to respond. You then extend your own mission in wonderful ways through the mission of Review for Religious. The editors and staff of Review for Religious wish you the richest blessings of the Advent and Christmas seasons. David L. Fleming SJ November-December 2002 DAVID L. FLEMING Ignatian Invitation: Remember and Imagine ignatian spirituality Pope John Paul II issued a call to all Christians as we entered this new millennium. It is a call that he has repeated i~a many talks since he wrote his challenging letter about the new millennium back in January 2001. The Latin phrase Duc in altum expresses his challenge succinctly. We translate it as "Put out into the deep." It is, of course, Jesus' command to Peter and Andrew, James and John, and their fishing companions after they have just spent a fruitless night at their fishing occupation. As we faced a new millennium, with its unfulfilled promise and its potential disasters, John Paul said that as Christians, full of faith, we should lead the way: Duc in altum, put out into the deep. Little did we think that in the year 2001 we would experience, especially in the United States, a "deep" defined by the effect of the September 11 terrorist attack on a whole way of living. Little did we think that in 2002 we would have our economy shaken by major company fraud, abetted by accounting firms that paradoxically were not accountable. Little did we think that we would find David L. Fleming SJ, editor of this journai, presented this material as a talk at the Ignatian Spirituality Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, in July 2002. Review for Religious ourselves in a church under scrutiny for its own internal terror by a few of its priests, but a few too many, and by the lack of accountability in some of its own hierarchical leaders. Duc in altum. Yes, we feel that we are somewhere out in the deep. What are the resources that we Christians now draw on? What are the strengths of the spirituality that we try to live? I would like to share with you the strengths that I experience in Ignatian spirituality. Back in the last century--in the 1940s and '50s--part of growing up in St. Louis in the summer months was a day-long trip on the Mississippi River on the excursion boat called the Admiral. The boat left at ten o'clock in the morning from the downtown riverfront (the area where now the Arch stands), usually went south down the river just beyond the Jesuit White House Retreat, which sits on the bluffs overlooking the river, some fifteen or twenty miles down river. The boat would then circle around and buck the river currents, chugging slowly back up the river and mooring at about four o'clock in the afternoon. Being a five-deck boat, it offered a lot of room for people to meander, between air-conditioned decks and open-air decks, between a ballroom dance-floor deck and a deck for games, between restaurant areas and "bring-your-own-picnic" areas. What always made a big impression upon me were the two massive pistons, the major attraction of a noisy and hot first-deck area. These two massive arms kneading up and down were our visible representation of what moved the boat forward. To make a turn, one arm obviously would do most of the work. But the two working in unison pushed this big boat securely against the strongest of river currents. I experience Ignatian spirituality much as I experienced the Admiral excursion boat. Ignatian spirituality is something in movement. Ignatian spirituality has a lot of room within it--a lot of different decks, as it were, where we live out an Ignatian spirituality in a variety of contexts. But what intrigues me the most are the two massive pistons that allow for the movement or dynamism of Iguatian spirituality. The words with which I will identify these two pistons will surprise no one. Those of us familiar with Ignatian spirituality talk about them with ease. But what I hope to share with you is the often overlooked importance of each of these arms and, perhaps even more so, the necessity of November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ Ignatian lnvitation their working in unison if we, seeking our life's direction within an Ignatian spirituality, are to continue to move forward even amid strong and deep currents. I will use the word remembering for one arm of movement and imagining for the other. Remembering I deliberately have chosen these active verbal terms remembering and imagining rather than the more stolid noun-forms mentor)/and imagination. Ignatius is a man-in-motion, and he relates to God, to his fellow men and women, and to his world in a dynamic fashion. In his mystical intuition at the river Cardoner in Manresa, he sees God as a God who labors, an active God, a busy God. He understands that busyness, laboring, working does not take us away from a laboring God, a busy God. And so Ignatius writes with verbs and participles, a motion-oriented, vigorous style, especially in the Spiritual Exercises. We need always to keep reminding ourselves that the Exercises book, by its very title, speaks of movement, of interactivity--the activity within a person (in the retreat first of all, but in daily life as well) and the activity without, that is, all that happens outside us in the world all around us, in the circumstances of the people and things of our everyday life. Ignatian spirituality is an active spirituality, or, rather, an interactive spirituality. Noticing One of the first actions of Ignatius in developing his relationship with God is caught in the word noticing, taking note of, noting. Ignatian spirituality begins to thrive where Ignatius himself began--paying attention to various experiences, noting what is going on. In his Autobiography, Ignatius particularly emphasizes his noting of his own reactions to his daydreams about serving his king or a noble lady and his d~ydreams about doing as St. Dominic or St. Francis did. He notes what is going on inside (within) himself---the effects both short-range and longer lasting. Just as for all of us, Ignatius does not claim that he never had these kinds of experiences previously. It is just that now he notes or notices them. He also takes note of what is going on around Review for Religious him (the without). He is very observant of his world, the people in it, their various customs. Perhaps out of his piety and certainly out of his courtly training, he adopts an attitude of reverence to God, to God's people, and to God's world. Noting or noticing is all part of our attitude of reverence as we live in God's world, our home. Noting or noticing is a first and essential part of remembering, one of the two piston arms of Ignatian spirituality. Examining Another part of remembering in Ignatian spirituality is something that has received much emphasis in our day. The examen or examination of conscience has had a revitalization over the past thirty years that has put it at the forefront of, made it the signature exercise of, Ignatian spirituality. For us in North America, Jesuit George Aschenbrenner's article "Consciousness Examen" in the January-February 1972 issue of Review for Religious marked the beginning of this renaissance. Since then, the writings of John English, Joseph Tetlow, John Veltri, Dennis Hamm, and many others, Jesuits and others, have given new life to and sharp insight into the practice of the daily examen. From the Exercises book we are aware that Ignatius identifies a number of examinations. In fact, because these constitute the first material under the title First Week, we cannot miss the implication that examining is an important ingredient of making the Exercises. Obviously, our process of examining works better as we get more accustomed to noting or noticing as we move through a day. But examining remains its own special exercise, beyond noting, and remains an essential part of the piston arm we call remembering. Recalling the Story A third aspect of remembering is to be found in the Ignatian first preludes from the contemplations of the Second Week on, the preludes that recall the history of an event. "History" for Ignatius does not refer to facts of a past event. His Spanish expression, ~aer la historia (§§102, 191), emphasizes "making present the story." Ignatius does not say "bring to memory" or November-December 2002 Fle~ning ¯ Ignatian Invitation Remembering plays such an important role in Ignatian spirituality that this spirituality is clearly a reflective spirituality. "remember" the relevant ~cts. He says "recall the history bow" (the Spanish como). For Ignatius, facts are not enough. He wants us to enter into the how and why of events. The first and second preludes for a gospel contemplation are interlocked. The second prelude is a composition, sometimes erroneously identified as a "composition of place." Among more recent authors, the Jesuit William A.M. Peters brought the significance of this Ignatian usage to our attention, showing that Ignatius stresses rather the composition of ourselves within the history. We place ourselves by noting how we see the Trinity looking down upon our world; we place ourselves by noting bow the pregnant Mary, Joseph, and a little servant girl wend their way towards Bethlehem. So history and composition are tightly interlocked-- not as preliminary to prayer, but as an integral part of our prayer, which has its various focal points. Just as noting and examining are integral to the Ignatian remembering, so, I believe, the Ignatian "history," this recalling of the story, is an integral part as well. Remembering, then, plays such an important role in Ignatian spirituality that this spirituality is clearly a reflective spirituality. It is reflective in the way that scholars suggest the Hebrew Scriptures were formed--by people noting, recalling, exa.mining, reflecting on the story. Ignatian spirituality is in sync with the providential process whereby people's remembering contributed to the forming of our Scriptures. We have described one arm of Ignatius's dynamic spirituality. It is time to express a qualification, beginning with the word but. But this arm I have just described has, I believe, received overemphasis through the centuries and perhaps also in our own time. This emphasis was so great that often the second arm was practically ignored. I would like to focus now on the second piston arm of Ignatian spirituality, which I will describe by the word imagining. Review for Religious Imagining Over the past thirty years, I think that the battle about whether Ignatian spirituality predominantly makes use of an intel-lectu~ il and meditative form of prayer or a contemplative one has been won. The centuries-long controversy, in fact, may have been not so much about a way of praying as about how important imagination is in Ignatian spirituality. Even now, in the current renewal of Ignatian spirituality, I think that people do not give imagining the pride of place that Ignatian spirituality requires. Jesuits themselves are partly responsible for the lack of emphasis on this second arm of Ignatian spirituality. In most traditions, secular or ecclesial, there seems to be a continuing fear of imagination. After their forty-year suppression, I think that Jesuits in their 1814 refounding took their cue from the church climate and parroted the text of the Exercises and their own Ignatian constitutions just as American Catholics parroted the Baltimore Catechism in the 19th and 20th centuries before Vatican Council II. I believe that many of the retreats Jesuits gave to religious women in their motherhouses and to lay men and women in Jesuit retreat houses suffered from a deficient understanding of the importance of imagination in Ignatian spirituality. St. Ignatius implicitly but clearly calls for imagination when he insists on adapting the Exercises to specific retreatants, but this was often ignored. Even now, in the current renewal of Ignatian spirituality, Jesuits and others often set little store by imagination. You may be getting the picture that I think that imagining is all too scarce in people's understanding and living of Ignatian spirituality today. And, in looking to the future, I think that imagining is altogether essential. Just as I discussed three integral parts of remembering-~- noting, examining, and recalling the story--now I want to discuss three integral parts of imagining in Ignatian spirituality. I begin with contemplating, for this is again where Ignatius has left his mark on Christian spirituality. Contemplating Ignatian contemplation is focused, not on losing oneself in God, but on finding oneself with God. Contemplating is ordinarily understood as "gazing upon" the divine. In this gazing, November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ lgnatian lnvitation We tell stories not just to remember the past, but to learn for the future. the emphasis is not on the relationship between oneself and God, but rather is on being absorbed in God, lost in God, taken up into God. An example of this kind of contemplation is centering prayer. For Ignatius, however, the focus is always on relationship. Because Ignatian contemplation is ordinarily focused on gospel mysteries (that is, gospel events), we as contemplatives may, of course, get absorbed in the gospel story, but we are always consciously in relationship. For Ignatius, contemplating the gospel mysteries is the privileged way to come to know Jesus more clearly so as to love him more dearly and follow him more nearly, as the popular song from Godspell would impress upon us. A number of people today, in our media-saturated climate, claim difficulty with Ignatian contemplation for the very reason that it calls us to use our imagination. Having been spoon-fed by movies, television, and now computers and handheld Palms, we may have had our imaginations dulled. But, regardless of the cause, how do we help ourselves and others to do the imagining that Ignatius calls for? Ignatius was a romantic man, and he made active use of his imagination, as we know from his Autobiography. We ourselves may or may not be romantically inclined, but I think that most of us have told a story or two in our small world of everyday interaction with others. We tell stories about what happened to us or to others at the store, at work, at school, or on the way home. Most of us tell stories frequently. Ignatian contemplation can be understood as "telling a story." Remember what we said about the Ignatian "history": making something present to ourselves, recalling how. Contemplating for us is meant to be as involving as our own telling of a story. We have had the experience of telling the story of being at the bedside of dying Aunt Martha, and in the telling the lump in the throat and the tears come just as if we were once again in the midst of the very event. We have had some ridiculous interchange between a fellow worker and ourselves, and the event is so real that, in the retelling, tears of laughter roll down Review for Religious our own cheeks and down our listeners' cheeks as well. That kind of involvement is Ignatian contemplation. Perhaps we are not very imaginative, and the Ignatian directive of seeing the people, listening to what they say, and then watching their actions may seem very stilted and even cause us to feel frozen in our response. But I repeat that almost everyone can tell a story (and usually does in day-to-day life). And I think that, for Ignatius, contemplating and telling the story are one and the same activity. When we tell a story, we not only provide details; we also communicate meaning. Beyond that, we intimate the story's significance for ourselves and for the future. Telling the story may give us insight into our own behavior, other people's perceptions and moods, and God's ways of acting. We tell stories not just to remember the past, but to learn for the future. Telling stories is our way of imbibing wisdom. Contemplating, telling stories, looks to the future, and is an integral part of imagining. Dreaming A second aspect of imagining for Ignatius is dreaming--not nighttime dreams, but the daydreaming that is a part of youth, no matter the age. When we looked at the importance of noting for Ignatius, we observed that he had daydreams about serving the king of Spain and winning a great lady's hand; and then alternately he dreamed of serving Christ his King with great deeds like the saints of old, such as Dominic and Francis. After his wounding at Pamplona and his conversion, Ignatius never lost his ability to dream. I think we gain insight when we look upon the Call of the King meditation at the beginning of the Second Week as Ignatius's attempt to bring us into Christ's dream. Whether we take the parable king, so winning and inspiring, proposing his dream of conquering his enemies and achieving a victorious peace, or whether we consider the risen Christ calling each of us to let ourselves be caught up into his dream of the kingdom of heaven, God's reign, we are entering into a dream of future happenings. For the human king, such dreams might never be realized; for Christ, the victory of the dream is already realized in his resurrection, as we know by faith. In the Exercises, whether we consider the Three Degrees of Humility (§§165ff) or the situations described in the Second Way November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ Ignatian lnvitation to Make a Good and Sound Election (§§184ff), Ignatius presumes that most of us dream about our futures. He takes a common human experience and uses it for God. Dreaming, which is about a future still unrealized, is a use of imagination. Dreaming is an integral part of imagining in Ignatian spirituality. Visioning Similar to dreaming in Ignatian spirituality, but fixed more in the reality of what is already present, is visioning. Ignatius presents us with three vision exercises. He begins with a vision exercise known as the Principle and Foundation. He closes with an exercise tided "Contemplation on the Love of God," a vision exercise. The third vision exercise is tided the Call of the King (sometimes understood as the Second Principle and Foundation opening the Second Week and the Weeks thereafter). We have already considered it primarily under the idea of Christ presenting his dream to us, but Ignatius is careful to point out that this is more than just a dream, for the victory is assured. It is also a vision. The Principle and Foundation expresses succincdy Ignatius's way of seeing God, himself, his neighbor, and his world--in all their relations--and seeing, too, the choices to be made in living out the truth of the vision. The Contemplation on the Love of God expresses the ways of God's loving that we have reflected on and experienced through the course of the Exercises. In it we pray to be empowered to go forth and love with something of the fullness and breadth of God's loving. For Ignatius, visions present reality to us. Our effort to bring our own way of living into the vision gives us our direction into the future. Visioning, then, lik~ dreaming and contemplating, is an integral part of imagining--all three elements looking towards the future. I believe that the emphasis on imagining inherent in Ignatian spirituality is what allows it to be open, adaptable, and applicable to the future. Imagining is akin to the "blue-skying" that is so much a part of the planning process in organizational psychology. "Blue-skying" breaks us out of our usual restraints just as the image suggests. For Ignatius, imagining allows God to break into our lives because we have given up our own control, our own setting of limits. Imagining allows us to be open and Review for Religious available, to be vulnerable, to let a divine break-in help us to break out. Such imagining, then, as Ignatius discovered, becomes a way of working with God in the direction that God calls us. Recall that it is two piston arms that give Ignatian spirituality its dynamism: remembering and imagining. These terms mean more than a casual "look back" and then a "look forward," and neither one is to be chosen over the other. The genius of Ignatius was to see how only both working together would provide the forward dynamism that is summed up in the often misunderstood phrase "spiritual freedom." Being Free We are free only if we know, acknowledge, and work with our own personal history. But we need something more. We are free only if we are not limited or shackled by our past or present so that we can imagine the fi~ture that we are invited to by God. In Ignatius's experience, human freedom is a gift of God, but only a potential one. Actual freedom requires us to join together our remembering and our imagining. To be more exact, for us people of faith the gift of freedom is realized only in its relationship with the gift of God's grace. Then human freedom is experienced--Ignatius would say, using the Spanish word liberalidad--as generosity. I think, indeed, that liberalidad is better translated self-giving. Liberalidad well describes God's way of loving, a loving without limits, and yet always a discreet love. For Ignatius, a love without limits is a love of discretion because of reverence. The reverence that God shows to each of us, his children, is meant to be the pattern of our own way of loving. As the Third and Fourth Weeks show, God's love, incarnate in Jesus, will not be limited even by threat of death or death itself. And, in his risen life, Jesus lives the discreet love of never forcing but eliciting our response. Jesus' interaction with Thomas a week after the resurrection shows Love eliciting love. There are no limits to God's love, but, his reverence for us being so great, God always loves us with discretion. Human freedom, what we sometimes call spiritual freedom, is about giving oneself, sharing who we are. Freedom in its essence is not focused on one's independence or on concern about one's rights. For Ignatius, as we are reminded in his November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ Ignatian Invitation prenote to the Contemplation on the Love of God, lovers want to express their love in deeds more than words, and lovers want to communicate (the Ignatian word communicar) or share what they have with the one they love. It is in self-giving, in mutual sharing, mutual surrender, that human freedom is most strongly experienced. It is in this experience of generosity that true love is experienced between God and us and between wife and husband and between all who love. Ignatian generosity is not just a giving as in giving away; it is a sharing, a communication back and forth between two parties. "More !" The dynamism of Ignatian spirituality is sometimes identified with the Latin word magis, "More!" Looking for more seems to indicate a discontent with what is. Wanting more--for example, more food, more money, more successmcan be a devil-driven quality that makes us desire to be our own gods. To put magis in focus, we need to recognize that Ignatius's meaning of the word is in relation to love that has no limits, but nevertheless is always discreet. In ottier words, magis for Ignatius is a relationship word, a word having meaning in terms of personal relationships, in terms of love, reverential love. For Ignatius, God-given love is the only thing, the only giving, that gives proper meaning to "More!"--the love given freely, in generosity and always in reverence, just as God loves. Into the Deep In the same apostolic letter that Pope John Paul told us Christians to "set out into the deep" in this new millennium, he also gave a name to the spirituality that was to empower us in this endeavor. He called all Christians to live a "spirituality of communion." The pope made little attempt to define it and certainly did not identify this spirituality of communion with any one school or tradition of spirituality. The word communion, we note, does not come from the Latin unio and cure, meaning "union with." Rather, with its two re's, communio (from the Latin munus and cure) expresses a "functioning or working with." The usual English meaning of Review for Religious "communion"--that is, "union with"--will result from our "working together," but there seems to be an emphasis on activity, a real working at something together. The pope has called us all to live a spirituality of communion--to live a working-together spirituality--in a world in which divorce and family divisions are rampant, a world in which the meanness and divisiveness of racial, cultural, and economic differences have turned various cities and countries into war zones, a world in which our churches are divided between conservative (or traditional) factions and liberal (or progressive) ones, and a world in which religious faith itself is used as the excuse for the hatred, violence, and death visible in Europe, visible in the Middle East, visible in Africa, visible in India, and there are always more. The spirituality that is needed for us to face this world, the pope says, is above all a spirituality of communion. It is a provocative expression for a spirituality that looks to the future--"working together at bringing together." What is Ignatius's invitation to us today? It really does not differ from his invitation to the men and women of his own time in the 16th century. Perhaps we see the makeup of his spirituality more clearly today, finding it attractive in the face of the demands of our times. Perhaps we are more needy today, more in need of what this spirituality offers. Perhaps Ignatian spirituality shows the way to a reverence for all relationships in our world, so missing in secular culture and perhaps obscured in our church too. Whatever the appeal of Ignatian spirituality, I know that it concretizes for us a spirituality of communion--a "working together at bringing together." We need to be fed by God's word, by "every utterance that comes from the mouth of God," if we are to live and actively minister in our church today. For this, it can help to hold on to the word remembering, noting, examining, and recalling the story of events that have gone into the making of who we are--but not letting the past encapsulate us or drive us. We need to allow our creator God to break into our lives with creativity, and so it can help to hold on to the word imagining, contemplating, dreaming, and visioning activities that allow God to enter our life and accompany us into a world of generosity that only a truly'free person can know. When we remember God's love from past events and when we imagine God's call to greater love, more generosity, in the November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ Ignatian Invitation future, we are able to experience the magis (the "More!"), a love that is free and discreet, not driven, because of God's reverence for us and our reverent response. With a discreet love that knows no limits, we enter into Jesus' way of loving, into all the activity of God's way of loving. We are free to share our gifts, to be present, to give of ourselves, to labor and struggle and not count the cost. Whatever our situation, we may hear St. Ignatius echoing Pope John Paul: Yes, put out into the deep, be empowered with a spirituality of communion, look beyond patriarchy, foster mutuality, look towards solidarity, "work together at bringing together." Father Pedro Arrupe, the former superior general of the Jesuits, often used to ask challengingly, "Como?" or, in English, "How to do?" I can see Ignatius responding: "Remember and imagine." I can see Ignatius softly reminding us that there is a magis because there is Love. More softly still he adds, "Remember, imagine. See Jesus, our crucified Love." Adirondack Dawn Such intense stillness - no birdsong greets my ears, but only the whisper of lake water lapping the shore and birch leaves rustling ever so slightly. A faint cloud of incense rises from the misty waters, perfumed by the aroma of fragrant pine forests. Nature and I stand mute, awed by the miracle of this new day being birthed in such splendor. Christine Diensberg OSF Review for Religious IGNATIUS JESUDASAN Ignatian Indifference and Structural Constraints ~sehraneet lSy tu. nIgcnhaaltlieunsg reedfe cros ntcoe apst Gino odu'rs pwluilrla ilsis htiacr tdilmy eas. For him and his contemporaries, God was the indubitably trustworthy and unshakable rock on which to secure one's choice and commitment. Our age and culture do not believe in and recognize God as patently as previous ones did. Ours is a secular era, which understands and is at home with only secular language and thought. As contemporaries of this era, we cannot use any other language if we seriously want to address people of our era and be understood by them. In the context of seeking and finding God's will with regard to important decisions at the crossroads of one's life, St. Ignatius is, in effect, speaking of "affective indifference." In common parlance, this is a state of peace unruffled by the emotions of joy, hope, fear, and anxiety about actual or possible happenings. Anxiety is an indicator of attachment to something or someone and of the consequent fear of losing or becoming distanced from that object or person. Attachment can also be to one's own will, interests, or powers. Regarding decisions to be made by individuals and groups, we can use this language to approximate what Ignatius calls God's Ignatius Jesudasan SJ, new to our pages, writes from Loyola School; Uthiramerur 603 406; India. November-December 2002 Jesudasan ¯ Ignatian Indifference and Structural Constraints Images can be obstacles to affective indifference. A will. He desires to help people find as complete a freedom and objectivity as is obtainable or realizable on earth, so that they may be peacefully sure of making the right decision in current circumstances and the prevailing state of knowledge, avoiding needless errors of judgment and resulting difficulties, regrets, and recriminations. Affective indifference means freedom from emotional attachment or aversion to someone or something that a decision concerns or affects. Attachment and aversion are prejudices for or against someone or something. When one makes a decision on the basis of a prejudice, one is far from being fair to all involved in or affected by the decision. This unfairness comes ultimately from one or another prejudicial structure. Ignatius's stress on emotional or affective indifference can be seen as stemming from his concern about social structures with their social prejudices. Within those structures he sees the obviously unstable and changing nature of the emotions of both liking and disliking. His wish and desire is to help people achieve a stable social structure wherein all can be at peace together. This means that personal decisions people make need to be firm, steady, and. dependable. Affective indifference or lack of it has a bearing on social structures, and vice versa. People's most common difficulty in achieving and retaining affective indifference arises from the way their likes and dislikes make relationships unstable, opportunistic, exploitive, and irresponsible instead of stable, edifying, principled, virtuous, and responsible. People get stuck in webs of negative relationships from which only great effort, suffering, and sacrifice could extricate them--things they are not likely to desire. Often the very positions people occupy in an institution are obstacles to affective indifference, especially positions of great power, wealth, esteem, and influence. This can be true in the church and in institutions of religious congregations. Images can be obstficles to affective indifference. The image that people have or might get of you, or the image that you want to project of yourself, say of clarity and firmness, can make you Review for Religious inflexible. But you flatter yourself---and, when you are in power, there are also others to flatter you--with having that clarity and firmness. Such inflexible consistency is likely to be the very opposite of affective indifference and of psychological and spiritual freedom. It is perhaps a sign of the times and a clue to what they are reading that major superiors call for feedback on their governance. One hopes that they do this in openness and Ignatian indifference to the diverse opinions expressed. Needless to say, the teaching of St. Ignatius on indifference applies no less to superiors and their attitudes and decisions than to the ordinary members of his Society. Superiors have a duty to ask it of their subjects, and subjects have the reciprocal right to expect it from their superiors. Without it, religious governance would be no different from that of any secular, efficient, and exploitive military organization. The very call for feedback is a sign of a personal government, one that respects every member and takes the whole of his personality into account in decisions that affect him. This implies that the superior follows up, observes carefully, and, from what he sees and hears, learns how the subject has responded and how effectively he is accomplishing the assignment. Subjects might, of course, deliberately give false impressions. The superior might not interpret the information objectively, might bring prejudice to it, a lack of affective indifference. Depending on the patterns overall, the decision, its result, and the reading of the resulting situation will qualify as just clever and efficient, or else as also holy. An order made or given in affective indifference (and thus without prejudice) can be expected to be received with affective indifference by the subject. When there is resistance or reservation on the part of subjects who are usually affectively indifferent, there may be an absence of indifference on the part of the superior. The indicator of affective indifference is readiness to listen to the reasons and feelings of people on the other side. Indifference is total presence, availability, and attention to the other. It presupposes a measure of leisure and empathy to move with the other's flow of feeling, understanding, motivation, decision, commitment, and action. It is identification with the November-December 2002 ~esudasan ¯ I~natian Indifference and Structural Constraints other; it is objectivity with and transparency to the other. It is a state of perfect understanding, with a naturally contagious mutuality. The above is a description of a desirable ideal. The reality is very different on both sides. For we are all "busy" and in a hurry to achieve: make a name, prove a point, or teach a lesson--all in a short time. The result is that we do not achieve a solid objectivity, but make a show of power or of ourselves and our self-will, unaware of what we project and the violence we inflict on others because we do not see ourselves with their eyes: because in fact we are not indifferent. There are other structural hindrances to affective indifference. Being conditioned to structures can be the first. Some structures are inevitable and therefore function as criteria of indifference. Other structures, like tight schedules and strict procedures, militate against indifference. The greater the work, haste, power, prestige, or public image in one's life, the less time and likelihood there is for self-questioning. Thus one becomes extrovert and self-justifying, revealing the absence of detachment and indifference. When one is vested with much power or authority, one seems threatening to others, and the perceived threat erodes their indifference too. Another hindrance is that structures themselves, the very forms and formalities of objectivity, may have lacunae. That is, they may be objective only on the dubious assumption of perfect indifference on the part of decision makers and consultors. In decisions about a subject's psychological illness or resistance to change, the person involved may be physically absent from the scene of decision, and there may be a real possibility of his being prejudicially misrepresented because someone at the meeting likes or dislikes him. This writer became aware of one such misrepresentation and pointed it out. The superior, when informed, was apparently honest and humble enough to accept the correction, but the decision had already-been made in the absence of the subject and on the basis of a misunderstanding of a text. How sure is one that the information supplied to the consultors at the decision-making session is correct? When the basis of the decision is incomplete or incorrect, how complete and correct can the decision be? The probability is that this was not a unique occurrence. But Review for Religious how and why do such instances occur? They occur from the ex-parte nature of the decision or proceedings in the absence of the concerned person. The system does not have a built-in transparency for all concerned. Between the superior and the consultors, there may be some transparency. But, if the superior had the right to decide the matter after his face-to-face discussion with the concerned person but chooses, permissibly but without necessity, to bring the matter before his consultors, the subject's trust in the proceedings tends to be shaken. When the subject's personal indifference is not great, accepting the communicated decision is difficult, and the subject is left with the impression that the decision makers are no more indifferent than he himself is. It is likely that bias affects the decision precisely because the proceedings go on without the concerned person. In a personal government, transparency to the persons concerned is more important than transparency to a mechanism of decision making. Personal transparency is more likely to induce or educe a subject's indifference than an authoritarian structural mechanism like an official meeting of consultors. Besides, transparency to a mechanism risks betraying information that is passed on to a superior in confidence, and will only serve to make people opaque and nontransparent. If both trust and transparency are to be preserved along with the existing mechanisms and ways of proceeding,' the persons whom decisions concern will have to be asked to be present when the decisions are made. Otherwise, decisions are perceived as unfair and confidence is further eroded. A bigger structural constraint is the centralization of power and portfolios in the hands of one major superior. I am not advocating the appointment of more major superiors, but a suggesting that there may need to be decentralization and How sure is one that the information supplied to the consultors at the decision-making session is correct? November-December 2002 z~esudasan * Ignatian Indifference and Structural Constraints democratization of power at all levels, with the right to appeal to a higher superior when there is disagreement or conflict at any level. Democratization can be ensured by dialogue and wider consultation and by opening the local consultors' meetings to any and all members of the local community who are interested. The content or agenda of every such meeting should be announced beforehand. When a member and his works are discussed, he should have to be present. Entrusting more powers to local superiors in dialogue with their consultors and their community could ensure decentralization, but there should also be appeal to the higher superior in case of conflict or disagreements. Only that which cannot be resolved or decided upon by the local superior and community should be referred to the higher superior and his consult. When individual members feel that their voice is heard at the appropriate and necessary levels, the level of their confidence and indifference will increase. 5-841 Walking with Jesus I stroll along the water's edge tiny shorebirds my companions scurrying for morsels of food God provides in the receding tide. And I think of Jesus by the sea of Galilee, the apostles his companions listening to every word from his gentle heart. Now I too reach out to Jesus midst the sunrises and sunsets cognizant of the food of life bestowed on me, a loving son. Neil C. Fitzgerald Review for Religious DAVID M. WHALEN The Emergence of the Contemporary Traditionalists If indeed a picture is worth a thousand words, let me begin with a few verbal snapshots. The first is of a meeting of the liturgy/chaplaincy committee at a prominent Catholic university. Seated around the table are the priest chaplain, a full-time lay chaplain, and a half dozen or so students. The topic for discussion is what chaplaincy might offer by way of special services during Lent. Several suggestions generate little response. Then a student proposes an all-night Eucharistic vigil before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. The priest chaplain is amazed, and highly skeptical of its success, but feels he must go along with the suggestion if only to prove to the committee that such practices no longer attract the young. On the evening selected a brief exposition service is held with a surprising number of students present. The priest chaplain retires, setting his clock to wake him in the middle of the night so that there is sure to be someone present especially in case of an emergency. ministry formation David M. Whalen OSFS, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, teaches in the University of St. Michael's College. His address is Faculty of Theology/USMC; 81 St. Mary Street; Toronto, Ontario M5S 1J4; Canada. November-December 2002 Wbalen ¯ Contemporary Traditionalists As he enters the chapel, he is astonished by what he sees. There are young people everywhere. Some are on their knees. Others are sitting on the floor against the wall. Some have a Bible in one hand and a water' bottle in the other. There are even a few young students who have fallen asleep right at the foot of the altar. A second visit several hours later shows a scene almost identical to the first. The second snapshot is of a recent ~rdination. Only one man is being ordained. The concelebrating clergy section is comfortably filled with an assortment of "fifty-something" priests in albs and stoles of various design. Seated in the congregation are two additional priests, men in their mid sixties. Neither is in clerical attire. They have concerns about the overly clerical nature of the ordination ceremony and what they consider clericalism in general. For most of their priestly life, they have been in the vanguard of theological and liturgical change. Right in front of them are seated two seminarians, each in black suit and Roman collar. One sports a bright silver earring in each ear. The final snapshot is taken on the streets of Toronto, Canada, at the outset 'of World Youth Day. Walking down the street past the university are four or five religious sisters in full habit. By full habit I mean ankle-length dress, scapular, rosary hanging alongside, and a full back veil. One concession to modernity is evident. Since they do not wear a forehead cover, glimpses of black hair can be seen. Their progression down the street is continually interrupted by groups of young people who stop and talk with them, and, while I am not privy to the conversation, it appears friendly and positive. Whoever these sisters are and wherever they are from, it is clear that they are welcome in the eyes of the youth gathering in the city. These, of course, are only three snapshots. Though I could offer many more, they seem to capture bits and pieces of what I am calling contemporary traditionalism. I am a priest and religious in my late fifties. I grew up in a traditional Roman Catholic family, attended the local parish elementary school and the local Catholic high school. I entered my religious community right out of high school. My postulancy, novitiate, and first two years of professed life preceded Vatican Council 1I. The remainder of my formation took place right in Review for Religious the midst of the council. My priestly ministry began and continues in the post-Vatican lI era. My ministry has been chiefly in education, first as a high school teacher and administrator and now for twenty years at the university level. I teach in a faculty of theology attached to a university. I have also been a member of my congregation's formation team for close to twenty years. On weekends I assist in parishes. I refer to myself as part of the "bridge" generation, that is, the generation that lived before and after Vatican My doctoral work dealt with ministerial identity. Using qualitative or thick research, I studied a group of theology students, mostly lay, for one year, looking for indications of whether, when, where, and how they appropriated a ministerial identity. Religious/ministerial identity still intrigues me. What follows in this article is some informal qualitative research, that is, an attempt to look in some depth and over an extended period of time at a particular issue. Qualitative research does not permit long-range projections, and both the writer and reader need to be aware of that limitation. On the other hand, qualitative research, even of the informal variety, may suggest that the issue under scrutiny deserves some serious investigation. For several years now I have been fascinated by the growing number of people who seem to be forging a new religious identity. Many of these people have been students in my classes. Others have been a part of our formation program at one point or another. Some come from my parish experience. I refer to these people as the contemporary traditionalists. They are men and women in their twenties and thirties. Most of them are university educated, and many are now pursuing graduate studies. Theirs is the world of cyberspace and technology. Just as I would be reluctant to leave the house in the morning without my wristwatch, they do not think of leaving their residence without cell phone and PalmPilot in hand. They are much more likely to get their daily news from I have been fascinated by the growing number of people who seem to be forging a new religio ts identity. November-December 2002 VVbalen ¯ Contem~orar[ Traditionalists the Internet than from the printed newspaper. They are educated, although their educational resources are very different from mine. While I still like to hold a book and have no difficulty roaming through the stacks in a library to find the book I want, they are much more likely to use the Internet and its resources than library stacks. I continue to be amazed as the bibliography of student essays indicates more downloaded articles than traditional "hard" text references. They have only known one pope, John Paul II. They have known the liturgy only in the vernacular. Events like Vatican II, the Vietnam war, and indeed the Persian Gulf war are all historical events for them, just as Vatican Council I and Trent were for my generation. Although their Internet abilities give them a global access, they are surprisingly apolitical. They find pictures of campus disruptions in the 1960s and 1970s mildly amusing. They are generous in volunteering for local efforts to help the poor or marginalized, but not much interested in what seem the deeper structural issues that cause such poverty. It is in the broad area of theology and religious practice, though, that their contemporary traditionalism is most evident. In moral theology, for example, specifically regarding divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, and abortion and contraception, they seem at first glance totally supportive of the church's current teaching, but as conversation continues one notices the contemporary side of their traditionalism in what I call their "exemption" or "notwithstanding" clause. They believe that marriage is for life, they do not believe in divorce or remarriage of the divorced, and yet they not only are not condemnatory of divorced and remarried people they know, but often express the conviction that such people ought to be admitted to the sacraments under certain nonspecified conditions. They see no difficulty in holding a traditional position about marriage and sometimes granting exemptions to church restrictions by way of a "notwithstanding" clause. They take a similar stand regarding homosexuality. While terms such as "intrinsic disorder" are not part of their vocabulary, they seem to believe that homosexuality ought not enjoy the same status as heterosexuality. But, expressin, g such concern about the issue, in the abstract, they are quick to cite the Review for Religious gays and lesbians they know firsthand, particularly those in generous committed relationships, as persons who should be granted an exemption to the church prohibitions. They are strongly opposed to abortions. In fact, an antiabortion protest is one of the few protests in which they will participate. They do not believe in free or recreational sex, but they seem much less concerned about artificial contraception whether used in or out of marriage. They have this relative unconcern particularly in the case of young people who they think have not yet reached a certain level of moral development. People call this theological approach cafeteria theology, a pick-and-choose theological stance, or a revival of situational ethics, but the contemporary traditionalists do not seem to see it that way at all. They seem to see it as an interim theology. I have had occasion to speak with a young man who acknowledges privately that he is gay. lie does not consider himself intrinsically disordered--in fact, the term means little to him--and yet he is willing to live by the church's current expec-tations. He supports neither the "queer culture" nor the church-sanctioned support group for homosexuals called Courage. He does not think either of these groups contributes much to the cause. He is convinced that the church's teaching will change in time and seems willing to wait for it to change. He has friends who are less patient than he is, and, while he does not agree with them, at least in some instances he seems willing to grant them an "exemption" or "notwithstanding" clause. In other areas of theology, many of these young people appear to be theologically illiterate. My generation grew up with a question-and-answer form of religious education that provided a certain primitive theological literacy along with some problematic side effects, but the contemporary traditionalists do not seem to have even a primitive theological literacy. This is true even of students who are studying theology. But the contemporary traditionalists do not seem to have even a primitive theological literacy. November-December 2002 Wbalen ¯ Contemporary Traditionalists --5.90 In one of the classes I teach, I invite students at a certain point in the course to go to their "theological treasury" and find elements that they can place in conversation with their contemporary experience. A student responded by saying, "My theological treasury is bare. Someone got in before me and robbed me of everything." His opinion seemed to be that of many in the class. While many of my generation have bemoaned the style, language, and structure of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, I am amazed at how many students consider it one of the most valuable documents in their possession. They are more likely to have this on their bookshelf than the documents of Vatican II. It is in the broad area .of liturgy/spirituality/piety, though, that the contemporary traditionalists seem most clearly identifiable. These contemporary traditionalists are searching desperately for a genuine Christian and Catholic spirituality. Last year, for example, my introductory course in spiritual direction had the highest enrollment of any course in our faculty of theology. Class evaluations were overwhelmingly positive. While in moments of pride I am quick to think that the positive response centered on me as teacher, comments suggest that their enthusiasm was for the content, not the professor. My generation was delighted when the first home Masses began to be celebrated. Gone were the long rows of pews. Instead, friends sat around a coffee table with a relaxed and much more informal ritual. The priest, if he wore any liturgical garb at all, probably wore only a .simple stole. There was always a "shared" homily and a very warm exchange of peace before the Eucharist itself was shared. The contemporary traditionalists are clearly not excited by the casual liturgy of the 1970s. They are tired of "sharing" their feelings about the readings. One student said to me, "From grade one on, all anyone ever asked me was what I felt about this or that. What I feel now is that I need a litde more information rather than another round of everyone's feelings on the topic." Almost universally, the contemporary traditionalists are critical of the way liturgy is celebrated today. They seem to find many parish liturgies and many of the clergy incapable of creating the sacred moment for them. As for p.reaching, they Review for Religious would much rather read a passage from one of the church fathers than listen to a homily. One student said to me: "Look, I already have a degree in psychology, and frankly my parish priest's attempt to speak psychologically falls flat. If he has nothing theological to say, I wish he would just sit down and shut up!" The traditional part of the student keeps him going to church while the contemporary part is constantly searching for another option. Some contemporary traditionalists are rediscovering various pious practices in the church. One student told me that from childhood on she had wondered what the various pictures were that graced the walls of her parish church. What she was referring to are the Stations of the Cross. While surfing the net, she came upon a copy of prayers and reflections designed to accompany the Stations. Waiting for a time when she felt "safe" in walking the Stations, she came to the church and walked them and prayed them. Her comment and question to me was "Why are these such a bigsecret tooay." ~" In addition to the retrieval of many traditional devotions from the past, the more contemporary practice known as Taiz4 Prayer appears very common among the contemporary traditionalists. Taiz4 Prayer, modeled on that used by the monks of Taiz~ in France, combines simple chanted scriptural phrases, mostly in Latin, with periods of silent prayer and usually concludes with a veneration of the cross. As the snapshots I gave you at the beginning of this essay hinted, the contemporary traditionalists have no difficulty with visible manifestations of their religious beliefs. They seem somewhat intrigued by the fact that so many religious and priests have abandoned religious clothing and other religious symbols. At the same time they know very few religious. Although many of them have attended Catholic elementary and secondary schools and in some cases Catholic universities, few if any of them were The contemporary traditionalists have no difficulty with visible manifestations of their religious beliefs. November-December 2002 Whalen ¯ Contemporary Traditionalists ever taught by priests, brothers, or sisters. They are much more likely to identify sisters with the late Mother Teresa or with Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act than with an actual still-living religious woman. And, while there is a world of difference between the late Mother Teresa and the Whoopi Goldberg version of a sister, the contemporary.traditionalists find both very enticing. One young male religious in a religious community that has a visibly distinct religious habit told me that the "habit" issue is not his issue; it is an issue for the "older" members, who still seem to be fighting for something that his generation has little time or sympathy for. This gap between many of the contemporary traditionalists and many of the current generation of religious was brought home to me vividly by a simple line from a young woman beginning consecrated life. The Canadian Film Board spent a year following this young woman through the process of applying to and eventually entering a religious community. One scene in particular drew nay attention. It shows her filling out the questionnaire sent by the community as part of the admission process. One question asks, "Have you ever dated?" The young woman turns and faces the camera with a bit of a grin, rolls her eyes upward, and says "How fifties-ish!" In many ways that comment seems to represent the attitude of the contemporary traditionalists as they confront the church and ministry and religious life today. Their issues, their lifestyle, their questions and concerns are simply different from those of stereotypical conservatives or liberals. Those ideas, those agendas, are so "fifties-ish" or so "sixties-ish"! Another difference between the contemporary traditionalists and the usual conservative or liberal "suspects" and representativFs is on the matters of married clergy and women priests. The traditional side of these young contemporaries supports an all-male celibate clergy, but for many of them what is important is not the clergy's gender or marital status, but rather its authenticity. Given the option between a celibate but incompetent male priest and a liturgy presided over by someone of the caliber of Mother Teresa, they are prepared to use their "notwithstanding" clause in favor of the woman. In their eyes, this is not inconsistency; it is yet another example of different concerns and their use of the "exception" or "notwithstanding" theology option. Review for Religious Whether these contemporary traditionalists are merely a passing blip on the great Jumbo-Tron of religion today or are a whole new picture slowly replacing an older picture it is probably too early to tell. Still, it seem to me that such contemporary traditionalists are the ones most likely to investigate consecrated life or the priesthood today. Whether the religious communities and dioceses that have assumed--by deliberate choice or simply by default--a standard conservative or liberal posture will be welcoming of them and their way of life remains to be seen. Epiphany Like one of the magi, you journey toward the Light. There's more wilderness than you would have thought, uncharted plains stretching from yesterday to remote Decembers. You could lose your courage or your way and scan the sky for twinkling clues. But it requires no gift of gold or frankincense for God to grant epiphanies. Unexpected stars have risen in your darkest nights, and always just in time. So you were not surprised at what you heard today. The magi's star, absent for a while, would of course shine forth again, be fair oasis brightening the desert of vast sky and luring, as stars do, curious travelers to the very feet of new-begotten God. Patricia Schnapp RSM November-December 2002 GUY B. WILSON A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation Imn the past four years we have developed in Costa Pica a odel of formation for our new members. The model is based on religious and lay people working together. This article is an attempt to articulate the philosophy, theology, spirituality, and practice of our experience with this model. The model is inspired by the vision and pioneering work of our founder, Father Thomas Augustine Judge. He began an apostolic organization of laypersons, the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate,and then founded two religious congregations, one for women, the Missionary Servants of Most Blessed Trinity, and one for men, the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity. He encouraged us all to collaborate as a missionary community or family. Our Rule, constitution, and documents promote this interdependence and cooperation. The new Manual of Forma-tion for the men religious emphasizes the common history and the shared vocation we have with the other branches and takes our collaboration with them for granted. Our religious have been working in teams with laypersons, sharing gifts, ministries, and faith. We are doing so more and Guy B. Wilson ST, a member of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, first published this description of formation principle and practice in his congregation's newsletter, Tri-Com. He can be addressed at Cenficulo Misionero San Jos~; Apartado Postal 191-3100; Santo Domingo de Heredia; Costa Rica. Review for Religious more in our promotion of parish life and the life of pastoral centers. In these places the three groups share responsibilities, power, and decisions to enrich the ministry of evangelization and to strengthen the missionary vocation of all. In Costa Rica we have applied this pastoral model of collaboration to the formation of our men religious. In this model, the laypersons are key. They form an integral part of the formation team with the director. They share responsibilities and decisions. As they do in pastoral ministry, they gready enrich the ministry of formation. Religious and laypersons, by forming community and working together as teams, model for the seminarians the reality of the church. They form a microcosm of the church, men and women, lay and religious, married and celibate, all united in their faith and promoting the mission of Jesus. This collaboration reflects the church as the people of God, an important image articulated in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. All the baptized are called to participate, with their gifts and faith, in the mission of Jesus. Laypersons, with their practical experience of day-to-day struggles and successes and with their varied professional backgrounds, have much to offer to formation ministry. Our young men have benefited from being accompanied in their religious vocation by a psychologist and father of a family, by a mother of adolescents who is also a financial administrator, by a grandmother and pastoral coordinator, and by an experienced lay missionary. Our candidates and newly professed are in an intensive process directed towards serving the people of God. It is crucial that the people of God are intimately present in their formation. This model shows laypersons and religiou~ united through their baptismal commission in promoting the mission of Jesus. It is an important change from priestly and religious vocations being enthroned above the lay vocation. The participation of women is essential not only in the ministry of the church but also in the formation of our men religious. Their perspective on life, the gospel, faith, and motherhood enriches the formation of our men in their otherwise male-dominated world. The women who have worked on this team have helped to create an environment of trust and accessibility. The seminarians feel at home in November-December 2002 Wilson ¯ A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation approaching them to talk and seek counsel. At the same time, because of this relationship, the women have been able to challenge our young men to mature personally and grow in their religious identity. We want our future religious to reflect, in their relationships with all and especially with women, the harmony, intimacy, love, and collaboration promoted in our devotion to the Holy Trinity. Spiritual and Theological Bases This model of collaboration is based on the vision and charism of our founder. Father Judge referred to the lay apostolic organization and the men's and women's religious congregations he founded as the Missionary Cenacle. He emphasized that we work and share together the spirit of the first Christian community, the cenacle. The cenacle (the upper room where the Jesus' followers were gathered at Pentecost) is the image and model for this formation program. The formation community comprises men and women, laypersons and religious, and people from different cultures, all guided in faith and mission by the Holy Spirit. In the interaction of the cenacle, the members of the formation community are helped to develop their various gifts for use in their mission ministry. "It is the same and only Spirit who gives all these gifts and powers, deciding which each one of us should have" (1 Co 12:11). It is the Holy Spirit who prepares us for mission. This ministry calls us to adopt a prophetic stance that flows from the spirituality and ecclesiology of our founder. He selected the cenacle as the model of the interdependence of his missionary family of religious and lay people. The renewal promoted by the Second Vatican Council also suggests a formation style of collaboration. The Triniw is the main image for the church's community and mission. The Trinity, as a model of collaboration, encourages dialogue and shared ministry in our formation endeavors. Our efforts to glorify the triune God have brought us to a commitment of collaboration in community and mission with the branches of the Missionary Cenacle, lay and religious. As the Father collaborates with the Son and Holy Spirit in distinct and specific ways to actualize the saving mission, we as a formation Review for Religious team intend to collaborate in the ministry of formation of our candidates and newly professed. We form not only a team with specific duties but also a formation community in which our faith and shared ministries testify to the life and mission of Jesus. Jesus, sent by the Father, sends his missionaries or apostles to realize his mission. As people sent by Jesus, we are designated to cooperate in the labor of the Holy Spirit in the vocational development and the missioning of our brothers. Jesus is our key and door to the mystery of the Trinity. Our devotional knowledge of the incarnation brings us to a greater intimacy with Jesus. This devotion teaches us that, with all our graces and all our defects, we are sent. As humble and grateful members of the Body of Christ, we understand that our collaboration with Jesus' mission involves using the variety of our gifts. These gifts enrich the formation ministry as we accompany the candidates and newly professed in their spiritual, human, communal, and apostolic development. This model of interdependence and collaboration has several aspects. First, the religious life and its formation are not isolated from the world. The previous model of priestly and religious formation separated seminarians from the people of God in their daily life. The seminarians lived, prayed, studied, and socialized amid priestly formators and other seminarians. Only priests, normally with an academic emphasis, were chosen to direct the seminarians. The role of the laity in their formation, if it existed, was limited to classroom teaching or to consulting on specific matters. Often this environment produced elitist attitudes. The present model of formation emphasizes helping seminarians develop their capacity to live relationally with other seminarians, lay people and religious, men and women. The Formation Team The formation team of the Missionary Servants in Costa Rica comprises a religious priest as director, a layman as associate director, and a laywoman as the pastoral supervisor. This team accompanies the propaedeutic, prenovitiate, and postnovitiate formation programs. The cooperation of laypersons increases the pool of those who can dedicate themselves to formation. In our situation this is a great advantage, for we have few religious November-December 2002 Wilson ¯ A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation available for this ministry. Also, the laypersons, through their professional training and experience, have improved the quality of formation. Our associate director, for example, a professional psychologist, has strengthened our efforts to foster the seminarians' personal growth. He has implemented extensive workshops on personal growth, sexuality, maturity, and group dynamics. Using his professional vision and understanding of the expectations of our congregation and the needs of the church, he has selected various other professionals to accompany our young men towards maturity. Likewise, the pastoral supervisor has arranged to have our seminarians trained and evaluated in their apostolic endeavors along with our lay missionaries. The apostolates have improved significandy. Our students and the lay apostles cooperatively help one another. The participation of women in the formation program has strengthened the seminarians' ability to relate to and work with both men and women. The model produces a healthy environment for our young men and for the director. Exchange and dialogue help the seminarians and also help the director in making decisions for their sake. Likewise, open sharing with lay formators is a blessing for the personal and spiritual life of the director. By challenging me daily to become a better director and religious, the lay members of the team strengthen my vocation. On the other hand, the laypersons who participate or have participated speak of the profound spiritual, apostolic, and faith growth they experience in this exchange with religious and seminarians. They are grateful for what God is doing in their lives through this relationship. The Formation Programs The formation team is responsible for three programs: propaedeutic, prenovitiate, and postnovitiate. The programs are distinct, but are located on the same property. Each program has its own living and recreational areas. I have observed certain advantages to the proximity of the programs. First, it helps economically. One team serves the three programs, and the expenses of domestic employees, property taxes, financial administration, and so forth are reduced. Second, there is good Revie~v for Religious communal interaction. The young men in the three programs share the same Eucharistic table and the common table. This has helped to build community in number, participation, and spirit. They share sports activities and work in teams. The participants of the three programs form apostolic teams with the members of our lay branch, many of whom celebrate the daily liturgies with us. All the programs study at ITAC (Instituto Teol6gico de Am4rica Central), which was formed to educate religious. The international environment has greatly enriched the formation programs in Costa Rica. The formation team consists of members from the United States, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. The candidates and newly professed are from nine different nations of Central America, the Caribbean, Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico. At the theological institute, there are students from sixteen countries and a number of religious congregations. The cultural exchange broadens everyone's worldview and promotes the vision of one America among the Americas. The formation community includes a retired religious, another religious priest (vocation director), two members of our lay organization who work in the seminary (financial administrator and academic advisor), and lay apostles from the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate who gather in our center for formation and apostolates, sharing prayer and training with our seminarians. All the members of the team have participated in programs designated for formators. The Formation of the Team All the members of the team have participated in programs designated for formators. The programs emphasize personal and spiritual development as well as methods of sharing ministries. Most of these people have attended pr.ograms of the Instituto Central de Espiritualidad in Guatemala under the leadership of Father Carlos Cabarrus SJ. They also attend theology classes at L-Y99-- November-December 2002 Wilson ¯ A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation ITAC. They gather in retreat once a year and pray together frequently. All members of the team participate in spiritual direction. Concerns have been voiced in regard to the role of laypersons in the formation of our religious. There is a concern that, in this collaborative model of formation, our professed will not develop a clear identity as religious. From my observation over these years, our young men's religious identity is actually reinforced. In particular, the laity demand and challenge our candidates and professed to be faithful to their vocation and religious way of life. They likewise encourage our young professed to share the richness of their studies and spiritual and apostolic training with them for the benefit of the mission. It is quite evident that lay participation in their formation reinforces the vocation of our religious. A clear indicator of this is that religious priests formed in this model and now serving in our missions show a clear and strong identity in their vocation as religious. They are forming good community with their confreres on mission, and they work well with the laity. Specific Abilities This model comes with risks and challenges. Although it is based on the experience of pastoral teams functioning in our missions, the formation ministry requires specific abilities to accompany our young men in their development as persons, Christians, and religious. There are few books or guidelines to follow. The formation team has to dedicate itself to dialogue and communication. It must make a deliberate decision to form a community that shares faith, life, and vision. The heart of the work of the formation team is to model a communal spirit that collaborates on many levels. The team has to adapt continually to the new realities of this generation of young men. This is a new model, and in many respects it is prophetic. It is important that team members dialogue with other formators, with council members, and with spiritual directors to ensure the effectiveness and health of the formation. And, of course, the team must be united and convinced of the model even though people criticize it. Many will not understand it, including at ti~nes our own seminarians. Review for Religious All in all, the model is developing positively and serving well the needs of the congregation. It is producing a healthy environment for the seminarians' formation, a healthiness that includes taking some prudent risks. Bees Canning bees and picking bees, long skirts pinned up front and back, gingham aprons - blue, green, yellow-checked (diversity skirting uniformity). Noon hours in sweaty kitchen or out in sunbaked yard snipping beans, podding peas, peeling scalded tomatoes - coming and going like flocks of sparrows alighting in waves, laughing, pecking at bits of news, filling tubs of ready-to-can. Sticky evenings in berry patch or orchard, filling buckets with raspberries, blueberries, currants, climbing trees for cherries, red and black - a thousand locusts chattering between the rows, whisking clean every bush and branch. Chapel bell intoning silence. Then instant stillness - hundreds of nuns processing quietly along dusty lane toward stately motherhouse. Mary Joseph Maher IHM November-December 2002 MARY KAY DOBROVOLNY Mary Magdalene: An Icon for Women Religious sisters and brothers About six years ago I fell in love for the first time. The experience opened entire new worlds to me and taught me a great deal about honesty, integrity, inti-macy, and myself in relationship with others. It also brought tremendous conflict and turmoil. I was inex-perienced in matters of the heart, and I had made a public commitment to live vowed religious life, includ-ing celibacy, for at least three years. Being in my sec-ond year of this three-year commitment, I prayed daily for the grace to live my life with faithfulness and integrity as I discerned whether to leave my religious ¯ community or stay as a vowed member. Today I am very happily a perpetually professed Sister of Mercy, having made final vows in July 1998. But I remember clearly those days of my first love and the struggle in the months thereafter to freely choose vowed religious life. Beyond the intense grief for the path not chosen, there was the great void of role mod-els for how to negotiate a love relationship while choosing to remain a vowed member of a religious community. Loud in my consciousness were the myr- Mary Kay Dobrovolny RSM is pursing a doctorate in New Testament studies at Vanderbilt University. Her address is 3335 Acklen Avenue; Nashville, Tennessee 37212. Review for Religious iad stories of women who left in the 1960s and 1970s to marry or pursue a committed relationship with another. Deafening by its silence was the reluctance of current members to speak of their own experiences of falling in love and being in love. As a new member I began to wonder if it was possible to fall in love and choose to remain part of vowed religious life. To help fill the void of role models, this paper will present Mary Magdalene as an icon for celibate loving and apostolic mission, using the resurrection story found in the Gospel of John. This passage speaks of a love and intimacy between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. In addition, as the first to encounter the resurrected Jesus and receive the commission to "go and tell," Mary Magdalene becomes the "apostle to the apostles." This paper will (1) explore who Mary Magdalene is, sorting through the myths in the tradition; (2) examine the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in chapter 20 of John's Gospel; and (3) note some insights suggested by this examination regarding celibate loving and apostolic mission for vowed women religious. Sorting through the Myths of the Tradition When I began working on this paper, a theologically edu-cated friend of mine gave me an article on Luke 7:36-50, a pas-sage the New American Bible calls "The Pardon of the Sinful Woman.''1 I looked at my friend, smiled, thanked her for the article, and then said, "You do know that the woman in this pas-sage is not Mary Magdalene, don't you?" Gasping slightly, she said, "I can never keep those Marys straight." My friend is not alone in this, and she has had much help combining the women of Scripture. In the tradition of the West, the unnamed woman in Luke 7, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and sometimes even the woman who was caught in adultery ~ln 8) have all been interwoven and confused. The confusion can be traced as far back as the 6th century. Pope Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604) merged the identities of these women into one woman in sev-eral homilies. Since that time, veneration of Mary Magdalene in the West has diverged from the Gospels' portrayal of her. While none of the biblical women is called "a prostitute," Mary Magdalene's most frequent portrayal in stories, legends, art, and worship has been as a prostitute and repentant sinner. November-December 2002 Dobrovolny ¯ Mary Magdalene The East has looked at Mary Magdalene as equal to the apostles. The combination of these women's identities was not shared by the Eastern churches, which have treated the women as sep-arate individuals. The East has looked at Mary Magdalene as equal to the apostles. Shortly after the time of Pope Gregory the Great, Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem, said that Mary Magdalene, the myrrh-bearer, was "chief among the women disciples," a teacher of other holy women, a lifelong virgin, and a martyr.2 While the popular mind continues to think of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute, recent scholarship is replac-ing this image with a view of her as faithful disciple, witness to the resurrection, and apostle to and with the twelve. This is a retrieval in the West of a previously held image, not a new creation. Each of the Gospels portrays Mary Magdalene as a follower of Jesus through his Galilean ministry, a wit-ness and mourner of his crucifixion and death, a witness of the empty tomb, the first to whom the risen Jesus appears, and the first to proclaim his resurrection. Accordingly, Hippolytus (ca. 170-235), bishop of Rome, named her apostola apostolorum, apostle to the apostles. This title, revived by recent scholars, was repeated as late as Thomas Aquinas. Narrative Analysis of John 20 John 20:1-18 is a single narrative unit divided into three scenes. Verses 1-2 depict Mary Magdalene's discovery of the empty tomb, verses 3-10 describe the race between Peter and the beloved disciple to the tomb, and verses 11-18 find Mary Magdalene alone, weeping outside the tomb. She went to the tomb of the crucified Jesus "early. while it was still dark." hnmediately after discovering that the stone had been removed from the tomb, she ran to tell Peter and the beloved disciple that "they have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." This is the first of three times that she announces that the body of Jesus has been removed from the tomb (see also 20:13 and 15). This announcement to Review for Religious Peter and the beloved disciple is the catalyst for the second scene, in which these two characters race to the tomb to dis-cover it empty, albeit for linen wrappings. After these two have returned home (20:10), Mary Magdalene stands weeping beside the tomb. Still weeping, she stoops and looks inside, continuing her search for Jesus' body. Her weeping is mentioned twice in one verse, suggesting both intense frustration and intense grief. She stays in this place of grief and pain rather than return home like the other disciples. She turns toward suffering, pain, and death.3 The setting for Mary Magdalene's search for the body of Jesus is both a graveyard and a garden. Her weeping in the graveyard is reminiscent of the grief of Mary of Bethany upon the death of her brother Lazarus, and the garden On 19:41) brings to mind both the primeval male-female intimacy of Adam and Eve in Genesis and the passionate love in the Song of Songs (4:12-5:1; 6:2-3; 8:13).4 Mary looks into the tomb and sees "two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying" (20:12). Rather than deliver a message of hope, comfort, or resurrection, these angels question her: "Woman, why are you weeping?" This question calls attention to her tears for a third time. Mary reit-erates the cause of her pain: "They have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him" (20:2 and 13). Apparently not awed by the angels, Mary turns from the tomb to see the unrecognized Jesus. A conversation with this "gar-dener" takes place, three exchanges between them. Jesus asks the reason for her weeping--tears mentioned now a fourth and final time. The intensity of Mary's grief and worry and serves to fulfill the prediction Jesus made earlier in the Gospel: "Amen, Amen, I say you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice" (16:20). In this Gospel, Mary Magdalene is the only character who weeps and mourns when she can "no longer see [Jesus]" (16:19).s Soon the rest of Jesus' prediction will be fulfilled: "You will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy" (16:20 and 22). Jesus asks not only the reason for her weeping, but also "Whom are you seeking?" (20:15). She reiterates for the third time her search for the crucified Jesus, asking the "gardener" to help her find him. The focus on Mary's unrelenting search for . November-December 2002 Dobrovolny ¯ Mary Magdalene the crucified Jesus echoes the lover's intense search for her beloved in the Song of Songs: Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought .him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer. "1 will rise now and go about the city, in the street~ and-ih the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves." I sought him, but found him not. The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. (Sg 3:1-4, NRSV) In this passage and in the narrative about Mary at Jesus' tomb, the women are seeking and failing to find their beloved. The searches occur in a garden (Sg 4:12-5:1; 6:2-3; 8:13; Jn 19:41-42). The women inquire where their beloved might be. And, as we will see shortly, neither woman wants to release her beloved once he has been found. This is stated strongly in the Song of Songs 3:4: "I held him, and.would not let him go until I brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me." The second exchange is marked by recognition. Mary Magdalene has not recognized the resurrected Jesus by sight, but now, his voice sounding her name, she recognizes him. This recognition reminds us of the shepherd who "calls his own by name" and they "follow him because they know his voice" (10:3- 4). Mary exclaims, "Rabbouni!" (meaning Teacher). This title and "Lord," the title she has used before (20:2, 13, and also 15), are titles Jesus has mentioned as fitting ones: "You call me Teacher and Lord--and you speak correctly, for indeed I am" (13:13). Before Mary's "Rabbouni!" the Greek text says of her (using a participle) strapbeisa. This can simply mean baying turned, but it can also mean baying changed inwardly, baying been converted.6 The New Revised Standard Version uses the former meaning of physical motion, saying "she turned." But she has already turned from the tomb toward this "gardener" (20:14); turning physically again does not make narrative sense. It s~iems instead that, hear- Review for Religious ing her name spoken by that beloved voice, she is inwardly changed by that recognition. Most likely the transformation of her weeping and mourning into the joy described in John 16:20 and 22 is at the heart of that change. In the third exchange, Jesus presents Mary Magdalene with two commands: "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father" and "Go to my brothers and sisters and say to them . " In read-ing between the lines, it can be difficult to get the tone of Jesus' commands and their impact on Mary, whose weep-ing has just been transformed into joy. Some commentators try to find a fault in her or her belief, which does not permit her to touch Jesus as Thomas is later invited to do (20:27).7 Others have written about a "decided brutality" in Jesus' rebuke and rejection of her.8 Both of these interpretations miss textual clues. Far from being found at fault, Mary is given, a privileged position within the Gospel of John as the first to see the risen Jesus and the first to be commissioned to proclaim the resurrection. Jesus does not find fault with her--which suggests that the Gospel's author does not intend the reader to do so either. As for the idea of "brutality," Mary does not respond as one who has been rebuked or rej.ected by her beloved Jesus. There is no more weeping. Instead, with jubilation Mary proclaims, "I have seen the Lord!" (20:18). Still, inasmuch as Mary's inclination to hold on to her beloved after seeking him unrelentingly with intense longing is quite understandable (as in Sg 3:4), Jesus' command is per-plexing. It can only be understood in light of his explanation: "for I have not yet ascended to the Father." Later in this same verse, Jesus tells Mary to announce "I am ascending . " The text seems to indicate that Jesus is in a transitional phase in which he is in the process of ascending.9 The appearance of Jesus at this threshold moment between his resurrection from the dead and his ascension to the Father is unique, and it Hearing her name spoken by that beloved voice, she is inwardly changed by that recognition. November-December 2002 Dobrovolny * Mary Magdalene involves only Mary Magdalene. By the time Jesus appears and invites Thomas to touch him (20:27), he has already ascended to the Father and returned, bringing and bestowing the Advocate upon the disciples (20:22). Mary's encounter with Jesus is recognizable as a uniquely privileged one. After telling Mary not to hold on to him, Jesus commis-sions her to "go to my brothers and sisters and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'" (20:17). There are three noteworthy pieces of this com-mission: (1) the phrase tous adelphous mou, translated above as "my brothers and sisters"; (2) the phrase "to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God"; and (3) the verb tense used in the commission to "go and tell." The phrase "my brothers and sisters" denotes a new rela-tionship between Jesus and his followers and among his fol-lowers. 1° Previously, in his final discourse to the disciples, Jesus has called his disciples friends rather than slaves (15:15), and, while hanging on the cross, he has created a new relationship between his mother and the beloved disciple (19:26-27). Now (20:17) he proclaims that all members of the believing com-munity are his brothers and sisters and, by implication, broth-ers and sisters to each other. This new relationship recalls and fulfills the imagery in the Johannine Prologue: "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" (1:12). The fulfillment of the words of the Prologue is made more explicit in what follows: "I am ascending to my Father andyour Father, to my God and your God" (20:17). The rhythm of these words recalls the covenant Ruth made with her mother-in-law Naomi: "Your people shall be my people and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16). Despite the differences in race, Ruth, a Moabite, casts her lot with her Hebrew mother-in-law, mak-ing their futures forever intertwined. In the same way, Jesus proclaims that, despite the differences (see 14:6: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me"), a new covenantal family relationship has been established. This new covenantal family relationship encompasses all of the believing community in the postresurrection community. Mary Magdalene is commissioned to "go to my brothers and Review for Religious sisters and tell them . " The imperative verb poreuou (go) is in the present tense. A present imperative "generally denotes a command to continue to do an action or to do it repeatedly.''11 Thus, Mary Magdalene is commissioned, not for a one-time telling of her revelation of the risen Jesus (such as that recorded to the disciples in 20:18), but to go repeatedly to the commu-nity, continuing to tell the story of her encounter with the risen Jesus.2 The Gospel of John does not narrate any additional con-versation between the risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Instead, Mary is presented as going immediately to the disciples to pro-claim: "I have seen the Lord!" Her weeping and mourning have been transformed into joy. Her intense search-ing for her beloved has been transformed into assured confidence of continuing in her rela-tionship with Jesus. Her encounter with the risen Jesus establishes her authority among the disciples. And, through her conveying the mes-sage of the risen Jesus, a new relationship among the community of believers is estab-lished, enabling them to be "brothers and sisters" in the one God and Father of them all. It is on the authority of her witness and the new relationship that she is given to proclaim that the tradition correctly bestows upon her the identity of apostola apostolorum, "apostle to the apostles." Through her conveying the message of the risen Jesus, a new relationship among the community of believers is established, enabling them to be "brothers and sisters" in the one God. Iconic Insights for Celibate Love and Apostolic Mission The command in the Gospel of john is clear: "Love one another" (13:34, 15:12). The Gospel further indicates that it is through our love for one another that we will be recognized as Nove~nber-Decenlber 2002 Dobrovolny ¯ Mary Magdalene disciples of Jesus--that Jesus will be made known in our world. As apostolic women religious, we do love deeply. We are drawn by Love and called by Love. We express our love in prayer, in community, in ministry. Sometimes we eveh fall in love. I used to fear falling in love and being in love. I thought it would jeopardize my identity as a Sister of Mercy. I thought it would place my ability and my commitment to live the vow of celibacy at too great ~ risk. I was wrong. Through experiences of falling in love and being in love, I have been drawn deeper into the mystery of Love. Through my love experiences, I have been taught how to love, and I have been taught what it means to be another person's "beloved." With my own longing for the touch of another, I discovered the depth of my longing for God. Through the words of another person's longing for me, I have heard God's longing for me. These love experiences have drawn me deeper into the mysterious and mystical love of God. I am not saying that as apostolic women religious we need to have one or more experiences of falling in love and being in love to be drawn deeply into the mystical love of God. I am simply saying that it can happen through these love experiences because it has happened. I would venture to guess that many of us have been taught how to love God as God's own beloved through experiences of loving another and being loved. That is part of the mystery of the incarnation, the revelation of God in human form. As one who has dared to love deeply, I resonate with Mary Magdalene, who dared to love Jesus deeply. Through my expe-rience of choosing not to follow my beloved and commit myself to that love relationship, I identify with her intense longing, her intense searching, her utter grief. There is a point in which it seems that tears will never end. In the midst of risking to love deeply as vowed religious, we risk being led to the depths of our pain, our longing, our search-ing. But a wise woman once taught me that, if I am unwilling or unable to feel the depth of my own pain, or longing, or grief, then I am also not able to journey with another person to the depths of her or his pain.~3 Our choices do impact our ministry. By feeling the depths of our pain and our grief, our hearts are opened to feel the pain of others around us and of our world. As apostolic women religious, we are called to feel that pain, to Review for Religious name that pain, to witness to the suffering of those around us. We are called to stand with those who are marginalized, to mourn and weep with them for all that is not right in our world. We are called to name destructive violence for what it is, to name the things that rob individuals, communities, and coun-tries of fullness of life. Tears can seem unending. Mary Magdalene chose to stay at the tomb; she chose to stand in the emptiness, in the void, in the confusion, in the pain. She chose to weep and mourn. She continued her search for her beloved Jesus. She sought him out, persisting in the search even when others did not. Her actions are characterized by initiative, persistence, and determination. Her search betrays an intense longing and yearning. As apostolic women religious, we too are called to stand in the emptiness of a broken world. We are called to search for our beloved God in the midst of this brokenness. We are called to long and yearn for a world that is imbued with the presence and love of God in every cor-ner, in every action between individual persons, and in all diplo-macy and business between countries. We are called to work for such a world with our own efforts, our own initiative, per-sistence, and determination. Mary Magdalene searched for what she knew was possible to find--the body of her crucified Jesus, her beloved. Ultimately, instead of finding what it seemed humanly possible to find, she was found by a divine reality beyond her fondest hope; she was found by the risen Jesus. In turning toward Jesug, in hearing her name called by her beloved, she was transformed. She was able to turn to a new.reality and allow her life and the world she knew to be transformed. As apostolic women religious, we are called to model Mary Magdalene. We are called to seek out and work toward what we know is realistically possible. In our ministerial commit-ments, we are called to set attainable goals and strive to meet them. We are called not to be overwhelmed by the extent of brokenness in our world, not to let ourselves be paralyzed by grief and despair. In our searching and striving, we are called to have an open heart that is ready to be transformed, a heart ready to be found by a divine reality beyond our imagination. The words of the risen Jesus are again perplexing: "Do not hold on to me." After such intense searching and longing, it is Noventber-December 2002 Dobrovolny * Mary Magdalene Like Mary Magdalene, we are commissioned to proclaim the living God here in our midst. completely understandable to want to hold on to whatever sign of life and love, whatever divine revelation, we see in the midst of a broken and pain-filled world. Yet love and the things of this world are not ours to hold on to. With open hands and open hearts, we instead hear Jesus' words: "Go to my brothers and sisters." Like Mary Magdalene, we are commissioned to proclaim the living God here in our midst. Mary Magdalene was in a privileged place with a unique encounter with the risen but not-yet-ascended Jesus. Her encounter cannot be replicated. Yet, as apostolic women reli-gious, we sometimes do not rec-ognize our own privileged place. We belong to religious commu-nities that nurture and support our spiritual journey, that help us integrate contemplation into our lives of ministry. Time and money are provided for ongoing spiritual direction and annual retreats. We are joined by others who are on this same jour-ney; together we have companionship and a common language to name our experiences. Many days I take all of this for granted. But, like Mary Magdalene, we women religious are in a privileged place in our world. In our lives, contemplation opens us to divine revelafons that may be unique to our world-- and maybe our world desperately needs to hear them from us. Through Mary Magdalene's encounter with him, the risen Jesus instituted a new relationship among his followers. He called his followers his "brothers and sisters" and said that his Father is their Father, and his God their God (20:17). We live in a fractured and broken world and a fractured and broken church. Like Mary Magdalene, we are called to give witness to a vision of unity. We are called to be sisters to each other in our communities so that we can be, beyond our communities, sisters to our world. Like Ruth's covenantal relationship with her mother-in-law Naomi, we are called to unity with others, no matter how different from us. This is the vision Mary Magdalene was given by the risen Jesus, and it is offered to us as well. Review for Religious As apostolic women religious, not only are we called to weep and mourn with those at the margins of our society and with the victims of the violence in our world. We are also called to proclaim the power of the resurrection. We are Galled to pro-claim a God who loves us deeply and calls each of us by name. We are called to proclaim a God who transforms lives, filling the empty tombs of our lives with life unimaginable. We are called to proclaim a God who raises the dead to life and offers life eternal. Like Mary Magdalene, the premibre apostola apostolo-rum, "apostle to the apostles," we are called to proclaim an Easter faith to a world that is ravenously hungry for God. May God find us willing. Notes ' The story in Luke 7:36-50 is of an unnamed woman who bathes the feet of Jesus with her tears, kissing them and anointing them with ointment. The setting is the home of a Pharisee who neglected the customary act of hospitality of washing his guest Jesus' feet upon his arrival in his home. 2 Modestus of Jerusalem, PG 86, cols. 3273-3276, as quoted in Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalen, Myth and Metaphor (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), p. 107. 3 This is emphasized by Dorothy A. Lee, "Turning from Death to Life: A Biblical Reflection on Mary Magdalene (John 20:1-18)," Ecumenical Review 50 (1998): 112-120. 4 See E Scott Spencer, "'You Just Don't Understand' (or Do You?): Jesus, Women, and Conversation in the Fourth Gospel," in A Feminist Companion to John, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff, Vol. 4 of Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002, antic-ipated). 5 Colleen M. Conway, Men and Women in the Fourth Gospek Gender and Johannine Characterization (SBLDS 167; Atlanta: SBL, 1999), p. 193. 6 See John 12:40; BAGD, 2nd ed., p. 771. 7 Interpretations that place a fault on Mary Magdalene have been found as early in the tradition as Ambrose and Jerome. For the history of interpretation of this verse, see Harold W. Attridge, "Don't Be Touching Me: Recent Feminist Scholarship on Mary Magdalene," in A Feminist Companion to John. 8 See especially Alison Jasper, "Interpretative Approaches to John 20:1-18: Mary at the Tomb of Jesus," ST 47 (1993): 107-118. November-December 2002 Dobrovolny ¯ Mary Magdalene 9 This interpretation has been in the tradition as early as Origen. See Attridge, "Don't Be Touching Me," pp. 3-4. 10 While many translations, including N'JB, NAB, and NRSV, trans-late adelphous simply as "brothers," there is no good reason not to use the inclusive translation "brothers and sisters." There are a substan-tial number of places in both Koine and Attic Greek in which the plural adelphoi refers to both brothers and sisters, not just brothers. See BAGD, pp. 15-16. 11 David Alan Black, Learn to Read New Testament Greek, rev. ed. (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), p. 168. ,2 This provides further evidence for the appropriateness of the inclusive translation of tous adelphous mou as "my brothers and sis-ters." 13 My thanks to my former CPE supervisor Rosemary Ferguson OP for teaching me this lesson. Child of Mary The presbytery garden, after Mass, is busy with departing worshipers, mostly taking the shortcut to their cars; only Patrick, pauper of the parish and carless, solitary wanderer-about- town, seems unready to be gone. A single point of stillness in our midst, he lingers by the weathered blue and white of o~r Lady, in her privet bower, hands in his pockets and a cigarette - unlit and apparently forgotten - casually tilted between his lips. It's not the first time that I've seen him there, at Mary's shrine under the conker-trees, in that same relaxed, attentive posture, head bent in unobtrusive reverence and his eyes, as now, remotely focused on something only he is privy to. Ian A.T. White Review for Religious PHILIP ARMSTRONG Lonely and Small: Religious Brothers' Situation Z ose with long memories may recall a novelty song the rics of which ran, "I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch . . . all I do is cry all day." The catchy melody and much repetition were probably more responsible for the song's burning itself into the memory than any depth of meaning, but the plaintive cry of a single common flower that finds itself surrounded by a crop of onions tugs at least minimally at our heartstrings. The poor litde petunia, no matter how attractive, cannot help feeling overwhelmed. It grieves in its isolation. Latter-Day Petunias I suggest that religious brothers are experiencing something of the lonely petunia's plight in today's church and world. The brothers' existence, let alone their impact, is nearly impercep-tible. They are much less noticeable than the clergy, who, like onions, are rather conspicuous. Metaphorically speaking, the church cultivates onions assiduously, and in more than one way people keep being reminded of their existence. Few take notice of a few petunias scattered here and there among them, eager to have a beneficial impact on the church. No wonder the brother is sometimes tempted to cry all day about being practically invis-ible and irrelevant. Philip Armstrong CSC last wrote for us in September-October 2001. His address is P.O. Box 460; Notre Dame, Indiana 46556. November-December 2002 Armstrong ¯ Lonely and Small But that would be surrendering to self-pity, and there is really no reason for it. Brothers, however hidden, do in fact accomplish enormous amounts of good through multiple forms of ministry. Brothers by all means must reflect regularly on the relevance of their vocation. Doing so can increase their capac-ity and determination to continue serving God's people in prac-tical and concrete ways. It is not my intent to prove the situation of the brother, for it should be self-evident to anyone closely and objectively observing the working of the church's hierarchical structure thirty-eight years after the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the church, Lumen gentium. There, in chapter 2, the council fathers remind the faithful that all the people of God constitute the church, but make it clear in chapter 3 that "the church is hierarchical," with positions of higher and lower authority in it. By implication, then, the concept of horizontal authority, lending itself more to equality than to degree of dis-tinction, is set aside. A wisp of cynicism might drift in here, in language reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal Farm: All God's people are equal, but some are more equal than others. True, at times the roles of these leaders have been circum-scribed by expectations of the faithful. Clerics of whatever rank have always been somewhat limited in their practice of min-istry by various expectations that church members have, some-times by reason of their limited education, sometimes because they make rarely make use of their membership, sometimes for other reasons. The laity were able to se~ this plainly enough. They have been able to see, too, that religious sisters, despite their goodwill, talents, and sacrificial dedication, often had their activities arbitrarily limited. But still, in the case of both clerics and nuns, the laity have long had a clear, consistent image of them in the scheme of things. Not so in the case of religious brothers. In the small world of parochial or diocesan secondary education during the first two-thirds of the 20th century, brothers indeed were visible, for they figured prominently in the plans of bishops and pastors as the logical educators of adolescent boys. Outside that world, however, brothers' visibility ceased. There were almost no brothers in ministry outside their own institutions. So, if you were not the parent of a boy in a brothers' school, you just did Review for Religiotts not know any brothers. If you were such a parent, you probably knew them only in their professional and institutional capacity. Visible or Not Yet conciliar, synodal, and papal statements continue to remind us that the brothers' life is a needed, purposeful, valid, blessed state of life among the people of God. The brothers' life has been an enduring part of the church and has been affirmed and approved repeatedly over the ages, both by the hierarchy and by those benefiting from the brothers' ministries. The vowed life has demanded and permitted adaptations befit-ting the "signs of the times" regarding current needs of church and society. None of these factors, as we look into the stark reality of membership trends today, changes the perilous situ-ation in which vowed commitment finds itself as a way of life in the church. Who could blame today's brothers, lonely little petunias, for crying, if they avoided sobs of self-pity and merely shed a few silent tears of loneliness amid feelings of irrelevance? A Proposal Allow me make a proposal here that is simple, radical, and perhaps revolutionary. Recent research and writing on forward-looking ecclesiology and theology has been done by such authors as Cletus Wessels OP, Sandra Schneiders IHM, Kenan Osborne OFM, Joan Chittister OSB, and Ronald Rolheiser OMI.~ It would be helpful if they supported the concept behind nay proposal. Except for Osborne in a very general way, they do not, so far as I know. Nor are there incontrovertible scriptural or patristic citations I can lean upon. Yet in experience, common sense, and urgent pastoral need, there seems to be adequate foundation for this proposal: I believe religious life, that is, vowed commitment to a life of service to the church and world through the public profes-sion of the evangelical counsels, should be raised to the status of a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church. I ~nake this proposal for two reasons. First, both matrimony and orders are recognized by the people of God as sacramental moments in which God's providential presence is at work in a special way and as symbols of God's continuing activity among November-December 2002 Armstron~ ¯ Lonel.~ and Small us. These sacraments touch the lives of those receiving the sacra-ments, those who witness their reception, and those who receive the ministrations of parents and priests. Currently, vowed com-mitment is recognized as only a "sacramental" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1667), that is, "a sacred sign which bears a resemblance to the sacraments." Sacramentals are meant to dispose individuals to receive the sacraments. Yet religious life, in its purpose and its demands, ranks logically with the sacra-ments of matrimony and orders as equally exacting, equally needed, equally exemplary, and equally rewarding. Second, the raison d'etre of religious life goes far beyond individual commitment and participation in the common life of an approved congregation. Pronouncing the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience demands of the those making this pub-lic commitment the express intention of reaching out in gener-ous, loving service to others and also of being a visible witness to the gospel values that run counter to pleasure, wealth, and power. In short, vowed commitment constitutes a way of life modeled perfectly by Jesus in the gospels. Besides the individ-ual and congregational covenants, there are perceptible public consequences of religious profession from which the whole of society benefits. Who can ignore the symbolic impact and value vowed com-mitment could have as a sacrament? If the church, as we are informed, periodically evaluates the sacramental system with a view to keeping it optimally relevant for the people of God, now is the time to exercise that prerogative once again and bring commitment by the vows of religion to the level of recognition and acceptance it deserves. If the dearth of vocations to lay religious life is to be effec-tively addressed from within the church, if those who have supervisory and teaching authority in the church are to heighten the awareness of the people of God to this form of life and ser-vice in yhe church, then I suggest that no better way exists than to bestow the character of sacrament on vowed commitment in the religious life. What would that entail? Sacraments Then and Now The church gives as its traditional definition of sacrament: Reviev) for Religious "an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace" (Baltimore Catechism). The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§1131) supplies the same definition, slightly elaborated. With all due respect, I suggest this description is neither adequate nor entirely appropriate today. Acknowledging that the present sacramental system was developed over the course of centuries, that only since 1150 have we specified seven, and that the system remains open to review and revision in the light of new insights and the needs of the times (Sacrosanctum concilium, §62), I propose the following definition: "A sacrament is a meaningful symbol first exemplified in the life of Jesus and today incarnated through him in key human moments or events publicly celebrated by the worshiping community as a sign and promise of life in the Spirit and of bonding among the people of God." Here I suggest less emphasis on exegetical proof of a sacra-ment's being "instituted by Christ" and on its "giving grace" ex opere operato. I would rather the focus be put on the gospel rev-elation of Jesus' participation in significant events in the spiri-tual development of individuals and groups and on how those events enrich their personal relationship with God, invite them to ongoing conversion, and give promise of growth arising out of continuously augmented relationships. From this perspec-tive I believe Jesus' conversation at the well with the Samaritan woman and later with her fellow townspeople (Jn 4:1-42) illus-trates a sacramental moment, as does the cure of the demoniac in the country of the Gerasenes (Mk 5:1-20). In both cases sig-nificant individual impact opens the door to community con-version and further orientation toward God. Other examples could be the wedding at Cana (Jn 2:1-11), the multiplication of the loaves and fishes (Lk 12:9-17), Lazarus (Jn 11:1-44), the man born blind (Jn 9:1-41), and Zacchaeus (Lk 19:1-10). According to the current definition, a sacrament stresses the individual's readiness and participation; that is, each sacra-ment's salvific effects relate primarily to the recipient. The ben-efit is bestowed directly on the person(s) being baptized, confirmed, ordained, anointed, forgiven, married, or nourished by Christ's Body and Blood. On the other hand, in the light of recent research leading to a more profound understanding of the human person, the focus seems to be moving toward a com-munity- centered interpretation. November-December 2002 Armstrong ¯ Lonely and Small Such a sacramental system is perceived as productive of new, restored, or improved relationships and a wider, more knowl-edgeable and conscious participation in the administration of each sacrament; it presumes that a communal enrichment is more desirable than a benefit chiefly or only for an individual. The emphasis switches from ex opere operato (individual benefit from grace already won by Christ) to ex opere operantis (individual and community intention to receive and benefit from grace con-stantly available through Christ). The latter effect is "from the recipient's own activity" (ex opere operantis) and can be under-stood as applying not only to an individual recipient but also to the witnessing, supportive community of worshipers. The indi-vidual's participation in the reception of a sacrament draws in, involves, and impacts the entire worshiping community. Playing It Out So considered, baptism can more readily be seen as the com-munity's welcoming another member into God's family, a fam-ily that seeks to extend God's reign on earth. Confirmation marks a communal response of support for the individual's maturing affirmation of fundamental faith. The Eucharist-- both as celebration and as nourishment--is the perfect bond uniting God's people. Holy orders and matrimony are the com-munity's affirmation of and blessing on individuals' vocational and lifestyle choices in their seeking of God. The community's example helps the individuals to do the same. Reconciliation is clearly community-oriented because the individuals' failings impact the entire assembly, and so the community's forgiveness, encouragement, and support are essential in the individuals' battle with human weakness and willfulness. The anointing of the sick is the worshiping community's laying on of hands, even if figuratively, to show oneness with, care of, and support for an ailing member; it is a reminder of how interdependent we are as the people of God. Why Not? It is from this view of the sacramental system that I pro-pose raising religious life to the level of formal sacrament, I see Review for Religious no more effective way to reestablish the ecclesial significance of vowed commitment. I will not elaborate here on the appro-priateness of including other forms of commitment to the ser-vice of the people of God (for example, appointments or elections to church office, including the permanent diaconate and most other offices, even temporary ones, oriented toward the pastoral care of the community). Vghat more fitting way to welcome a pastor into the midst of the flock than by a commu-nal sacramental celebration of the significance and symbolism of that pastoral office? These and even more possibilities would, I believe, inaugurate anaong the people of God a better under-standing of how communal (in and through the church) the relationship between an individual and God is. In the process, knowledge of and respect for the religious life would be aug-mented, along with encouragement to join its ranks. Juridic Implications Were vowed commitment to become a sacrament, would that not, as some suggest, expose this way of life, even in exempt congregations (those approved by and directly responsible to the Holy Father and exempt from overall juridic control by the local ordinary), to greater control by local ordinaries? I believe the answer contains two components. First, the church already has the authority to interpret the evangelical counsels, to regulate them in practice, and to establish lifeforms that implement them (LG §43). The church's authority over religious life is acknowledged further, for example, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§919, 927,944) and in the Vatican II document Ad genres (§~18, 40). Thus, the question is not whether the church would assume an authority it did not have before, but whether local ordinaries would get some juris-diction over exempt communities that they did not have before. As the above citations indicate, even exempt religious commu-nities must work with and by the authority of the local ordi-nary, in accord with his overall pastoral plan. With the revised understanding of "sacrament" proposed above, I contend that there would be no more control than before. Second, emphasis would be placed, not on consecrated life as sign, but on vowed commitment as promise; that is, not on November-December 2002 Armstron~ " Lonel~ and Small the already but on the notyet. It is the latter that witnesses to the religious life's prophetic mission. A supervisory role, even though indirect and informal, would then seem to fall to the worship-ing community at large. Vowed religious would be accountable to the whole body for living up to the promises they made and thereby helping the entir

Issue 62.3 of the Review for Religious, 2003. ; Holiness Religious Life Saintly Mentoring QUARTERLY 62.3 2003 . to God's Universal call tO ,holiness that flow from tbe~cbarisms of Catholic consecrated life. 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: 314-977-7363 ° Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2003 Review for Religious. Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Adviso~7 Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ QUARTERLY 62.3 2003 contents 230 holiness Be Holy as God Is Holy George A. Maloney SJ reflects on the holiness of God and our own holiness from the evidences of Scripture. 239 Praying with the Body: Not Running Ahead of Grace Rende Nienaber SND describes a number of ways to enter into prayer by involving our bodies. 251 religious life Prophetic Voice in Religious Life Elizabeth A. Dreyer reflects on two aspects of being a prophet--being an agent of change and living a contemplative existence--and issues a challenge to religious life. Review for Religious 269 Charism: Is Marketing Needed? Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR proposes a refinement in a religious congregation's method of research into its charism by examining its own continuing pastoral care and pastoral sensitivity in relation to the founder's. 287 John of the Cross's Message for Today Ernest E. Lark.in OCarm indicates how contemporary forms of contemplative prayer--centering prayer, Christian Meditation, and the Jesus Prayer--fit into John of the Cross's teaching on contemplation. 301 Catherine McAuley's Reliance on Providence Mary Judith O'Brien RSM examines the life of Catherine McAuley, foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, as an example of one who surrenders her whole being in trust to God. epar r en s 228 Prisms 316 Canonical Counsel: Effects of Departure 324 Book Reviews 62.3 2003 prisms A great gift of the four constitu-tions of the Second Vatican Council--on the church (Lumen gentium), on divine revelation (Dei verbum), on the sacred liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium), and on the church in the modern world (Gaudium et spes)--is their readability and their applicability. The matters treated in them can continue to enhance our Catholic life. Whereas the Council of Trent in the 16th cen-tury was needed to put the church's own house in order (the Catholic reformation), Vatican Council II in the 20th century, identified as a pastoral council, looked to revitalizing our faith practice and our mis-sionary effort (Catholic renewal) as we became more fully engaged in the world we live in. We might describe Vatican II as addressing the problem of a distance many Catholics felt from a God in heaven, from Jesus Christ in their awed reverence toward the Blessed Sacrament, from the church in its authority, and from our world itself (b~cause it was "out there"). The church, too, often seemed "out there," embodied in pastors and bishops and encycli-cals that were not exactly us. Vatican II reminded Catholics that they belonged, that baptism made them "the people of God," with rights and responsibilities in the church. God's word in the Bible had sometimes seemed only a Protestant thing, or a Latin thing that priests preached about in English. Catholics were often more touched and uplifted by holy hours honoring the Sacred Heart and evening devotions in honor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help than they were by Mass and the various sacraments. The Mass in Latin had a Revie~ for Religious certain majesty and mystery within our small or large churches, but people attended at a distance, often deliberately towards the rear. Though we in the United States did not generally feel excluded or constrained in our parishes, when we now look back we see ourselves as having lived and learned our faith in a kind of ghetto outside the mainstream of our country. The four constitutions and the decrees of Vatican II changed our ways of thinking and acting. They called on all of us to take responsibility not only for our own adult faith lives, but also for the talent and improvement we can bring to national cultures and values and international ones as well. All our lives long we are being continually formed by the word of God and by God's providence in the events of our lives. In this way we come to know Jesus Christ better, as our Lord and Savior and also as our friend in the joys and difficulties of our lives. Baptized into Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and thus into his priesthood too, we share, with the ordained leadership of our bishops, priests, and deacons, in celebrating the Eucharist and the other sacraments. Our church looks on our world with neither fear nor disdain, but seeks to be involved hopefully and helpfully in its happiness and sorrows. Yes, Vatican II has increased the participation of many in all things Catholic. Now recent Roman documents dealing with liturgy, Eucharist, and devotions like the rosary have been issu-ing a call, recalling for us our human need of reverence in deal-ing with God and the things of God. Family love and friendship, yes, but overfamiliarity has less place in the family of God than in ordinary families. We are being reminded that, as well-loved creatures, we still need awe and reverence towards our Creator, and even towards the people in our lives, nearby and on the other side of the world. We are being called to the Trinitarian roots of our Catholic spirituality--a grand unity in an unfath-omable tension. In our relation to God and one another, we yearn to give and receive loving reverence, reverent love. David L. Fleming SJ 62.3 2003 holiness GEORGE A. MALONEY Be Holy as God Is Holy St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, teaches these new Christians the essence of God's calling in Christ Jesus: Before the world was made, he chose us in Christ to be holy and spotless and to live through love in his pres-ence, determining that we should become his adopted children through Jesus Christ for his own kind pur-poses. (Ep 1:4-5) In all of the Old and New Testaments, we will not find any words to express, as the words holi-ness and holy do, the mystery of the perfection in the Trinitarian community of love and the mys-tery of God's will revealed through Jesus Christ: "to be holy and spodess and to live through love in his presence." It is sad that many Christians have never had a true scriptural meaning of holi-ness and what it means for us to be holy. George A. Ma]oney SJ last wrote for us in May-June 2002. His address is Contemplative Ministries; 13338 Del Monte Drive, #3-K; Seal Beach, California 90740. Revie~ for Religiou~ We need to ask God to show what holiness really means: his holiness first and then our own holiness. God's power can be seen and heard in nature, in lightning and thunder and rushing waters. But in describing God's holi-ness we are, in a way, trying to touch the "insideness" of God, the source of everything good and beautiful that we ever see or hear or feel. God's holiness is God in his per-fection as infinitely loving. Holiness is the totality of God's being moving outward as gift toward the other, toward human beings and angels. We read in the Book of Leviticus: For it is I, Yahweh, who am your God. You have been sanctified and have become holy because I am holy. Yes, it is I, Yahweh, who have brought you out of Egypt to be your God; you, therefore, must be holy because I am holy. (Lv 11:44-45) God Is Holy in Things and Places and Persons Moses fell back before the holiness of Yahweh in the burning bush. That was "holy ground" (Ex 3:4-6). God, who is holy, had chosen to be present to Moses in that place. No human hand was permitted to touch the Ark of the Covenant because God's holy presence was there. The Ark was kept in the Holy of Holies, a special place where God would communicate with his people. Yet, when for their sanctification God's holiness touches angels and human beings, he is present more perfectly to them. He enters upon a self-giving that allows us human beings to be sharers through love in his very own nature. This has always been God's purpose in creating us: "Be holy in all you do, since it is the Holy One who has called you. As ScripUare says: 'Be holy for I am holy'" (1 P 1:15-16). God calls us to receive his holiness and thereby to become holy too, opening ourselves to his outpouring 62.3 2003 Maloney ¯ Be Holy as God Is Holy We have no way of experiencing the fullness of God's holiness except in Jesus Christ. love, to his gift to us of himself and of our neighbor. We are called to be saints--holy people--sanctified by God's holiness (see Rm 1:7; 1 Co 1:2). "We have been called by God to be holy, not to be immoral" (1 Th 4:7). God chose us from the beginning to be holy by the sanctify-ing power of the Holy Spirit (2 Th 2:13) and to "become his adopted children through Jesus Christ" (Ep 1:5). Jesus is holy, and we too are called to be holy. We have no way of experiencing the fullness of God's holi-ness except in Jesus Christ. He teaches us about God's holiness, the actions of a loving Father concerned with all the details of our daily existence. Now we know what God's holiness is like. It is like the holi-ness of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament. Jesus' Holiness and His Growing Holiness The holiness of Jesus consisted first in his having been sanctified by the Holy Spirit. He was the gift of the Father through the Spirit. All that he had Jesus received from his Father. He could not act on his own, but only on what he received from his Father (Jn 5:19, 30; Jn 8:28). It is the Father who sent him into the world and consecrated him, making him holy in order to bring the holiness of God to the world (Jn 10:36). Jesus was sinless because he yielded to God's Holy Spirit within him and struggled against any urge toward self-centered independence (Heb 4:1). From the Synoptic Gospel accounts of Jesus' temptations, we realize, as essential to their meaning, that he had to struggle in his heart to reach the state of loving, humble submission to his Father that eventually would mean his ignominious Review for Religious death on the cross. Jesus would grow in holiness as he fought the Prince of Darkness for dominance, both in his own life and in the lives of those he healed of demonic possession. His struggle would end only on the cross, when he was lifted up and his adversary definitively thrown down from his throne and stripped of his power. From the New Testament we see that Jesus' increas-ing holiness is in accord with the Father's Spirit in him, giving him strength to unmask and defeat the devil. He seeks and confronts the evil one and conquers him. Jesus' Temptations The three temptations of Jesus in the desert empha-size his complete attachment to his Father. Jesus under-goes temptations--much like Eve's, the feminine side of all human beings--to seize the initiative in an aggres-siveness that would deny God's sovereignty over him. Jesus refused to feed himself with anything but God's word. "You must worship the Lord God, and serve him alone" (Dr 6:13, Lk 8). The Gospels present the peak of Jesus' holiness as an exodus experience. As he grew in holiness, he was tempted to hold on to his own life rather than surrender that life on behalf of sinful mankind. Imaging the Father's holiness in his own human development, Jesus grew in each event as he sought not his own but his Father's will. "Here I am! I am coming.to obey your will" (Heb 10:9). Jesus' holiness prompted him to a joyful response to do all that his human consciousness revealed to him as falling within the area of the Father's wish or even, more sensitively, what would please his Father more (Jn 8:29). Jesus suffers his most severe sense of abandonment on the cross when he cries out loudly to his Father: "My God, my God, why have you deserted me?" (Mk 15:34). In spite of his greatest temptation to doubt, in the seem-ing absence of the Father's loving approval, Jesus pushes 62.3 2003 Maloney ¯ Be Holy as God Is Holy himself to new depths of holiness and loving surrender. In such agony Jesus attains in his human condition the holiness of God. This is the crowning in human form of the Trinity's holiness, ultimate self-giving to mankind (through abandonment and death). Holy through the Holy Spirit Jesus at the Last Supper promised that he would pour out the holy and sanctifying Spirit after his death on the cross (Jn 14:16-21). If Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, is glo-rified by the Father and is able to bestow his sanctifying Spirit upon his believers through his final sufferings, it is no less also the Holy Spirit who effects the holiness of Jesus in the days and years of his earlier human development. We can see from the Gospel narrative of his baptism how Jesus, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, was led further toward full holiness by John the Baptist in the Jordan. As Jesus came out of the water, he received a vision of the Spirit as a gentle dove and heard his Father declare from on high: "You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you" (Mk 1:11). Jesus in his humanity is swept up into an ecstatic oneness with the Father. Heaven and earth have been closed by Adam's first sin in the garden. Now God's communicating pres-ence has passed through the barrier of sin, and Jesus, God's holiness, stands within the human family. Brightness and darkness are brought together in Jesus. The presence and sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus begins with Jesus' physical exis-tence. If Paul could appeal to the Corinthians' inner dig-nity because their bodies were holy--"Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Co 6:19)- how much more was this a living experience of Jesus in his body! Jesus was the most free human being that ever existed because the Spirit in him linked him with the Review for Religious Father in myriad ways. Seeing his Father in the materi-ality of his body and in the physical world around him, Jesus enjoyed a serenity and contentment in being there with the Father. Sin sets up a physical, psychical, and spiritual "ner-vousness" in us because it hinders our seeing the loving presence of God in these connections. Instead, sin inclines us to exploit them, as is evident in our abuse of our appetites for food, drink, sex, material and intellec-tual possession, honor--in a word, our pride of life. Finding the Father in All of Creation Jesus was free to find the Father's providential presence in all events and circumstances inasmuch as Jesus was continuously the expressed Word of the Father. In his humanity Jesus had spe-cial gratitude and love by rea-son of his Father's gift to him of intimate friends. He praised God in the gentle love he had for his mother, Mary, for Joseph, John, Mary and Martha, Peter and Andrew, and his other apostles and followers. Yet the freedom brought to him by God's Spirit gave Jesus an inner austerity in all of his human relationships. They were not merely gifts for him to use happily in glorifying the Father; they were diaphanous places in which to find the Father's love and then reciprocate that love by serving everyone he encountered. We cannot understand Jesus in his personal poverty and his preference for the physically, psychically, and spiritually poor people to whom he went and brought healing unless we enter into the conscious relationship Jesus knew that his Father's love for all people everywhere included full awareness of their absolute poverty. 62.3 2003 Maloney ¯ Be Holy as God Is Holy that Jesus entered as the Father's Word on earth. Jesus knew that his Father's love for all people everywhere included full awareness of their absolute poverty. We human beings are radical and ontological nonentities except for God's love poured out in unselfish creation. God is absolute love because he is perfectly holy and self-giving. Jesus' Poverty and Service of Others Jesus lived poorly, by the inner richness of his Father's continued gif~ of himself to him. This poverty can be called humility. Jesus was nothing; the Father was all. Jesus was absolutely poor because no thing possessed him. He was possessed only by his Father, and so he saw created things only as external indications of the inner emptiness of human beings before the Allness of his Father. Jesus served others because that is love in action. He was expressing in human ways the love of God the Father for them. The Father's compassion for his children was the source of Jesus' compassion for them. Jesus burned with desire to actualize the Father's presence in the life of everyone he met (Lk 12:49). He went about doing good, especially by healing all types of sickness and dis-ease. He was never more the perfect image of the heav-enly Father than when he saw the multitudes scattering and fainting like sheep without a shepherd and was moved with mercy and compassion (Mt 9:36). Jesus' Prayer Jesus' holiness is shown also in his prayer life. The Gospels give us much teaching by Jesus on how to pray, but they also give us nuanced pictures of Jesus at prayer. He prays to his Father in the company of his disciples, but also alone. The Evangelists have grasped the intrin-sic relation of Jesus' prayer and his holiness. From their descriptions of Jesus in prayerful communion with his Review for Religious Father, we see that his prayer is always linked with the coming of God's kingdom. Jesus usually prays in solitude, away from his disci-ples, deeply immersed for long periods, even all night. He seeks the face of his Father in praise and thanksgiv-ing, in petitions that follow from his desire that God's kingdom come. In such prayer Jesus touches the holi-ness of the Father and is filled with a like holiness that lives to serve the Father, his Abba. The Holy Spirit fills him with this filial trust in the holiness of his Father, and thus, from his constant experience of the Spirit, Jesus teaches others to pray to the Father in the Spirit, con-vinced that they would be granted everything they needed for their total happiness as the Father's children. Living in the Holy of Holies In awe of God's holiness, we are not to strive to be holy by doing "holy" deeds or works of holiness as though God needs us and our sacrifice. Rather, we are to obey the divine Word, enfleshed for love of us to image for us God's holiness, and to let ourselves be directed by his Holy Spirit within us. To enter into God's holiness, the place to go is our heart. By Jesus' incarnate oneness with us, by his death and resurrection and the gift of his Spirit, we now have the right to approach with boldness "into the sanctuary" by the blood of Jesus, our high priest. We have been saved by Jesus' gift of himself on the cross. Humbled by God's holiness revealed in Jesus Christ, we are enabled to be continually and joyously transformed into holiness as we seek to live lives of Christlike holiness. We are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus "to live the good life as from the begin-ning he meant us to live it" (Ep 2:10). Now we can more easily, and in greater depth, understand how God's holi-ness makes it possible for God to be merciful towards 237 62.3 2003 Maloney * Be Holy as God Is Holy us. In our relationship with God and with others, holi-ness and mercy can never be separated. Father, Son, and Spirit: Holiness and Love Jesus is holy as his Father is holy because, in his dying on our behalf in obedience to his loving Father, his love for God reaches love's peak. He is holy by being one with God's holiness. He becomes God's holy Word in his obedience unto death (Ph 2:8). As Jesus became holy by learning obedience, so we also must do: "Although he was Son, he learned to obey through suffering; but, having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal sal-vation and was acclaimed by God with the title of high priest of the order ofMelchizedek" (Heb 5:8-10). When affliction comes, we are not to be constantly asking whether we accept the inevitable and submit to a will we cannot resist. Our true, loving question must be: Do we choose the will of God to be our chief good--do we delight in Christ's life principle as ours too? "My delight is to do your will, O God." Jesus sanctified himself and us by doing his Father's will constantly, to his life's end. The will of God is also our sanctification. Be holy, as God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--is holy. Summer Transformation August rays insinuate themselves, burrow under epidermal sheath like God's grace, work their transforming till, ripened and marked as sun votary, you preach wordlessly the gospel of repentance for a pale and chilly life. Patricia Schnapp RSM Review for Religious RENI~E NIENABER Praying with the Body: Not Running Ahead of Grace (/~("~'~ on't run ahead of grace." This truth, learned from one of my greatest teachers of prayer, insists that we can find holiness only as God grants. Even though passive prayer has often been considered the higher path, people who are highly sensate might stay in active prayer much of their lives. St. John of the Cross warns against moving too quickly from active prayer. For many, cooperating with this wisdom can involve using our bodies in prayer. Respect for God's Gifts Rationales for prayer with the body can be found in Scripture, theology, and psychology. Respect for the body. We are not pure spirits. Many heresies would have us look with disdain upon the body as the source of temptation. Within this masterpiece, however, the Spirit of God dwells. According to the creeds we profess, our bodies will, like Jesus Christ's, be raised in glory. Fundamental knowledge of God came Ren~e Nienaber SND wrote about lectio divina in our January-February 2002 issue. Her address is St. Mary of the Assumption Parish; 121 West Main Street; Alexandria, Kentucky 41001. 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the Body A through our parents' bodies: a mother's gentle breast-feeding and a father's strong cradling. In many ways we already pray with our bodies: genuflecting, bowing, taking holy water, telling our rosary beads, making the sign of the cross, receiving Communion in our hands. Great people in the Hebrew Scriptures used their bodies in prayer: Miriam praising God with the timbrel, Moses praying with arms outstretched, and David dancing before the ark. The psalms especially show a people entering bodily into prayer: seeking God's face (27:8), thirsting for God (63:1), panting with open mouth (119:131). They also show a God who deals with the bodies of people, literally or metaphorically: leading them beside still waters (23:2), setting them high on a rock (27:5), hiding them under solicitous wings (63:8), making divine words sweet to the taste (119:103). No disdain for the human body in this kind of prayer! Hebrew prayer shows great respect for the human body's goodness, not the disdain espoused by Docetism, Gnosticism, Platonism, and Neoplatonism. Respect for the unity of body/soul/spirit. Such respect stands against dualism and moves us towards integration. Each part of this threefold "companionship" affects the others. Eastern religions teach that what we do with our bodies affects our prayer (for example, sitting straight and breathing attentively). We will pray better or worse, depending on the involvement of our bodies. If this is true, then we cannot find God by escaping the body. Respect for the incarnation and resurrection. Both of these doctrines involve Christ's body. His humanity belongs to the essence of our faith. Jesus prayed with his body: lifting his eyes to heaven and blessing little children. We, like him, will not find God by rejecting the body. Respect for the g~'eat commandment. Based on the Shema of the Hebrew Scriptures, our call is to love God with our Review for Religious whole self, with all of who we are, not just from our eyebrows up. In daily life we show love through our bodies: gestures, gifts, smiles, and so forth. God invites us to do the same in prayer. Respect for ourselves as images of a creative God. Praying with the body helps us to be playful like children. Childlikeness can keep the juices of prayer flowing. With the Spirit's gifts of wonder and awe, a child/adult can be ever ready for the surprises of God in prayer, like finding a treasure in a field. Respect for praying "from where we're at." Catholics are sacramental people. In part this means experiencing God as coming to us through the stuff of this earth. Prayer that begins with the body can penetrate into the inner self. Like osmosis, the senses can lead us from the exterior to the interior, from the touchable to the untouchable: the transcendent reality of God. Thus prayer involving the body can be a bridge from active to passive prayer. These two forms walk hand in hand, not against each other. To pray "from where we're at" also involves praying from "God experiences." Created reality invites us to pray with our bodies, as in John Denver's song about Annie filling up his senses. How often have we praised God with our eyes for an orange-red sunset, with our mouth for our favorite chocolate dessert, with our nose for the evergreen freshness,. With our ears for the ocean roar. God is the original "surround sound." We can get lost in ecstasy through such continuing revelations of the divine. Our call is to love God with our whole self, with all of who we are, not just from our eyebrows up. 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the B~dy Blessings of Body Prayer Besides these six forms of respect, prayer with the body can be an antidote to one of the main complaints about prayer: that it is boring. God wants our prayer to bring us life "to the full" (In 10:10). Prayer helps us dispose ourselves. God is the initiator of prayer and the responder to our desires. We can, however, prepare ourselves for the gift of prayer with our very bodies. For example, with our eyes we can gaze lovingly upon a crucifix, icon, or sunrise. With our hands we can touch bur heart or ears. With our mouth we can smile at God or whisper words of Scripture. Prayer helps us keep attentive. Too ubiquitous is the temptation not to pray because "I'm too distracted" or "Nothing happens." Involving our bodies in prayer can lessen those excuses because the pray-er remains grounded. For example, in praying about Jesus healing the woman with a hemorrhage, we can involve our body in such ways as these: coming before Jesus trembling and hopeful, reaching out to touch his garment, or pleading with our face for the gift of God's healing. Prayer helps us remember blessings. When prayer remains too cerebral, the pray-er can seldom recall the experience of God's grace. Involving the body can help the mind to focus rather than flounder. The experience of prayer is crystallized, thus becoming a memento of God's goodness. Forty Possibilities for Praying with the Body ¯ Hold a rock and remember examples of God's steadfast love. ¯ Hold a rock and consider how God might want to change your heart. ¯ Hold a pearl and feel how precious you are to God. ¯ Hold a pearl and consider how much God is your pearl of great price. ¯ Hold a pearl and be grateful for all the pearls in your life (people, experiences, events). ¯ Hold a pillow to your chest, trying Review for Religious to experience God or Jesus as a nursing mother for yourself, someone in special need, or even an enemy. ¯ Hold two coins tightly, like the widow's mite, representing what you do not want to let go of. When ready, release each coin. ¯ Hold a small seed (like a mustard seed) and ask for growth in faith, confidence, love, etc. ° Hold a seashell and ask to be more aware of God's dwelling in the deepest chamber of your heart. ¯ Hold an apple and know yourself to be the apple of God's eye. ¯ Hold a cactus and flower and ask God to bring life to your dryness. ¯ Hold a "lily of the field" and know how much more valuable you are to God than that. ° Hold a crucifix to feel the gift of Jesus' self-giving love. ¯ Walk slowly, aware that you journey lovingly with God, like Adam in the garden. ¯ Walk, aware that God is at your right hand, so you have nothing to fear. ¯ Walk, aware of the challenge to go the "extra mile" with God or another. ¯ Walk under the stars and moon. Delight in God's greatness and beauty. ¯ Walk slowly, just to restore your inner harmony. ° Sit in a rocking chair or porch swing, and allow yourself to be lulled by God. ¯ Sit with your shoes off, with reverence, like Moses before the burning bush. ¯ Sit near a tree whose roots are partly exposed. Touch the roots and the bark and know your groundedness in God. ¯ Squeeze modeling clay to get in touch with God's desire to fashion you further. ¯ Form modeling clay into some specific image God might be forming you into now. ¯ Form modeling clay into the image you would like to have of God. ° Dance your personal Magnificat or Gloria. ¯ Dance your own DayenuI after writing a list of people and experiences for which you are grateful. ¯ Whistle, skip, or show your delight with God in other ways. ¯ Inhale slowly, realizing that your breath is the very ruah of God flowing through you. ° Inhale what you need from God (peace, forgiveness, etc.). Exhale the opposite (unrest, 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the Body unforgiveness, etc.). ¯ Inhale, letting God speak a word of love. Exhale, returning that word. ¯ Inhale, simply breathing in the goodness of God. ¯ Sit in the breeze. Let it blow through you as the Spirit wills. ¯ Sit in the breeze. Just let it surround you with God's gende presence. ¯ Sit in the breeze or in front of a fan. Feel Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit into you. ¯ Prostrate yourself to get in touch with your littleness, sinfulness, or need for God. ¯ Lie face up, as if paralyzed, accepting your need for God at every moment. ¯ Smile at God and feel God's smile in return. ¯ Look in a mirror and delight in the person God has created, is creating, and will continue to create. ¯ Tighten your fist in confidence against your enemies or fears. ¯ Cup your hands to your ears to emphasize a willingness to listen to God. Be attentive to a storm, and let the reality of God's power penetrate your being. More Suggestions, Involving the Easter Symbols Water ¯ Drink very slowly, using this mantra or a similar one: "Give me to drink." ¯ Sit by flowing waters or running water, and let the sound bring God's calm. ¯ Splash water on yourself to bring God's refreshment. ¯ Sprinkle water freely on your head to experience that God does not give the Spirit "by measure." ¯ Enter into a soft rain. Experience in it God's gentle, abundant presence. ¯ Let rain remind you that God sends "rain on the just and unjust." ¯ Be attentive to a storm, and let the reality of God's power penetrate your being. ¯ Pour water over your feet as if Jesus were ministering to you. White Garment ¯ Be aware of your clothes next to your skin; sense that God touches you even more intimately. ¯ Wrap your hands in strips of cloth, like Review for Religious Lazarus. Let God unbind you. ¯ Place a sheet or blanket over your head to feel your own overshadowing by the Holy Spirit. ¯ Place a sheet or blanket around your shoulders and body to feel the protection of God's "wings." ¯ Move with a blanket around your shoulders and feel that you, too, can fly on eagle's wings. ¯ Touch a bedspread tassel, like touching Jesus' garment, while praying for healing like the woman with the hemorrhage. Light/Fire ¯ Squint and let the rays of a candle penetrate your heart or mind with healing. ¯ Hold a candle near your body to feel the warmth of God within. ¯ Let a flame represent the Spirit of God. Ask for wisdom in a present confusion. ° Let the candle flame open your eyes to see the good in someone whom you do not like right now. ¯ Sit wordlessly before the sunrise or sunset, and use a mantra such as "Fill me with your light." ¯ Walk in midday. As you see the sun peeking through the trees, think of God as winking at you. ¯ Pray in the dark of night with only a vigil light. ¯ Pray one of the biblical stories of a blind person. Do this in the dark or with your eyes tighdy covered. Hands/Oil ¯ Hold your own hand to get in touch with God's strength, comfort, nearness, etc. ¯ Touch your heart or carotid artery. Let every pulse be a prayer of love to God. ¯ Touch with your hands or Bible the parts of your body that need healing (for example, eyes for being judgmental, mouth for talking about others, ears for listening to gossip, etc.). ¯ "Anoint" yourself with oil in areas that need healing. ° Rub in scented lotion to remind yourself that you are to be the aroma of Christ. ¯ Pour oil on your feet, representing the feet of someone you need to forgive. Bread/Wine ¯ Hold a piece of bread or loaf of bread, asking, "Give me (us) this bread always." ¯ Hold different kinds of bread. Break them and get in touch with your brokenness and that of others. ¯ Hold a loaf of bread and 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Pra~in~ with the Bod~ know that God will not give you a stone if you ask for bread. ¯ Take a clear glass of water and add red food coloring, representing the change at Cana and in yourself. ¯ Sip wine very slowly, letting it rest in your mouth. "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." ¯ Sit in a grape arbor to pray the passage of the vine and branches. Two Extended Examples of Praying with the Body Psalm 23. Giv~ yourself plenty of time to enter into this beloved psalm. A day could easily be spent on it. If possible, pray Psalm 23 out of doors. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want; I will never be in need; I lack notbing.--Try to feel how God has faithfully cared for you through people, events, and other blessings. I lie in green grass, verdant pastures, lush meadows.--If you can, lie down outside; otherwise, embrace the verdure in some physical way. For example, hug a leaf to your heart. Stand or sit, if possible, beneath the shade of a large tree. The shepherd leads me beside restful waters, peaceful streams, quiet pools.--If possible, go outside where you can be close to living waters. Otherwise, use a fountain or simply the faucet in your room. Spend time listening to the flow of the waters until you begin to feel calm. The shepherd refreshes my soul, revives my soul, restores my souL--To "help" the shepherd revive you, splash different parts of your body. The shepherd guides me in right paths, in paths of righteousness, in paths of virtue.--Walk slowly and mindfully, trying to feel the presence of the shepherd at your right hand. Even though I walk in a gloomy valley, a dark valley, the darkest valley . . . --Get in touch with any darkness in your life right now. Then close or cover your eyes and continue walking. With his rod and staff the shepherd gives me courage, Review for Religious comfort, security.--Use something to represent the "rod and staff" (like a broom handle or a walking stick). Walk, still in the darkness, with the safety of the walking stick. You could also sit with the handle against your back, trying to feel God's presence and comfort. You spread for me a table, a feast, a banquet.--Eat some of your favorite food. Yearn for the Eucharistic feast and the final banquet in God's reign. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows, runs over, brims oven--Use lotion to "anoint" your head, heart, gut, or any part of you that needs God's abundance. If you lack lotion, pour water on yourself, even on your head. Surely goodness and kindness, goodness and mercy, goodness and love, follow me always.--Con-clude as you began, getting in touch with God's abundance. This could involve returning to some significant ex-perience during this prayer, like listening to the water or pouring water on yourself. If you cannot fully accept this goodness that God promises, let God speak this verse to your heart. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, for my whole life long, for as long as I live.--Again get in touch with the presence of the shepherd in your past. Know that the same shepherd has blessed your life with this psalm in the present. Be assured that you can depend on this faithful shepherd throughout your future. Amen! Walk slowly and mindfully, trying to feel the presence of the shepherd at your right hand. The Song of Songs might be the backdrop for an extended date with Jesus--at least a whole day, perhaps a whole week of retreat. The suggestions that follow are 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the Body geared for an extended length of time. They are intended to give numerous supporting ideas to the text, not specific suggestions on how to pray the Song of Songs itself. The setting. Bring in some favorite flowers and food. Play special love music between prayer times. Burn a fragrant candle or some incense. Anoint yourself with precious lotion. Dress in your favorite clothes. Getting started. Ask that you heart might be ravished. Ask to grow in desire for God; ask to know God's desire for you. Pray while lying on your bed, porch swing, or chaise lounge. Put something under your head to represent the lover's left hand there. During the day. Take a walk "hand in hand" with your Beloved. Sing/dance favorite love songs from your era; let Jesus sing back to you. Draw a mandala2 to express your love. Spend time looking into the eyes of the beloved, while the beloved gazes back at you. Whisper your words of love. Smile to your beloved. Mantra. "You are my Beloved in whom I am well pleased." Experience this mantra in different ways. See it in the beauty of the flowers. Taste it in your special food or drink. Feel it in the warmth of a candle. Smell it in the scent of incense. Touch it in your favorite clothes. Hear it in the music you play or sing. Journaling. Write your favorite names for Jesus and/or his for you. Write your own figures of speech for your beloved; write his for you. Compose a love letter to Jesus. Meal ideas. When you eat, think of being brought into your beloved's banqueting table. Eat slowly and linger after the meal. Eucharistic connection. Ask that your heart may burn within you as Jesus reveals himself in the breaking of the bread. When you receive from the cup, realize that you are drinking the wine of divine love. Fast for an extended period before Eucharist in order to enter more fully into communion, hunger more for God's loving presence, Review for Religious taste the divine goodness, and experience God's abundance. Other Suggestions Some psalms are particularly conducive to body prayer: Psalms 16:5-11; 23; 27; 63:1-8; 91; 131; 139:1-18; 150. Among the best Isaiah readings for prayer with the body are Isaiah 35:1-6; 40:29-31; 43:1-4; 49:14-16; 55:1- 13; 66:10-14a. Other excellent sensate passages from the prophets include Jeremiah 17:7-8; 18:1-6; Ezekiel 36:26- 27; 37:1-14. A sampling of helpful gospel passages: Matthew 5:13- 16; 6:25-34; 7:1-12; 14:22-33; Mark 4:35-41; 5:25-34; 8:22-26; 10:46-52; Luke 1:26-38; 5:3-10; John 2-1-11; 4:7-15; 11:38-44; 13:2-17; 15:1-11; 20:11-18; 20:19-23. The ideas offered here can be useful for running with grace, not ahead of it. They are useful for sensates as well as for intuitives who are developing their sensate function. Depending on the person's disposition, physical condition, and prayer setting, some suggestions will work and others will not. Many ideas listed here, however, have blessed my directees and me for many years. I trust that others who are willing to follow their own creative childlikeness will experience God profoundly in'body prayer. Although the kairos3 of a retreat setting works best, any place or time can be an occasion for the self-revelation of God in our ordinary lives. For centuries St. Paul has called us to use our bodies "for the glory of God" (1 Co 6:20). In our contemporary setting, Tilden Edwards (from the Shalem Institute) says, "Amazing things happen when our bodies join our minds in opening to God." Notes ~ Dayenu is a song from the Jewish Passover service. In it the refrain "that would have been enough" is a response to the abundance of God's 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the Body blessings (for example, "If you had just fed us with manna from the desert, that would have been enough"). 2 Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning circle or center. It is an ancient symbol of wholeness. Making a mandala (a circular drawing) is a way to come into contact with deeper wisdom from the center within, the unconscious. 3 Kairos is a Greek word meaning the "right time," a time of opportunity. It can suggest fulfillment or the timelessness of eternity, where God's presence abounds. Piet~ Her head is slightly bowed, the gravity of love bending her to him, his death a weight more ponderous than stone. Her hand is stretched out, helpless to account for what the world has come to. What does that open, lifted hand convey? Does it implore the mercy of a hidden God, or beg to know the outcome of a plan incomprehensible to her? Does her hand commend her Son to us and plead for pity, for consideration of his innocence, for justice? I see that hand outstretched for us to take, reminded that her suffering is much like ours: in pain she, too,. is plunged in silence, brokenhearted as she contemplates the loss of all she loves. Kate Martin OSC Review for Religious ELIZABETH A. DREYER Prophetic Voice in Religious Life The desert fathers and mothers had a tradition of going to their abba or amma for a "word" of wisdom. When I was asked to give this 150th-anniversary address, the word prophecy came immediately to mind. Prophecy has been a constant of religious life. Women and men reli-gious, speaking prophetic words, have be-queathed the church and society a legacy of reform and renewal. My interest in prophecy emerged from my reflection on moral courage, which it seemed to me is in rather short supply these days--in society, in business, in education, in politics, and in the church. The road from moral courage to prophecy is not a long one. Who could have predicted even a year or two ago the church's current need of prophetic voices? Numbers of people have seen the prophetic call as central to the charism of Elizabeth A. Dreyer, professor in the Department of Religious Studies of Fairfield University, first presented this paper in September 2002 to inaugurate the 150th year of the Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Petersham, Massachusetts. Her address is Department of Religious Studies; Fairfield University; Fairfield, Connecticut 06430. 62.3 2003 Dreyer * Prophetic Voice in Religious Life religious life.1 Though everyone in the church is called to a prophetic life, institutes of vowed religious have had a distinctive and notable prophetic role down through the ages. It is a challenge to speak of prophecy, for prophecy means spealdng in the name of God. Being a prophet is akin to falling in love: you cannot decide to be a prophet. Nor can you declare that you are one or even be sure that someone else truly is one. The whole business is rife with the dangers of egotism. But there is also danger in refusing to accept the gift of prophecy, in not praying for the courage to be a prophet, and in neglecting to support those around us who are prophets. Timidity and self-protection stem from the knowledge--whether conscious and unconscious--that prophetic activity is dangerous to one's health. And yet the Christian life calls us to learn about and imitate the prophets who have gone before us and on whose shoulders we stand. Our Jewish heritage includes an impressive list of prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Amos, Micah, and others. For Christians, John the Baptist, preparing the way for Jesus, is the prophetic model par excellence. But above all is Jesus, the Jew who fully embodied his tradition of prophetic compassion and courage, dying for his love of the outcast and the stranger, and confronting the religious status quo when it worked against the good of the people. More recently, interest in women's history has awakened us to the lives of prophetic women in the church. Historian Karen L. King notes that in every century women have exercised leadership in Christian communities and that their leadership has been contested. In the first centuries most of the clear cases of women's leadership "based their legitimacy on claims to prophetic experience," but Jo Ann McNamara suggests that, by the mid 3rd century, prophetic voices were overshadowed by Review for Religious clerical organization and leadership? At the Second Vatican Council, when Cardinal Suenens wanted to include in Lumen gentium a section on the share of every baptized person in Christ's prophetic office, Cardinal Ruffini argued that an emphasis on charism could endanger the institutional church.3 Happily today we look not only to John the Baptist and Paul but also to Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Phoebe, Priscilla, and Maximilla; martyrs Agatha, Lucy, Theodora, Perpetua and Felicity, and their 20th-century sisters Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel. Each community has its own list of prophetic figures. The Sisters of the Assumption have founding sisters Leocadie Bourgeois, Julie Heon, Mathilde Leduc, and Hedwige Buisson and later figures such as Alice Mignault and Marguerite Gauthier. More recent prophetic voices of women religious include Margaret Traxler (+2002), Theresa Kane, Mary Luke Tobin, Margaret Brennan, Anita Caspary, Mary Daniel Turner, and Joan Chittister. At this historical moment, how are we to think about the prophetic voice? What are its potentials and pitfalls? Endeavoring to be faithful to the gospel and God's reign on earth, how are we to support prophetic thinking and activity in the 21st century--for the health of each religious community, for religious life as a whole, for the church, society, and the world? As a laywoman I have been inspired by the prophetic lives of women religious. I have learned from your example, and I am privileged to stand with you and for you in your commitment to the life of the people of God. How are we to think about the prophetic voice? What are its potentials and pitfalls ? 62.3 2003 Dreyer * Prophetic Voice in Religious Life The Prophetic Vocation In an article on Hildegard of Bingen, Colman O'Dell describes the prophet's role as one of personal encounter.4 The prophet receives a special summons, an unforgettable experience that God has entrusted to her a message that she must reveal, either in words or by her very life. The prophet is one who yields herself to God as handmaid, witness, or sign. The summons can be to something dramatic and large scale or, for most of us, something ordinary and small scale, to be carried out over a long period of time. Thomas Merton describes the prophet as one who lives in direct submission to the Holy Spirit in order that, by her life, actions, and words, she may be a sign of God in the world. Jean Leclercq speaks of the prophet as a person of neither vague ideas nor ready-made solutions. Rather, prophets are the ones who by the vigor of their concepts and the intensity of their contemplation compel others to act, giving them worthy reason for doing so. Abraham Heschel describes the prophet as one who intensifies responsibility, who is impatient of excuse and contemptuous of pretense and self-pity, who is an exegete "of existence from a divine perspective." The prophet is one who is sensitive to evil and who feels fiercely,s In his classic 1978 work, The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann sees prophecy as being concerned with change and how it comes about. The-prophetic task is to get people to have a perceptive consciousness that will stand against the dehumanizing and death-dealing aspects of our culture.6 Brueggemann describes the enemy of prophetic consciousness as Solomon's royal consciousness in which God's freedom is traded for God's accessibility, an economy of equality is traded for an economy of affluence, and a politics of justice is traded for a politics of oppression. The Solomonic regime silenced criticism through prohibition backed by heavy-handed sanction--or simply ignored it. In such a situation Revieva for Religious the gift of freedom is overtaken by a yearning for order and security.7 As Americans living in the aftermath of 9/11, we know well the seduction of royal consciousness. A prophet is one who understands language and its distinctive power to evoke newness--"fresh from the word.''8 Brueggemann speaks in terms of binary pairs of death and new life: numbness/criticism vs. energy/passion (compassion); death/cross vs. life/resurrection; grief/mourning vs. praise/joy. The prophet calls for an alternative consciousness and an alternative community. Forms of coercion and totalitarianism try to curtail fresh new possibilities and end up diminishing us as human beings. As a remedy, Brueggemann calls for a reappropriation of the biblical prophetic tradition to its full power and authenticity. The Hebrew prophets used poetry to present their vision and inspire listeners to respond. "It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one," Brueggemann says. He reminds us that worship and praise are ways to cut through ideology and recover compassion.9 Jo Ann McNamara concludes her massive treatment on the history of religious life with these words: "In the end, religious life is about worship and the positive benefits that worship brings to the world and its maker.''~° God is the creator of the world; we depend on God's loving compassion and power to make all things new. Praise of God is a wellspring of prophetic living. Discontinuity: Becoming Agents of Change In what follows I explore two particular elements of this prophetic way of living: discontinuity and contemplation. The prophetic voice interrupts "business as usual." It calls attention to, and says no to, the powers 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life The task of prophecy is to encourage people to be involved in the history of their time. of dehumanization wherever they may be. The prophet sees that the present arrangement need not always be so. This vision might apply to the way religious life is lived and structured, ways in which we think about and do ministry, ways that church structures and practice affect the people of God, ways we live as a society and as cifzens of the world. As I have said, the history of religious life reveals a steady stream of visionaries. One thinks of Jane Frances de Chantal, one of the first to question religious enclosure when it inhibited service in the world, and leaders of women's congregations in the mid 20th century who decided that education and worldly awareness would make sisters better teachers and better religious. Richarda Peters, Benedictine prioress in St. Joseph, Minnesota, from 1949 to 1961, encouraged her sisters to create study groups, earn academic degrees, update libraries, and subscribe to the New York Times. Her successor brought in television and encouraged the sisters to read Cardinal Suenens's The Nun in the World2~ The task of prgphecy is to encourage people to be involved in the history of their time. Brueggemann speaks about the visceral experience of waking up to the truth that things are not right. The light bulb goes on, and we wonder why we did not see that before. Pretending that things are fine is no longer an option. This awakening is often followed by feelings of disappointment, grief, and even betrayal. Bringing this hurt to public expression is an important step in dismantling the status quo and permitting a new reality, theological and social, to emerge.~2 Dorothee Soelle says that expressed complaint is the beginning of liberation.13 Review for Religious Prophetic agents of change live as if in a minefield. They may conjure up unwanted feelings of self-doubt: Who am I to demand and expect change? Most of us know that the risks are high. That prophets are not welcome in their own neighborhood is all too true. But, whether we ourselves are prophets or are attuned to those who are, the message can truly be "good news" to people. Even though the price is high, new vision energizes and creates new realities that can be trusted and relied upon. 14 Energy can even come from embracing the inscrutable darkness, trusting that something is on the move, even though I .may not see it.Is Waiting faithfully, with the anticipation of discovering a new way of being church, is prophetic activity. 16 We are also energized by the partisan nature of prophecy. Prophets do not function in the abstract, but always address persons in concrete historical situations. We become aware that God is free and acting for us in this moment, in this very community, in this geographic location. In the last thirty years, the extensive research on specific religious orders of women is gradually correcting past neglect, naming particular people and locations of prophetic activity in the history of religious life. 17 Looking at barriers to prophetic voice, Brueggemann examines the ways that satiation short-circuits passion. He reminds us that satiation--having too much and being full all the time--prevents our noticing that the king has no clothes. It dulls our capacity to be imaginative, caring, and passionate, to suffer, to live and die. We avoid facing up to failure; we shrink from the thought that there is an end to things as they have been. Consumerism tricks us into a false sense that "all is well." "The task of prophetic imagination," Brueggemann says, "is to cut through the numbness, to penetrate the self-deception, so that the God of endings is confessed as Lord." ~8 This is as true of the church as it is of society and the world. 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life The dehumanizing aspects of our consciousness and practice can be mitigated. They have no final claim on us. The despair created by the king leads to hopelessness, infecting those who are excluded and those who have everything. But prophets like Second Isaiah, attesting God's radical freedom, announce genuine novelty to exiled Israel: God could have a change of mind. Ironically, those who know this kind of prophetic dying most painfully are the very persons who can convey hope most vigorously. And, just as grief undoes numbness, amazement confounds despair. Amazement, says Brueggemann, is the ultimate energizer. With the prophet's help, Israel finds that singing is again possible. Song indicates new life. All of us can recall not being able to sing because of depression or anger, satiety or preoccupation--and then discovering that we could sing again. Thus hope is born, and whenever it happens we are amazed.19 Jesus, coming after John the Baptist, is also a prophet. He lives at the margins and interacts with other marginal people who respond with awe---~om the shepherds at the birth to the crowds pursuing him in Mark's Gospel. Jesus' compassion takes many forms: he is not afraid to criticize the old order, he is ready to heal and forgive, he invites people to freedom from their enslavements. Newness brea~ in because "Jesus had the capacity to give voice to the very hurt that had been muted." Suffering made audible and visible produces hope; articulated grief is the gate of newness. The history of Jesus is the history of entering into the pain and giving it voice.2° Standing at the decisive end of royal consciousness is the cross. The Way of Contemplation A second hallmark of prophetic voice is living a contemplative existence. Many theologians, including the well-known German Jesuit Karl Rahner, have made the Review for Religious plea that, if Christians are to survive into the future, they will have to become mystics in the world. I think our experience in the post-Vatican II church and in the postmodern world teaches us that mysticism and prophecy are not clashing symbols but interdependent requirements for gospel living. In antiquity, prophecy was considered a natural role for women, and in the early Corinthian community, for example, prophecy and prayer were closely linked.2~ Thus, we are not called to be mystics or activists but mystics and activists. Sandra Schneiders underlines this truth when she describes religious life as a prophetic life-form characterized by two linked realities--contemplative immediacy to God and social marginality. Indeed, she calls prophetic action the public face of mysticism.22 Genuine prophetic speech and action are grounded inholiness. Prophecy requires that one take time to attend to God's word. It demands singleness of purpose, what we used to call "purity of heart." It requires allowing oneself to be penetrated by the Spirit, thus gaining a certain freedom from external authorities. Authentic solitude and silent presence before God allow us to become "tuned in" to the ways of God and, out of this knowledge, to lament and speak a word of vision and hope to the church and to the poor. Genuine prayer helps us avoid making egregiously wrong projections in God's name, and this can be painful. To begin with, it is not easy to identify subde projections by which we make God into our own image, and when we do discover them it is difficult to let them go. Most of us are comfortable with the God we have experienced and imagined, but, unless we become freer to let God be God, we dare not venture into the world of prophetic utterance. God is the source and wellspring of prophetic life and mission, and only contemplation keeps us intimately attuned to God's voice.23 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life A hallmark of the mystical encounter is a sense of being at one with the world. This is an enjoyable experience and needs to be celebrated when it breaks into our consciousness. But often we do not allow this sense of cosmic unity to lead us to effective community living. How do epiphanies of connectedness lead us to prophetic voice on behalf of human community? The basic answer is that contemplative existence grounds prophetic activity. Generally, one doeg not speak a prophetic word out of the blue, even though prophetic speech has an element of spontaneity, like a "late-breaking news bulletin" from God. But, like a concert pianist's spontaneity and apparent effortlessness, prophecy depends on a life of paying attention to God in prayer. Genuine contemplation does not lead toward withdrawal or removal from the world, but just the opposite. The prophet is one who immerses herself in the joys and especially the sufferings of the world. Prophetic solidarity translates into acknowledging the truth of the present moment, however bleak it may seem. Prophets are "sent to participate humbly and fragilely in the darkness, to experience it as their own, but without losing heart." This faithful perseverance leads one to seek solutions and victory, but not to give up when failure is the outcome. Such a life requires both realism and deep spiritual reserves.24 The prophet identifies and gives voice to the sins of one's culture: consumerism, rampant individualism, fragmentation, and alienation. In her book Woman Strength: Modern Church, Modern Woman, Joan Chittister underlines the need for communal leadership against a rampantly individualistic culture. She calls for a spirituality of contemplative cocreation in which we look at the causes of social brokenness and begin to see the link between the personal and the political. "We need to intervene for one another," she says. "We need a new worldview that puts the old one 'in new light.'''25 Review for Religqous A simple way to enhance contemplation in the service of prophetic solidarity with the poor is to dwell within the words of the Hebrew prophets to see what they mean for us today. We begin by asking: Who were these people? What were the circumstances of their lives? What were their doubts and fears? How did they overcome them? How did they manage to love so much that they risked life and limb to speak the prophetic word? Abraham Heschel asks: "What gave them the strength to 'demythologize' precious certainties, to attack what was holy, to hurl blasphemies at priest and king, to stand up against all in the name of God?" He says they "must have been shattered by some cataclysmic experience in order to be able to shatter others." 26 In a 1997 article Brueggemann describes how the biblical text becomes newly available, how it can erupt into new usage and be seized upon to illuminate the present. This moment can be both personal and communal. He writes: "What has been tradition, hovering in dormancy, becomes available experience . In that utterance, the word does lead reality." In order for the prophetic word to remain ever new, someone has to have imagination and intuition and the courage to assert that texts from the past can and must be "concretely relocated in and specifically readdressed to contemporary contexts." Persons like this "permit the explosion of text whereby the world is transformed.''27 Meditating deeply on the following passages can lead us in such a direction. Listen, I groan under the burden of you, as a wagon creaks under a full load. (Am 2:13) You that turn justice upside down and bring righteousness to the ground, you that hate someone who brings the wrongdoer to court and loathe the one who speaks the whole truth: 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Reh~ious Life for all this, because you levy taxes on the poor. though you have built houses of hewn stone, you shall not live in them. (Am 5:7-11) Spare me the sound of your songs; I cannot endure the music of your lutes. Let justice roll like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Am 5:23-24) Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord. Though your sins are scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they are dyed crimson, they may yet be like wool. (Is 1:18) The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: Light has dawned upon them, dwellers in a land as dark as death. Thou hast increased their joy and given them great gladness; Hey rejoice in your presence as people rejoice at harvest. (Is 9:2-3) These and other prophets past and present inspire us to become more and more convinced that a "new word" and "new light" are possible in every age. We must be the ones to assume the responsibility to remind the church that no one has a corner on God's word and that we dare not put a period, where there should be a comma, when it comes to God's plan for creation. Prophetic voices are needed in a church that "disputes how women can image Christ; restricts rather than promotes women's preaching; rejects dialogue with feminist theology; refuses to discuss women's leadership roles in liturgical assemblies; takes Review for Religious punitive action against women's public speech on controversial issues; considers qualified women ineligible for administrative offices and prohibits gender-inclusive texts in its public prayer."~s The Madeleva Manifesto, issued in 2000 by a group of Catholic theologians, states: "To women in ministry and theological studies, we say: Reimagine what it means to be the whole body of Christ. The way things are now is not the design of God." Past and Future One aspect of celebrating and being grateful for the past involves cocking an eye toward the future. W'e ask how we can honor the memories, the dedication, the love and accomplishments of those who have gone before us. How do we extend their legacy into a new millennium? This is no easy task. The prophetic voice of women religious may be intended primarily for the church, but it extends to the wider faith and civic communities. There are many challenges in the American church, in religious life, and in our culture. But, amidst the plethora of problems, one thing remains clear: The prophet must be attuned to the cause of the poor and suffering and act on their behalf. This is the rock upon which we stand and which must weather the slings and arrows of both ecclesial and social existence. Words of support and challenge are in order. While all baptized Christians are called to find inspiration and truth in the message of the Bible, women religious are eminently equipped to do so. The Spirit must be allowed to empower and embolden you, to give you confidence to The prophet must be attuned to the cause of the poor and suffering and act on their behalf. 62.3 2003 Dreyer * Prophetic Voice in Religious Life interpret the signs of the times in light of the gospel and speak and act on this knowledge. Your lifestyle, your experience, your prayer, your dedication, your commitment to discernment, all this enables and propels you to live and speak and act in Christ's name. It benefits not only your communities, but also the church and the world. Your prophetic voices are needed. Confronting a sinful church begins in humility, in the awareness that the sin I protest resides firmly in the center of my own heart. The church has an ambiguous record on this front. She has always embraced the principle that reform must be a constant dynamic in the church, but has often shied away from embracing this truth in action. The renowned 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich noted that a major Protestant criticism of the Roman church is the "exclusion of the prophetic self-criticism" by an authoritarian system.29 Awareness of the beam in one's own eye prevents making condescending judgments about others. But we cannot stop there. We must love God and the world and the church enough to be willing to cry out against the arrogance, deceit, and secrecy that burden most heavily the poor, the oppressed, the person in the pew. The danger in a time such as ours is to get distracted and deflected from hearing the call to prophecy. It is appropriate to commission studies and to meet and talk about the alarming statistics on religious life--health, membership, age, finances. But these concerns cannot be allowed to turn you in on yourselves, instead of outward to the reform of the church and the alleviation of suffering in the world. And, while we may need time-outs to step back from the fray and regroup, we must not give in to the temptation to withdraw out of legitimate frustration and anger. We need to act as individuals and as a community, embracing the responsibility and the honor of being agents of new vision. We cannot leave it Review for Religious to clerical leaders or to those with stronger, louder, deeper voices. The church needs women religious to resist being co-opted by the clerical culture of power, privilege, and denial. We need you to protest tactics of intimidation and silencing. And we hope and pray that you will have the courage to withstand the suffering of not being welcome in your own country. The Spirit blows where it will (1 Co 12:8-11), and I find that it often blows in the lives of mature, dedicated women religious. We laypersons, who have so often been empowered by you, are called to join you in this much-needed prophetic ecclesial mission. The prophet speaks also to culture. As we move from despising and fleeing culture to a critical embrace of it, we cast a loving, compassionate, contemplative gaze on it and on all cultures. Because we stand within our culture, not outside it, we are both tainted by its sins and enriched by its creations and discoveries. In simplicity and courage we need to protest against arrogance, individualism, and consumer ways. By living and thinking on the margins, we must speak a word of love to the most desperate, despised, and forgotten among us. Since we cannot fight excessive individualism with more individualism, we are cailed to figure out how to act communally, to marshal our resources to witness to the Spirit's plan to make all things new. We are called to take a prophetic stance toward the rampant individualism of our culture by acknowledging our shared vulnerability, respecting and loving our differences and yet inviting others to dwell in community with us. Mary Grey pleads with us to "take the responsibility of becoming the kinds of communities which challenge society and live by a transforming ethic, communities which 'shine like stars' because they are offering the word of life." 30 She locates hope in the witness of the community as prophet. In the face of dwindling resources and aging, this kind of fidelity 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life to the mission, this showing up each and every day to do the Lord's work, is in itself a prophetic act of enormous value and goodness. The prophet is many things. To be open to and touched by this gift is to be honored with an invitation from God. It is also to be burdened with heavy responsibility, to be ripped open and rejected, scorned and ridiculed. For the point of the prophet's life is not primarily her own burdens, but those of a suffering world in desperate need of hope. The prophetic voice both disturbs and gives hope, and this requires keeping close touch with God's purifying presence, seeing oneself as lowly and humbly developing the skills of discernment and surrender. We are grateful for those who have gone before us, and we celebrate our membership in the communion of saints. We are linked by the desire arid the promise to be faithful to living a gospel life in each generation. The witness of our ancestors in the faith calls us to recommit ourselves to be Christians who dare to voice a prophetic word in our time, who dare to offer a word of hope from our experience that God is faithful, and who dare to hear and respond to the gospel invitation: "Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light" (Mr 11:28-30). Notes ' See Sandra Schneiders [HM, Finding the Treasure: Locating Catholic Religious Life in a New Ecclesial and Cultural Context (New YorlotMahwah: Paulist Press, 2000) and Selling All: Commitment, Consecrated Celibacy, and Community in Catholic. Religious Life (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2001); Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996); Nadine Foley, ed., ~ourney in Faith and Fidelity: Women Shaping Religious Life for a Renewed Church (New York: Continuum, 1999); Joan Chittister, The Fire in These Ashes: A Review for Religious Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life (Kansas City: Sheed Ward, 1995) and Woman Strength: Modern Church, Modern Woman (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990); Barbara Fiand, Living the Vision: Religious Vows in an Age of Change (New York: Crossroad, 1990) and Wrestling with God: Religious Life in Search of Its Soul (New York: Crossroad, 1996). 2 Karen L. King, "Prophetic Power and Women's Authority: The Case of the Gospel of Mary [Magdalene]," in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 21 and 35. 3 See Mary Catherine Hilkert OP, Speaking with Authority: Catherine of Siena and the Voices of Women Today (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000, p. 43. Colman O'Dell, "Elizabeth of Schonau and Hildegard of Bingen; Prophets of the Lord," in Peace Weavers, ed. J.A. Nichols and L.T. Shank (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1987), pp. 85-102. ~ Cited in Abraham Heschel, The Prophets: An Introduction (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 12ft. 6 Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1976), p. 13. 7 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 36-37. 8 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 9-10. 9 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 45 and 26-27. 10McNamara, Sisters in Arms, p. 637. ~ See With Hearts Expanded: Transformation in the Lives of Benedictine Women, St. Joseph, Minnesota, 1957-2000 by Evin Rademacher, Emmanuel Renner, Olivia Forster, and Carol Berg (St. Cloud: North Star Press, 2002), cited in History of Women Religious News and Notes 15, no. 1 (February 2002): 4. ,2 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 20-21. ,3 Dorothee Soelle, Suffering, trans. Everett R. Kalin (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), pp. 70-76. ,4 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, p. 23. ,s See Constance FitzGerald, "Impasse and the Dark Night," in Women's Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development (2nd ed.), ed. Joann Wolski Conn (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996), pp. 410- 435. 16 Mary C. Grey, "Prophecy and Mysticism: The Heart of the Postmodern Church," Scot-fish Journal of Theology (1997): 53. 17 Recent examples include Dominicans at Home in a Young Nation: 1786-1865 (Chicago: Project OPUS); Women of the Vale: Perthville Josephites 1872-1972 by Marie Crowley (Melbourne: Spectrum Publications, 2000); Beyond the Adobe Wall: 1852-1894 by Patricia Jean 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life Manion SL (Independence, Missouri: Two Trails Press, 2002); Barbara Misner, The Living Love of Christ among Us: The History of the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, 3 vols. (privately printed by the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, 1999). An excellent listing of new books on religious life can be found in History of Women Religious: News and Notes, ed. Karen M. Kennelly (2311 South Lindbergh Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63131). ,8 Brueggeman, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 47 and 49. ,9 Brueggeman, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 69, 70, and 79 20 Brueggeman, Prophetic Imagination, p. 88. 21 See Antoinette Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). 22 Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, pp. 137 and 150. 23 Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, p. 317. 24 Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, pp. 327 and 334-335. 2s Chittister, Woman Strength, pp. 69-70. z6 Heschel, Prophets, p. 12. 27 Walter Brueggemann, "Texts That Linger, Words That Explode," Theology Today 54, no. 2 (July 1997): 181 and 198. 2~ Hilkert, Speaking with Authority, pp. 2-3. 29 Paul Tillich, The Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper,1957), p. 72. 30 Grey, "Prophecy and Mysticism," pp. 23 and 62. Sadness Today I embrace the air. The embodiment of heart and mind, .flesh and bone are gone. Too soon a (oraithlikefigure replaced reality l~aving only memories. Marcella LaKoske OP Review for Religious NIHAL ABEYASINGHA Charism: Is Marketing Needed? Ubnuti luenvdeer rs eslelsv eitns dfaibffreicr esnotf tneanmer etsh,r oouftgehno uwt iEthu rdoipf-e ferent bottles and different marketing strategies and sometimes even different formulas. Candy maker Mars no longer sells "Mars" bars in the United States; the same product is now called "Snickers Almond," and American "Milky Way" bars (same as ever) are sold in Europe as "Mars" bars. Such is the adaptability of mod-ern marketing. How, then, might one go about market-ing the productmor telling the story--of a religious institute's charismatic accomplishments and endeavors? This article argues that one needs to identify the project the founder launched (pastoral care) by identifying where his heart was (pastoral sensitivity). In particular, it deals with the Redemptorists, a congregation founded in 1732 and approved by the pope in 1749. Today's efforts to rediscover the charism of religious congregations often turn into an intellectual exercise-- doing meticulous historical research and then making the findings available to members through seminars, vis-its to places associated with the founder, and so forth. Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR writes again from the University of Kelaniya; 454/9 Piachaud Gardens; Kandy 20000; Sri Lanka. 1_9.KO~ 62.3 2003 But maybe a question asked by St. Bernard needs to be asked again: "What kind of concept could human beings have of God [in their mind] unless they first had an image of God in their heart?" This implies that people can have almost no idea of God in their mind until they first choose to love God through the image of him they find in their heart. Similarly, today's "bearers of the charism" need to examine whether their hearts are where their founder's heart was. I suggest that this would call for a refinement in the religious congregation's method of research into its charism. A Note on Method The historical method seeks to learn what the founders were thinking when they established their reli-gious institute. One arrives at the origins of that thought and traces its progress and completion. Whatever con-clusions are drawn are shown to have existed in some way in the founder's consciousness. That is a legitimate method of historical research. But, regarding a charism, I suggest that one is deal-ing with where the founder's heart was. The founder first has a commitment in his heart. It is only later that he emphasizes from the Christian memory and tradition what fits in with that commitment. The elements he highlights and puts together are never the total Christian vision. The founder in his insight is an artist, and a cri-terion of good artists is that they highlight some partic-ular thing in such a way that the "universal" shines forth more brightly. The founder did not first create a system of thought (a theory) and then fit his project into it. Rather, he first "fell in love" with the "project" in front of him. How? Why? Because he saw and experienced certain events in the world and their impact on his life as a Christian. He responded and witnessed to them. He invited others to join his project so that the witness could Review for Religious continue. I argue that the priority is the heart. The head follows, making sure that the heart ("Love is blind!") is not chasing after vanity. Rediscovering an historical fact or some perspective of a former era is a valid study in itself and a contribu-tion to knowledge, but, in matters of love and a tradition of love, the issues are different. One needs to keep alive today (in a world that has obviously changed) the story of a particular heartfelt response to events of a former era. Witnessing anew with-out changing the story is what is called for. The successive bearers of the charism do not have a different insight from the founder's. The present bearers of the charism have to love with the same insight. This is not primarily propositional truth or even a crys-tal- clear concept. This love produces a kind of feeling (or instinct or sixth sense) for the insight of the founder. It brings about a virtuous disposition such as "justness" (not justice) and "chasteness" (not chastity) bring to what is just and chaste. Ask any Redemptorist and he will tell you that the aim of the congregation is to preach the gospel to those who are pastorally "most abandoned" or most in need. That is propositional truth. After one or several of such groups are identified, ministry to them is made a prior-ity in each unit of the institute. But the crux of the mat-ter is what "insight" or "virtuous disposition" operates in regard to this target group. Is the agenda for action set by the target group where they actually are, in their iden-tity and reality as Christians, or from the textbooks of theology? In my opinion and that of several close asso- One needs to keep alive today the story of a particular heartfelt response to events of a former era. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingha * Charism ciates, there is something wanting in the textbook approach. It does not seem to have captured the imagi-nation either of the majority in the institute or of the people to whom its ministry is offered. So the question is: How does one identify the original insight, foster a love and feeling for that insight, and then put the "story" into practice in our own day? Alphonsus ahead of and behind His Time Alphonsus in some ways was ahead of his time. He anticipated, for example, the development of doctrine in the church and required the members of the institute to take a vow to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, before it was defined in 1854. But in some ways he was also falling behind, defending positions that do not have theological defend-ers today. Looking at matters in which Alphonsus fell behind may illustrate his "marketing" strategy. It came to me as something of a shock to read his refutation of a work of Dom Leoluca Rolli, a priest of Calabria, titled II Novello Progetto, o sia Dissertazione del buon uso delle Litanie, ed altre preghiere (The New Project, or Dissertation on the Good Use of the Litanies and Other Prayers).~ This was in 1775, and the Redemptorist congregation had been started in 1732. Mphonsus takes up basically three issues against Rolli: (1) the popular belief that house of the Mary was brought by angels to Loretto, (2) some titles used in regard to Mary in the Litany of Loretto, and (3) the singing or recitation of that litany before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. As regards the popular belief about the house of Loretto, Rolli considered it an account that runs like a fable. In his refutation Alphonsus refers to popes who said that the house was taken by the ministry of angels to Loretto. He goes on to say that the denial of this belief Review for Religious is common among Protestant authors, in contrast to Catholic authors. Obviously, in the view of the rational-ists of the time, the argument was weak. Today's theolo-gians would not set much store on Alphonsus's reasoning. Rolli thought the titles Tower of David, Tower of Ivory, and House of Gold used in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin were affectations, using words without adequate meaning. He thought that Mirror of .Justice, Refuge of Sinners, Morning Star, and Gate of Heaven were titles that should refer only to .Jesus. Alphonsus's refutation was simply that people in the church, including priests and religious, saw no problem with using this litany and that popes had approved it. He adds, "They are all [expres-sions] of piety and tenderness towards our holy queen, that we may trust the more in her protection." Rolli considered it an abuse to chant the Litany of the Blessed Virgin before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Alphonsus admits that prayers should be directed to.Jesus our Savior, for he alone is absolutely necessary as a ~neans of salvation. But he goes on to say that others are nec-essary, not by a necessity of means, but by moral neces-sity, to help our confidence the more. "In this light, when we chant the Litany of the Blessed Virgin before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, Mary is asked to present our prayers to Jesus Christ.''2 The Sense of Alphonsus's Arguments Today the views of Rolli are commonly accepted. Should Alphonsus even at that time have seen some value in Rolli's opinions and conceded some probability to them? Why did he reject them without qualification? My short answer is that Alphonsus realized how impor-tant the Catholic sense of identity was at the time. He knew the importance of consciously "being different." His "pastoral care" was rooted in "pastoral sensitivity" for that sense of identity. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ~° Charism Priests, after spending years studying th6ology, tend to apply theological categories to pastoral situations with little sensitivity for the people's felt needs. Pastoral care involves sensitivity to the human situation, the sensitiv-ity of a shepherd leading his flock to pasture. That sen-sitivity raises questions. What instincts and heartfelt feelings of the people should he be careful not to offend, and why? What needs changing, and why? These are delicate questions. In the 18th century, the very things Rolli criticized were popularly held. Even the popes had reflected them in their writings. Rolli wanted to set those beliefs aside in the name of rationality. Alphonsus had a different con-cern. His stand was with the people, the majority. From that standpoint he would consider whether the "logic of reason" was a pastoral basis to eliminate those devotional titles and whether dropping them might leave a gap in the "logic of life." What would take their place? Would people feel at home in their faith without holding on to such devotional patterns? He concluded that eliminat-ing such popular piety would be pastorally harmful. I suggest that questions like these would have arisen as part of the "pastoral sensitivity" of Alphonsus. Such ques-tions are important today as well. In other words, peo-ple, their own perceived identity, and their felt needs--rather than the latest theological opinions-- should influence ministry agendas, especially the min-istries' points of insertion. In Alphonsus's day many people who were devoted to the traditional Litany of Loretto would have been unable to understand the principles of rationalism. Alphonsus probably understood them, or at least had the gifts of mind to understand them. The only ones at that time who rejected the traditional litany and even ridiculed it were Protestants. Alphonsus would have known that for him to reject such devotional formulations would be Review for Religious understood by many as encouraging, at least implicitly, some close rapport with Protestants. Alphonsus's view was that the people (including himself, a highly emo-tional Neapolitan) would not feel at home without the support (emotional and otherwise) of such devotions and prayers. That would confuse ordinary people. He had no adequate substitute to offer. It would have been like advocating email in Asia in the 1980s. Few Asians even knew of email's existence, and the infrastructure for it was not in place. In the 2000s the situation in Asia is dif-ferent. What Alphonsus hoped to achieve by his unquali-fied rejection of Rolli's ideas was a communication of truth (pastoral care) that would be attractive (pastoral sensitivity) to their sense of identity as individual believ-ers and as a community. He wanted to communicate, not pure speculative truth, but existential truth related to them as persons. Alphonsus wanted to touch ordinary people where they happened to be. To be touched in this way could turn out to be a moment of truth for peo-ple. Pastoral sensitivity finds a way to lead people to an encounter with truth. Truth has its way of cutting across the "lie" by which people sometimes try to live. The fol-lowing passage from a novel by Andrew Greeley explains what I mean. "Ellen's worst sin was against Ellen." Ellen is on her knees confessing to a priest named Kevin. Both of them have known each other for many years, and Kevin's family has assisted Ellen financially during a period of need. She says she has been away from the sacraments for ten years, and she lists her many sins. After she finishes, Kevin (who is the novel's narrator) speaks. "I'm still waiting for the real sin, the only sin," I said. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Charism She [Ellen] tilted her head. "I've told every-thing." "You haven't told the one important thing. You were mad at God and mad at the church and pretended for a long time you could get away from both." "I don't want to talk about it," she said. "Then no absolution," I said firmly. She tugged her hand to free it. I wasn't ¯ going to let it go. "Don't you have an ounce of compassion in that ice-cold soul of yours?" "If you want compassion, Ellen, go to your husband or have him recommend a psychia-trist who will listen sympathetically. If you want absolution, don't play games." She stopped tugging. We were quiet for a long time. "That's the only one that does matter, isn't it?" she said. "All right, Kevin, I'll say it, and you'll have to mop up the tears on this hard floor of yours. I blamed the church and God for things that were inside me and my family. I focused on all the ugly things and forgot about Father Conroy and Sister Caroline and first Communion and May crownings and High Club dances and midnight Mass and all those wonderful things that I love so much. I gave them all up because I was angry. I blamed the church for Tim's death. I loved him so much. I couldn't save him, and I thought the church should have saved him. Even when doing it, I knew I was wrong and that someday I'd be kneeling on the floor before you and pleading to be let back in." "And now you have done it," I said . She put her head against my knee and wept. Review for Religious Then she gathered herself together and said, "So Ellen's worst sin was against Ellen.-3 "Ellen's worst sin was against Ellen" is not humanism. A foundational element of Pope John Paul's teaching is that "man is the way of the church." But "man" must be understood in terms of the man, Jesus Christ. Salvation is when the individual lets Jesus Christ judge his life and values ("wanting absolu-tion"). Humanism is when people reformulate Jesus in their own image and like-ness ("playing games"). The former course is an expansion, an openness to the Infinite; the latter is a reduction of Jesus to the measure of one's own finiteness. The former is redemptive; the latter is ratio-nalization and self-justification: narcissism. I suggest that the former is where the charism of a religious institute is centered; the latter is what may be called "pastoral opportunism." Pastoral sensitivity varies according to differences in the charisms of various institutes. ¯ Playing Games or Wanting Absolution? "If you want compassion, go to your husband .I.f. you want absolution, don't play games." How true! How easily the two are confused! "Ellen's worst sin was against Ellen"--that is different. The enumeration of one's sins is an objective matter, but the moment of conversion is existential, the realization that "I have sinned. I will go back to my Father. That is¯ where I am at home; in fact, I have nowhere else to go" (see Lk 15:11-31). Human beings need saving. All creation shares in the salvation of the human. "Creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord, but because of the one who subjected it in hope that creation itself would be set free from slav- 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Charism ery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rm 8:19-20). There is nothing wrong with compassion, but, in the perspective of absolution (existential salvation, redemp-tion today), there has to be more than compassion on the part of the pastor. The link between compassion and salvation is naming the game and discovering one's iden-tity in commitment and relationship to oneself, one's fellow human beings, and God. In the scene quoted above, Ellen has known Kevin for years and has experienced the generosity of his fam-ily. But as pastor he brings her to realize the injustice she is doing to herself. In that discovery and realization, she discovers the church community she has abandoned and God, who is present in that community. She sees that she is always welcome to the church and to the peo-ple and things she admits she loves: Father Conroy, Sister Caroline, May crownings, dances, and so forth. It is the entire mixture of ritual, imagery, and flesh-and-blood community that makes her feel at home. And yet we know that none of these are a hundred percent per-fect. Such is the church. What needs to be preserved for the individual in the church and for the church as a community is this feeling of being at home. In that setting people realize their true human and Christian identity. They do not blame the church and God "for things that were inside me and my family." Feeling at home does not mean complacency. To all--believers and unbelievers--the church must preach faith and conversion (see Sacrosanctum concilium, §9). Permitting people to "play games" and evade their call to conversion is not part of its mission. The Clarification of Pastoral Sensitivity Pastoral sensitivity varies according to differences in the charisms of various institutes. Is a given charism Review for Religious meant to function from the top down or from the bot-tom up? The top-down function is a way of exhibiting some transcendental value. Thus does a contemplative order bear witness to God's transcendence in any envi-ronment. In contrast, a charism that functions from the bottom up takes people where they are and leads them higher. Alphonsus's charism is certainly bottom-up. Redemptorist pastoral sensitivity, therefore, must be alert to where people actually are and concerned with them in their situation. The concrete situation determines the charism's "point of insertion" and the subsequent agenda. Does theology have a role in this agenda, and, if so, what is that role? First, it needs to be said that what unites the Christian community is faith, not theology. Pastoral care, first and foremost, contributes to growth in faith. Pastoral care is an art, discerning how faith func-tions in this person and this situation and then doing with skill whatever contributes to the growth of that faith. Theology, of course, does have a role in pastoral care. Years of formation in the science of theology provide principles for the art of pastoral care. Theology states and clarifies the goal of the Christian journey. Newman says: "Theology begins, as its name denotes, not with any sensible facts, phenomena, or results, not with nature at all, but with the Author of nature--with the one invis-ible, unapproachable Cause and Source of all things. It begins at the other end of knowledge, and is occupied, not with the finite, but the Infinite. It unfolds and sys-tematizes what he himself has told us of himself; of his nature, his attributes, his will, and his acts.''4 In this pro-cess of theology, logic is important, but, as Newman says, "logic does not really prove; it enables us to join issue with others; it suggests ideas; it opens views; it maps out for us the lines of thought; it verifies nega-tively; it determines when differences of opinions are 62.3 2003 Abeyasingha ¯ Charism Pastoral care is not a matter of saying and doing what pleases the majority. hopeless; and when and how far conclusions are proba-ble; but for genuine proof in concrete matter we require an organon more delicate, versatile, and elastic than ver-bal argumentation.''s Theology and pastoral care can enrich each other, but how does that work? In pastoral care the starting point is the finite: this individual, this situation. More than strict logic, there needs to be a "clinical sense." What "symptoms" does one perceive? Are there inter-connections? What is the diagnosis, and what treatments are possible? What treatment seems best? How is faith func-tioning here? What prin-ciples operate, however obscured they may be by seeming illogicality? Pas-toral care, in this perspective, is art and poetry. Artists have "insights" and then present them, using the best subject matter and materials and techniques known to them. In their presentations the artists and their glimpses and visions (all finite) that were the starting point rec-ognize themselves as called to grow towards the Infinite. What Rolli glimpsed in the Litany of Loretto were defects--they were indeed defects in the light of a the-ology influenced by rationalism. His solution was to eliminate them. The consequences of doing so were not his concern. I would suggest that Alphonsus's pastoral insight was that he saw how God operated and how pop-ular piety, defective though it was, was indeed express-ing faith in God. His pastoral sensitivity saw the danger of eliminating without substituting. He saw the possi-bility of initiating growth from "within." Pastoral care is not a matter of saying and doing what pleases the majority. That would be pastoral oppor- Review for Religious tunism. Pastoral care leads to an encounter with truth. Hence it is the pastor's function to uncover the truth that exists in what people do and then lead them beyond it. There is truth even in the fables, myths, and legends of popular piety. As Newman says, "fables are economies or accommodations, being truths and principles cast into that form in which they will be most vividly recognized; ¯. Again, mythical representations, at least in their bet-ter form, may be considered facts or narratives, untrue, but like the truth, intended to bring out the action of some principle, point of character, and the like. For instance, the tradition that St. Ignatius [of Antioch] was the child whom our Lord took in his arms, may be unfounded; but it realizes to us his special relation to Christ and his apostles, with a keenness peculiar to itself. The same remark may be made upon certain narratives of martyrdoms, or of the details of such narratives, or of certain alleged miracles, or heroic acts, or speeches, all of which are the spontaneous produce of religious feel-ing under imperfect knowledge. If the alleged facts did not occur, they ought to have occurred (if I may so speak); they are such as might have occurred, and would have occurred, under circumstances . Many a theory or view of things, on which an institution is founded, or a party held together, is of the same kind.''6 Acknowledging Identity in Affirmation of Difference At no point does Alphonsus say that the truth of the fables of popular piety are truths of faith or that they are the core of Christian faith. Alphonsus was clear in his own theological principles. He asserted that Jesus is the only mediator necessary by necessity of means¯ But he also knew that, in actual day-to-day living, people accepted other mediators as well, and so he speaks of them as a moral necessity. In the sphere of religion, Maryi_9.tLl__ 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Charism is a secondary mediator. That was the situation--as it stood with its imperfect and accommodated knowledge. As pastor he would present a picture of Mary and the saints as mediators on a different level from Jesus. He would insist that her primary function is to lead us to Jesus. On a secondary level she helps us in our imperfect situation by presenting our prayers to Jesus, increasing our confidence, and so forth. Alphonsus recognized that Catholic identity at that time included being different from Protestants and ratio-nalists. At that time Catholics honored Mary in ways that could be assessed rationally as exaggerated and imperfect--and which brought on ridicule from Protestants and rationalists. To seem to condone their ridicule would lessen their identity (their "being differ-ent") and tantamount to joining them. It was part of Catholic identity, of feeling at home, to retain the devo-tion as it was traditionally practiced. Alphonsus therefore rejects the rational and theologically assimilable posi-tions of Rolli. (Today Rolli's views are part of the Catholic tradition and Catholic identity. It was not so in the 18th century, and could not have been.) Alphonsus had to deal with the theological doctrine that acts of devotion performed by one who was not in the state of grace did not avail for salvation. He could not deny this; it was the common doctrine. So he searched at the human level for the benefits of such devotion. He says (with Thomas Aquinas and Robert Bellarmine) that, although such acts of devotion do not in themselves jus-tify, they at least dispose sinners to obtain justification through the merits of Mary and the saints. He points out at least three possible benefits that could accrue to sinners from such devotion: making them accustomed to good works, obtaining for them temporal favors, and disposing them to receive grace. In other words, sinners who practice devotion to Mary have a better chance of Review for Religious cooperating with grace and being justified than sinners who do not have such devotion. Acknowledging Identity and Moving Forward For Alphonsus, acknowledging identity through dif-ference was the beginning, not the end, of pastoral care. He wished to lead people to deeper understanding of their faith, but always worked first on their hearts, their emotions. His Glories of Mary is a com-mentary on the "Hail Holy Queen," a prayer that ratio-nalists ridiculed. That prayer gave him a framework for his pastoral strategy. He was not merely justifying popular devotion to Mary, but also inserting elements that would help the pray-er grow in faith. As Alphonsus saw it, the prayer combined contrasts (queen/mother; life/banished children). It abounded with words that evoke intense emotion. The climax of the prayer is an accurate theological description of what Christian life is: "After this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus." He makes Jesus the final goal of conversion. Until that goal is reached, even the slightest devotion to Mary, if carried through with perse-verance, gives the sinner hope. She becomes his patron, and exalted patronage was a well-known practice. In The Glories of Mary, Alphonsus takes the "Hail, Holy Queen" as it is and plays on the contrasts that are brought together in addressing Mary. "Queen" evokes power, while "mother" evokes love. Mary nurtures "life," even though our lives are precarious because of the ban-ishment caused by sin. These contrasts do not hold For Alphonsus, acknowledging identity through difference was the beginning, not the end, of pastoral care. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba * Charism together in ordinary life. As sinners look to Mary as mother, affections of love, tenderness, and confidence are bound to override those of fear, dread, and punishment associated with "queen." Gradually people, especially the sinful and the desperate, would feel themselves more com-fortable and at home with the softer images (mother, life) rather than the harsher ones (power, banishment). His writing style is not pedantic; it is popular. He persuades, he encourages, he appeals. He repeats and exaggerates. He points out the benefits of simple acts (such as reciting a "Hail, Mary" every day) even for peo-ple who have not broken with their life of sin. He knows that the people he is writing for are an emotional peo-ple. He tries to bring reason to bear on their emotions. He does this by channeling their emotions towards two goals, sorrow and love. After reminding readers that God has done much by giving them Mary to be their mother, he asks what they have done. In various ways they have rejected her, and so they are called to sorrow and repen-tance and to expressing grateful love to God and to his mother, God's gift to them. The argument is not spec-ulative. It is an effort to have right reason (in the form of practical repentance and love) control any exagger-ated emotion in Marian devotion. Alphonsus provides a range of imagery drawn from people's ordinary life: Mary as midwife, shepherdess, and advocate. Such imagery is found even more in his poems, songs, and paintings. People could choose whatever image suited them, but, no matter what they chose, each image was mediatory, with Mary between the people and Jesus. Mary was the bridge. The Vatican's "Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy" (2002) treats devotion to Mary much as Alphonsus did.7 Alphonsus's expression is more laden with emotion. He wanted to lead people on a journey on which they would become attached to Christ in love. In "mar- Review for Religious keting" Alphonsus's insight, in bringing his Catholic charism to people of today, pastoral sensitivity needs to start where they are--start with what they consider their identity--and then, in the exercise of pastoral care, move them beyond it. This would be marketing, under a new and different label and brand name, the same product as Alphonsus "marketed" in his day. Is this "marketing" idea likely to convince the bearers of the Alphonsian charism today and to "work" for the people to whom their min-istry extends? A trial run may be worthwhile. I suggest that this approach is not altogether a "dream." A recent biography of Andrei Sakharov shows his journey from being a scientist who supported the Soviet system to being a spokesman for human rights.8 As a scientist he asked questions about physical nature and tested hypotheses, looking for reliable evidence. As a Russian he "believed that the Soviet state represented a breakthrough into the future." When he saw the deaths caused by the radioactive fallout from the tests he directed in 1955, he began to ask questions about politics the same way he had always asked questions about physical nature. This approach quickly made him a dissident. The rest of his life is too well known for repetition here. It was not a head-on attack on his ideology that changed him. The point of change was his own training, in which he was at home. At that point something new inserted itself: the deaths caused by his own experiments. This is a moral parable of change from within, somebne moving from the laboratory into action in the public arena, experiencing a martyrdom (witnessing and suffering), and "rising again." Can the charism of a religious institute function to effect change from within, meeting people where they are and progressing from there? Perhaps it can. That is the hope implied in being pastorally sensitive (to where people's hearts are) before striving to inculcate deeper and truer propositional knowledge. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Charism Notes ' Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Breve rispbsta alla stravagante riforma intentata dall'abbate Rolli contraria alia piet~ dovuta verso la divina Madre (written in 1775). http:// 2 It is interesting that the Congregations for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, "Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines" (9 April 2002), §165, states that, in the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the faithful ought to be "encour-aged to use the Scriptures" and "suitable hymns and prayers" and spend some time in "silent prayer and reflection. Thus they will grad-ually get the idea that they ought not use devotional practices in honor of the Virgin Mary and the saints during exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Given Mary's close relationship with Christ, however, the rosary, with its meditation on the mysteries of the incarnation and redemption, could help give the prayer a Christological orientation." Here I seem to detect that, although praying the rosary during ado-ration of the Blessed Sacrament is not rejected, neither is it considered the ideal. It seems to be considered an accommodation ("pastoral sen-sitivity") to where people are, with a view to leading them beyond it (with "pastoral care"). The burden of this article is to set the charism of an apostolically oriented religious institute in this perspective. 3 Andrew M. Greeley, The Cardinal Sins (New York: Warner Books, 1981), pp. 208-210. 4John Henry Newman, "Christianity and Physical Science," in The ldea of a University (Garden City: Doubleday Image, 1959), p. 395. s John Henry Newman, A Grammar of Assent (Garden City: Doubleday Image, 1955), chap. 8, p. 217. 6 John Henry Newman, "The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine" (Sermon XV, Preached on the Purification, 1843), in Newman's University Sermons: FiJ%en Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford, 1826-43 (London: SPCK, 1970), §35. 7 "Popular devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is an important and universal ecclesial phenomenon. Its expressions are multifarious and its motivation is very profound, deriving as it does from the People of God's faith in, and love for, Christ the Redeemer of the human race and from an awareness of the salvific mission that God entrusted to Mary of Nazareth, because of which she is mother not only of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but also of all people in the order of grace" (§183). 8 Richard Lourie, Sakbarov: A Biography (Hanover, New Hampshire: Brandeis University Press, 2002). Review for Religious ERNEST E. LARKIN John of the Cross's Message for Today The focus of St. John of the Cross is the call to contemplation. Vatican Council ~I left no doubt about the universal call to holiness; the clergy, the laity, and religious are all called to the same high degree of union with God. John of the Cross locates that perfection in contemplation. Vatican II emphasized life in this world. It called Christians out of the ghetto and into the mainstream of worldly existence. Lay people particularly were to work for the betterment of humanity through science, politics, education, economics, and the professions. Such work is part of the Christian vocation; moreover, for Christians the motivation and animation for doing the work is the same in the marketplace and the family as it is in the cloister. The source is a loving relationship with the Trinity. This is the holiness at the heart of every vocation. Call it love, call it contemplation--it is the same Ernest E. Larkin OCarm wrote "Desert Spirituality" for our JuDy-August 2002 issue. His address remains Kino Institute; 1224 East Northern; Phoenix, Arizona 85020. 62.3 2003 biblical reality of "knowing .you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ" (Jn 17:3) or, in another formulation, "knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship in his sufferings" (Ph 3:10). It is loving knowledge, for contemplation is knowledge by way of love. It is what St. Th~r~se called her vocation, to be "love at the heart of the church." In the lapidary formula of St. Paul, contemplation is the excellence of "faith expressing itself through love" (Ga 5:6). Contemplative prayer and contemplation are no longer to be seen as the domain of an elitist group. People in all sectors of church life and lay life are claiming their birthright and practicing contemplative prayer every day. John of the Cross can be their guide. In this paper I want to indicate how contemporary forms of contemplative prayer, specifically centering prayer and Christian Meditation, and the Jesus Prayer, fit into John's synthesis. I will first present a sketch of his teaching on the beginnings of contemplation and then relate this doctrine to the contemporary movements. Contemplation, according to John of the Cross Faith as "the only proximate and proportionate means to union with God" runs like a mantra through the works of John of the Cross. Loving faith, shown in word and deed, is the only road to God. Every act of faith, however small, is a ray of light piercing the darkness in one's consciousness. It is the light of Christ shining through. By acts of faith we let Christ in, we allow the Spirit to form Christ in our very being. Of course, he is always there in the depths of our spirit, in "the innermost chamber of our inner castle, the unscathed center of our being, where only the true God dwells.''~ But he is dormant there until we awaken him through activated faith. Our individual, discrete acts of faith are like the dots of light on a television screen. Multiply them, and the Review for Religious screen is fully illuminated. The soul is like the television screen: on it the dots of faith coalesce to form the image of Christ, fulfilling the words of St. Paul: "I live now, no longer I, Christ lives in me." Thus are we configured to Christ. The rest of the quotation is equally important: "I still have my human life, but it is a life of faith in the Son of God" (Ga 2:20). Our faith life brings purity of heart, the condition for this configuration. We are pure of heart to the extent that we live by faith. Purity of heart is not just chastity; it is all the virtues ordered and integrated in our being, giving us an openness to the indwelling God. In early stages God meets us in our rational minds, in our disparate thoughts and image~ and will acts. These are so many actual graces. When purity of heart is more perfect, we enter more deeply into ourselves at the spirit level where God reveals himself in a certain wholeness--in contemplation. "Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall see God." "Seeing God" occurs in holy thoughts and desires and more fully in contemplation. The metaphor in John of the Cross that corresponds to the television screen is the window pane that lets in the sun. When the window is clean, the sun comes through without any obstruction: the sun and the glass are like one same thing (Ascent 2.5.6). This is a beautiful image of purity of heart, of the entry of God. When all our desires are ordered by faith, we are transparent to God's indwelling. At first God comes to us in images and concepts, facsimiles and metaphors. When the soul is truly pure, that is to say, when it is free and detached and faith-filled, God comes in contemplation as Gracious Mystery, in his inscrutable reality. Our response then is We are pure of heart to the extent that we live by faith. 62.3 2003 Larkin ¯ John of the Cross's Message for Today simply a yes to this gift, resting in the presence, experiencing communion. Communion (koinonia, communio) is being one with God by participation in a unitive, nondualistic experience. Contemplation is the experience of communion. The experience of contemplation is ineffable: it cannot be put into words. We can have feelings about God, and they are sensible consolations or spiritual affections. Feelings are resonances of the experience of God. They are moments of enthusiasm or dis-couragement, joy or sorrow. They are secondary and accidental to the basic contemplative experience of presence and communion, which is incommunicable. The contact with God is the original experience of the theological virtues, whereas the emotional or spiritual resonances are the overflow. Often we have no assurance that we are experiencing the presence of God in contemplation other than blind faith. Feelings are ambiguous and need to be discerned. The act of contemplation is a return to the subject, a turning back on one's self in faith and love. It is moving from the Christ for us, who is objective and out in front of us, so to speak, to the Christ within us, who has become one with us. Thus contemplation is resting in the fruit of one's labor and search; it is the fruition of one's new, transformed self. The whole process is "putting on the Lord Jesus Christ," which begins with one's desires, purifying old ones and developing new ones one by one, and ends in the contemplative act of communion, when two things become one in participatory knowledge and love. This is nondualistic thinking, like the advaita of Eastern religions. God and the soul are united in a oneness that is not pantheistic, but pan-en-theistic. Communion is the common denominator of all the modes of contemplation, whether ordinary or extraordinary, active or passive, acquired or infused. Review for Religious Communion grows gradually as we are transformed in God. The one obstacle to our experiencing our .oneness with God is our unredeemed self, which is our false self or egoic self. Specifically, this bad self is our disordered desires. They are our attachments, an innocuous word better translated in our idiom as addictions and illusions. These are the persons and things and mindsets that control us, distort our thinking, and move us in the wrong direction. We deal with them by the two-pronged attack of getting to know Jesus better (so as to perceive his attractiveness) and letting go of competitive desires. There are two principles here, knowing Jesus and letting go. They are the two directives set down in the strongest language by John of the Cross as the necessary and sufficient program for holiness (Ascent 1.13.3-4). The strategy is to work on habitual, deliberate failings one by one until God negates them all in one sweep by leading a person into the "dark night." At that time one loses the attraction and pleasure in anything other than God. In John of the Cross, the gift of initial infused contemplation is the cause of this state. The budding contemplative is counseled to stop discursive activity, embrace the emptiness, and be present in loving attention to God, who is "infusing" light and love. At first the experience is distressful, because one fears she has lost God and everything else. The infused light and love are too subtle to be recognized. The landmarks of the old spiritual journey are gone: God is no longer available, 6ne cannot pray in the old ways, the excitement of ministry goes dead, and there is a malaise about everything. The only positive quality is an ache for God, which is aggravated by the fear of having lost the Beloved. Eventually one becomes comfortable with this new way of relating to God, and peace and serenity replace the anxiety. 62.3 2003 Larkin ¯ John of the Cross's Message for Today The dark night in general is the whole spiritual journey from beginning to end. Thus in John of the Cross the ascetical efforts that begin the journey to divine union do not complete the task. The dark night is needed for that. Why? Because our devious human nature, one's false self, goes underground into the unconscious and blocks a person's surrender to God in disguised ways. Jungian psychology calls the buried false self the shadow. It is made up of the capital sins, like lust or pride; in pious people these weaknesses take on forms of pseudo-piety that are as destructive as the crass expressions. Centuries before Jung, John was an expert on uncovering the shadow or dark side of human nature. His teaching is that only God can heal the shadow at its roots. God does this, not by "fixing" it, much less removing it, but by helping us confront and accept it and then move on to total surrender to God. One of John's great contributions is this teaching on the dark night. The dark night in general is the whole spiritual journey from beginning to end; the dark night under consideration here is one phase of the purification process, and is called the passive dark night of the senses. The new knowledge and love that are pure gift from God at this point (and called in-fused contemPlation) reconfigure the spiritual life. Inner worldly goods all lose their appeal. One sees them in their truth, and in comparison with God (Ascent 1.4; 3.20.2), and so they recede into irrelevance. At the same time God is no longer available in the cozy relationship of the past. The new knowledge and love of God is camouflaged and not knowledge in the usual Review for Religious sense, since it is apophatic, that is, knowing by unknowing. Nothing is felt by the senses, and the action of God is too subtle to be recognized. The result is ennui and accidie. John of the Cross reassures the beleaguered soul that the new state is an advance. The darkness is from God. John gives signs to authenticate the true grace from counterfeits. They are persistent dryness, the inability to function in the old ways, and the ache for God. Something new is going on. God is present in the scary silence. The person must relax and let God take over. Such is the dark tunnel of beginning infused contemplation. The new way of relating is communion. Instead of 'T' and "Thou" outside one another, the experience is "we" or "us." Mystics revel in this intimacy. It is at-one-ness with God. Such is the experience of this and every other kind of contemplation. It is in contrast to rational thinking about an object out in front. This is the way to just be-ing, participating in one life together, "abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in the person" (see Jn 15:5). Contemplation happens in prayer, in ministry, and in human relationships. It is a fine-tuning of the state of grace. It happens when childish babbling and chatting with God give way to silence. Only silence can handle the new knowledge and love. The silence may disconcert and cause anxiety, because nothing seems to be going on and one fears the emptiness. In fact, a great deal is going on, and the soul is undergoing a deeper purification and illumination. John tells the person to stay quiet, at attention. This blessed state is the proximate objective of the beginner in meditation. In John's view it may take a year or so to reach it.2 In my experience the apprenticeship is longer. It may take several years before one moves beyond discursive meditation into this prayer of silence. 62.3 2003 Larkin * John of the Cross's Message for Today Contemplation Today But something different is happening on the contemplative landscape today. Instead of working for years with discursive meditation and perhaps not entering " the dark night of the senses at all, people in all walks of life are choosing to practice a new kind of contemplative prayer. The contemporary practice is a new category and not the same as the contemplative prayer and contemplation of John of the Cross. For him these two terms are synonymous and always describe the absolutely free gift of infused contemplation. Contemplative prayer today is not discursive meditation, nor is it per se infused contemplation. It is an intermediary between meditation and contemplation. Centering prayer, Christian Meditation, and the Jesus Prayer cultivate silence and presence to God. In John's terminology these forms belong to meditation, since the prayer is active, personally chosen, and self-directed. But they are a kind of contemplation, because they are silent, without words or images or discursive movement from point to point. They are a species of contemplation, because they are communion with the Trinity. Thousands of people are practicing this self-initiated contemplative prayer. They are not forced into this way of relating to God; they choose it. They enter into deliberate and wordless silence. Instead of being busy inquiring, analyzing, and making multiple acts of the affections, they remain present to the divine indwelling in simple awareness and attention to the gift of grace within. This form of prayer is on the growing edge of Christian life. I believe that it is a gift to the church at this point in history. There is a widespread conviction that we do not have to wait until we are forced into the silence. We can choose it and foster it, and a fruitful kind of prayer results. All our other prayer, such as the liturgy and lectio divina, and our apostolic action and for Religious community relationships as well, are affected by this entering within. We come at life from a deeper level. All we need is an "open mind and open heart" to welcome the God hidden in the depths of our souls. This prayer is simply presence, silence, encounter beyond words. The challenge in this kind of prayer is to maintain the silence, to keep focused on the presence of God. The three forms under consideration use a word or a phrase as a way of maintaining attention. Centering prayer uses a holy word like Abba or Jesus to express one's consent to the divine presence and renew one's presence to God; the word is repeated as often as it is needed. Christian Meditation and the Jesus Prayer use the sacred word as a mantra, that is, a phrase repeated throughout the prayer. The usual mantra in Christian Meditation is the Aramaic word "maranatha," which means "Come, Lord." It is a greeting found in the New Testament. The mantra of the Jesus Prayer is the words "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." You will not find these prayer forms in the writings of John of the Cross. The architects of these prayer disciplines do not presume the presence of infused contemplation, though they hope that the practice will lead there. John Main maintained that Christian Meditation was a traditional form of meditation in the medieval church. Actually he was not a stickler about terminology or theological distinctions; he saw meditation, contemplation, and contemplative prayer as synonyms. The method of meditation taught by John of the Cross may well have been along the lines of John Main. Beginners were to "ponder a divine mystery.''3 A common way of doing that in early monasticism was to repeat

Issue 62.1 of the Review for Religious, 2003. ; Life Together Ignatian Heritage Spiritual Fiber Personal Witness QUARTERLY 62.1 2003 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faithful to God's universal call to holiness by making available to them the spiritual legacies that flow from the cbarisms of Catholic consecrated life. 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: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tk? n, 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. 0 L~VING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Adv#ory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 62.1 2003 Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem Robert P. Maloney CM speaks of the critical need in religious life today for superiors who are real animators of their communities, and presents five moments that are essential for healthy local communities. 17 The Spirituality of CICLSAL's "Starting Afresh" Charles M. Mangan reviews a recent document from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Starting .qfresb front Christ, which treats the primacy of the spiritual life for all consecrated persons. 27 38 Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises William P. O'Brien SJ presents a model of the inner dynamic in people making the thirty-day retreat as a progression of dialectical shifts, and he shows how the text of the Ignatian Exercises follows this progression. Ignatian Women Past and Future Joan L. Roccasalvo CSJ writes about women who participated in the early apostolic works of the Society of Jesus. She then looks at four groups of women religious with an Ignatian spirituality and offers suggestions for renewal in the face of today's religious-life issues. Review for Religious 63 Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man A. Paul Dominic SJ explores the phrase "Son of man," used by Jesus to refer to himself, and sees implications for us Christians. 72 Perseverance: The Courage to Persist Dennis J. Billy CSSR describes perseverance in religious life as a daily activity requiring both a personal and communal commitment to the vows and community life. 83 When One Flower Blooms It is Spring Everywhere Catherine M. Hennessy MSC discovers in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease a summons to grow in faith, trusting one's entire self to God, a journey without a timeline. 90 Solidarity with Afridan Women Religious Annmarie Sanders IHM finds that a research trip to investi-gate the educational needs of African women religious opens new insights into the mysterious power of intercessory prayer as an expression of solidarity, 4 Prisms 96 Canonical Counsel: Discretionary Dismissal 103 Book Reviews o2.1 200~ You now have in your hand the first quar-terly issue of Review for Religious. You may not have noticed the difference. Perhaps you did note that the usual dating by months was miss-ing on the cover and inside too. Instead of January-February 2003 on the cover, there is only the word Quarterly, with the designation 62.1, followed by 2003. With our worldwide dis-tribution between the northern and southern hemispheres, it seemed good not to identify our quarterly issues by seasons since there could be only confusion about whose summer and whose winter was being named. Each issue will be iden-tified throughout by its volume (e.g. 62) and its own particular number (e.g.1) and, of course, the year. The quarterly issues will be mailed in January, April, July, and October. Each issue will maintain the same quality articles by our contributors. But we hope that you will find a greater reading ease because of the slight change in our type size and its leading. The number of pages in each issue remains the same. Where we as editors intend to experiment and hope to get your response is in the two sup-plements that are included in your subscription price for the year 2003--the first identified with the Lent/Easter seasons and the second with the Advent/Christmas seasons. The supplements Review for Religious will be 32-page issues, with articles more relevant to the identified liturgical seasons. Each article in the supplement issue will be followed by some suggestions for your own prayer and reflection, stimulants for conversations between two or more, and perhaps a brief prayer or Christian heritage citation that will stir your own interaction. Rather than leaving a reader passive, we hope to encourage a greater personal involvement with an article and even more easily prompt a community discussion. We look for readers' reaction and response back to us as editors. If these experiments provided in the supplement issues receive shaping and support by your responses, we will eventually include them in the article presentations in the ordinary quarterly issues of the journal. In each supplement we will pro-vide a postcard for easy response. But you can also write, fax (314-977-7362), email (review@slu.edu), or log on to our web page (www.reviewforreligious.org). We ask that you do give us your response. The first supplement will be mailed in March and the second in November. Review for Religious has provided articles of infor-marion, pastoral help, and reflective inspiration through-out its history during the past century. As. we are in the beginning years of this new millennium, we desire to sustain and even enhance that long tradition. But now, through our supplement experiment, we seek to serve you, our readers, with a journal that more easily accom-modates the dialogue so necessary for our Catholic life-- dialogue with our God, dialogue within Ourselves, and dialogue with one another. As Pope Paul VI said, our way of being church is .today the way of dialogue. The editors of the Review desire that this journal continues to play an integral part in our being church. We hope that you will enter into the dialogue with us. ¯David L. Fleming SJ ~" 62.1 200:t ROBERT P. MALONEY Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem High above the mountain ranges of the Western United States glides the California condor, the largest bird in North America. With its wingspan of nine feet, it soars to an altitude of three miles~ swooping down from time to time to feed on red meat and salmon with a healthy appetite. Black body, bare head, red knees, this majestic bird has flown over the mountains and valleys of California, Nevada, and Arizona for millennia. But by 1990 only twenty-three remained, six in California and seventeen near the Grand Canyon in Arizona.It was an endan-gered species. Every species needs its own peculiar eco-logical system in order to survive. When that system is rich, the species thrives. As its ecosys-tem deteriorates, the species gradually dimin-ishes and may become extinct. Millions of Robert P. Maloney ClVl, superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, is a frequent contributor to this journal. He resides at Congregazione della Missione; Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma, Italy. Review for Religio us species that once inhabited the planet earth are now extinct. So too will it be one day for the human race. Will its ecosystem be destroyed by a violent cataclysm of human making, a massive bomb? Will it be destroyed when a g!ant asteroid crashes into the planet? Will it be destroyed by a suffocating pollution? Who knows? And religious life? Or the life of particular congre-gations of sisters, brothers, and priests? Nature teaches us the simple lesson that they will grow and flourish only if the ecosystem found and developed by their founders centuries ago, and renewed from time to time, remains salubrious. Otherwise they will decline and perhaps one day disappear. The Builders of the Ecosystem Today the word animation is used again and again. It means to give life, breath, soul, spirit. The documents of most contemporary communities state that superiors (or coordinators, supervisors, or whatever word is used to designate them) in a worldwide congregation, or in a province, or in a local house are called to be animators among the men or women with whom they live. This is no easy task. In fact, it is an enormous challenge. Two pieces of data highlight for me the critical nature of this challenge; one is existential, the other juridical and anthropological. The existential datum. Over the last several years, about three hundred members of my congregation between the ages of thirty-five and fifty have passed through a three-month ongoing formation program in Paris. They have come there from more than fifty coun-tries on all the continents. The priest who has been in charge of the program from the beginning has told me that the concern they have most frequently expressed is an uneasiness about community living. They sense that something is lacking in our life together. In the last three ,7 62.1 2003 Maloney * Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem If the superior is good at the job, the chances are that the local community will be very much alive. decades, most of our provinces have taken significant steps forward in the renewal of our apostolic life. Little by little we have focused more clearly on the poor and on our missionary nature. But many in the program ask: Have we found the right formula for our life together? Does community provide the faith support, the solidar-ity in action, the encouragement, the understanding, the home that many today--especially the young--seek when they join an apostolic society? This uneasiness, expressed by many, is the challenging existential datum that I find myself pondering. The second datum is juridical/anthropological, and it too is enormously challenging. Article 129 of the con-stitutions of my own con-gregation, which is similar to articles in ma.ny other constitutions, says: "The Congregation forms itself particularly in the individ-ual local communities." Even apart from juridical considerations, that is where congregations really live and .grow--in the local community. That is where we are either happy, or unhappy, where w.e either pray or do not pray, where we either feel support or do not feel it. That is where we either enjoy one another's company or flee from it, where we either plan and act in solidarity in serving the poor or where we merely park for the night at a convenient motel in order to go out again in the morning as a lone-ranger type of apostle. This juridical/anthropological datum raises the urgent question: Can we create in our local communities a healthy ecosystem where our members live, grow, and even thrive? Review for Religious But there is more to this second datum. The same article states: "The superior, as the center of unity and animator of the life of the local community, should pro-mote the ministries of the house and, with the commu-nity, should be concerned for the personal development and activity of each confrere." This paragraph states the importance of the local superior's role. He or she is a key animator in the local community, an energizer of its life and activity. Of course, superiors do not stand alone. Others share this responsibility. But, if the superior is good at the job, the chances are that the local community will be very much alive. And, if he or she is bad at it, the local community will have considerable difficulty finding the anima, the breath, that it needs in order to live healthily. What can we realistically hope for in regard to local superiors and local communities? I hope, first of all, that congregations will devise more effective ways for local superiors, along with those in their houses, to build up ecosystems where members will thrive. Surely, local com-munities are not all alike. Some are large. Some are small. Some revolve around a single work. Some embrace mul-tiple works. Given such variety, local superiors need to ¯ have specific tools for building healthy local ecosystems. That raises a critical problem and stirs up a second hope in me. The constitutions of most congregations propose a community plan for the life and activity of the local community. It is a covenant, so to speak. We com-mit ourselves to support each other in our apostolic labors, our life together, our prayer, our vows, our ongo-ing education--our very life. But I have the impression that many local communities--and this is the problem-- do not take the formulation, implementation, evalua-tion, and regular revision of a community plan seriously. During my visits to the provinces as superior general, I often note that local community plans are badly made9 62.1 2003 Maloney * Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem ¯ or are merely the daily order. This is also a frequent comment in the reports that provincials send me about their visits to local houses. So my second hope is this: that more and more members of congregations will take local .community planning seriously, and that local supe-riors will learn to do so too. Five Crucial Community Moments It is always important to speak about community con-cretely. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said: "The person who loves his dream of community more than the real com-munity itself destroys community.''1 Community exists when we live it concretely and vitally. Let me dwell briefly on five significant elements in the ecosystem of community living. They are, so to speak, the air, the water, the sun, the fire, and the soil of local communities. Meals. It might seem strange that I begin with eating, though of course the principal communal act that Jesus left his followers was precisely a meal. My focus, how-ever, is not on food (though St. Vincent de Paul, my congregation's founder, encouraged treasurers to pro-vide good wine and good bread).2 My focus is on com-mon meals as a primary sign of union. When asked what are the most striking memories of their families, count-less people describe long festive dinners at Christmas or Easter in which people sat around the table telling sto-ries, or a time together on vacation when everyone ate together, and relaxed, sang, played games, and talked until late into the night. Of course, not every meal can be that way. But meals are a prime time for good human communication. They are times when our tradition is deepened because we hear stories from the past and speak of wonderful men and women whom we have known. They are times when our .tradition ia developed because new people express new insights and new ways of responding to the same values in the service of the poor. Review for Religious Decades ago reading at table occupied religious dur-ing meals. Today meals are an opportunity for genuine, interested table talk. But at times communities eat rapidly, with sparse conversation. In some houses it is hard to get everyone together even for a single meal a day. Crucial in the conversation that characterizes meals is attentive listening. As members of communities, we must be deeply interested in one another, in our back-grounds, our histories, our gifts, the projects that set us on fire. Few things are worse than having an excit-ing experience to relate, bringing it up at table, and finding no one eager to hear it. I regret to say that this happens often. Not long ago I felt agitated by what seemed an injustice done to a priest by a bishop. I tried to tell my story to two people. Both were preoc-cupied with other things that day. When I was a short way into my story, one after the other interrupted to tell his own story. I had to conclude that it was my turn to listen, and I never got my story out that day. Of course, the Eucharistic meal plays a most signif-icant role in our lives. It is a time for attentive listening to the word of God, for genuine stiaring in faith, and for union in the life of the Lord. Some of my striking memories in community have been wonderful Eucharistic celebrations. That brings me to a second key element in an invigoratingcommunity ecosystem. Prayer. Here let me mention two distinctive moments. Common liturgical prayer should be prepared well and celebrated beautifully and meditatively. When this is the case, it is a significant time for us to be in contact with God, with one another, and with young Crucial in the conversation that characterizes meals is attentive listening. I! 62 1 2003 Maloney ¯ BuiMing a Healthy Community Ecosystem people who hunger to.pray with us. It can be a time when we cry out: It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to make music to your name, O most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your truth in the watches of the night. (Ps 92:2-3) Of course, if our prayer is routine, ill-prepared, and dis-tracted, it is of little value. Then, as a great saint once put it, it is like "barking dogs" in the presence of God. But, done well in the tradition of the church, l~turgical prayer is something beautiful for God and attractive to the .par-ticipants, especially today's young people in their thirst for an experience of prayer. Meditative prayer can seem a rather solitary exercise, but it is crucial that community members support one another in reflecting on God's word and in contemplat-ing God's presence. Over the years I have felt that sup-port very much. I. am encouraged when I find myself meditating with my brothers and sisters. If the liturgy is "the summit toward which the activity of the church is directed" (Sacrosanctum conciliurn, §10), meditative prayer is an important foundation stone. It strengthens 'our faith, and so, of course, communities members should encourage each other in it. Members of small communities often say that it is almost impossible for them to pray together because they are so few and are busy with multiple works. I am in utter disagreement with their conclusion. I realize, of course, that the prayer of a small community cannot be the same as that of a large community. But even in small communities we must pray together. If we do not find the time to do so, we are lost. Faith sharing is one of the contemporary forms that the traditional "repetition of prayer" is taking. It can be a powerful moment in building community if the mem- Review for Religious bers share their faith with great simplicity. Faith sharing is not meant to be a homily prepared ahead of time, nor is it meant to be a release for one's pent-up anxieties. Rather, it is a spontaneous expression of our hopes, our doubts, our joys, our pain as we live and pray before the Lord. If we wrestle with life and share our sense of who we are and what we seem called to be and do in the light of the gospel, I am confident that we will come to know and appreciate one another mucl~ more deeply. Fun. If prayer is the human heart searching for God, humor helps us to realize that God is unpredictable, as are most of us, his creatures. Humor is linked to our perception of incongruity. There is much that is incon-gruous in our lives, if only we can see it with a little bit of distance. It is very important to have fun in community. Fun fosters harmony, preventing us from being overly serious about ourselves. Important as it is that the community work together, it is also important that we relax together and laugh from time to time, that we enjoy one another's company. In this way we will see different aspects of each other's personality too. Thomas Aquinas says a striking thing about playful-ness: "Unmitigated seriousness betokens a lack of virtue, because it wholly despises play which is as necessary for a good human life as is rest." A local community should be creative in organizing times of diversion. I lived in a house where once a week, at night, we watched a video-tape of a movie together. Actually, we now do this from time to time in our general curia. We agree on the film ahead of time. Somebody prepares a few snacks, and we sit around and talk about it afterwards. I love it, and so does everybody else. Nobody has to come, but every-body does. I lived in a community in Panama wher~ we came together from separate mission houses every Monday in 62.1 2003 Maloney * Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem order to pray together, hold a meeting, and then enjoy the rest of the day in each other's company. Almost nobody on the mission ever missed that day. There are many other possibilities, but it is very important that we enjoy one another's company, laugh, relax, and at times simply have fun. Meetings. Even though meetings are sometimes a scourge in our lives, or, as many have suggested, one of the contemporary forms of mortification, they are nonetheless a very important community moment. They are a time when important communication takes place. They should be a moment in which everyone feels included and in which people feel a common responsi-bility for the values being shared and the decisions being made. I suggest that two meetings are of particular impor-tance. The first is the meeting for formulating the local community plan. Unfortunately, as I have already men-tioned, many communities still do this poorly, making it an occasion for deciding on an order of day, rather than a time for creativity. They are slow to exercise the flexi-bility that their constitutions provide. But the meeting for formulating the local community plan can be pre-cisely the time in which the ecosystem that I am describ-ing can be created, developed, enriched, and covenanted. The second is the meeting for evaluation, for revision de vie. We seek ongoing communal conversion within community. Evaluation times are times to reflect, hon-estly and peacefully, on our mission and our lifestyle. At such meetings people can offer suggestions for the growth of a local community. Often the key is balance, the ability to integrate various values: mission, prayer, life together. In our lives simple dialogue is essential, drawing out from one another our feelings and thoughts, posing helpful questions; giving one's own reaction with-out being either defensive or aggressive. Review for Religious Apostolate. The apostolates of religious communities have a communal dimension. In our era characterized by individualism, it is crucial that local superiors plan in common with the members of their houses, evaluate in common, and animate the members of the community to work as a team as much as possible. There are few things that tie us together more than cooperating in an exciting common apostolic project. It is wonderful when, in a healthy sense, we are all proud of what we do in a mis-sion or seminary or parish or school or soup kitchen or social-justice program. There are many ways of showing apostolic solidarity. Do we listen to what our brothers or sisters have done during the day when, com-ing home tired, they want to chat with us in the evening? Do we let them share with us the challenges they meet in their aposto- ¯ lates? Do we pray for and with our brothers and sis-ters in their apostolates? Can local communities truly be called "apostolic communities"? Or are they just workers' residences? Common interest in the work of each local community member is a powerful unifying force. A final word. Not every community w!ll renew itself and attain the ideals envisioned by the constitutions of the institute. A provincial and his council have the dif-ficult task of working toward the gradual renewal of the local communities. As they do that, I suggest that younger members be assigned only to communities that engage in a serious process of renewal. It is those com-munities that carry the seeds of future life. A province with three communities where the members live life The key is balance, the ability to integrate various values: mission, prayer, life together. 62.1 2003 Maloney ¯ Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem vitally has a real future. A province with twenty com-munities where the members just survive is not likely to survive. Unless a province builds genuinely participa-tive communities, it dies. And the California condor? I am happy to report that in the last decade its number has increased from twenty-three to a hundred and twenty (a good-sized province!). Those who love this majestic bird redeveloped an ecosys-tem where it could live and even thrive. I hope we can do the same thing in our local communities. Notes Dietrich Bonhoeff~r. Life Together (London, 1954), p. 15. SV llI, 505. SV refers to the 14-volume French edition of St. Vincent's works, edited by Pierre Coste (Paris: Gabalda, 1920-1925). Friday It's the day of the cross. A crucifix hangs on my bedroom wall, gore masked by silver paint, beams sanded smooth. Even in euphemized translation void of smell and moan of death the message is clean Dressing my unpierced body and combing hair unnettled with thorns, I look through the crosshairs of the coming hours and reflect on the risk of murmuring "Thy will be done." Patricia Schnapp RSM Review for Religious CHARLES M. MANGAN The Spirituality of CICLSAL's "Starting Afresh" (~'~! tarting Afresh from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third Millennium" is the recent instruction, dated 19 May 2002, published by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL). This fifty-seven-page document, originally written in Italian, stems from the congregation's plenary session on 25-28 September 2001 in Vatican City. Mindful of the 25 March 1996 apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata of Pope John Paul II and of his vision for the Third Christian Millennium as enunciated in his 6 January 2001 apostolic letter Novo millennio ineunte, the members of the plenary did not intend "to produce another doctrinal document, but rather to help consecrated life enter into the great pastoral guidelines of the Holy Father with the contributon of his authority and of charismatic service to unity and to the universal mission of the church" (§4). Charles M. Mangan is a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls and an official in the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. His address is Villa Stritch; Via della Nocetta, 63; 00164 Roma, Italy. 17 62.1 2003 Mangan ¯ The Spirituality of "Starting Afresh" "Starting Afresh from Christ" presents many aspects of consecrated life, but it focuses "primarily on spirituality." Although onewill find references to the importance of the spiritual life for consecrated men and women throughout this text, one entire part, among four, is exclusively dedicated to the topic. This essay briefly discusses that part's seminal points concerning the primacy of spiritua!ity in the consecrated life. Part 3 is tided "Spiritual Life in the First Place" (§§20-32). From this let us identify five essential dimensions regarding spirituality for consecrated persons. A Receptivity to the Holy Spirit's Stirrings Just as the founders and foundresses of religious institutes yielded to the mysterious intimations of the Holy Spirit, so today's consecrated persons must be marked by their incredible docility to him, permitting themselves "to be led by the Spirit to a constantly renewed discovery of God and of his Word, to a burning love for God and for humanity, and to a new understanding of the charism which has been given" (§20). Those founders and foundresses enjoyed an initial experience of the Paraclete that is to be preserved and ever deepened by contemporary consecrated persons. The Holy Spirit's actions are always fresh and creative. Consecrated men and women, by their openness to him, are drawn into a profound intimacy with the Lord. An "intense sp!rituality" really means living according to the Holy Spirit. If consecrated life is to have the "spiritual rebirth" that it needs, then the spiritual life must occupy the foremost position in each institute and in the heart of each consecrated man and woman. How does a consecrated person live spiritually? By attending to the evangelical counsels, imitating the inner life of love and communion of the Blessed Trinity, adhering to the charism of the institute as contained in its Review for Religious constitutions, and embracing the church's teaching regarding consecrated life, especially Vita consecrata. A deeper spirituality then emerges, one "which is more ecclesial and communitarian, more demanding and mature in mutual support in striving for holiness, more generous in apostolic choices." Indeed, a profound spirituality demonstrated by consecrated men and women will be of particular benefit to the Mystical Body of Christ because of its ability to edi~ and summon others to a more authentic spiritual life. The movement of the Holy Spirit in the consecrated life effects genuine communion bervceen the members, allowing them then to share what they have received in their mission to the people of God. Jesus Christ, the Sole Point of Departure "To start afresh from Christ" signifies that consecrated persons, led by the Holy Spirit, recommit themselves to the critical path of conversion and renewal. The Apostles accepted this way twenty centuries ago. Only by conversion and renewal is one made available for the announcement of the kingdom of God. While one's sinfulness must humbly be acknowledged, it need not be an insuperable deterrent to following Jesus. He has bestowed his call on consecrated persons, all of whom require his abundant grace to respond generously. Consecrated life, to quote Vita consecrata, is "a living memorial of Jesus' way of living and acting as the incarnate Word in relation to the Father and in relation to the brethren" (§22). Christ is the center and source of all that consecrated persons are and do. The consecrated life does not exist without the evangelical counsels, which enable religious to love the Lord and embrace his will; the communitarian life, in which Jesus assembles his friends around himself and bestows on them his lasting presence; the mission, which obligates consecrated persons to seek 19 62.1 200~ Mangan ¯ The Spirituality of"Starting Afresh" Christ in others and convey his overwhelming love and mercy to them. If consecrated men and women do not realize God's love for them, their efforts will be useless. He has loved first. All love is a response to his love. Courage is essential in the genuine living of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the absence of which takes the wind out of the sails of consecrated life. The Holy Father earlier challenged all consecrated persons to let themselves be guided always by the contemplation of Christ's face. This contemplation is possible particularly in (1) his word and sacraments, primarily the Holy Eucharist; (2) the church, gathered in his name; (3) all people, especially the poor, the suffering, and the needy; (4) each event of life. Holiness is the result of the encounter with Jesus. Religious can recognize the Master only if they are steeped in faith. The "habitual reading" of the word of God, prayer, and acts of charity are demanded if religious are to know Jesus. A "lived spirituality," frequent pondering of their institute's charism, and prayerful investigation into the sources employed by their founder or foundress provide welcome vigor to the spiritual life of consecrated persons. The Centrality of God's Word As the Holy Father has observed, "the first source of all spirituality" is the Word of God. Without reading the Scriptures, consecrated persons will not obtain sanctity. Founders and foundresses, convinced of this, were captivated and inspired by the word. The consecrated men and women of our era likewise must be. Happily, there has been a renewal in love for and contact with the word within communities of consecrated persons. They must continually ponder Sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels. By referring often to their Rule and Review for Religious constitutions, consecrated persons find the "particular interpretation of the gospel given by the founder and foundresses as the result of a particular prompting of the Spirit, and it helps the members of the institute to live concretely according to the word of God" (§24). When consecrated persons are formed by the Lord's word, they develop into "servants of the Word in the task of evangelization." Prayer and contemplation have a specific rapport with the word of God. They furnish the ambient for receiving the word, and they themselves spring from that very Word. How tragic if a consecrated person tries to live without the Word! "As a consequence life itself loses meaning, the faces of brothers and sisters are obscured and it becomes impossible to recognize the face of God in them, historical events remain ambiguous and deprived of hope, ~and apostolic and charitable mission become nothing more than widespread activity" (§2 5). Contemplation, which originates in communion and friendship with Christ, brings forth vocations to the consecrated life. Pope John Paul II contends that the "first task" of consecrated men and women is contemplation. There are myriad forms of prayer and contemplation. One community will differ from another in this respect. Yet the Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass are paramount regardless of the institute. When consecrated persons go to Mass and recite the Liturgy of the Hours, God is adored, these consecrated men and women are blessed in their endeavor, and others who Contemplation, which originates in ¯ communion and friendship with Christ, brings forth vocations to the consecrated life. 2I 62.1 2003 Mangan ¯ The Spirituality of "Starting Afresb" notice are touched. Each consecrated person must daily set aside time "to enter deeply into silent conversation" with Jesus. Consecrated persons share who they are and what they have with the Lord, who in turn enlightens them so that they may progress along the path to everlasting life. Faithfulness to prayer is not always easy for the consecrated person. "At times fidelity to personal and liturgical prayer will require a true effort not to allow oneself to be swallowed up in frenetic activism." Christ, who inspires prayer, will bring forth good fruit from those consecrated persons who strive to communicate well and often with him. Eucharist as Privileged Locus for Meeting Jesus, and the Need for Asceticism and Penance The Mass is the renewal of the paschal mystery-- Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. There is for consecrated persons no substitute for the daily Mass and extended adoration of the Holy Eucharist. In the Mass we are doubly fed. We receive God's Word proclaimed in the Sacred. Scriptures and his very Body and Blood under the appearances of bread and wine. Nourished by the hand of the Good Shepherd through the daily Mass, consecrated men and women become more capable of praising him as he deserves, strengthening the bonds of communion, and participating in the apostolic mission to the world. "We all need the daily viaticum of encounterwith the.Lord in order to bring, everyday life into sacred time which is made present in celebration of the Lord's Memorial" (§26). What happens in the lives of consecrated persons because of their connection to the Eucharist? They become further conformed to Christ. As he offered himself to his Father, so consecrated persons offer themselves and are themselves offered by Jesus to his Father in paradise. The fortifying of communion and Review for" Religious mission that occurs because of the Eucharist is impossible without "mutual forgiveness and the commitment to love one another." Imbued with the spirit of the Eucharist, consecrated persons forgive and are attentive to the needs of their neighbors. Each Mass is an opportunity for consecrated persons to renew their commitment of service to their brothers and sisters. It is in the Eucharist that "the community of consecrated persons., becomes a witness of communion and a prophetic sign of solidarity for a divided and wounded society. In fact, the spirituality of communion, so necessary to establish the dialogue of charity needed in today's world, is born in the Eucharist." What Jesus did on Calvary was no less than give his life, which was "the greatest expression of his love--and the Eucharist relives the mystery of this moment" (§27). By the practice of asceticism, consecrated men and women demonstrate their wish to be united to the Son of God. Self-denial, which is to be "consonant with our times," associates consecrated persons to Christ. Then they seek his suffering face, as they do when they console the sick, the imprisoned, the poor, and sinners. The outreach rendered by consecrated persons has encouraged those they have assisted to have recourse to the sacrament of reconciliation. Consecrated men and women, too, must regularly avail themselves of confession. Given the new moral and spiritual poverties of our age, consecrated personsare to do as Jesus would: aid the needy in their trials and "take upon themselves the pain and the sin of the world, consuming them in love." Communion: Sine Qua Non for Consecrated Life The "spirituality of communion" compels consecrated persons to do all. they can to start or continue a dialogue rooted in charity. Attempts to spread communion by consecrated men and women are to encompass all 23 62.1 2003 Mangan ¯ The Spirituality of "Starting Afresh" peoples, but especially those who reside in locations oppressed by ethnic hatred or violence. For consecrated persons, communion begins in their contemplation of the Blessed Trinity dwelling within the human soul. All persons, then, are seen as brothers and sisters worthy of love and respect. Consecrated persons offer their friendship and compassion, desiring to share in the sufferings of the burdened. Communion is the extension of consecrated persons to those outside of their community, but it also has an intra dimension within their community. "The divine and human value of being together freely in friendship and sharing even moments of relaxation and recreation together as disciples gathered around Christ the Teacher is being rediscovered" (§29). Communion among different communities of the same institute is also vital. Vita consecrata, Novo millennio ineunte, and "Fraternal Life in Community," the 2 February 1994 instruction issued by CICLSAL, are helpful in understanding the notion and application of communion. Every endeavor to sustain communion among institutes should be fostered. A "joint search for common ways of serving the church" (§30) ensures that a crippling isolation need not hold sway. The following of Jesus Christ by consecrated persons is to be enjoyed together among various institutes. Consecrated men and women gain much from being exposed to the solid "ecclesial movements" that have recently blossomed in the church. An exchange between institutes and these movements benefits each. Consecrated men and women are to collaborate and experience communion with the laity. This cooperation is multifaceted. "Monastic and contemplative institutes can offer the laity a relationship that is primarily spiritual and the necessary spaces for silence and prayer. Institutes committed to the apostolate can involve them in forms of pastoral collaboration. Members of secular institutes, lay Review for Religious or clerical, relate to other members of the faithful at the level of everyday life" (§31). There is a host of secular orders, third orders, and lay associations that enable the laity to live to some degree "the charismatic ideals" of religious institutes. Formation of consecrated persons and the laity will facilitate these projects and permit them to continue. The long-anticipated renewal of consecrated life will reap the fruits of this cooperation. "In this new climate of ecclesial communion, priests, religious, and the laity, far from ignoring each other or coming together only for a common activity, can once again find the just relationships of communion and a renewed experience of evangelical communion and mutual charismatic esteem resulting in a complemen-tarity which respects the differences." Communion is a mere chimera if the bishops, including the bishop of Rome, are left out of the equation. We marvel at the genuine sentiment of "feeling with the church" that marked the lives of the founders and foundresses of institutes. "It is impossible to contemplate the face of God without seeing it shining in that of the church. To love Christ is to love the church in her persons and institutions" (§32). In this period of frequent and even public dissent from the church's teachings, consecrated men and women must be the exception. They are to be "convinced and joyful spokespersons before all" of the magisterium's proclamation of the truth. Consecrated persons are to Consecrated men and women gain much from being exposed to the solid " ecclesial movements" that have recently blossomed in the church. 2~ 62.1 2003 Mangan * The Spirituality of "Starting Afresh" give their allegiance of mind and heart to the magisterium. Consecrated persons enjoy the liberty to make known to their bishops and to the diocesan clergy with whom. they work their opinions and proposals. The church's charismatic and hierarchical elements upbuild each other. Starting Afresh from Christ is a restatement at the beginning of this millennium of the cherished principles of consecrated life. The spiritual life is keenly stressed because of its inarguable primacy for all consecrated men and women. May consecrated persons, imitating the Blessed Virgin Mary, in whom "all the charisms of consecrated life are mirrored and renewed" (§46), increase in their ardor for the face of Christ and his church and start afresh to serve, in true communion and charity, their brothers and sisters. Starting Afresh from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third Millennium was published by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana in Vatican City and may be found on the Vatican website (www.vatican.va). See also Origins 32, no. 8 (4July 2002). 26A Plea Lord, I want to be the lamb you cuddle to your cheek; the one you rescue from tight places, that very one you seek whose senseless straying your vast love pursues; whose wounds you bind, heal. The one, if ever lost, you rush to find. Avis Kunca Kubick Review for Religious WILLIAM P. O'BRIEN Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises In the summer of 2000, I participated in a spir-itual- direction practicum with Jane Ferdon Op and George Murphy SJ at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California. George and Jane teach a contemplative approach to spiri-tual direction, by which the director seeks to help the directee focus on and remain with expe-riences of God.~ That fall I put this approach into practice, offering individual spiritual direc-tion and, the following summer, giving person-ally directed eight-day retreats at Jesuit Retreat House in Los Altos, California. Later that sum-mer I accepted an invitation to join a team to direct the thirty-day Spiritual Exercises at Milford Spiritual Center in Milford, Ohio. Although eager for the experience, I worried that the contemplative approach might not work for the long retreat, with its thoroughly out-lined series of meditations. To my wonder and William P. O'Brien SJ is doing graduate study in spiritual-ity at the Jesuit School of Theblogy at Berkeley. His address is 2535 Le Conte Avenue; Berkeley, California 94709. o2.1 2003 O'Brien ¯ Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises~ delight, I found that, because God moves people in ways the Exercises follow and promote, the contemplative approach does indeed work in that context. Other direc-tors have had similar experiences.2 Reflecting on this, I have come up with a simplified model for understanding the interior movement in peo-ple making the long retreat. In the first part of this essay, I examine a progression of dialectical shifts. Then I show that the text of the Exercises, follows such a progression. In light of these findings, I propose that the enterprise of spiritual direction calls the retreat director to trust God more deeply as the true master of souls. Quotations of the Exercises are from the Ivens translation.3 Interior Movement as Dialectic The human soul in contact with God tends to behave in characteristic movements of negation and affirmation. This may lead to either spiritual desolation or spiritual consolation, depending upon how the retreatant responds, but there is always an invitation to know God more deeply.4 As people grow in relationship with God, they find themselves more focused on others and conse-quently less on themselves. In this process we can distinguish five progressive moments as the heart receives God's love.5 The first is when the self deeply realizes that it exists rather than not existing. The second is when the existing self, believ-ing itself bad, sees itself as good. The third is when the good self, recognizing its sinfulness, finds itself forgiven. The fourth is when the forgiven self, feeling conflicted, hears itself called. And the fifth is when the called self, now deeply aware of its limitation, experiences itself accepted by God. Each new moment incorporates the resolution from the preceding moment. Thus, for exam-ple, before the self can deeply recognize its sinfulness, it already must have seen its basic goodness.6 The deepest Review for Religious union with God implies the other four moments. In other words, to discover the depth of negation and affir-mation in our lives constitutes spiritual growth. People may wonder here whether these interior moments represent a historical or logical reality, and whether the progression happens necessarily. First, because people can recog-nize these moments in themselves and in others, we can say that they are pat-terns in their life histories and therefore have a histor-ical character. Furthermore, because each new moment presupposes the preceding one and tends to develop into the next, we can see a certain logic here. But, because the movement has to do with making choices freely and with developing personal relationships, we cannot speak of any histori-cal necessity in the progres-sion. In other words, although reflecting on the dynamic can help us recognize interior movements in a retreatant, we cannot predict those movements. And, while the pro-gressive moments seem to have an internal logic, nei-ther can we deduce the moments necessarily as we might draw a conclusion from premises. The interior life oper-ates through psychological, social, and biological realities, not abstract ideas. But the strongest evidence that the progression does not develop in a necessary fashion is that retreatants often revisit moments they appear to have resolved. Some retreatants one day have a strong sense of their own sin- While we cannot know for sure where God will lead any of us, we can recognize general patterns and thus a common ¯ spiritual dynamic in the .unique histories of particular retreatants. 62.1 2003 O'Brien ¯ Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises fulness and God's forgiveness, only to return a little later to those same issues. Others make the long retreat a number of times, apparently engaging the same pro-gression over and over again. From these cases it appears that we cannot claim to have finished with a moment once and for all, and that most retreatants move moment to moment according to a more or less natural develop-ment. Many variables influence their movements, includ-ing circumstances, free will, and the intention of the Spirit, And so, while we cannot know for sure where God will lead any of us, we can recognize general pat-terns and thus a common spiritual dynamic in the unique histories of particular retreatants. Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises We have considered how the soul in touch with God appears to move dialectically according to an interior spiritual dynamic. Those giving the long retreat can facil-itate this movement by paying attention to the charac-teristic patterns of the Spirit's work in retreatants and as the Spiritual Exercises describe and track them. To ini-tiate this process, directors might give retreatants some time to reflect on God's presence, beginning with a recognition of their desires--if only the desire to make the retreat) Some instruction in prayer methods may help: centering prayer, lectio divina, consciousness exa-men, and so forth. Directors also may want to share with retreatants the Annotations from the beginning of the text (§§1-20), as Ignatius suggests,s Through this reflec-tion retreatants typically begin to recognize both the gift quality of their lives and God's personal love for them-- the first two moments of the dialectic wherein they real-ize that they exist and see themselves as good. Retreatants seem to receive these initial graces more as movements of the affect than as the acquisition of ideas, which is to say they sense that their lives come as free gifts and they Review for Religious feel loved by God. Directors should encourage these movements in any way possible, perhaps by sharing some scripture passages or the text of the First Principle and Foundation (§23). As retreatants grow in awareness of God's love for them, they often notice that certain internal factors block their acceptance of this love. In Quest for Sanctity Gerald Grosh includes among these factors an adherence to legalistic principles, an acquiescence to addictive impulses, and a propensity to think badly of oneself.9 The challenge for directors now involves recognizing these blockages and help!ng retreatants negotiate them by focusing on the presence of God. Retreatants take more or less time to accept God's love and the gift quality of their lives, and some may never do so. In any case, directors must keep in mind that the Spirit directs the retreat and controls the giving of graces. To work against the Spirit by moving to some Other moment of the dynamic or some other part of the Exercises generally results in confusion and frustration for all involved. Having received these initial graces, sometimes as dramatic and consoling experiences, retreatants often begin to consider on their own how they have responded to God's love and gift of life. At this point they may sense in themselves a tendency to move away from God--the tendency we call sin. We can think of sin as the shadow that each of us casts in the light of God's love. Awareness of this shadow signals movement into what Ignatius calls the First Week of the Exercises, where the various med-itations serve to develop this awareness of and contri-tion for personal sin. The grace of this week thus appears in recognizing oneself as a loved sinner--that God con-tinues to affirm us despite our propensity to turn away.~° Awareness exercises such as examens of conscience and consciousness can help in this process (§§24-43). 62.1 2003 O'Brien * Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises At this point in the Exercises, Ignatius introduces the four-part prayer method by which retreatants express their intention for the prayer period at hand (§46), con-sider the setting of the meditation they plan to make (§47), ask for the particular grace they desire (§481, and engage in heart-to-heart communication with God and the other figures who appear to the imagination (§§53-54). He then presents the familiar content of five exercises to follow: the history of sin--among the angels (§50), among the first humans (§51), and of any particular person (§52); a meditation on one's own sins (§§55-61); a repetition of the previous exercise and a "colloquy" with Mary, Jesus, and God the Father (§§62-63); a more general summary exercise (§64); and the meditation on hell (§§65-71). These five exercises engage retreatants sequentially, help-ing them focus first on their egocentrism before leading them to consider their idolatry and their way of treating others as things, to meditate on their core sin, to recog-nize their fundamental need for salvation, and finally to dwell on the spontaneous sense of gratitude they feel for having received that salvation as a free gift. The impor-tance of the meditations thus lies in the inner experience they track rather than in their content, and directors may use material as seems appropriate.11 Finding themselves saved (forgiven) humbles retreatants and helps them see themselves as loved sin-ners, which marks the third moment of the dialectic. In this feeling of humility lies the key to the movement out of the First and into the Second Week, as gratitude stirs the retreatants to know the One who saved them. They often experience this desire as a call to which they respond with timidity and reluctance, feeling their inter-nal conflict. Resolution of this conflict marks the fourth movement of the dialectic, which the meditation on the Call of the King develops (§§91-98). To expand the desire to know their Savior, retreatants may find it helpful to Review for Religious .meditate on the early life of Jesus: incarnation and annun-ciation (8§101-109), nativity (88110-117), presentation and flight into Egypt (8132), finding in the temple (8134), Nazareth and baptism--even up to the temptation, as this seems in keeping with their sensibilities. The retreatants' attraction to Jesus naturally grows as they consider him in his poverty, transparency, and vul-nerability. But, as they come to know and identify with him, they may notice that an attraction within themselves to riches, honor, and pride forestalls deeper intimacy. This awareness of personal limitation begins to resolve itself in the fifth moment as they feel ever more deeply God's acceptance of them as they are. The preference for the way of Jesus thus represents not sim-ply an external "doctrine" (8145), but the retreatants' own intuition into themselves and the One who saved them. The Two Standards meditation follows this move-ment (88136-147), but directors may encourage the dynamic using other materials. Here retreatants natu-rally begin to reflect on their availability to choose iden-tification with Jesus in concrete situations and consider how ready they might or might not be to follow him unreservedly. Ignatius proposes the meditation on Three Classes of People to facilitate this reflection (88149-156), but again directors may suggest other resources. In considering the depth of their commitment, retreatants may feel drawn to reflect on how Jesus lived out these values in his own public ministry, so that they learn to serve by watching him serve. Passages from Scripture might help engage this sense of vocation and The retreatants" attraction to Jesus naturally grows as they consider him in his poverty, transparency, and vulnerability. 62.1 2003 O'Brien ¯ Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises mission, as may biographies of holy men and women (§ 100). Meditation on the public ministry of Jesus, which can take from seven to twelve days or more (§§158-161), often leads retreatants to a greater or lesser feeling of love for him. Ignatius invites retreatants to reflect on this range of feelings as Three Kinds of Humility (§§ 165- 168), but directors once again may use a variety of mate-rials in order to develop the heartfelt but qualified desire for intimacy with God. As this desire grows in retreatants, they may want to walk with jesus through his Passion (§§190-209), as this leads to deeper union with the one they first experienced as Savior, signaling movement into the Third Week. As always, the director encourages retreatants to remain focused on God's presence and to respond generously to the invitations of the Spirit (§5). To help maintain this focus, Ignatius suggests attention to eating habits (§§210-217). At some point, retreatants may want to consider the buria! and subsequent resurrection of Jesus as recorded in the Scriptures and tracked in the meditations for the Fourth Week (§§218-225). John English suggests that an imperative to "go and tell other people" might arise here from the retreatants' own prayer, further calling them out of themselves.~2 Regardless, the focus must remain on God's call. The dynamic continues to engen-der a deepening of affirmation through the various moments as retreatants recognize God's loving action everywhere. The director may want to use the Contemplation to Attain Love as a means to promote this movement (§§230-237). A Call to Trust Recognizing the dynamic in both the Exercises and the experience of my retreatants encourages me as direc-tor to trust that God rather than I or the retreatants ini- Review for Religious tiates and sustains the movement. Accordingly I think of my role primarily as helping retreatants bring to birth in therhselves the fruit of the Spirit.~3 In so doing I facil-itate the work of the parakletos who leads Christians to deeper appreciation of the Gospels' truth and strength-ens them in difficulty.~4 Peter-Hans Kolvenbach uses similar language in describing the retreatant as "one who wishes to be seized by the Spirit and who goes to another for help about how to let that happen--help which will not 'hinder.'" Kolvenbach rightly emphasizes the desires of the retreatant for God and for help in engaging God, such that "both [the giver and the receiver of the Exercises] ought to stay attentive to what the Spirit is doing rather than to what the one giving the Exercises might seem to suggest." Kolvenbach critiques two oppos-ing extremes of direction style, one he characterizes as the "disappearing director" and the other as the "over-rigid director." as The former takes a hands-off approach, erring on the side of no help, while ~he latter takes a hands-on approach, erring on the side of interference. In fulfilling their charge, directors learn to walk a mid-dle road focused on God's presence. Having said this, we cannot ignore the need many retreatants express for practical training and assistance to hear God speak. As they come to resonate with the voice of the Spirit, they still may look for explicit help from their directors until eventually. ~he directors find themselves walking With their retreatants, primarily as companions or listening aides. But note that the interior development of the retreatant under the guidance of the Spirit sets the tone for the relationship rather than any plan in the mind of the director. Again, the director's role involves helping retreatants attend to religious experience. Any change in the relationship between director and retreatant as the retreat progresses should thus come as both grow in spir-itual freedom from hearing and trusting God. O'Brien ¯ Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises Notes t For a description of this approach, see William A. Barry SJ "The Contemplative Attitude in Spiritual Direction," Review for Religious 35 (1976): 820-828. z For an early account see William A. Barry SJ, "The Experience of the First and Second Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises," Review for Religious 32 (1973): 102-109. 3 Michael Ivens SJ, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises: Text and Commentary: A Handbook for Retreat Direciors (Leominster, Here-fordshire: Gracewing, 1998). For a more technical analysis of the Spiritual Exercises using Hegelian categories, see Edouard Pousset SJ, Life in Faith and Freedom: An Essay Presenting. Gaston Fessard's Analysis of the Dialectic of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, ed. and trans. Eugene L. Donahue SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980). 4 The terms "spiritual desolation" and "spiritual consolation" refer to the existential orientation of the human soul in relation to God. The states come about from either rejecting relationship with the Lord (desolation) or choosing it (consolation). Spiritual conso-lation reveals itself in love of the creator and the love of creation implicit therein, an increase of hope, faith, and charity, and peace of soul; spiritual desolation reveals itself in their opposites (§§314-317). 5 The term "moment" here refers, not to an interval in time, but to a passage in the interior life. Avoiding such terms as "phase" and "step" is meant here to discourage thinking of the spiritual journey as analogous to either growing up or ascending a ladder. Souls, in fact, seem to progress in a spiral rather than linear fashion, such that we constandy find ourselves revisiting interior spaces and relearning spiritual lessons as our relationship with God deepens. This being said, each successive "moment" implies those preceding it, as fur-ther explained in the body of this article and in footnote 6. 6 Because interaction with God changes people, each moment constitutes a different way of experiencing the dynamic of negation and acceptance. In this sense such terms as "conflicted self" and "limited self" refer to specific moments in the progression, even though we ordinarily speak of sinfulness as internal conflict or lim-itation. The idea is that, having experienced forgiveness (see Lk 15:21-24), we still find ourselves capable of turning away from God. For this reason we speak of God's affirmation in the fourth moment not as forgiveness but as a call to discipleship (see Lk 5:1-10). Personal sin here recedes as the theme, yet we still feel our defi-ciency, now understood as internal conflict. Having accepted the call, we experience negation not primarily as sinfulness or conflict but Review for Religious as all that precludes a full response--our circumstances, self-image, sinfulness, disordered affections, and so forth. We thus speak of God's affirmation in the fifth moment as the entirety of our accep-tance (see Lk 15:31-32). 7 On the importance of bringing our desires before God, see James M. Keegan sJ, "Praying with Desire," Human Development 11:3 (Fall 1990): 35. Keegan argues that we make ourselves avail-able to God by voicing what we want and thus opening the possibility of a mutual relationship. s "Autograph Directory of St. Ignatius," in On Giving the Spiritual Exercises: The Early Jesuit Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of I Y99, trans, and ed. Martin E. Palmer SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 7. 9 Gerald R. Grosh SJ, Quest for Sanctity: Seven Passages to Growth in Faith (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1988). ,0 This sense of sin differs from the low self-esteem that can block the retreatant from initially accepting God's love. Until retreatants, accept God's unconditional love, they cannot see them-selves as sinfully choosing to reject it. ~' As Ivens explains, "this stage of the Exercises consists not in any way of meditating on sin and repentance, but in material and a dynamic of a particular character" (p. 45). ,2 John English SJ, Spiritual Freedom (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1995), pp. 231-232. ~3 Joyce Diltz develops this metaphor at length in "The Spiritual Director as Midwife," Presence 2:1 (January 1996): 18. ~4John 14:16; 14:26; 15:26; 16:7. ~s Peter-Hans Kolvenbach sJ, "Discourse on Exercises and Co- Workers," Review of Ignatian Spirituality 33, no. 1 (2002): 28, 30, and 31-31. 37 62.1 200~ JOAN L. ROCCASALVO Ignatian Women Past and Future T graced beginnings of the Society of Jesus are ompletely known if the women who participated in its vision are left out: "one gains the impression that ¯ . . the Society owes its existence to many women.''1 This article speaks of women who participated in the early Society's apostolic work and supported its ministry; it looks at four religious institutes with an Ignatian spir-ituality and at religious-life issues in the United States; and it offers a suggestion for renewal.2 The Past: 1491-1556, 1650, 1877 In 1540 Pope Paul III officially recognized the Society of Jesus. Neither monks nor friars, the early Jesuits devoted themselves to pressing apostolic needs of the day. They undertook an itinerant ministry. In early Christianity, women participated in a peri-patetic ministry. The apostolic labors of the church fathers are copiously detailed, but recent scholarship reveals that women matched them, setting an example for other women.3 In the 16th century, lines of societal Joan L. Roccasalvo CSJ wrote for us twice in 2001. Her address is University of Scranton; Center for Eastern Christifin Studies; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. Review for Relig4ous demarcation for women were clear. Women either married or entered the cloister, and prostitution was common. The ministry of nuns was an extension of their monastic enclosure. Upper-class women ran their house-holds, enjoyed mobility and independence, and numbers of them shared in Ignatius's apostolate. After the death of Ignatius's mother soon after his birth in 1491, he was put in the care of his sister-in-law Magdalena, who provided him with a courtly education. A pious and educated aunt, Maria de Guevara, a third-order Franciscan, had established a cloister next to a hos-pital. She. fostered Ignatius's lifelong commitment to hospital ministry. While recuperating, at Loyola from a leg wound sustained at Pamplona, the young man read lives of Christ and the saints when nothing else was avail-able. Inspired by their lives, he set out to emulate them. Ignatius traveled to the celebrated Benedictine monastery at Montserrat, a place of pilgrimage to this day. There, before a statue of Our Lady of Montserrat (the Black Madonna), in keeping with the chivalric code and in pilgrim's garb, he kept an all-night vigil. On 24 March 1522 he placed his sword before the Mother of God and sang and prayed with other pilgrims.4 Ignatian Women in the 16th Century At Manresa, Ignatius the layman experienced the ulti-mate combat, the battle within. During a period of con-solation, he received five graces near the River Cardoner: mystical illuminations of the Holy Trinity, creation, the Eucharist, the incarnation, and matters of faith and learn-ing. Thereafter he was fond of speaking about all good gifts coming from above. The Spiritual Exercises embody these graces and are forever linked with them.5 Ignatius called Manresa "his primitive church" because here his world-vision was born and took shape.6 Women were the first to benefit from the Exercises.7 62.1 2003 Among those who followed him and looked after his needs were In~s Pascual, an influential widow, and Jer6nima Clavera, administrator of Santa Lucia hospi-tal for the indigent? He made the acquaintance of Isabel Roser. Writing to her fifteen years later, he says: "I am indebted to each one [of the women] and chiefly to you-- for to you I owe more than to anyone I know in this life.''9 The townspeople called Ignatius "the sack man";l° the women were known as "Ifiigas," followers of Ifiigo (his Basque name).ll An elderly woman who impressed Ignatius with her wisdom and holiness told him of her desire that one day Jesus Christ would appear to him.12 Years later Ignatius spoke of his vision, at La Storta near Rome, of the Father with his Son carrying his cross, telling Ignatius, "I want you to serve us. I will be propitious to you in Rome.''13 "If," as Garcla-Mateo notes, "one reflects that the stay in Manresa was the most decisive time in Ignatius's spiritual development, then the role of these women is very sig-nificant." 14 Though Ignatius was schooled in matters of faith, he saw the need for more education in faith and learning. From 1523 to 1538 he studied in Barcelona, Alcalfi, Salamanca, Paris, and Venice. In Barcelona, Ignatius's vision attracted women of the upper class. He instructed them in the Exercises, and they helped him minister to the poor and sick.15 Estefania de Reques6ns, Guiomar Gralla, and the gifted Isabel de Josa all revered him as an apostle.16 In Alcalfi Ignatius met some fifty women of the lower class. He shared his conversion story and gave them the Exercises. Ignatius found himself suspected of being an alumbrado, an "enlightened" one.17 Townspeople gossiped. When two Ifiigas disappeared, the gossip intensified, and he was imprisoned. Sometime later Maria de la Flor, a prostitute, made the Exercises. Desirous of retreating to the desert like St. Mary of Egypt,18 she remarked that Ignatius was Review for Religious the first man who did not regard her as an object.19 These women defended him at his trial. In Salamanca it was the same pattern: giving the Exercises, ministry, suspi-cion, interrogation, and imprisonment by inquisitors. Ignatius and his Society-in-the-making continued studies in Paris and Venice. Financial need pressed him once again to request help from ladies in Barcelona. They sent him and his companions the equivalent of "care packages," which helped sustain them during their studies.2° In Rome Ignatius created a new apostolate where women could help other women.21 For prostitutes decid-ing to reform their lives, the convent had been their only option. Yet many felt no attrac-tion to the cloister. And so in 1543 Ignatius, after receiving financial support, mostly from his loyal women friends, and with ecclesiastical backing, founded St. Martha's, a house for endangered girls. Isabel Roser, widowed and childless, took up a leadership position and lived there with two companions. Under Cardinal Carpi's patronage, they formed La Compagnia della Grazia. The car-dinal asked the Society to under-take the temporary spiritual direction of the institution.22 Other wealthy laywomen joined in the work at St. Martha's: Lucrezia de Bradine, Juana de Arag6n, Margaret of Austria, and Leonor Osorio, who took sixteen young prostitutes into her household and procured marriage dowries for them.23 The work of St. Martha's flourished and became a model for foundations in Messina, Valencia, other cities. At the end of 1543, nearly one hundred women were seeking a new life at St. Martha's)4 The townspeople called Ignatius "the sack man"; the women were known as "I£igas," followers of I£igo. 41 62. I 200~? Roccasalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future Women responded with munificence to the end of Ignatius's life. The Society's most generous donors were Faustina de' Jancolini, who bequeathed her house and lands to Ignatius,. and Donna Maria Frassoni del Gesso, who gave 70,000 gold scudi for the construction of the Jesuit church and college in Ferrara. Without their help Ignatius could not have expanded the Society's apostolate. These generous women became known as "the most lov-ing mother(s) of the Society of Jesus."25 Women Seek Admission into the Order: 1545-1552 It was only a matter of time before several apostoli-cally minded women, married or widowed, sought admis-sion into the young Society of Jesus. Their request seemed logical. Ignatius had given them the Exercises; they participated in apostolic works and had given their estates or large sums of money to the order. Now they wanted to enter the Society. They too would be engaged in an itinerant ministry--or so they thought. In 1545 Isabel Roser and her two companions asked to be admit-ted into the Society. She appealed to Paul Ill and received his permission. Ignatius then received their vows.26 A female branch of the Society was temporarily established, but, when Isabel embroiled Ignatius in family squabbles, he sought papal intervention.27 Licet debitum, promul-gated in 1549, freed the Society from any permanent responsibility for women. It reinforced the Jesuit promise of mobility and granted the general of the Society per-mission to send members "to teach theology and all. dis-ciplines 'anywhere.'''28 Still, to avoid inflexibility, Ignatius permitted his men to hear the confessions of nuns on occasion, but Jesuits were forbidden to serve as their res-ident chaplains or regular confessors. Jesuits were sometimes asked to help in the reformof convents and monasteries, a priority of the Catholic Review for Religious Reformation. Sister Teresa Rajadell, a Benedictine nun, and others sought admission into the Society because of corrupt conditions in monasteries. Of the four letters Ignatius wrote ~to Sister Teresa, the first remains a model of spiritual direction. Meanwhile other laywomen attempted to imitate Isabel Roser's initiative: Francis B0rgia's sisters-in-law Juana de Meneses Barreto and the wealthy Sebastiana Exarch, who without her husband's knowledge was ready to make a vow of obedience to her confessor after completing the Exercises. Sebastiana's letter reached Ignatius in the middle of his difficulties with Isabel Roser. The letter is significant because, in a con-versation with Jesuit Father Araoz, the bishop of Barcelona "criticized the pastoral meth-ods of the Jesuits, especially in that they gave women the Spiritual Exercises to perform 'in profound secrecy and silence' after the manner of the suspect Mumbrados." Juana de Cardona was willing to do anything to be received into the Society: i'epeat the Exercises, divest her-self of revenues, relatives, and friends, and serve in the Society by pledging herself as a pilgrim and missionary-- she would obey "even unto death.''29 The willful Jeronima Pezzani took a vow of obedi-ence to Ignatius without telling him first. With her large donations and her rule and constitutions, she planned on helping the Society set up colleges in Parma and Cremona. She and her companions hoped to transform the House of St. Martha into a convent of "Jesuitesses." 30 Ignatius's refusal to accept women into the order was not because of an enmity toward them, but because of the circumstances of the time. 62. I 2003 Roccasalvo * lgnatian Women Past and Future "It needs to be Understood," writes Garcia-Mateo, "that Ignatius's refusal to accept women into the order was not because of an enmity toward them, but because of the circumstances of the time.''31 He remained unbudgeable in all cases but one. Infanta Juana, Regent of Spain In 1555, by way of exception, Princess Juana, daugh-ter of Charles V and sister of Philip II, pressured her way into the Society through the influence of Francis Borgia. Because of internal hostility to the Society, any denial of her request might jeopardize their work in Spain. To ensure their apostolic freedom, Ignatius bowed to her wishes, but a discreet letter to her betrayed his reluc-tance. As "Marco Sfinchez," her membership was to be kept a strict secret in the Society. Juana's courtly way of life remained unchanged. Her apostolic availability was limited, but she did what was possible in her double life. As her own superior, she safeguarded and advanced Jesuit works. She took first vows as a scholastic, but never became a fully professed member of the Society. On the one hand, Juana used her power to help the Society defend itself against the attacks of some churchmen. She gave a large amount for the founding of a college at Valladolid and wrote a letter to support the foundation in Louvain. On the other hand, she caused anxiety when "murmurs began to arise in Spain, and especially in court circles, against the 'Jesuit government'., and against 'Jesuitical practices' in her 'palatial convent.'" In 1573 the anomalous lady Jesuit died, outliving Ignatius by sev-enteen years. "The experiment was never repeated," notes John O'Malley.32 Ignatian Women: Role Models for the Future The remarkable deeds of the Ifiigas prompted Ignatius to favor the establishment of a company of Review for Religious women that with missionary mobility could devote itself entirely to apostolic work.33 This vision would be realized beginning in the mid 17th century. An Ignatian institute may be distinguished in four ways: "through reliance on Ignatian texts in the formulation of their own constitu-tion, through influence by individual Jesuits, by model-ing certain works or structures on those of the Society of Jesus, and by inspiration drawn from Ignatian Christological and apostolic visions.''34 Among these groups are the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM), the Sisters of St. Joseph(csJ/ssJ), the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RSCJ), and the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ).3s A short summary about each is offered here. Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary: 17th Century In 1612 Mary Ward, a precocious woman not yet thirty years old, gained official approval from the Franciscan James Blaise, bishop of St. Omer, to form the Institute of Mary, modeled on the Society's way of life. Hearing in prayer the words "Take the same of the Society," she understood them to mean take Jesuit ideas and practices "insofar as they are applicable to women." Apostolically mobile, her sisters wore no distinctive garb. In 1629 Mary's brave vision resulted in a brief impris-onment and the suppression of the institute. Isolated Jesuits like Roger Lee and John Gerard supported her enterprise, but, because her institute resembled the Society, it encountered opposition from Jesuits them-selves and from seminary priests who resented the new institute's freedom. Though it claimed no dependence on the Jesuits,. its members were labeled "Jesuitesses" and Rogerites.36 Despite the bishop's public support, the Holy See intervened. In 1630 "Urban VIII signed the bull of sup-pression [declaring the institute] 'suppressed, extinct4,5 62.1 2003 Roccasalvo * Ignatian Women Past and Future rooted out, destroyed, and abolished.'" In 1877 the insti-tute was officially approved as the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It professes: "Inspired by Mary Ward's vision, we will claim more passionately and live more radically our Ignatian spirituality and share it more widely with those among whom we live and work." 37 The Sisters of St. Joseph: 17th Century In 1650 six apostolically minded women, guided by the French Jesuit Jean-Pierre Mddaille (+1669), were officially recognized as the Daughters of St. Joseph. These women ministered to others outside the cloister without religious habit, but wearing a distinctive attire-- that of the widows of Le Puy.38 Like the Jesuits, the Sisters of St. Joseph embraced a wide ministry: "ready for everything, available for all.''39 An institute parallel-ing the Society's apostolic mobility, envisioned by Ignatius, was at last established for women. The charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph is embodied in their consensus statement referring to "an Ignatian- Salesian climate.''4° Father M~daille gave the first Sisters of St. Joseph theSpiritual Exercises in the form of max-ims or proverbs, a 17th-century genre. The Exercises are their matrix and inspiration. The Maxims depend on the Exercises for their internal structure. St. Francis de Sales "lived under Jesuit direction from his school days onward, he made the Spiritual Exercises annually, and he took as his apostolic model the life and work of.St. Charles Borromeo.''41 The Introduction to the Devout Life emerges from the schema and content of the Exercises, with many passages paraphrased avec douceur from the Exercises. The Society of the Sacred Heart: 19th Century In 1800 St. Madeleine Sophie Barat (+1865) founded the Society of the Sacred Heart. Madeleine Sophie's intent was to begin a company of women parallel to the Review for Religious then suppressed Society of Jesus whose work would be to revitalize Christian life in France. Her motto was "unity and conformity to the Heart of Jesus." The constitu-tions, based on those of the Jesuits, were approved by Leo XII in .1826.42 The Society of the Sacred Heart resembled the Jes-uits, stressing the rigorous spiritual and intellectual training of its nuns. With its coherent plan of studies especially in the humanities, its interna-tional network of schools educated young women worldwide. In 1818 St. Philippine Duchesne made a foundation in the United States. In 1964 the Religious of the Sacred Heart removed their rule of cloister. ¯ In 1820 the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ) were founded in Amiens, France, byMarie Madeleine de Bonnault de d'Hoiiet. Impressed by the Society of Jesus, she founded an institute bearing the Holy Name and following the Jesuit constitutions. An international con-gregation, they profess: "In the Exercises we contem-plate the life of Jesus, coming into personal contact with him and interiorizing his attitudes and values.''43 The Society of the Sacred Heart resembled the Jesuits, stressing the rigorous spiritual and intellectual training of its nuns. Catherine the Great and the Society of Jesus The suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773-1814) was affected by the three-power partition of Poland .in 1772. The papal bull of suppression was not promul-gated in the part that had come under the rule of Russia's Catherine the Great. She valued the educational work of the two hundred Jesuits living there and permitted them to teach in what was called White Russia. By the Roccasalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future time of the Society's restoration in 1814, their numbers had increased to 337.44 How women advanced the Society's apostolic mission during the suppression is a rich topic for research. Catherine was no Ignatian woman, but she kept the Society's flame burning during a dark night in its history. Issues of Religious Life Perfectae caritatis mandated that religious live more in line with the modern world. The universal call to holi-ness proclaimed anew by Lumen gentium (§§3 3, 40) urged the laity to engage in "the saving mission of the church itself." A recent document on religious life says, "If. the thii'd millennium will be the time of promotion of the laity, of associations, and of ecclesial movements, we can rightfully ask, What place will be reserved for the traditional forms of consecrated life?''45 Perfectae caritatis does not clearly differentiate reli-gious life from the lay state, as sociologist Patricia Wittberg SC reminds us.46 Lumen gentium and Perfectae caritatis declare a distinction of degree, though not of kind.47 Experience tells us that religious do belong to a distinct category, as we shall see.48 Prophetic Witness Religious life is "mainly the fruit of the free and dynamic action of the Spirit in the church; it is a charis-matic way of life" existing since the early centuries of the church. If religious life is marked by its prophetic witness, its characteristic sign is the vow of consecrated celibacy. It accepts God's gift of friendship and "is best disposed for the development of a life of prayer and con-templation." 49 Consecrated celibacy is an attitude and a fundamen-tal choice affecting a person's entire life. One's center of affectivity is Christ himself, whose love is centered Review for Religious totally on his Father. His love embraces all. So with con-secrated celibacy. No other person may substitute for Christ at the center of one's heart. Because this vow touches every aspect of one's experience, it involves "a certain affective renunciation and a solitude of the heart which form part of the cross offered [to them] by Christ.''5° Supported by community friendships, the love of consecrated chastity excludes no one. Companionship in Christ frees celibate women and men for service to others without the demands of close family ties. The world is their family. Solitude and strong friendships, contemplation and action, are dynamically balanced. Religious women and men stand as external signs of God's presence and activity in the world. In a secularized environment their prophetic witness focuses not on themselves but beyond themselves, on Christian values and ultimately on God. Religious life is the Spirit's great gift of love to the church. Particular Charisms When consecrated persons are attracted to a partic-ular vision of Christ's paschal mystery given to a founder or a small group, they will assume that same vision,s~ A charism begins with an unmerited religious experience of depth and intensity by which God singles out an individual and touches that person with an unforgettable experience of love in Which he or she is given a special vision of the Divine Majesty. The mode of receiving the charism is shaped by the person's historical and cultural conditioning as well as by his or her temperament, human gifts, and limitations, all of which Christians recognize as the effects of God's active love in history,s2 The charisms of the Benedictines, Dominicans, 62.1 2003 Franciscans, and Jesuits define who they are. Each order was founded by a person to address a specific need and mission at a specific time in the church. The Jesuits expanded their apostolic focus to include the whole world for their mission. Like the call of .Christ to his disciples, orders attract followers to their founder's way of life and to their graced activities, the attraction often preceding knowledge of the founder's name. But sooner or later the various orders must elicit each candidate's deep-down commitment. Each order, like a perfume, gives off a uniquely identifying, fragrance: A whiff of Benedictine spirituality is detected the moment you step. into the interior of an abbey church. After.weeks, a chemical reac-tion occurs between monastic life and .the human spirit. You discern the Benedictine heart notes: a blend of chant, Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, work in the fields. Silence and solitude are the fixatives lending constancy. Then there's the interplay with a monk's chemistry. Differences exist for those wearing the perfume as a signature. Yet you recognize the underlying Benedictine fra-grance . The nuns at an abbey in New England make a perfume from flowers in their pine forest. It's called Attar of Peace. It ¯ summons up the grounds and even the com-munity. The scent has made the place its own; spirituality can be embodied in a fra-grance, s3 Wittherg notes that today we see the opposite in practice: "The members of most congregations now have widely diverse interpretations of their community's charism, as well as varying degrees of commitment to it."s4 Let us take a closer look. Review for Religious Religious Institutes from Past to Present The Tridendne reforms of the 16th century held fast until the early 1960s. With the advent of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the manner in which women lived religious life changed significantly. Today traditional religious institutes in the West either are in chaos or are dying." In the United States there are more than one hundred sixty secular institutes, a nontradi-tional form of consecrated life. Most religious vocations now come from India and East Asia. In Creating a Future for Religious Life, Wittberg remarks that the decline in vocations in the West is not "an ongoing religious crisis," but part of the life-death rhythm of creation, from which religious institutes are not exempt: "A recurring pattern of foundation, expansion, stabilization, and breakdown has developed time and again throughout history of Western Christianity, in intervals of two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty years." In the late 1960s Ladislas ~)rsy SJ anticipated Wittberg's observation: [Consecrated religious life] rejoiced in peri-ods of splendor, and it suffered the bitter expe-rience of decline--yet it never died. After each crisis it recovered and manifested signs of internal strength. It showed also a remarkable capacity to adapt to the needs of every age; it was continually enriched with new, external forms,s6 If birth-and-death is a natural pattern, why not allow communities to die a peaceful death? Because not all institutions die because of external reasons. Several met their demise because of internal causes: deconstruction of their charism, laxity and moral decadence, fashion-able spiritualities and divisiveness,s7 The aggiornamento called for by Pe. rfectae caritatis began in a grim context. By the early 1960s religious women were too removed from the modern world. After 62.1 200t Roccasalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future their daily apostolic work, sisters would return to a vir-tual enclosure where physical presence, equated with community life, took precedence over the apostolate. Detailed rules regarding the minutiae of daily life cramped their spirits. Superiors wielded power that often impeded psychological maturity and the development of talents. Even minimal contact with the outside world Was closely monitored and discouraged. This rigidity contradicted the ministry for which these institutes were founded,s8 Most communities anticipated reform and responded at once. Others moved at a slower pace or on a superfi-cial level. Some institutes were successful at rediscover-ing or revitalizing their shared vision. Today, for example, the Benedictine nuns of Today Ignatian institutes pursue their charism with varying degrees of intentionality. Regina Laudis Monastery in Bethlehem, Connecticut, report a waiting list of candidates. Other institutes minimized, ignored, or altogether uprooted their charism. There may be a good reason for this. The charisms of women's congregations sometimes seem rather eclectic, unless the group is a female counterpart of a men's group such as the Benedictines. It is difficult for a group with a hybrid charism to discern its principal charism. Some groups seem not even to have one. When we speak of the schools of spirituality, many women's religious institutes do not fall into neat categories as the men's orders do. Some groups, however, with clear identities like the Ignatian, have removed elements that uniquely identified them as a particular institute and have added other elements. Today Ignatian institutes pursue their charism with vary-ing degrees of intentionality. Review for Religious Marketing experts tell us that "tampering with an identity--a brand, a restaurant, a cola, or any other con-sumer product--can be a perilous business.''59 Religious groups with a renewed sense of identity and mission appear to be in a strong position to survive. Those that have "tampered with" or discarded their identity are in peril. The Current Situation Since the 1960s, issues such as governance, ecclesi-astical poverty, obedience, and common life have under-gone change. Let us briefly examine the present-day resonances of this statement. Governance. Out of Vatican II emerged a collegial spirit. There it applied to bishops acting in union with the bishop of Rome, but this spirit has permeated the church. In nonepiscopal groups, it is more accurately referred to as coresponsibility or shared decision making. Centralized, hierarchical groups must find a way to incor-porate the collegial spirit. In decentralized communities, superiors have been vested with less authority, and they govern less if at all. For women, the past remains an open wound, but "everyone her own pope" leads to chaos. We have not yet realized a communion ecclesiology. Economics and Poverty. Every religious institute must support itself. The plunge in finances is a cause for con-cern even though religious are tax-exempt. Diocesan structures require sisters working in them to contribute their services. The local ordinary determines what small fixed stipend will be given to those working within his diocese. The stipend, falling below the poverty line, varies from diocese to diocese.6° Major superiors have tried unsuccessfully to remedy this long-standing abuse. With larger memberships, communities could manage their budgets on contributed services. This is no longer the case. 62.1 200~ Roccasalvo * Ignatian Women Past and Future Economics and Obedience.' Flexibility to choose one's ministry has brought its own problem. Today, in a com-petitive market, unemployment among religious is a stark. reality. If a position opens up, especially one paying a full salary, it is likely to be in a nondiocesan institution far from the local community. Though superiors gladly send a sister "in obedience," they have little choice but to do so; these sisters support themselves and sisters who receive no diocesan stipend. Economics and Community Life~ The employment sit-uation mentioned above has affected the traditional understanding of community life as an essential part of religious living, and so community life is on the wane. With greater personal freedom to choose their aposto-lates, sisters work not only in' different places but also on different schedules~ Common life, yes; community under one roof, no.61 Has maintenance displaced mis-sion as a community focus? Does economics drive the maintenance? Decline has set in. Numbers are plummeting. Attitudes formed over the years have hardened. Loss of judgment has followed, and a tendency to create a make-believe world under the cover of optimism. No large corporation or small business would permit losses with-out a realistic analysis of facts. Instead of facing and dis-cussing them with intellectual and emotional honesty, most religious are in denial. They continue glorifying a way of life that is fast ebbing away. Johannes Metz notes that loyalty "not infrequently takes on the lineaments of necrophilia: of shutting one-self up in dead patterns of life and behavior, patterns perhaps that have been worn to death in the power of the Spirit.''62 Years ago small institutes were the first casu-alties, and a few merged vcith larger ones. Today larger institutes are in jeopardy. Given this trend, by 2020 a handful of religious will remain as an endangered species. Review for Religious Young people are avoiding institutes in decline. Instead they seek ecclesial groups with "fiery vision." 63 Many applaud religious women for continued ser-vice to others, and praise is richly deserved. Sisters have worked hard all their lives without seeking or receiving recognition. They have educated men and women in leadership positions and have promoted vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Their contributions to almost every walk of life are considerable. Critics, how-ever, paint a picture of confusion, blurred identity, indi-vidualism, secularity, and irrelevance. Renewal through the Spiritual Exercises Holiness of life brings its own "fiery vision"; its radi-ance attracts others to God. Today, in a wasteland of secularity, reform will not be realized from external pres-sure. Religious must vigorously pursue inner conver-sion. For four hundred and fifty years, the Spiritual Exercises have stood as an instrument of interior trans-formation. They changed the religious contours of chaotic 16th-century Europe. Today, even with com-peting syncretic aids, they continue renewing the church among lay ecclesial groups.64 Ignatian women can build up the world by living this "fiery vision" and, without dilution, handing it on to others longing for meaning in life. In this school of prayer, one intensely desires con-version of heart. This book for "exercising" brings the whole person into the cosmic Christ. It requires prayer-ful activity of the whole person: body, mind, spirit, imag-ination, memory, and the subconscious. This "retreat" of solitary prayer becomes active service of neighbor. The exercitant assumes the mind of Christ, "for Christ plays in ten thousand places, / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his, / To the Father through the features of men's faces." 65 62.1 200~ The Exercises for a New Millennium In a post-9/1 1 world, we face a new world situation. In the past the Exercises, with their theocentric world-view that includes spiritual humanism, have attracted non-Christians as well as Christians.66 Jews and Muslims, for example, without compromising their beliefs, have benefited from them. The goal is not conversion but a more devout practice of one's faith, more attuned to global harmony.67 Discernment calls Ignatian women to regard others with love, seeking unity in all things. The Trinity and the incarnation, the two fundamen-tal dogmas of Christianity, permeate the Exercises. Our Trinitarian God, archetype of unity and diversity, "is one, good, true, and beautiful because [God] is essen-tially Love, and Love supposes the one, the other, and their unity.''6s In the incarnation God condescended to flesh to raise women and men to God. Created in God's image, all are called to the divine likeness. The Johannine Gospel impels us to live within the Trinity, who lives in all creation. Christ's humanity presses us to respect and reverence those whose beliefs differ from ours. The incarnation links us to one another in a global village. Interacting with other great religions, wherein the Spirit breathes, will advance the oneness for which Jesus prayed. Ignatian women, indeed all in the church, must be fully catholic to be fully Catholic. The Exercises for Ignatian Women Religious For Ignatian women religious at the start of this mil-lennium, more is asked of our consecrated life. Drawing its meaning from the Trinity, celibacy is to be valued and embraced as affectivity. The Trinity's inner love is the model of that love which God offers us throughout our lives. When the motive for pleasing others is love, affa-bility and good manners are assured. Circumstances call us to a lifestyle of frugality. As stewards of Mother Earth, Review for Religious we must train ourselves to think, feel, and act with greater vigilance over God's sacramental world. Envisioning a new attitude toward personal freedom, coresponsibility, and communion, ecclesiology places the Trinity at the heart of governance. These reflections do not guarantee that institutes will attract new members at once, but the future will bear fruit if we plant strong seeds now. Ignatian religious women are called to share this "fiery vision" with others--noblesse oblige. The Exercises encompass three other graces which Ignatius received at Manresa. God's cosmos is indeed "charged with the grandeur of God.''69 In the Eucharist, Christ offers himself to his Father, and he nourishes us, his Body. Our service must be actu-alized in our becoming what we have received. Neither mere activism nor pragmatic service, it is faith expressed as love.7° The Exercises embody tides quaerens intellectum, faith seek-ing underst~inding, valuing and developing our gifts. Commitment to faith and learning sharpens our sense of justice and our other sensibilities. For Ignatian women religious at the start of this millennium, more is asked of our consecrated life. The Magis from Ignatian Women Religious Reform will not necessarily guarantee the survival of our various institutes. Perfectae caritatis (§ 19) spoke of the possibility of establishing new communities, cau-tioning the need for discernment regarding their "use-fulness" and promising future. Challenging women religious to begin their own institutes, Wittberg says: Find a vision which consumes and vitalizes you, one which you are willing to die for--and to live the rest of your life for. Start the jour- 57 62.1 2003 Ro~casalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future ney. Don't wait until fifty, or twenty, or even ten people are ready to go with you . Start the journey alone, if need be, and then invite others to come along . Expect to fail ~everal times. Expect to lose your way. Learn from your mistakes and try again. That is what founders, and refounders, do. That is the cru-cifixion, the "Passover," to which they are called. The resurrection, we know by faith, will also occurfl1 A bold challenge, indeed. One leaves her institute to found another only at the prompting of the good Spirit. Still, it is well to recall that, without separation from the Benedictines, there would have been no Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercians, or Thomas Merton. Without separation from the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there would be no Mother Teresa, 'no Missionary Sisters of Charity caring for the most destitute of the dying. Women are endowed with the gift of building a cul-ture of love founded on love. How muchmore religious 'women who follow the Ignatian way! Their "fiery vision," emerging from the Exercises, sees the impossi-ble as possible--as imaginative, practical, an'd prophetic. The Spirit will lead our discerning hearts to build the future "all ablaze with God springing up everywhere.''72 Notes ' Rogelio Garcfa-Mateo, "Ignatius of Loyola and Women," Theology Digest 45, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 32.'In this article I men-tion only a few of the women who helped Ignatius. 2 I thank Fathers Ladislas ~rsy sJ and Brian O'Leary SJ, Sisters Judith Roemer, Marion Honors CSJ, and Maria Pascuzzi CSJ, and my brother for their insights and encouragement to write this article. 3 The deaconess St. Macrina (d. 380) founded the Basilian order with her brother St. Basil. They wrote the Rule for nuns and monks. She founded an orphanage for girls, ~he first of its kind. St. Olympias (d. 408), deaconess and friend of St. John Chrysostom, distributed Review for Religious her vast fortune to the poor and rallied to his defense when he was illegally deposed. This led to her own exile. 4james Brodrick SJ, St. Ignatius Loyola: The Pilgrim Years, 1491- IY38 (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1956), p. 86. 5 The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola, trans. Joseph E O'Callaghan, ed. John C. Olin (New York: Fordham University Press, [1974] 1992), pp. 36-40. 6 Thomas M. Lucas sJ, "The Saint, the Site, and the Sacred Strategy: Ignatius, Rome, and the Urban Mission," in Saint, Site, and Sacred Strategy (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1990), p. 20. 7 Garcfa-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 29. 8 Hugo Rahner SJ, Saint Ignatius Loyola: Letters to Women, (Freiburg: Herder / London: Nelson, 1960), pp. 4-10. 9 H. Rahner, .Letters, .p. 265. '°Jos~ Ignacio Tellechea Idfgoras, Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Saint (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1994), pp. 180-181. 1, H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 10, 252. 12 Garcfa-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 29. 13 John W. O'Malley sJ, The First Jesuits (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 34. 14 Garcia-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 29. 15 See n. 14. ,6 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 10, 296-297. ,7 Brian O'Leary SJ, "Foundational Values in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius," Milltown Studies (Spring 1994): 7-9. 18 H. Rahner, Letters, p. 11. Mary of Egypt is considered an icon of repentance. ,9 Tellechea, Ignatius, p. 254. 20 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 174-176 and PLATE XII facing p. 321; 181-182, 185, 192. 2, Garcia-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 30. 22 Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes, Vol. 12 (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1923), p. 42. 2~ O'Malley, First Jesuits, p. 180. 24 Pastor, Popes, Vol. 12, p. 43. 2~ H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 197, 209-211; consult all of Part 3, "Begging for the Kingdom of God," pp. 169-206. Also pp. 15,199, 211, 15. 62.1 2003 Roccasalvo * Ignatian Women Past and Future .60- 26 Garcfa-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 31. 27 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 287-290. 2s O'Malley, First Jesuits, p. 201. 29 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 340, 331-335, 126-128, 303,310. 30 H. Rahner, Letters, 318-319, 323. 3~ Garcia-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 32. For Ignatius's responses to these women's petitions to enter the Society, see H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 260, 308, 318, 323. 32 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 52-67, 56-59, 59, 60, 59. O'Malley, First Jesuits, p. 76. 33 H. Rahne~:, Letters, pp. 251,260. 34 Mary Milligan,. "What Is an 'Ignatian Congregation'?" Way Supplement 70 (Spring 1991): 41-50. 35 Included as well are the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM), the Religious of the Cenacle (RC), the Religious of Jesus and Mary (RJM), the Society of the Holy Child Jesus (SHCJ). 36 M. Emmanuel Orchard, Till God I/Viii (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1985), p. 29, nn. 17 and 33, and pp. 49-50. Also M.P. Trauth, "Ward, Mary," New Catholic Encyclopedia. 37 Orchard, Till God Will, p. 102. William V. Bangert SJ, A History of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972), p. 146. See . 38 M~daille Committee, "The Spirituality of Jean-Pierre M~daille" (New Orleans, 1967), pp. 2-3. 39 Tellechea, Ignatius, p. 413. ~o Constitution of the Sisters of St. Joseph (Brentwood, N.Y., 2000), p. 9. 41 Elizabeth Stopp, "Francois de Sales," in The Study of Spirituality, ed. Cheslyn Jones et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 381. 42 See , p. 6. 43 See "Our Spi;'it," ._ 44J.E Broderick SJ, "Jesuits," New Catbolic Encydopedia. 45 "Starting Afresh.from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third Millennium," Origins 32, no. 8 (4 July 2002), §12. 46 Patricia Wittberg SC, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), p. 232. Review for Religious 47 In Lumen gentium a religious is "more intimately consecrated to divine service. This consecration gains in perfection since by virtue of firmer and steadier bonds, it serves as a better symbol of the unbreakable link between Christ and his spouse, the church" (§44). Perfectae caritatis states that religious follow Christ "more freely and imitate him more nearly. Hence, the more ardently they unite themselves to Christ through a self-surrender.involving their entire lives, the more vigorous becomes the .life of the church and the more abundantly her apostolate bears fruit" (§1). Emphasis added. 48 Sandra M. Schneiders IHM, Finding the Treasure (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000), p. 128. 49 Ladislas M. 0rsy sJ, Open to the Spirit (Washington-Cleveland: Corpus Books, 1968), pp. 17, 21, 25. 5o Our Jesuit Life (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1990), p. 94. s, Joseph de Guibert sJ, The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1986), p. 2. 52 John C. Futrell SJ, "Discovering the Founder's Charism," Way Supplement (Autumn 1971): 63. s3 Joseph Roccasalvo, The Odor of Sanctity (USA: Xlibris, 2000), pp. 106-107. s4 Patricia Wittberg SC, Creating a Future for Religious Life (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1991), p. 138 and n. 4: "In some congre-gations, this pluralism has become so great that it is difficult to see what remains in common in any vital sense. Members have some vague sense of belonging to a group. This sense of belonging is usu-ally sustained by a vague ethos or spirit, by memories of a shared his-tory, by a sense of responsibility for the elderly members, and by personal relationships with those who are coworkers, coinhabitants, or like-minded allies. But belonging is not the same as commitment." Mary Jo Leddy, "Beyond the Liberal Model," Way Supplement 65 (Summer 1989): 46. 55 "Starting Afresh from Christ," pp. 130-147. ~6 ~rsy, Open to the Spirit, p. 13. ~7 Wittberg, Rise andFall, pp. 186-188, 41, Table 2.1, and 184ff, Table 10.1. 5s Male religious orders would not have tolerated these structures. s9 Eric Asimov, "When Makeovers Go Awry," New York Times (31 July 2002). The famous Russian Tea Room in New York City recently closed because its new owner "tampered" with its tradi-tional identity. One can only imagine the outrage of sports fans if the 61 62.1 2003 Roccasalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future New York Yankees were to tamper with their logo designed by Tiffany. 60 Before 1940, religious brothers working in the same diocese received more than twice as much as the sisters. Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 52. 61 Common life may refer to all members living under one roof or contributing to a common fund for the common good. It means that common rituals are observed as well, more easily observed in monastic than in apostolic communities. 62 Johannes Metz, Followers of Christ: The Religious Life and the Church (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978), p. 20. 63 A phrase used by Evelyn Woodward in P~ets, Prophets, and Pragmatists (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1987), p. 51. 64 This dry manual has been published some 4,500 times over the course of four hundred years. 65 "As kingfishers catch fire" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. 66 O'Leary, "Foundational Values," pp. 5-13. 67 Ronald Modras, "The Spiritual Humanism of the Jesuits," America (4 February 1995): 10. 6s Hans Urs yon Balthasar, "A Rdsum~ of My Thought," in Hans Urs yon Balthasar: His Life and Work, ed. David L. Schindler (San Francisco: Communio Books and Ignatius Press, 1991), p. 4. 69 "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. 70 O'Leary, "Foundational Values," p. 19. 7, Patricia Wittberg SC, Pathways to Re-Creating Religious Communities (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996), pp. 199-201. 72 Pierre Teilhard de Cha~din SJ, Letters to L~ontine Zanta (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 41. Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man All Christians know Jesus as the Son of God, and rightly so. But he never referred to himself by that rifle, except once (according to the synoptic Gospels), when the high priest asked him before the Sanhedrin, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" and he replied, "I am" (Mk 14:61-62). But often (eighty-one times in the Gospels) he spoke of himself as .the Son of man.1 In fact, even on the above occasion of affirming his Sonship of God, he went on to clarify.at once, "And you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of the Power." Reclaiming Jesus as the Son of Man In expressing their faith in Jesus, the early Christians called him Lord (also my Lord, our Lord, and Lord of the universe), Emmanuel, Savior, and the like, all expressions suggestive of his divinity. But never once did they name him A. Paul Dominic SJ last wrote for us in our issue of November-December 2001. His address is c/o Missionaries of the Poor; Fatima Nagar; Warangal 506 004; India. Dominic ¯ Learningfrom ~esus, the Son of Man the Son of man, with the notable exception found on the lips of Stephen (Ac 7:56). If, thus, no primitive creedal statements contain any reference to him as the Son of man, that need not deter us from Jesus' preferred way of speaking about himself. It is intriguing, too, that, on a rare occasion when he was drawing someone to believe in him, he asked him, according to the witness of John, "Do you believe in the Son of man?" On 9:35).2 So why not look at Jesus as the Son of man and learn from him what ways mark him out as the Son of man? So far, so good. But what is or can be understood by the Aramaic terminology the Son of man? It is surely one of the most discussed questions, with almost as ma. ny opinions as there are scholars. At the same time, it is one of the most important questions, as Milan Machovec says, "in considering the person and influence of the Master from Galilee.''3 Whatever the Marxist author's reason for saying so, there is truth in what he says, if only because the favorite self-designation of Jesus was the Son of man. The Meanings of"the Son of Man" As we seek to understand what Jesus meant by "the Son of man," we should remind ourselves that as a rule he did not indulge in cliches and fads nor as a rule confuse and confound people, but communicated himself to them in transparent, if teasing and provocative, ways. Further, from the many studies made on the subject, we may throw some light on the matter. Primarily, the expression Son of man was not a title, but a modest reserved way of referring to oneself in Galilee's Aramaic idiom. So, when Jesus used the choice phrase, .he was not drawing attention to himself, much less thrusting or projecting himself proudly, but presenting himself humbly.4 A much older use of the phrase, carried over from the Old to the New Testament, was simply as a synonym of Review for Religious "man" or "human being," without any special emphasis (Ps 80:17). Depending on the context, however, there could be an emphasis laid on human nature as nobler than subhuman, on the one hand (compare Dn 7:3-7 and 17-26 with 7:13), or of course as infinitely lower than the divine, on the other (Ez 2:1). Another element of emphasis could be that the speaker conceived of himself (I guess the expression was used only by men) not apart from but part of humanity. Far from being a stranger to humanity, he was part and parcel of it, owning himself a member of all humanity. Its usage was obviously comparable to that of the other expression "sons of the world" (Lk 16:8),5 which meant, of course, belonging to the world. Similarly, therefore, "the son of man." meant one who belonged to the world of humans. Jesus' Characterization as the Son of Man All this made sense in relation to the person of Jesus, as already mentioned. So, when he characterized himself as the Son of man, he was not passing himself off as something higher than others. Whatever else he was, he was still a man, pure and simple, and so like any other human being, as the early Christians believed (Ph 2:7). Besides all this, Jesus could have had something more in mindl He was not just resigned to, or even simply content with, his human status. He was appreciative of, and even intent on, something greater in the experience of being human. Keeping in mind the Gospels' emphasis on Jesus' use of the term "Son of man" and on the dignity of the individual human ("man as man") and of all humanity, Albert Nolan submits "that Jesus' frequent and emphatic use of the term 'Son of man' was his way of referring to, and identifying himself with, man as man.''6 Here is a nuanced insight that could be missed. Unlike others, Jesus used the term "Son of man" not by way of 62.1 2003 Dominic ¯ Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man Jesus used the term "Son of man" not by way of habit, but with a conscious intent. habit, but with a conscious intent. It was a way of expressing his vision of humanity, experienced in himself in solidarity with others. Whatever else he claimed to be, it was not apart from being a "son of man" among the likes of him. In other words, being a man, he could not but assodate himself with every social segment, making no discrimination whatever among human beings based on sex or status or religious sanction or what have you. What were the implications of this identification that Jesus made with others in the bosom of his religious tradition? Unlike the others, he not only inherited this religious outlook handed down by the ancients, but he consciously incorporated it and indeed incarnated it. He knew that being human, denoted by the term "son of man," embraced two opposite experiences. On the one hand, "son of man" implied and connoted that human life is short-lived like the grass (Is 51:12) or, like the worm, lowly and vulnerable (Jb 25:6). The " phrase "Son of man" showed that before God human stature cannot be anything but small (Ps 11:4). It showed that human creatures as such are mortal, terribly mortal (Ps 90:3, Ez 2:1), and thus no more significant than a dying breath or fleeting shadow (Ps 144:4). It emphasized that every human being is caught up in sin (Ps 14:2-3). On the other hand, besides and beyond all this, there was a transcendent sense to the religious term "son of man." It suggested and revealed that every "son of man" is an object of Providence (PS 107:8), something for divine wisdom to find delight in (Pr 8:31)," a crown of creation by divine plan, and even a partner with God (Ps 8:5-8). Before God, then, every Review for Religious human person is both nothing and, strangely enough, all blessing. It was with this manifold tensive human reality that Jesus identified himself. He was at home with this holistic vision of humanity; his lifetime was of a piece with it. Becoming Like the Son of Man Being the Son of man, and preeminently that, Jesus wanted others, too, to claim and share the same privilege that God envisioned for humanity. In this light some of his sayings lend themselves to a new interpretation. "Thus," Nolan remarks, "to say that 'the son of man is master even of the sabbath' is to say that 'the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath' (Mk 2:27-28). To say that 'the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins' is to praise 'God for giving such power to men' (Mr 9:6, 8). To say that 'the foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head' could mean that, whereas the Herods (foxes) and the Romans (birds) have a place in the present society, man as man has no place yet."7 Such an outlook offers the inspiration for all humans to attain the true glory destined for them by God, despite their own acute sense of infdriority and insignificance. It echoes in practical terms what the mystical psalmist joyously discerned: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in.place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet" (Ps 8:3-8, N1V). Even though Jesus, believing this and acting on it, realized its truth in his life and invited others to do the same, people hesitate to conceive of themselves in this light. It is to such people that a sacred author quotes the67 62. I 2003 Dominic ¯ Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man above psalm and makes this assuring comment: "Now in subjecting all things to them God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them; but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor" (Heb 2:8-9). Let there be no mistake. The glorification of Jesus was not because of any angelic or royal nature he enjoyed, but because of his pure, radical human status in and through which, of course, his Abba God was at work. It was through becoming the lowly son of man, clothed in flesh, frailty, and fragility, that he became the glorious Son of man, thanks to his Abba God. Stephen was the first one in the biblical record to contemplate Jesus in this fashion. It was in this spirit, too, that the early Christians sang that, on the one hand, Jesus was "made in human likeness and [so] in his appearance found as a man" (Ph 2:7, CCB) and that, on the other hand, he was exalted in glory and given a name at which every knee must bend. rvVhat does. this all mean for us human beings, in whose image the Son appeared, though at the end he was seen in God's image? Are we not to follow, keeping our eyes on him who is the pioneer and perfecter, of our faith leading to glory (Heb 12:2)? And yet we hesitate to think of ourselves in these elevating terms, despite God's having predestined us all to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rm 8:29-30). The Way of Being Human Those of us who hesitate--and that is 99.9 percent of us--must face the truth, namely, that we hunger for honor and glory, but are not willing or concerned to be honored and glorified by the One from whom comes everything we have or could have. We have an all-tooo human tendency to seek the approval of others (Jn 5:44) or, what is worse, to smugly compare ourselves favorably Review for Religious with others. When we do not succeed in such maneuvers, we lament like the regretful psalmist: "Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days . You have made my days a few ha.ndbreadths, and my lifetime is .as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a breath. Surely everyone goes like a shadow .For I am your passing quest, an alien, like all my forebears. Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more" (Ps 39:4-6 and 12-13). Or we resort to the opposite tactic, aggressiveness. We cover up our nothingness and by hook or crook seek to become a power to reckon with. When such efforts succeed, the social and political world is negatively affected, witness the stories of conquerors and empires. Such conquerors tend to show humanity at its worst. As pictured in the Book of Daniel, they are beasts that inflict violence on others and, inescapably, on themselves. They are the opposite of the "one like a son of man" who in the very presence of God receives divine fellowship, honor, and glory not only for himself but for everyone like himself (Dn 7:1-14). How true this is of Christ! Surely he is, as a pastoral commentary says, "the perfect human, and he bears the destiny of humanity," 8 and so in his glory will draw all to himself On 12:32). This will happen in growing measure as we become more like him, the Son of man, shedding increasingly our alien beasdy nature and becoming more It was through becoming the lowly son of man, clothed in flesh, frailty, and fragility, that he became the glorious Son of man, thanks to his Abba God. 62.1 2003 Dominic. ¯ Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man and more what we are and what we are meant to be, namely human. What Kahlil Gibran said of him rings true: "He came to send forth upon this earth a new spirit, with power to crumble the foundation of any monarchy built upon human bones and skulls . He came to demolish the majestic palaces, constructed upon the graves of the weak, and crush the idols, erected upon the bodies of the poor. He came to make the human heart a temple, and the soul an altar, and the mind a priest.''9 Peter could invite all Christians to Christ with these words: "Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood" (1 P 2:4-5). Doing this increasingly in our world, we will become the embodiment of Daniel's vision of the son of man, in union with Christ, the Son of man. To grow to the measure of his full stature--that is the call for Christians as individuals and as a community (Ep 4:13). 70 Notes t See the note on Mk 8:31 in The NIVStudy Bible, p. 1510. Unless 6therwise indicated, all biblical citations are from NRSV. 2 It is worthy of note that, though some ancient versions have "Son of God," the modern translations, such as N~$V and N'JB, have preferred the adoption of "Son of man," following other ancient" authorities. 3 Milan Machovec, .4 Marxist Looks at ]esus (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1976), p. 120. 4 Many would seem to agree on this point. For this and related points, see the short survey of opinions in The New ]erome Biblical Commentary, ed. R. E. Brown et al. (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1991), nn. 78:38-41, pp. 1324-1325. 5 If this is true, I wonder why it does not seem to receive mentibn among the scholars. 6 Albert Nolan, ~esus before Christianity (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1977), p. 119. Review for Religious 7 Nolan, Jesus before Christianity, p. 119. 8 See the explanation on Mk 8:27 in Christian Community Bible (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 1990), p. 89. 9 Kahlil Gibran, Secrets of the Heart (New Delhi: UBSPD, 1943), p. 56. The Rendezvous On this red and rainwashed morning a cottonwool wispy cloud hangs over the hill as if to kiss the earth beside the waterfall and say: "I came to meet you here." On the driveway, as I walk, a cottontailed jackrabbit ventures close, so close that I can see the color of his eyes and catch his smile for me. He says: "I came to meet you here." At the gate, an oversized robinredbreast red as the freshened desert earth writes my name across the path in a twirl of song, as if to say: "I came to meet you here." In my heart I know that as I walk the morn the Risen One reiterates: "I came to meet you here." Mary T. O'Brien PBVM 7I 62.1 2003 DENNIS J. BILLY Perseverance: The Courage to Persist ~t~ T et us not grow weary of doing good; if we do not relax our efforts, in due time we shall reap our harvest" (Ga 6:9).1 These words of St. Paul show the importance of following Christ to the end, even in try-ing and difficult times. Perseverance, as we normally call it, is "to persist long in some undertaking until it is accomplished."2 All Christians are called to persevere in their vocations. For religious, this undertaking concerns Christian discipleship lived in a community dedicated to the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedi-ence. This should be their one, consuming lifetime pro-je

Part one of an interview with Dorothy Giadone Poirier. Topics include: Where in Italy her grandparents came from and what they were like. Her father's work history. What her parents were like. The foods her mother would prepare. What her parents thought when Dottie's first marriage ended and their acceptance of her new husband. Memories of her family. Dottie is half Italian and half Sicilian. What family meals were like when Dottie was growing up. How Fitchburg, MA has changed over time. Her family moved to Leominster, MA. Her father's activity in the community and in politics. Memories of working in her father's furniture store. How her father got into the business. What it was like when her father passed away. What the customers were like at the furniture store. ; 1 DOTTIE: Oh, I bumped into her a lot at [Shritzer] or whatever. SPEAKER 1: [Unintelligible - 00:00:09]. DOTTIE: Joe and Alice. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. DOTTIE: A lot of times they say well, come by and have a drink before, and I say no I'm going out. Uh, so I met him in the parking lot, and he said you better not say you can't meet -- you can't come for breakfast. Oh, I says, no. I'll be there. SPEAKER 1: Okay. [Unintelligible - 00:00:27] with the Center for Italian Culture 1002, and being interviewed five minutes of eleven. So thank you, Dottie. DOTTIE: Pleasure. SPEAKER 1: So you were telling me a little bit about your father, your father Bill Giadone. DOTTIE: Yes. Yes. SPEAKER 1: And just how influential he was in Fitchburg. DOTTIE: Very, very. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. Can you tell me a little bit? Mm-hmm. LINDAY: Oh yes. His grand -- his mother and father both, they were still -- I mean, they didn't die until I was, had -- I was a young adult. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. DOTTIE: Uh, his father was a very typical Italian, very stern. Mother was the salt of the earth. Just a sweet lady. In fact, one time I made a comment, I says to my husband, "Gee, sorry you didn't meet my grandmother, you would have just adored her." And then I says, "My grandfather—this is no baloney—you would have gotten along good with him." So he was man's man, my grandfather. But as a child, you don't realize that and you became frightened of him. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. DOTTIE: If he said be quiet, be quiet, except my younger sister. SPEAKER 1: Where did they come from? DOTTIE: My grandfather came from a small town in Sicily called [Pepepezzia]. 2 SPEAKER 1: Would you know how to spell…? DOTTIE: [Unintelligible - 00:01:43]. SPEAKER 1: Okay. So he came from Sicily? DOTTIE: Yes. SPEAKER 1: What about your grandma? DOTTIE: My grandmother also. They were both -- came over. I'm not sure of the exact -- well, maybe if we kind of -- my father was born in 1908, and he came here when he was six years old. So that was 1913? SPEAKER 1: Fourteen. DOTTIE: Fourteen, yeah. So that's when they came here. And they settled in Fitchburg, but I'm not sure exactly where they -- well, I guess at one time they lived on Hale Street when they were kids. I mean, I don't remember. I mean, back when my father was a kid. And my father went to -- I think he went to start the sixth grade, and then he left, and he worked around here in a bakery shop, I guess. I think it was Padua. And when he was 15, 16 years old, he [unintelligible - 00:02:40] something for a young fella to do that. And, I guess he went with some fellas, his friends from the area, and they got an apartment. And the reason he started shaving with a straight razor, which because every time he went to shave his razors were gone or dull or whatever. So he says I'll fix them. I'm going to learn how to shave with a straight razor. So he shaved with a straight razor up until the time he got an electric razor. SPEAKER 1: Really. DOTTIE: Yeah. So as a kid growing up, he shaved with a -- he had the strap and he shaved with a straight razor. SPEAKER 1: So you remember watching him do that? DOTTIE: Yes. Yes. And then he said that he worked his way up to bellboy, bell captain. He worked for the Yale Club in New York, and he said he got an education there as being a bellboy with the guys from Yale. Also, while he was in New York, he said he only did it for a while because the people were not clean at [unintelligible - 00:04:00]. I guess he tried everything, 3 and he says -- my mother tells the story, and she said, "Well, he gave that up quickly because someone came in that wasn't clean," so your father says, not doing this. So then he came back to Fitchburg for maybe a visit, and at the time they would have dances, and that's how he met my mother. He was running a dance thing. And he started an oil business and married in '32, so almost right away, and he had that oil business -- I want to say until [Audies], and that's when he started a furniture store. Actually, it was -- he was selling appliances. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. Right on Water Street? DOTTIE: Right on Water Street. And then he had a small little store, and then he bought a larger store where we lived. The bottom part was the store, and then upstairs was -- we had a fairly large apartment. SPEAKER 1: And that was at 3 -- 320 Water Street. DOTTIE: 320 Water Street. SPEAKER 1: Now, the oil business that he started, do you remember -- do you know the name of that? DOTTIE: Yes. Giadone's. And then he also had a gas station. SPEAKER 1: Now, how did he get involved in that? Do you know? DOTTIE: I don't remember. All I know is he had the gas station and he also had the oil business. I guess he started the gas business as someplace to put his trucks. So -- and he also, I guess, they delivered ice at the time too. SPEAKER 1: Okay. Do you remember…? DOTTIE: My mother, Fiona [Barzarelli], she was in Fitchburg, and it came from [unintelligible - 00:06:01]. SPEAKER 1: Okay. So they first were connected in New York? DOTTIE: Yeah, that area. That's where -- but she was very young. When she -- my mother had a very, very hard life because her mother was paralyzed, so she had to feed and clothe my grandmother, plus she had to do all the cooking. She had two brothers that she had to do the cooking and cleaning for. SPEAKER 1: And this was in Fitchburg by that time.4 DOTTIE: This was in Fitchburg, yeah. So…. SPEAKER 1: What did her father do? DOTTIE: Her father worked at a foundry in Fitchburg [unintelligible - 00:06:35] another foundry. And he worked in the Fitchburg area. And my grandfather too. I forget where he worked, but he worked in the area. SPEAKER 1: Now, did you know them also? DOTTIE: My grandmother I didn't remember. She died when I think I was two or three years old. I mean, these are the stories that -- Alice would know my grandmother better because she was older. SPEAKER 1: Okay. And Alice…. DOTTIE: Adante, yes. SPEAKER 1: Is she a [unintelligible - 00:06:59]? I don't remember. DOTTIE: Yes. Yes. Her father and my mother were brothers and sisters, so. And we were brought up close. She has -- well, she had -- there's only three now because one passed away. She had four brothers. SPEAKER 1: Okay. DOTTIE: And her mother and my mother were very close even though they were sister-in-laws. So my mother was close with my father's sister also. SPEAKER 1: So your mother had to take care of her mother? What happened when she got married? DOTTIE: Her father lived with us. My grandfather lived with us until I think I was seven or eight years old. I remember him just a little. Then my mother's brother, the other brother, went away and came home with this cousin of theirs, and he lived with us until he passed away. And he was only a cousin, and my mother would get -- 'cause men, you know, have as they get older they get a little sloppier and stuff. So my father would [unintelligible - 00:08:04] a relative. SPEAKER 1: So was that kind of expected back then…? DOTTIE: Yes. Just take care of your mother and father. They lived, like I said, they lived with us. My father, really -- today most men I don't think put up 5 with it. But my mother took care of her parents and her cousin. I mean, they never lived alone as a couple. SPEAKER 1: Ever lived alone? DOTTIE: Nope. Because when they got married she had my grandmother, and then she had my grandfather, and then we got Renaldo, which was her cousin. Excuse me. And then the kids came along. SPEAKER 1: Now, when grandparents live with their daughter or a son, what happens when…? DOTTIE: Well, see I wasn't too young to have known that, but as far as I know it's because of the way my father was. I'm sure he made the decision. When I was -- my grandfather was a very quiet man, my mother's father, so I don't know about the mother, because like I said, I was only two or three when she died, and I don't remember her. She had arthritis; her hands were closed. But my mother said she was a strong lady as far as her personality, because she would stick a broom in her hand, you know, this way, and make sure her bed was made to her satisfaction. And my mother cooked like better than most chefs. SPEAKER 1: Your mother did? DOTTIE: Not even having recipes and stuff, and she would just -- unbelievable. My friends would say, we're going to take you to a restaurant that you're not going to complain about. And I'd say, well, okay. But even today, to this day I go out and I still complain about where we've been and what we've -- you know, the food is not -- like I said, my mother was such a good cook. SPEAKER 1: Give me some examples of what she would cook. DOTTIE: Anything. I mean, we never had -- I mean, I'd come home and her dining room buffet would be covered with all kinds of pastries. I'd go, "Ma, we having company?" And she says, "No, I felt like baking," and she baked, but every night we had some form of pasta, because my father liked a little dish of pasta, or it would be soup or a little dish of spaghetti. But he always had to have his meat and vegetables and salads. We always had a balanced meal, and we didn't even know it because, we'd have the pasta 6 first, and then we'd have meat, and vegetables and we'd have salad last. And we'd have dessert. And that was -- I mean, that's how we ate. I mean, when the holidays came around, I mean, we had a little more, but every -- they would say, do you eat like that all the time? And we'd say, what do you mean? We just took that for granted because that's how my mother cooked. My father didn't like leftovers. So if he had a meeting or something, she would call my friends and say come for supper, and we're having leftovers, and my girlfriend's husband says, Fiona's leftovers are better than most restaurants' first course. So they came. I mean, she'd switch around, right. She'd call Tommy and [unintelligible - 00:11:39] and say come for supper, and my father didn't like beef stew or stuff like that. So if he was going to be away or a meeting or going to go to a convention or something, we would have that when my father wasn't around. So she would do things that. I mean, she pleased my father -- my father came first. If my father -- we would have the store closed at 6:00 so we would have dinner at 6:30. So my father got stuck with a customer, we would not eat until my father came home. So it was -- we had sat down to have dinner every night together. And when I started working at the store and then my father would say, he'd start talking about business and then I'd start clearing the table and my mother would say, "Well, I'm not done." I'd say, "Well, I am," because she would, you know, I would say, "Dad, you know what? You're a great father, but a boss, you leave a lot to be desired." SPEAKER 1: And how did he…? DOTTIE: He laughed. But he was an ace. Oh, you're lucky [unintelligible - 00:12:47]. "What are you, crazy? I can't take a day off." The day off I get is the day I have. I can't take just the day off and tell him I'm going shopping. What are you, crazy? Well, play sick. I live at home. How can I play sick? SPEAKER 1: But you stayed? 7 DOTTIE: Yeah. Stayed there until I got married. So I mean, you do what you do because -- we had a girl working for us, and she would be black and blue because my father would go -- he would start, you know, you didn't do this right, you didn't do that right, and I'd be pitching it because I didn't want to answer him. And so she'd go, "He's your father." I'd go, but he's wrong. I'd be, "Josie, if he's told you this was black and it was white and you would say, 'Yes, Bill, you're right.'" I'd go, "Josie, that's not right." And she'd say, "But he's your father and he's your boss. You've got to say yes," and I'd go, I can't do this. SPEAKER 1: But evidently he liked having you around. DOTTIE: God, yes, because we argued, but we still, you know, he would say, "Well, my daughter will -- she'll pick out the colors for you, and she'll do, you know, whatever," but he was tough. But I loved him dearly. I mean, he was, you know -- my first husband I separated from and I started to date Teddy, and I wasn't really -- your father that you're dating again. You know, I'm in my 30s now, I mean, I'm still -- but you know what they got you over here. SPEAKER 1: [Unintelligible - 00:14:35]? DOTTIE: Yep. So I go and I tell -- I said, "Dad, I'm dating," and he says, "Yes, I know." I mean, who told you? He says nobody. He says your whole personality changed. SPEAKER 1: And he waited for you to say. DOTTIE: Yes. But I, you know, if you think they don't. You think they don't know you but they do. LINSAY: Now, did you move back in with your parents when you got separated? DOTTIE: Yes, I did. But I got separated and I went back home, and then we got together again and we went back to an apartment, and then the second time I just stayed in the apartment. SPEAKER 1: What did your parents think of your getting separated? DOTTIE: Well, they were glad because they didn't really like him. Teddy, they adored. Teddy they adored, because he was wonderful to my parents. He 8 was absolutely -- if he did nothing else for me he was just wonderful to my parents. To me, it was important. I mean, he -- my father called him and said I have to go here. He'd go, "Okay, Bill. When?" and I'll pick you up and whatever. He would do that. And my mother by then was in a nursing home. Before that, he just loved her. So he, you know, would take her out to dinner, and she just loved that, because my father was always busy with other things, and so we'd take her. And she just, you know, she just thought Teddy was -- she'd say, I want to go somewhere that we don't bump into someone he knows, because he was that type of person. If he didn't know someone when we walked into the place, he knew them when we left. That's sure. I actually believe, and the reason it's felt that way is because when -- I think they had a French priest that baptized my mother, and he couldn't -- that was how he felt it. So that's how -- the only other person that has that name is a cousin. SPEAKER 1: And was she named after her? DOTTIE: I think maybe she -- her real name is Virginia. In fact when people refer to her as Virginia… but you knew her as, you know, we always called her [Bunah]. SPEAKER 1: But her first name is Virginia? JENNIEFER: Yes. SPEAKER 1: Okay. DOTTIE: And she was -- her father died before she was born, which was my mother's brother. My mother had two brothers, and the two brothers had large families. Alice comes from -- which there was five and the other was eight. And this last one that was born was the Balderelli, but she never met her father because he died before she was born. The mother was pregnant for him when he died. That's a large family. And my mother's nieces and nephews were all close. They would all stop by and see her -- not every day, but three of the girls were -- I mean, they would come at least once a week to see her. SPEAKER 1: Now, what made them so close?9 DOTTIE: My mother -- one of my mother's niece was getting married and the father didn't approve, so my mother and father did the wedding for them. And for one reason or another, she was -- but even the guys would -- one of the guys worked for my father, and we'd just -- I don't know, I just can't explain it. And my father's family too, we were close, too. I never had any brothers, and my two cousins on my father's side are the brothers that I never had. During the holidays, my father's -- not so much the Balderellis because they were such a large family and they, you know, they but on the holidays, my father's brother and sister, we would always get together on Christmas Eve, and then it got to be too much for my mother, and then one of my cousins took over on Christmas Eve over at his house. And then as we got older, everybody, you know, got their own family. So we started to go to my sister's home. SPEAKER 1: Now, did your mother work? DOTTIE: She worked at the store. UNKNOWN: She also worked at home. DOTTIE: My father never had her on the payroll until later, until the doctor says, you know what, she works as hard as anybody, in fact, when the help saw my mother come, they'd go, oh, my God. She would work as hard as anybody. She cleaned the store. She decorated the store. She did the windows until later on. I mean, she worked as hard, so when she became -- when it came time for her to collect Social Security, they came and interviewed me. I and her. So this little twirp, I said, would you fire your mother? He's such a -- he's so -- he didn't even ask for help if she came into work. I mean, we weren't lying. She worked there as hard as anybody else. SPEAKER 1: But there wasn't any record? DOTTIE: There wasn't any record until later on when he put on her the payroll, but it wasn't really a record type thing. So they said, well, she never -- I says, well she worked harder here than most of us did. SPEAKER 1: So you mentioned the doctor? 10 DOTTIE: Dr. Silva was a close friend of my father's, and he said you should have her on the books because she's there as much as anybody. And so my father said, yeah, you're right. So he put her on his, you know, in [unintelligible - 00:20:43]. SPEAKER 1: So how did you mother feel about that? Was that kind of liberating, or…? DOTTIE: No. She didn't care one way or another. I mean, my father paid for everything. You know, we would just, you know, he would -- my mother'd go uptown and she'd, you know, the [unintelligible - 00:20:58] charges all over. And so she says your father is gonna complain. I says, "Ma, if you spend $5 or $500, he's going to complain. So spend the $500. He's going to complain one way or another." I says, "Ma, he's been saying that since you've been married he's going to shut your account. Did he ever do it? No, he's not going to do it." SPEAKER 1: Before we turn the recorder on, you had mentioned that you're half Italian, half Sicilian. DOTTIE: Yes. SPEAKER 1: So tell me about that. DOTTIE: I mean, I never thought about it. I just said, if anybody asked me what I was, I would say I'm Italian. And so I still say I'm Italian. But people who live in Sicily and other -- see, they figure that's the boot part and we're close to Africa. It was just a big joke. And it still is. But I feel that I'm Italian, and in my heart I know I am. So I say I'm half [Mathogen] and half Sicilian, which I am. And I'm proud of my heritage. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. So if you could think of what attributes are given to the Sicilians? DOTTIE: I don't know. I just think that what I could -- the only thing I could see is because my mother is such a good cook, and that's one thing, and my father was forceful in his -- and that's how I perceive to be a Sicilian. They're kind of, you know, forceful. And the [Mathies] are on the quiet side because my uncles were quiet. Well, I don't remember the one that 11 died early, but my other uncle was just this solemn man and just a sweetheart. I mean, just [unintelligible - 00:22:44]. SPEAKER 1: Was there any good-natured jesting done? DOTTIE: Yes. SPEAKER 1: You know, about being Sicilian in the house. DOTTIE: Oh yes. Oh god, between my Uncle Jeff, you're lucky that my sister married you and you're Sicilian, you're up close to Africa. I mean, just jokingly, you know. But when my uncle was [unintelligible - 00:23:06] took sick, he and my father went on a trip for almost two months. They toured the United States, and my father would say, "Oh my god, if you stopped in this restaurant and your uncle looked at it, he'd say we're not eating here." He said, he'd be starving but if he didn't like the looks of it, he said we'd have to drive another 50 miles. SPEAKER 1: So food was very important? DOTTIE: Yes. SPEAKER 1: To the family? DOTTIE: Yes. My uncle married a French woman, and she cooked as good as my mother. Alice's mother is French. And she was as good a cook as my mother. SPEAKER 1: Tell me about the preparation of the food and the table, you get the impression all of that is very important, the presentation. DOTTIE: Yeah. When I tell you it's -- another thing my mother had a knack to do, if my father came home with five extra people for dinner and didn't call my mother, there was still enough food to serve these people. If he phoned after a meeting with people, my mother would put out a spread, and I'd look at sisters and say, where did she get that? She just had a knack of, you know, putting things together and making it look beautiful. In fact, my husband did all the cooking and I set the table so it looked pretty. SPEAKER 1: But did your mother also set the table each day too? DOTTIE: Well, I guess, us kids did that. But it was -- when we all sat down to dinner together, both sisters got married early so there was -- if I was 12 working she'd say, okay, and I was living in my own apartment, she says, "Well, come for supper before you go home," and I'd say, yeah okay. My sisters say, "Oh, you're lazy. You don't want to cook." I'd go, yep, you're right. So she would make sure that we stopped at least two or three nights, and most of the time if it was someone's birthday, she would have us all for dinner and cook our special, whatever we liked. And it was obvious whoever's birthday it was, and most of the time it was one of the other sisters that was there. So one night we're all there and my father says, whose birthday is it because nobody assisted, and we called everybody. But most of the time, I mean, she'd -- I mean, she could have 10 people at dinner and think nothing of it. SPEAKER 1: So there was always enough to eat? DOTTIE: Oh. If you asked my mother if you wanted her to go shopping at [Filene's] or go to a gourmet grocery store, she'd say I want to go to the gourmet grocery store. I mean, she -- I'm going into Boston in the north end and like to try different -- she says, "Okay, I got to go to the grocery store before you take me home." I said I just got to go in for a loaf of bread and she'd be in there an hour. I'd say, "Ma, Ma, you said a loaf of bread." "Well, I decided I need to get this, this, and this." Mm-hmm. Things that people consider gourmet now. We had polentas growing up. We had risotto growing up. We had baked Alaska pie growing up. I mean, we had lobster [nugood]. We had baked stuffed lobster. We had razor clams. Some people don't even know what razor clams are today. SPEAKER 1: Tell me, how would she make those? I'm familiar with them. DOTTIE: Razor clams. She would just -- what she would do is steam them first, take the, you know, the clams out and then chop them up and make stuffing with it, and then put them back in the shell and put a little bread crumbs and bake them in the oven. I think they were absolutely delicious. I'm telling my husband about razor clams, he says, "I've never hear of razor clams." We're at the [unintelligible - 00:27:18] walk in the beach 13 and I said see, see that, see that clam? That's a razor clam. Of course, I think you had to -- I hadn't seen them in years. SPEAKER 1: I never see them in the stores. I've seen them at the beach. DOTTIE: Yeah. I've never, ever seen them -- I haven't seen them in the stores for years. And another thing is that -- well, she didn't do this because there were certain things that she didn't make. Uncle did. SPEAKER 1: French uncle? DOTTIE: No, my Italian uncle on my father's sister's husband. I think he was from Poland. My middle sister was the finicky eater. I mean, my father would say, "Barbara, have a little wine." "But daddy, I don't like it." "Honey, just try the wine, it'd do you good." So, but my sister and I would, you know, we always had the wine and the champagne. We've had the, you know, he always made sure we had a little just so that when we were older that we were accustomed to drinking and we didn't go out, and you know, and the cabinets would be -- whatever was in the house would be open to all of us. All of us. So now my sister gets married and she lives upstairs from my aunt and uncle, and she called and said, "Oh, Uncle Charlie made me --" we called them "babaluccis" in Italian, and I said, oh yeah. My sister says, "That's nice, thank you. Bye," and hung up. I called and I said, "Uncle Charlie, you like Barbara better than me." He says, no honey—because he had an accent—I like you both the same. I said nope. Oh no, he says, I like you both. I said, well, you make Barbara babaluccis and I didn't get any. The next day I had a pair. SPEAKER 1: What are babaluccis. DOTTIE: They're the snails. They're little snails -- he used to do them in a sauce that was absolutely delicious. And another thing my mother never made was tripe. And I never had it because I didn't like the smell. My grandmother would cook it and it was ugh. It was bad. They bought it and they had to clean it, and it was terrible. So now I used to have to go with Teddy, and we'd go out and they have tripe. I got ugh. So he goes, try it. So I say okay. I tried it. Delicious. Now, my aunt's sister-in-law 14 comes from New Jersey, and she makes a whole batch for my husband, but my mother still never cooked that. That was one thing she never cooked, and baccala. But 99 percent of everything else, she did, so. My favorite was that she used to do this roast pork with the center cut that she used to have, then we cut the bone so that we could have the bone. We would fight for the pork, so she'd make sure that we'd all get a piece of it. But that was my favorite, favorite dish that she did. SPEAKER 1: Now, I know that everyone would sit at the table. Was your father given priority, first serving? DOTTIE: He was given the first serving, but we all had -- the only thing that we didn't have that he had because we didn't like it was liver, because he liked liver occasionally. But he was served first. But whatever he had, we had. And the other thing, I don't think as kids, we didn't like lamb chops, so my mother would make something else for us. But now lamb is my favorite meal now. But you know, like I said whatever my father had, we had. Nothing was taken from us. I mean, he would serve for us. But if he had steak, we had steak. I mean, we'd choose not to have it. That was because didn't want it. But I have a friend that came from a family of nine, and father would have butter and the kids would have margarine, and so we said that if he could have steak and the kids would have something else, and so we had a brother, so this brother says, "When am I going to have this steak and butter?" He says when you start to work, and you know, contribute. They came home and he says, well, here's my money I want steak and butter or whatever, and the father says, oh no, some of it's for your room, some of it's for the clothes, and some of it's for this. You still don't have enough money for steak. SPEAKER 1: Now, who served the food at the table? DOTTIE: My mother never sat down. She did. I should say she was always on the edge. My father -- we always ate in the dining room in Leominster because we'd -- I'd say 90 percent of the time -- we had a large kitchen but my father felt claustrophobic, so 90 percent of the time we ate in the 15 dining room because it was it the stove and this thing was here and the dining room was here. So it was actually closer to the dining room than it was to go across the kitchen to the other part. But my mother served. SPEAKER 1: Now, would your father…? DOTTIE: It didn't matter. No. It didn't matter. SPEAKER 1: You know what I want to do? It's because just that you're… DOTTIE: Sure. I'm sorry. SPEAKER 1: No, right here, because you're… DOTTIE: Oh, I'm sorry. SPEAKER 1: No. It's all right. I'm just afraid it will [unintelligible - 00:33:02]. Okay. Back to your father. Do you have any idea why his parents chose Fitchburg? DOTTIE: They must have had friends here. Not really. No. I don't know why they really, no, I don't -- no, I don't. No, I don't remember hearing why they choose here. SPEAKER 1: And also, but I think the recorder wasn't on; you were talking about an experience… DOTTIE: They just said that it was tough growing up because they originally -- they lived in the patch, which is considered Italian when they were growing up. First it was Irish, and then they moved out and then the Italians moved in, and they moved out. Now I think it's the Puerto Ricans that live mostly in that area. I don't think there's anybody left even down, you know, beyond it, because this is Water Street, and down this way almost every house was Italian. SPEAKER 1: Well, there's Doris… DOTTIE: Oh yeah, she's still there. Yeah, she's still there. I forgot. Yes, she is. She lives down Railroad Street. Yes. Lovely lady. I mean, you see her, she makes you feel she's so happy to see you. She comes and gives you -- so good to see you. SPEAKER 1: She's special. DOTTIE: Yes, she really is. 16 SPEAKER 1: So do you remember any…? DOTTIE: All I can remember is that, you know, I grew up there. I worked there, and so I was, you know, eight years ago. So I was there, you know, all my life, and you see the changes as, you know, you grow up but… SPEAKER 1: So tell me about the changes. DOTTIE: Well, you could walk down the street, and you know, you knew everybody, and it was amazing how many [unintelligible - 00:34:57] that was on that street growing up, and each one of them -- I don't know how they survived, because each one of them had a large family, and there must have been a dozen stores from 5th Street to 1st Street. And they had -- there was [colors] and there was the [Cabones], there was [Ilinestis]. There was another two Cabones. There was a [Casthetes]. There was a Gloria chain, which is -- I still, I don't know if they should have one in Leominster too, but part of the Gloria chain was in where our store is now. It was -- my father's furniture store originally was built as the garage where they would park cars. And when we were across the street, he bought this building, and he converted it into a furniture store. And one time, Coca-Cola had rented the warehouse, and they had 12 trucks on the roof of this building. The building is still standing very, very strong. Some of the parts of the building are fallout shelters. That's how -- 'cause it was built so well. And it is -- it [unintelligible - 00:36:37] Water Street up to Spruce Street up to Hale Street, 'cause when you look at the building in the front, it doesn't appear to be latched. It goes all the way up to Spruce Street and Hale. Spuce Street is the street just before the store. Okay. And Hale Street is the street that runs parallel with Water Street. So that building goes all the way up to Hale Street. SPEAKER 1: And you mentioned that it was a fall out? DOTTIE: Part of it is. SPEAKER 1: Wow. Yeah. And when did that come about? DOTTIE: Well, I think World War II. They came in and they, you know, they check out the buildings and stuff and put up these things. 1953, that's when he 17 converted the garage into the store because, well, right now, if you were to go in there the ceilings don't appear high, but there is six more feet. They dropped the ceiling. Or they dropped it to a, you know, a fall ceiling. But beyond that there's six more feet. SPEAKER 1: I thought you just mentioned -- were those grocery stores? DOTTIE: Yes, they were little groceries, and… SPEAKER 1: Your mother must have been in heaven. DOTTIE: She did -- she [unintelligible - 00:37:49] I said no. I'm going to a different store. Well, this one has this one in her [unintelligible - 00:37:53], and as they stopped, you know, maybe they'll pass away or whatever, they, you know, they spaced up, because there's nothing on there now. There's not a grocery store on Water Street now. Maybe there is, but up for a -- but after they stopped existing -- she bought very, very little meat from the supermarkets. She bought it from Sal's Grocery Store up in -- they would deliver to -- 'cause I've been everywhere in Leominster. They would deliver to the store, then we'd take it. I would say, "I want a pound of this, I want a pound of that. I want two pounds," whatever she wants, she'd give them an order and he'd deliver it. SPEAKER 1: So they still have these grocery stores, they weren't run by the -- they were run from daughters? DOTTIE: Maybe, not really, no. I can just remember just one. It was -- he adopted, but it was not even a son. It was someone that worked for him, but he ran it for a while. And it's actually a parking lot now of this [unintelligible - 00:39:04]. There was a grocery store there in the building up above it. I mean, they had like tenement houses that we needed parking lots, so then my father bought that building and tore it down. SPEAKER 1: Know everyone who lived in the patch more or less. DOTTIE: More or less. In fact, it was about -- I wanna say 12 years ago, they had a patch reunion, and it was wonderful. They had, you know, it was some people you hadn't see in years and wonderful. We should do it again, of 18 course. It's a lot of work, but no one has, you know, taken any initiative and done it again. SPEAKER 1: Did anyone take pictures? DOTTIE: But I do remember, I had this lady, this Mrs. [Impressor], was just a sweetheart of a lady and sometimes she would just come in the store just to fill her -- she was turning 100, and [unintelligible - 00:40:01] called me. She says, "Dottie, how come you haven't sent in your return?" I says, I was hurt, because one of my girlfriends got invited, and I says, I wonder why [unintelligible - 00:40:11] sisters, Dottie? How come you didn't send in the return?" I says, 'cause I didn't get -- that was when, again all Italians were there, so it was, I went to a wedding and hadn't seen people in a lot of years. SPEAKER 1: So do you remember who the organizers were of the class reunion? I may like to talk to them. DOTTIE: I'm going to say Marie Cabone had something to do with it, but that's not her married name, her married name is… SPEAKER 1: We can get it later. DOTTIE: Okay. She may have had something to do with it. I'm not sure. SPEAKER 1: So tell me about the changes in the patch. So when did… DOTTIE: Interesting. You know what? You go to work every day you're going to see some things -- I want to say it started to change -- my aunt was walking down in front of the store, someone knocked her down and stole her bag. I says, I don't this believe this happening. First of all, it's my aunt, and second of all, in front of our store, so that was heartbreaking. SPEAKER 1: When was that about? DOTTIE: I want to say maybe 30 years ago. SPEAKER 1: Wow. DOTTIE: Time goes by so fast, because my aunt's been dead since I want to say '80. Time goes by so fast, maybe it was 25 years ago. At that time they'd leave the doors open, and you know, you never locked your doors or anything. You never thought about it, never thought about having an alarm system.19 SPEAKER 1: Did you ever [unintelligible - 00:41:57]? DOTTIE: No. First of all to let the store, anything [unintelligible - 00:42:04] built a store for furniture must be, and we had it, so we just -- fortunately we had a good clientele, and things were, you know, we were all right as far as, you know, our customers would come in and we'd advertise, so it was fine up until [unintelligible - 00:42:27] and then it just wasn't fun anymore. SPEAKER 1: Did your parents continue living about? DOTTIE: No, no, we moved to Leominster when I was… and we moved to… SPEAKER 1: Why was that done? DOTTIE: Why was that done? Well, my father and mother needed -- they bought the land on I'd say Ellis Street, and at that time my uncle, who was a plasterer and bricklayer, came and said to my father and mother there's a beautiful house in Leominster that's for sale. It's only six months old, and my father and mother went to look at it, and they fell in love with it because it was -- it is a brick Tudor, I want to say an English Tudor. And it was at that time one of the nicest houses in Leominster. So they got it for a good deal so they bought it. SPEAKER 1: Did life change after moving from [unintelligible - 00:43:32] Street? DOTTIE: No, because we still went to church in Fitchburg, I still worked, all my friends were in Fitchburg, I went to school in Fitchburg. In fact, someone said to me later on in life Dottie, how do you like living in Leominster, I said I've lived here most of my life, they said you wouldn't think so. In fact, up until a few years ago, people would ask me where I was from and I would say Fitchburg, and I'd say -- now I'd tell them I'm from Leominster because things have changed you know, it's a different… it's changed immensely. It's not the small community that it was. In fact, up until I worked, because I had property in Fitchburg I voted in Fitchburg up until ten years ago. SPEAKER 1: Ten years ago.20 DOTTIE: I would say. Of course I wasn't active like I was when I was working. I belonged to the Chamber of Commerce; I belonged to the government stations. And when you retire, you get away from that, and it isn't as… see, my father was active in everything, he was active in politics, he was active in the community, he was active in the church, he was active in the Sons of Italy, he was active in politics, so he was very active in the community. In fact he and a couple of his friends were instrumental in him getting elected mayor. SPEAKER 1: So he was instrumental with that. DOTTIE: They were very good friends, yep. In fact he was instrumental in John Volpe becoming governor. SPEAKER 1: Really? Tell me about that. DOTTIE: He and John Volpe became friendly when they belonged to the Sons of Italy on a state level. So John Volpe called my father and said to him, "I am running for governor," and "Can you help?" My father said sure. So he called one of his, campaign manager called my father and he says, "We're coming into Fitchburg on Monday, can you introduce him to -- or can I introduce him to a lot of people in a short period of time?" So he actually closed the store down and had every one of us call our friends, customers that we thought would come, and he had open house at his house. And at that time, well he still, he belonged to the Rotary and he belonged to… I don't know if he belonged to [unintelligible - 00:46:19] we got the book and we just called people up and said… I'm not Republican, they said we don't care, just come, we want faces, a lot of people. So we booked. It was the early part of June so he says we'll have it outside, and at that time there was too many people and it wasn't enough time, so we had to have it catered. 21 So I called the caterer, he had all the summer furniture in the store delivered to the house and was going to have it outside. Well, it poured like you can't believe. We had tons and tons of people still and he called my father a few days later and he says Bill, if I have six friends like you throughout the state I'll be elected, and he was elected. SPEAKER 1: [Unintelligible - 00:47:07]. DOTTIE: No, the only job my father ever got for that was -- and because Joe Adante asked him to take it was to be on the Board of [unintelligible - 00:47:18] and so he took that. The only thing he go from helping so much was people would come in and say can you get me a low number plate, and he would buy the letter, and I got a low number plate. In fact because sometimes you don't think, I got my number plate is 99G, so I got that. But the woman that did it had to do some research because it was the ninth month, the ninth day in [unintelligible - 00:47:54]. And my father had -- in fact my brother-in-law still had, it's 52W, he was 52 years old [unintelligible - 00:48:03] the first time. He had 52W. So now he's running again, and Joe Ward is running against him, and he's from Fitchburg. My father, I says, "Are you crazy? You can't go out and campaign for him," I said, "It's suicide." I said, "You have a business." He said, "I also have the right to choose who I want to vote for." So he called up Joe Ward and he says to him, "Joe, I've known you for a good many years, but you know my affiliation with John. We've been friends for years. I would say that if John wasn't running I would help you campaign." He says, "I can't thank you enough for calling, and I still think you're gentleman." He also was Republican chairman in Fitchburg and Leominster area for a long time. SPEAKER 1: Who was? DOTTIE: My father. SPEAKER 1: Your father? DOTTIE: Yeah.22 SPEAKER 1: How did he get involved in politics? DOTTIE: Well, because [unintelligible - 00:49:15] like Pete Levante was running for mayor. That way, he was active with -- he'd gotten involved with John Volpe, and then he just was campaigning, he was Republican chairman for a long time in Fitchburg and Leominster area. That's how he got involved in it. And he would always take people home to the house and we got involved in it. This is changing the subject because he would say yes to you, if someone asked him something and he couldn't do, well he could do it, but to take someone somewhere he'd say yes that's fine, we'll do it. He'd say, "Dorothy, do this," and I'd get angry and I'd say I can't make a decision on my own, but I always had a -- especially with the nuns, when I was young they didn't drive, they didn't have their own car. So if they had to go somewhere, they would rely on the community of, you know, our parish to take them somewhere. Because we always had two cars, they would call my father and say I have to go such and such a place. "No problem. Dorothy, take them." I'd say, "Why do you do that?" He says, "What do you mean why do I do what?" Make decisions for me. He says "I don't make decisions, you do." But it was fun. One time he called me from Florida and said you have to be in so-and-so's wedding. I says dad, I don't know them. He said that's all right. I knew the family but I didn't really know, you know I didn't know the bride at all. He said that's all right, I do. I said but dad, I'm already in five weddings, I can't afford it. He said that's all right, I'll pay for it. So I'm in this wedding, didn't really -- well, I knew the guy that was with me because it was, you know, I knew the family, but the bride and groom. Marty's father, you know Pete Levante, was because most of them were Italian, he was invited to all of the weddings, but he says Dorothy, I says what, he says, you're doing this for a living. My sisters were quiet and 23 they never worked at the store. I should say my middle sister's quiet, my other sister, we call her Mouth because she has to have last lip Susie, she has to have the last word. SPEAKER 1: And from the church, your father was involved with the church also? DOTTIE: He was, you know he'd collect on Sundays, and also if they needed money they'd come and he'd help collect. When I was young they used to have these carnivals or you know when they have people at merry go rounds with stuff. SPEAKER 1: Like an amusement… DOTTIE: Thank you, yes. And they would run those in summer months, and he became very friendly with the pastor. In fact they would go away for a few -- you know, like to go to Florida. My mother wouldn't go because she had us kids, and so my father would go with the priest. SPEAKER 1: And what was his name? DOTTIE: Father [Campanelli]. He ended up being in Worcester, he was Monsignor Campanelli. And we had Father John Capolano who was at our parish for a long time. So one time I said can I have a new dress, not this week, "Well if Father John came and asked you for money you'd give it to him." He'd say, "Listen here, young lady, anything I gave to the church I always got back tenfold." So he was, you know [unintelligible - 00:53:00] he was involved with that. But I was baptized, communion, confirmation, got married out of there, probably die and be buried out of there. So definitely, definitely. SPEAKER 1: Do you think… DOTTIE: That generation, the men were superior. I have two cousins that my father treated, I mean he was wonderful to us, but he treated these guys like they were his sons. And he was just good to them. In fact one of them worked for him for quite awhile, and he's a multimillionaire now in Leominster. SPEAKER 1: Who's that?24 DOTTIE: Charles Tito. But he started with my father, and his brother worked for -- no, Sam never worked for us, maybe on the summer or something. I was close with them, just thought these guys were the best. SPEAKER 1: Was education? DOTTIE: Yes, but he never had it. But he thought it should be, you know, you should have -- in fact I could have gone longer but I chose not to. Then after, two or three years later I decided, I said I think I want to -- he said well if you want to go back you've got to pay. I said well if the [unintelligible - 00:54:39]. SPEAKER 1: Was it an option for you to work at the store or was it just assumed? DOTTIE: Assumed. Because first of all if I had left, when I left [Deed], I should have gone to work out of town for a few years just to get an idea of how things are run differently. But it was assumed that I would come to the store and stay there. Everything. I said it's a good thing I wasn't a boy because… no, good thing I never learned how to drive the truck, because if I did he would have sent me out on the truck too, because I did everything there. I mean, you didn't say, you know, when you go to a store today they go that's not my department or that's not my job. Those words did not exist with my father. I'll never forget one time he says to me call this person up, they owe us money. I says, okay, "Hello, Mrs. Jones or Mr. [unintelligible - 00:55:49]?" And he says, "You haven't been in for a while," and he hung up. So I said he hung up on me, I mean no one ever did that to me. So he said call him back. He says, "If you don't stop calling me back, I'm going to come down and hit you with a baseball bat." Well, I mean I started to cry. My father said, "Give me that phone." But then after a while you learn how… I mean, if he did that to me now I'd say go ahead, come, I'll have one too. 25 But as a kid, I mean first of all you wouldn't talk to anybody that way, we weren't brought up -- I mean, even to this day you know how you see policemen you get nervous, you were always brought up to respect your elders and authority. But today, you know, even like if you said the teacher said this, you never went home and said the teacher said this because they'd say whatever you did you deserved it. But today… I have a friend that's a teacher. He came in the store and his hands were all scratched. I says, "What happened to you." He says, "I was taking a second grader to the principal and he was scratching me." SPEAKER 1: That would have been unheard of? DOTTIE: You would never, ever. I mean, if the teacher said whatever, you never went home and said the teacher said or did whatever, because they were always right no matter what. SPEAKER 1: Did you ever feel that you were treated differently? DOTTIE: I'll tell you what, because all my friends were Italian. In fact, I told this to Alice just recently. I says I was blessed because there's a big difference between my sister and I, there's like almost eight years difference. I was the first girl born in the family, I was the first child born in my mother and father's close friends. So I was [unintelligible - 00:57:55]. I had grandparents that weren't my grandparents that, you know, my mother and father's friend's parents, I mean they couldn't treat me any better if I was their grandchildren. Back then grandchildren missed out because they passed away before, you know, they had kids. So I had -- everybody was my, you know, I was loved a lot, my uncles, my father's friends, my aunt. Like I said I was the first girl in the family. My aunt had two boys, but I was the only girl. And the others didn't have children until later on, so I came along and my sisters came later. And my father wasn't as busy when I was born. And as my sisters came along, he became more and more active in the community. In fact he was even 26 president -- not president, he was treasurer of the Boy Scouts in Nashoba Valley, and he never had any boys. SPEAKER 1: So it seems as though he… DOTTIE: That's right, he was always, he was president of the Chamber of Commerce a couple of times, he was involved with Rotary. SPEAKER 1: What was that about him? DOTTIE: He liked people. He liked to be active. He liked to be busy. See, that was his hobby more or less because he didn't golf, he didn't do any of those things. So he kept busy and active in politics and whatnot. SPEAKER 1: Did he ever have a talk with you as far as being [unintelligible - 00:59:42]? DOTTIE: Maybe we just kind of -- no, I don't think so. I think he just took it for granted that, you know, it was amazing how far he came, he had a lot of foresight because he took chances where, you know, it was unheard of. Like he bought this building that was like a shell, and he -- the man that built was… bought it to… he built it to park cars and it… and my father turned around and he said, "Well we could put a store there, right?" and he did. SPEAKER 1: Well, how did he get involved in the furniture business? DOTTIE: He started with the oil business, then from the oil business he started -- he went to school to learn how to install burners, you know oil burners, 'cause he was selling the oil then he needed the burners. Then from that there he started to sell appliances, and from appliances he started to -- you know, furniture, you know, little by little, and then he would go to the furniture shows and started the [unintelligible - 01:00:55]. SPEAKER 1: Did he have [unintelligible - 01:00:58]. DOTTIE: No. SPEAKER 1: No. DOTTIE: People would say, "Oh yeah, he had [unintelligible - 01:01:02]." No. One time he went to the bank to borrow money because he didn't have -- he wanted to buy I think a car load of, I don't know, refrigerators or 27 something, and he went to borrow I want to say a thousand dollars. I don't remember the exact amount. And because he was not really established, they said no. And he -- the doctor that was friendly with us, he loaned him the money. SPEAKER 1: What was his name again? DOTTIE: The house. But she was -- I said why don't you use this. Oh I can do it quicker. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I think sometimes, you know, by the time you rent [unintelligible - 01:01:46] you know. Anyway, we just had to replace the batteries, and now we're back in business. So you said -- you were talking about your father and the furniture business, how the doctor helped him, loaned him money. DOTTIE: Yes, and he paid him back, and then they remained… he was like a brother… they were the closest thing to a brother. I mean, he was Jewish, and -- but they really remained friends until they both passed away. SPEAKER 1: Really? DOTTIE: Yes. He was -- in fact, on Christmas day my father and I would… we would go to visit them, bring a gift to both of them, he and his wife, and we would have coffee or whatever on Christmas. We would do that Christmas morning, or was it before? I can't remember if it was Christmas morning or just before Christmas, because -- I mean, they just were you know… he never ever did, never! He had, you know, basically the same friends that he had all his life. [Unintelligible - 01:03:01] too. Where I have, you know, the same friends as we had since I was a kid, I don't -- you know, you acquire a few on the way, but basically the same people I've been involved with most of my life. Well, of course I never… I never moved out of the area, so… My sister one time said that if I was on welfare, I would still be a millionaire because of my friends. Yes, yes. So like I said feel I've been blessed in 28 that respect. Priest last night says how would I want to be remembered? I want to be remembered that I loved and I was loved. SPEAKER 1: Yes, that's… DOTTIE: Well, if you really want to make money you can make money. But I think friendship is more important than anything, because you can't buy that. 'Cause once the money is gone, the people that you bought are gone. You have money going up and you don't coming down and you have true friends; your friends are going to be there for you. Not really, no, I think that's an individual thing. I don't know, 'cause I -- first of all I think because my mother and father always entertained, I tend to still do that. I don't do it as much because my husband was the one that did the cooking and stuff, so not a lot of, you know, people coming into dinner and… SPEAKER 1: You and me. DOTTIE: I mean we would have brunches like, we'd invite half the, you know, the complex. I mean… SPEAKER 1: Did you live in Maine or was that… DOTTIE: We just had a summer -- I mean, it was the condo that we would go in, in the winter months, but not like going in the summer. We would still just go on the weekends. But I would take Saturday… I'd work Saturday and leave Saturday, and then I would take Monday and Tuesday off instead of taking a -- sometimes I would take a couple of weeks, but towards the end we just would take longer weekends [unintelligible - 01:05:21]. So we had it up until… I sold it -- it's going to be three years. We were together about 25 years but legally married about 12, I guess. Eighty-four, but he was just a -- like I said, like the people that we went last night to the funeral, they said we were just talking about Teddy Christmas time. He was the type that -- like I said, he would holler and scream, but that would be over within two seconds. And I mean, he just 29 [unintelligible - 01:06:00] go get him, give him a cup of coffee, get him a drink, do this. I think so. I'm not so much as business-minded, but personality wise I think he had a lot of my father's traits because they all, they both like people. SPEAKER 1: [Unintelligible - 01:06:20] furniture store? DOTTIE: He was actually a leather [unintelligible - 01:06:25] he managed -- he was bartender and he managed it. It was at that -- right now it's where the weather vane is. It used to be called King's Corner, and he worked there for a good many -- but he looked after when my father passed away and I had to run the store so he would come in to help out, but not really work at it. But he helped out. SPEAKER 1: When did your father pass away? DOTTIE: 1984, the year I got married. SPEAKER 1: Oh. [Unintelligible - 01:06:54] DOTTIE: Yes, yes, yes. SPEAKER 1: What was that like? DOTTIE: That was not as enjoyable, because first of all I loved, I loved to wait on customers, and you know, sew and decorate. That was my forte. Than I had to worry about bills, I had to worry about hiring, I had to worry about firing, I had to worry, had to -- all the responsibilities that go with running a business, and it wasn't as fun. One time Teddy said I stopped doing that because it wasn't fun. I guess it comes to that point when you realize, 'cause I -- you know, sometimes it's "Oh, I hate going to work, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it." But you say that just to [unintelligible - 01:07:41]. Actually I enjoyed working with the customers, and even to this day if I'm out and they said, "Oh, I'm sorry you don't have the store anymore," or, "You know what? I still have the sofa that you sold me 20 years ago." So it's just a store, it was when it was time to close it. So I know what I 30 should have probably done, and I still have the building, which has been up for sale, really, for the last couple of years… of last year, but it's, you know, we should have done it two years ago. SPEAKER 1: So you were involved for so long in this store. How long did you work there about? DOTTIE: I got out at -- let's see I was 18, 19, 20… till I was about 58, so 20 to 58. SPEAKER 1: I imagine your customer base, did it change over time? DOTTIE: Believe it or not, if we started with the grandmother and father, then we got the daughter or the son, and then we got the son's kids, and so we're -- a lot of it was just the same generation. I mean, we got new customers; don't get me wrong. I think the biggest -- at one time we had Devon's, you know, Devon used to have soldiers, okay, so I said it was Fort Devon's. And I had a customer come in and said so and so sent me, and I says -- of course the name didn't hit a bell, and they says, "Oh yeah, they were in Germany." Excuse me? Yeah they said they knew we were coming here, and they said we'll need furniture, and they said to make sure they said you come see us. And we did we got a lot of word of mouth and had one customer that they would come in every week, and I would chat with them and they'd buy a chair or something small. I'd give them -- we always had coffee, we had coffee, so we'd offer my customers coffee. I mean, I would tell the girls or the people that were selling -- when they come in that door you treat them like they are coming into your home and bring me to them. So when a customer -- I would try to cultivate them. And so like this customer buys this enormous house, and now they need it furnished, and so now they also need draperies and… oh, my sister [unintelligible - 01:10:25] just had a flair for decorating. You are going to handle the drapes, you are going to -- we have this company that we 31 dealt with where, you know, on a small basis as far as if you came in and said I want some draperies, I said, "Okay, measure your walls and whatever," and we had a small company that we would deal with. So this was -- and when I tell you, this house, they called it the castle. I mean, it had -- it was unbelievable! Now she did all the draperies, and I sold them every room of furniture except I think they had already bought a dining room set, but everything else I did. Now, at the time -- this is over 20 years ago, thousand dollars, so that was a lot of money, but with the furniture, [unintelligible - 01:11:19] says, "Well, how are they going to pay for this?" I says, "I don't know." I just was going crazy. About two or three days later the lady walks in and she says, "Can we go somewhere?" "Yeah, we can go in my father's office," so she closed the door, and she goes boom-boom-boom, she whipped out $20,000 of cash. I almost had a heart attack. That was my biggest sale. I mean, one person. Did they have a complaint on anything? Nothing, except something I gave them -- the man says, "Oh, the top of the shelf is scratched." I said, "Oh, you didn't pay for that." Oh, okay. It was pebble stone base, and it was going to be [unintelligible - 01:12:07] going to put a statue on it. So I said well, I'm not going to charge you for this because it's got a few scratches on it. So he says everything's okay except, you know, the base of this is scratched. I said, "Well, you didn't pay for that." "Oh, okay. Thank you." SPEAKER 1: So how in the beginning of your involvement, how did customers pay? DOTTIE: How do they pay? On a weekly basis. They would come in, and they would -- I don't even know if we charged them interest. I guess then we started doing what we called a pre-payment plan, which was considered cash in 90 days, but it had to be broken into three payments. 32 And then we had the company that would buy the paper if, you know, rather than carry -- I forget the company we used. I don't know if it was… one of those companies. And then sometimes if it was a good customer that's been doing business they didn't want to go through that, then we would charge them the interest for the year, however long it took. And then we had customers that just paid weekly that came in for years and years and years. That was part of their, I mean, weekly… I had friends that would come in just to have coffee. I mean, they would have the day off, and they'd come in with their -- one friend had a grandmother that was -- she says, "Oh, let's go see Dottie. We'll have a cup of coffee." That like that Mrs. [unintelligible - 01:13:42], she's like, "Oh, let's go see Dottie. We'll have coffee with her." So I miss that part; I miss that closeness with the customers. Like I said, I treated my customers like they were my friends. Just because -- I did it mainly because it was easier to sell them, and then they kept coming back. And like I said, I enjoyed that part of it. Well, the trends went from outer out -- you know, they have the outer margin, and then it went to your country, which stayed in for until I almost closed, and then they had a lot of traditional, which was -- I remember one time a customer came in and said, "That sofa is down the street for $500 less," and I says, "I don't think… /AT/pa/mb/es

Issue 61.1 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; ,2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER'1 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faitlsful to God's universal call to tsoliness by making available to them the spiritual legades tbat flow from the cbarisms of Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ° Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: 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 Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be consi~tered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. .for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisot7 Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Jame~ and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymohd Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hen,sell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeriti~ CSJ JANUARY FEBRUARY 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 1 contents 6 religious culture Teresa: Story Theologian and Transforzner of Culture Mary Frohlich HM provides a different lens for reading The Book of Her Foundations by Teresa of Avila in order to find some of Teresa's most profound teaching about the potential fruits of the contemplative life. 23 Instilling Christian/Religious Culture: Instinct and Connaturality Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR envisages a rationally planned and directed program for the transmission of the "subculture" of religious life and the "culture" of the Christian life to new entrants. 39 Conversion: A Summons from the Word of God 51 Kathleen McMpin RSM explores how the word of God comes to us through daily life experiences, calling us to an ongoing conversion that leads to mercy as justice. Seminary Formation and Lonergan's Conversion Theory Steve Wlusek uses Bernard Lonergan's theory of conversions to illuminate personal development in seminary formation. Review for Religious 57 moral insight The Workers in the Vineyard: Insights for the Moral Life Patricia Ann Lamoureux and Paul Zilonka CP reflect on one Gospel parable as an example of how to develop moral theology in accordance with biblical vision. 70 Creative Response to Racism Mary Alice Chineworth OSP shares her experiences of racism within the religious-life context. adaptive prayer 75 Lectio Divina: A Means to Wholeness Mary Ren~e Nienaber SND reviews the six parts that make up the practice of lectio divina, which fosters a spiritual-life wholeness. 84 St. Albert's Method: 19th-Annotation Retreats at Parishes and Schools Hank Hilton SJ shares an adaptation of the retreat method according to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius for larger group settings in a parish or school situation. departments 4 Prisms 97 Canonical Counsel: Transfer 104 Book Reviews January-February 2002 prisms ¯ I .l.s we enter into the second year of this new millennium, the world presents us with a different face. The September 11, 2001, events that took place in the United States brought about a coop-erative stance of many of the world's nations against a terrorism grown to huge and horrendous proportions. Many agree in perceiving that terrorism breeds in behav-iors that denigrate others, in poverty that dehumanizes, and in politics that canonizes a status quo. Throughout history, there have been wars of religion, but today peo-ple question whether any war can be valued as religious or justified as just. No one could have suspected that the call which Pope John Paul II made only a year ago in his apostolic letter "At the Beginning of the New Millennium" would ring out with even greater challenge. The pope signaled our approach to this new age in the gospel words of Jesus "duc in altum," "put out into the deep" (Lk 5:4). He saw the new millennium as a vast ocean onto which the world's peoples were setting sail. We needed to hear God's call to set forth--fearlessly--because we often prefer to live with what is known, the past and the pre-sent. It is truly difficult, and sometimes fearful, to move into a future unknown and uncontrollable. Beyond our imagining, this is where we find ourselves as we begin the new year. John Paul II talked about a new face of Christ with which we refamiliarized ourselves as we entered into this Review for Religqous new millennium--a face that we had been contemplating in three preparatory years. When the pope had us focus on the face of Jesus in sorrow, we little realized that we would see that face in image after image during the final months of this past year. Where the pope turned our attention also to the face of Jesus who is risen, we found many weary faces of hope and help that became a part of our international drama. Beyond all our imaginings, we have been given a Pauline conversion moment in seeing Christ. This face arouses no fear, but rather leads us only to new ways of living, loving, and working. The pope challenged all Christians to be, and so to act as, "agents of communion." Being agents of communion is a necessary identity of being Christian in this age calling for a new evange-lizatiofi. The continuing public cooperation of many leaders of the various world religious traditions, especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, concretizes for us what an agent of communion attempts. Never have Jesus' directions about praying for our ene-mies and for those who do us wrong been writ so large and clear on the screen of our consciousness. Religious services, both in the public forum and in the neighborhood .church, have incarnated Jesus' injunction and continue to feed personal ways of praying. Humanitarian efforts to help the Afghan people in the midst of a wartime effort against their nation's ruling power are also an action of agents of communion. If images played out so vividly on the world stage call forth such prayer and action, we cannot fail to examine ourselves anew in our own little world of prayer and relationships. How does our prayer need to be enlarged beyond our narrow focusing on self, those dear to us, and our local concerns for well-being? What are the deeds we do that bring about a greater sense of community, of people working together, of a reaching out to the forgotten and neglected? Yes, the face of our world has changed, we say. But does this new face not give us the opportunity to see the face of Christ more clearly and to act, like Christ, as agents of communion? The Greek word kairos signified not ordinary measurement of time (chronos) but rather the special time of encounter with God. This kairos moment challenges us to set out fearlessly into the deep, "duc in altunl. " David L. Fleming SJ January-February 2002 MARY FROHLICH Teresa: Story Theologian and Transformer of Culture Even among fans of Teresa of Avila, comparatively few have read The Book of Her Foundations. Why has Foundations been comparatively neglected in relation to Teresa's other works? Probably because it has a rather different character. Although Teresa can never be accused of being a "systematic thinker," her other three books (the Book of Her Life, the Way of Perfection, and the Interior Castle) offer more or less organic overviews of contemplative life and development. If one looks for the same in the Foundations, one is likely at first to be disappointed. Here, however, I will pro-pose that, by reading with a different lens, we may find in this book some of Teresa's most profound teaching about the potential fruits of the contempla-tive life. ¯ Through the lens I experiment with here, Teresa can be seen as what Terrence Tilley calls a "story the-ologian." In 1972, when Teresa was named one of the first two female doctors of the church, the question arose how someone who was clearly not a systematic theologian, but rather an image-smith and a story- Mary Frohlich HM is associate professor of spirituality at Chicago Theological Union; 5401 South Cornell Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60615. Review for Religi'ous teller, could attain this title. Since that time, awareness has grown that, in fact, stories and images are at the grass roots of all the theology that has ever been created and communicated. The example par excellence of "story theology" is the Bible. In his book Story Theology, Tilley proposes that theology in this genre has three major tasks: (1) to tell new and flesh stories which show a new era what the key Christian words mean, (2) to transform creatively the narratives handed down by tradi-tion, and (3) to proclaim and manifest the Good News in a way that speaks to and transforms the heart of a culture) In this article I explore Teresa's Foundations as an example of story the-ology that has a remarkable capacity to transform the heart of her culture and, as a classic, all cultures. The Text and Its Context The thirty-one chapters of the Foundations recount, in vary-ing degrees of detail, the circumstances and efforts pertaining to the founding of seventeen Discalced Carmelite monasteries. The text consists mainly of stories--some humorous, some poignant, some edifying, some pretty incredible--interspersed with shorter or longer asides of sage advice for her nuns and especially for her prioresses. Other features include several hagiographical accounts of the remarkable lives and deeds of individual nuns, friars, and benefactors and, of course, a good deal of autobiographical information about Teresa's attractions, friendships, physical sufferings, and moods. In short, the Foundations is decidedly not an organic presentation of spiritual principles, but rather more of a "down and dirty" chronicle of what happens when one tries to do God's work in this raucous and resistant "real world" in which we live. And that, I think, is why at this time in my life I am so strongly drawn to the Foundations. It is certainly not because I am any less interested in the interior life, but because I am now even more interested in what difference it makes. By that I do not mean taking a utilitarian approach to prayer, as if it has no value unless one can immediately see its fruits. I mean something more like what Teresa says at the end of the Interior Castle (VII.4.6): "This is the reason for prayer, my daughters, the pur-pose of this spiritual marriage: the birth always of good works, January-February 2002 Frohlich ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian The Foundations is the "first fruit" (literarily speaking) of Teresa's spiritual marriage. good works." In the Foundations we see what that statement meant, concretely, in Teresa's own life. Like the apostles in Acts, Teresa in the Foundations is a woman of mission, sent forth into the hurly-burly of the real world to Fooperate with the Holy Spirit in the construction of multiple "dwelling places of God," places that are not only interior but also physical and social and political, places in which deep interiority can find a home and can continue to be propagated far and wide. In view of this, it is helpful to note where the writing of the Foundations occurred in Teresa's life. Teresa was forty-seven years old when, in 1562, she made her first Discalced founda-tion at St. Joseph's in Avila. Over the next four years, she wrote her Life and the Way of Perfection and ¯ then began the whirlwind of founding activity that would continue until the end of her life. Nine new Discalced monasteries had already been established by the time Teresa received the grace of spiritual marriage on 18 November 1572 at age fifty-seven. It was about nine months after this breakthrough spiritual event that she began to write The Book of Her Foundations. Work on this text con-tinued intermittently until November 1576, by which time she had completed twenty-seven chapters and made four more foundations. Between June 1577 and November, right in the midst of one of the most intense periods of squabbling and harassment related to her reforming activity, she wrote the entire text of the Interior Castle. Finally, between 1580 and 1582, she made four more foundations and added their stories to the text of the Foundations. Chapter 31 and the epilogue were completed only a few months before her death on 4 October 1582 at age sixty-seven. Two things are interesting to note here. One is that this book, the Foundations, is the "first fruit" (literarily speaking) of Teresa's spiritual marriage. The other is that the first and last parts of the Foundations form a kind of sandwich around the Interior Castle. These two books are closely related to each other. Together--not separately--they are the fully developed fruit of -o°-j Teresa's human and spiritual maturity. And so, before delving Review for Religqous more deeply into the Foundations, let us review what Teresa says about the spiritual marriage in the Interior Castle. Spiritual Marriage: At One with God, Sell and World In the Seventh Dwelling Places of the Interior Castle, Teresa teaches that the soul that receives the culminating grace of the spiritual marriage is brought fully into its own center, where God alone dwells. Like a river that has flowed into the ocean, the soul now is completely and unchangeably at one with God. This differs from earlier stages of union and rapture in that here the faculties are not lost. That is, one retains the ability to understand what is happening and to carry on external activities even while in this form of union. This latter is especially impor-tant: Teresa repeatedly emphasizes that the purpose of the spir-itual marriage is not rest and delight, but to be joined to the sufferings of Christ and to spend oneself on behalf of souls. She describes the typical condition of such a person as consisting of deep interior peace while enduring extremes of exterior per-secution, struggle, and hard work for the sake of the gospel. When we put the stories told in the Foundations next to this, Teresa's astute but rather decontextualized description of spir-itual marriage takes on life. The stories reveal to us how Teresa's transformed interior self was united not only with God, but also in a transformative way with the physical, social, cultural, and ecclesial world in which she lived. In other words, the stories both depict and enact the way persons in spiritual marriage gain the capacity to transform their cultural world at its heart. Most obviously, the stories about Teresa herself depict a union of the divine and human, played out in this feisty, witty, and indomitable woman's adventures in living her gospel mission amidst the gritty reality of business affairs, human squabbles, stress, and struggle that looks a lot like what we all deal with in our day-to-day lives. But it is in Teresa's minibiographies of holy Christians--most of them women--that she expresses most fascinatingly for the heart of her culture the explosive truth of the gospel. It is by a deep reading of these stories that we may begin to get a glimpse of what it means to call Teresa a "story theologian and transformer of culture." January-February 2002 Froblicls ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian A "Little Story": The Testimony of a Female Infant Let us listen, then, to Teresa's stoW about Dofia Teresa de Layz, founding benefactress of the monastery at Mba de Tormes. As the fifth daughter of parents who desperately wanted a son, she was such a disappointment to them that--although they took care to have her baptized at once--they left her alone all day "as if she mattered little to them." The stoW continues: When at nightfall a woman came who was taking care of the baby and found out what was going on, she has-tened to see if the child was dead . Weeping, the woman took the baby into her arms and, complaining of the cruelty, said: "How is it, my daughter, are you not a Christian?" The baby girl lifted her head and answered, "Yes, I am," and spoke no more until reach-ing that age at which all children begin to speak. (20.4)2 At first glance we may find this story a bit. incredible. It is what Alex Garcfa-Rivera, in his recent book about the mulatto saint Martin de Porres, calls a "little story.''3 While "big stories" aim to speak universal truth and are acclaimed by those belonging to dominant cultures, "little stories" like this give the appearance of just being naive or superstitious tales aimed at the poor and uneducated. For example, many "little stories" about St. Martin de Porres tell of the saint healing animals and speaking with them as if they were human persons. Garcfa-Rivera shows how, despite their lowly appearance, "little stories" like those may actually convey potent gospel messages of the reversal of values. In a culture where those (such as Martin) with Indian or African blood were regarded as "like animals," the stories of him treat-ing animals "like humans" imaged a shocking upending of all-too- common assumptions. Garcfa-Rivera shows how in such popular "little stories" marginalized people not only express their conflicted position within cultural and religious systems of power, but also challenge and reinterpret those systems within a faith context. Tellers of "little stories" are ci'eatively working out painful personal struggles for meaning and identity and at the same time are offering their culture something new and potentially transformative.4 In view of this, there may be a lot more being conveyed by Teresa's "little stow" of the abandoned infant who speaks up Review for Religious for herself than we would see with only a superficial reading. Teresa is graphically expressing what was probably the most painful fact affecting her own struggle for meaning and identity, namely, the extreme devaluing of the female sex within the Spanish culture of that time. This poignant story of child aban-donment impresses readers with the death-dealing consequences of that devaluation more than any bare assertion ever could. There is more, however, in this story. The newborn female child miraculously speaks, testifying that she is a Christian. Teresa expresses deep irony here, for within the cultural mentality of the time it was as incredible for any female to speak in the name of the gospel as it would be if a newborn infant spoke intelligibly. Thus, through her "little story," Teresa artfully but quite potently affirms women's God-given vocation to proclaim the gospel. In fact, she is claiming that females and others who are cultur-ally regarded as valueless may be even more gifted by God than those who have been accorded an approved voice.5 Tellers of "'little stories" are offering their culture something new and potentially transformative. The Challenges of Teresa's World The stow, then, indirectly but powerfully presents a gospel perspective on the sociocultural and historical situation in which Teresa found herself.6 Let us review the characteristics of that situation and the very serious risks it posed for Teresa and her mission. Throughout the 16th century the Spanish Roman Catholic hierarchy was becoming increasingly rigid and con-trolling towards a series of perceived thi'eats to its authority. The first perceived threat was that of "judaizing" tendencies among those whose ancestors had been forced to convert from Judaism to Catholicism in 1492. Teresa came from such a con-verso family, a fact she always had to conceal, but which was probably known or suspected by many of her contemporaries. In this milieu those with Jewish blood were always considered sus-pect, regardless of their personal belief and behavior. Teresa, January-February 2002 Frohlich ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian The pain that led to Teresa's transformative storytelling was the spiritual anguish of one with a soul-hunger for God. therefore, was deeply sensitive to all forms of marginalization. The story of the child unwanted by people but gifted by God is about women, but it is. also a basic gospel message applicable to all who are devalued in human eyes. The second perceived threat of that era was the so-called "Lutherans," a category that expanded to include anyone who appeared to express any lack of respect for the pope, the priesthood, or the sacraments. It is noteworthy that, in the story of the infant Teresa de Layz, Teresa makes a point of saying that she was baptized, thereby depicting the child's amazing testi-mony not as a random outbreak of the supernatural, but asthe miraculous fruit of sacramental initiation. This is an important nuance, and typical of Teresa's careful balance in relation to the concerns of her environment. The third perceived threat of the time was a growing wave of illuminists or alumbrados, who claimed special spiritual author-ity on the basis of their mystical experiences and visions. Many of the alumbrados who were prosecuted by the inquisition were women; in the mentality in Spain at the time, women's assumed inferior intelligence made them particularly susceptible to being seduced by the devil. This pr6blem was exacerbated by the Index of 1559, which made most Spanish-language books on prayer and spirituality unavailable and thus prevented women--very few of whom were trained in Latin--from having access to the technical vocabulary and the theology of the spiritual life. Thus, throughout her life but espe.cially during the peak period of her activities of founding and writing, Teresa faced a huge personal and political challenge. Her culture insisted that no mujercita or "little woman"--particularly one of converso back-ground-- should be teaching others about the spiritual life, let alone doing so on the authority of her own spiritual experiences. In view of this, the.seemingly innocent "little story" of the baby Teresa de Layz speaks volumes to those who can read between Review for Religious the lines. Far from being merely a cute and improbable anec-dote suited to the low intellectual capacities of the mujercitas, it is a subtle and explosive parable aimed directly at the very heart of the antigospel forces that impinged upon Teresa's vocation to live out the full effects of her spiritual marriage. What Fueled Teresa's Imagination? In the story of Teresa de Layz, we see Teresa doing exactly what Terrence Tilley describes as the mandate of "story theol-ogy," namely, creatively telling the gospel story for her own culture. But where did Teresa's creative genius as a "story theologian" come from? Elaine Scarry's book The Body in Pain proposes that the basic motivator of creative imagination is pain? A simple, everyday example is the pinch of hunger, which moves us to creatively find a way around any obstacle that is preventing us from getting food. Several recent feminist inter-preters have taken a similar perspective on Teresa, proposing that her creative activity as writer and foundress was primarily a way of subverting the painful limitations imposed on her by her status as a woman in a repressive patriarchal milieu.8 There is an important element of truth here, yet it only goes halfway. The pain that led to Teresa's transformative sto-rytelling was not only social and cultural; it was the spiritual anguish of one with a soul-hunger for God. Above all, Teresa felt herself called to pursue the life of mystical union in its fullness, and to cooperate with God in creating the best possible condi-tions and guidance for others to do the same.9 Yet, as we have seen, there were many serious cultural obstacles to her doing this. She contended, then, with two sources of pain: both the interior rending that resulted from her hurtling into God and the exterior conflict stirred up by her determined efforts to live out her call to be a woman of God, a preacher of the gospel, and a foundress. Let us look at another story to see bow Teresa wrestled creatively and imaginatively with these inner and outer conflicts. "Uppity Women": Catalina Godlnez and Teresa This is Teresa's account of the sudden conversion of Catalina ~1~3~ .~anuary-February 2002 Froblicb ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian Godfnez, founding benefactress and one of the first to enter the monastery at Beas: [Catalina] had been thinking of a marriage that was being sought for her, which was better than she could have hoped for, and saying to herself: "With what lit-tle my father is content, that I.become connected with an entailed estate; I am thinking of becoming the ori-gin of a new line of descendants." She was not inclined toward marriage, for she considered it demeaning to be subject to someone; nor did she know where this pride came from . The moment she read the inscription [on a nearby crucifix], it seemed to her that, just as sunshine enters a dark room, a light came into her soul by which she understood the truth . Thus she began to despise herself, to have .great desires for penance, which after-ward she put into effect. She at once promised chastity and poverty and wanted to see herself so subject that she would have rejoiced to be carried off then to the land of the Moors and remain there. All of these virtues lasted in her, so that the experience was clearly seen to be a supernatural favor from our Lord. (22.5-6) The story continues on for many pages, recounting an uproar of demons disturbed by Catalina's conversion, then her conflicts with her parents, who refused to give her permission to become a nun, her extreme penances and illnesses, and finally her dra-matic challenge to her relatives and to God that, if she were healed by a certain day, she should be permitted to become a nun. Sure enough, on the appointed day she rose from her bed, ready to assist Teresa in founding the monastery of Beas. Some feminist interpreters have pointed out the fascinat-ing tension he?e between Teresa's delight in portraying Catalina's feisty statement of her desire to "found her own lineage" and not to be subject to anyone and her equal delight in portraying Catalina's conversion to fervent desire for suffering and sub-jection. The dramatic tension between willfulness and obedi-ence continues to play out in the story as Catalina steadfastly refuses to be subject to the wishes of her parents or relatives and then endures years of extreme physical suffering while stub-bornly holding out for fulfillment of her personal vision. It is a Review for Relig4ous great story in itself, and it is a prime illustration of a tension, at the heart of Teresa's story theology, between her culturally sub-versive claim for female authority and her acceptance of abso-lute obedience to God. In the eyes of her culture, Catalina Godfnez was, like Teresa, an "uppity woman." When Catalina dares to say in so many words that she wanted to "found her own lineage" and be sub-ject to no one, one can hardly help hearing Teresa behind her saying, "And look at me! In making these foundations I am actually doing it! I am founding my own female lineage!" Yet, in the next few lines, Teresa successfully dissociates her-self from the "pride" of such a statement as she affirms that God has supernaturally transformed Catalina so that she now desires to be subject to everyone and to be humiliated with Christ cruci-fied. It is as if Teresa is saying, "This is the way my new female lineage will be founded: not in pride, but in humble union with God." While some feminist interpreters have presumed that Teresa's frequent protestations of humility and obedience are largely a smokescreen thrown up to obscure her real goals of female power, my interpretation would be that her commitment to humility and obedience in relation to God was indeed radi-cal. For example, at the heart of all Teresa's stories about her founding activities is the conviction that God is the real founder. She repeatedly says things like "I want our Lord to make known to everyone how in these foundations we creatures have done next to nothing. The Lord directed all by means of such lowly beginnings that only His Majesty could have raised the work to what it now is" (13.7). Although her words about doing "next to nothing" are somewhat hyperbolic, her core conviction is clear: both the initiative and the ultimate success of her found-ing activity come from God. Indeed, it is exactly because she believed her commission for this work came from God that she was willing and able to take such great risks on behalf of estab- At the heart of all Teresa's stories about her founding activities is the conviction that God is the real founder. January-Februa~y 2002 Froblicb * Teresa: Story Theologian lishing the authority and lineage of women. Radical Obedience and the Lineage of Women The next story is one example of these linked commitments to radical obedience and to the spiritual lineage of holy women. In chapter 28 she recounts at great length the story of Dofia Catalina de Cardona,who left her life among the nobility for a hermitage, where she wore coarse cloth, ate only every third day, took the discipline with a heavy chain, and practiced many other harsh austerities and virtuous acts. Later on she suffered greatly in order to found the Discalced friars' monastery at Pastrana. One day Teresa, after Commu'nion in the church there (which was on the site of Dofia Catalina's original hei'mitage), experienced a "suspension." She states: In this suspension, through an intellectual vision, this holy woman appeared in a glorified body and some angels with her. She told me not to grow weary, but that I should strive to go ahead with these foundations. I understood, although she did not indicate this, that she was helping me before God. She also told me something else, but there is no reason to put it here in writing. I was left very much consoled and with a great desire to work hard, and I hope in the goodness of the Lord that with help as good as these prayers of hers I will be able to serve Him in some way. (28.36) In this story Teresa not only explicitly claims the patronage of a holy female spiritual ancestor in her work of founding, but also implicitly affirms what Gillian Ahlgren calls the "visionary epis-temology" that, for at least four centuries before Teresa's time, had been the primary path to spiritual empowerment for women,l° A visionary epistemology asserts that real knowledge of God and real wisdom in relation to the world are conveyed through visionary experience. Throughout the Middle Ages, when women were systematically denied access to theological education and to positions of ecclesial power, the main route by which women could gain religious status and voice was by claim-ing to have visions or locutions in which God communicated directly with them. This was always a dangerous path, subject to suspicion and curtailment from powers that felt threatened. But Review for Religious in Teresa's time it was even more dangerous because of the inten-sive inquisitorial campaign that was being waged against the alumbrados, who claimed special religious experiences. It is quite remarkable that Teresa and her claims to special knowledge through visions not only survived in this atmosphere, but actu-ally thrived. To see how she did it, let us look again at her account of her vision of Dofia Catalina de Cardona. Teresa states, first, that the vision took place immediately after Communion, thus affirming an intrinsic connection between her experience and the church's sacraments. She states, second, that it was an intellectual vision, not an imaginative or bodily one. Although all visions were suspect, those involving less of the sensual component were slightly less so. Over time Teresa became increasingly adept at making this kind of tech-nical distinction, helping to allay the fears of her learned cen-sors. Third, her main emphasis in this story is on the good effects of the vision: it encourages her to dedicate herself even more firmly to serving God and building up the church through making monastic foundations. Gillian Ahlgren notes that, while in her earlier writings Teresa lingers longer over the experien-tial aspects of her visions, in later writings she focuses much more on how to discern their authenticity; and her key test was usually to note their effects)1 Thus we see in this story, written very near the end of Teresa's life, the masterful way in which she tiptoes through the minefields of criticism that could easily have doomed her and her projects. And once again we see how she manages to accom-plish two seemingly contradictory goals at once: reaffirming her humility and obedience to the purposes of God and the church and presenting herself as a uniquely favored female apos-tle and heir to a powerful female spiritual lineage. Troubling and Transforming the Status Quo With hindsight we kntw that, despite her radical and auda-cious vision, Teresa not only succeeded in her life's mission but even became a canonized saint and a doctor of the church. Yet, as the Foundations makes abundantly clear, Teresa's founding activities faced formidable obstacles and often stirred up intense opposition. There is high drama in the stories of Teresa push- January-February 2002 Froblicb ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian ing indomitably forward while bishops and religious superiors balk, wealthy people or town councils demand conditions she cannot accept, the owners of desired houses refuse to negotiate or their tenants refuse to vacate the premises, nuns and friars lose heart or get into squabbles with one another, and even the weather, the roads, and her aging body seem increasingly to conspire against her. In all this, Teresa usually attributes any form of suffering or resistance to the devil's opposition to her "good works." But, as Alex Garcfa-Rivera notes in relation to St. Martin de Porres, stories about troublesome demons always seem to appear exactly at the place where the symbols most cherished by cult-oral and political powers are being challenged. In Teresa's case, as we have seen, both her activity of founding and her written works artfully contested some of the key assumptions of the cultural and ecclesial status quo: namely, that women cannot teach or lead, that knowledge of God must come in an institutionally approved package, and that money, pedigree, and "pure blood" are the determinants of honor. It seems that in her spiritual marriage Teresa's ability to speak troublesomely and transfor-matively to the very heart of her culture came to fullness. "Water for All Our Needs" As a way of summing up the gist of the perspective pre-sented here--and, more importantly, of Teresa's key spiritual insights--let us listen to one more "little story" from the Foundations. Teresa recounts what transpired when, in the newly founded monastery at Medina del Campo, the nuns suffered from lack of good water: When I called some workmen to dig a new [well], they laughed at me as though I were wanting to throw money away. I asked the sisters what they thought. One said that it should be tried, that since our Lord would have to provide someone to bring us water as well as food, it would be cheap.er for His Majesty to give us the well on the grounds of the house and that thus He would not fail to do so. Observing the great faith and determination with which she said it, I became certain. And, contrary to the opinion of the Review for Religious one who understood all about founts and water, I went ahead. And the Lord was pleased that we were able to put in a conduit which provided enough water for our needs, and for drinking, and which we now have. (1.4) Once again, we see the mujercitas, the foolish little women who have nothing but their faith, being justified over those who sup-posedly "understood all about founts and water." But there may be more in this "little story," particularly when we recall the importance of the imagery of water, wells, and founts in each of Teresa's major books.~3 Given my original premise that the Foundations needs to be interpreted as a sort of"first fruit" of Teresa's spiritual marriage and as having a special relation to the Interior Castle, around which it forms a sandwich, I think we need to place Teresa's "little story" of the well next to this text from the Seventh Dwelling Places: For from these divine breasts where it seems God is always sustaining the soul there flow streams of milk bringing comfort to all the people of the castle. It seems the Lord desires that in some manner these oth-ers in the castle may enjoy the great deal the soul is enjoying and that from that full-flowing river, where this tiny fount is swallowed .up, a spurt of that water will sometimes be directed toward the sustenance of those who in corporeal things must serve these two who are wed . For just.as a great gush of water could not reach us if it didn't have a source, as I have said, so it is understood clearly that there is Someone in the interior depths who shoots these arrows and gives life to this life. (VII.2.6)14 This text from the Interior Castle is clearly talking about the mystical life. Teresa mixes several biblical images with long his-tories of use by mystical writers, such as the "divine breasts," "streams of milk," and "arrows." But Teresa's central image for the welling up of God's lif( in our interior depths is, as usual, water. Here she proclaims that the water of mystical union does not simply remain in the center of the soul, but gushes abun-dantly outward to sustain, enrich, and heal the whole bodily and psychological person. Yet I believe we can take the image one step further, especially if we understand the human person as an intrinsically relational and social being. After all, it is only January-February 2002 Froblicb ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian a few pages further on that Teresa makes her well-known affir-mation that the purpose of the spiritual marriage is not simply to rest in delightful interiority, but to share those riches with others through "good works." The "little stow" of the well at Medina del Campo is a very concrete, down-to-earth vignette of how the life of mystical union which it is Teresa's mission to promote bears fruit. Here it is physical water that gushes up because of the nuns' faith, providing abundantly for their bod-ily needs. The "spiritual marriage" is complete: divine and human, mystical and physical, are at one. Yet this reading of the Foundations suggests that the outflow of the spiritual marriage goes even further. The nuns' miracu-lous well is also a public testimony to the presence and activity of God in those whom society regards as mere mujercitas, foolish little women. The water of God that gushes up in the spiritual marriage works to sustain, heal, and transform not only the indi-vidual person, but her whole social and cultural world as well. For a perspective on this that is from a completely different tradition, yet is remarkably consonant with Teresa's spiritual insight, listen to this poetic text fromthe Chinese Tao-te- Ching:ts The highest motive is to be like water. Water is essential to all living things, yet it demands no pay or recognition. Rather it flows humbly to the lowest level. Nothing is weaker than water, yet, for overcoming what is hard and strong, nothing surpasses it. It seems that in The Book of Her Foundations Teresa teaches, through her consummate "stoW theology," that the gift of union with God in the ~piritual marriage indeed makes a person like water. Such a person flows humbly to the lowest level and is rad-ically obedient to the direction of her own and others' thirst for God. In this way she unites herself intimately with the heart of her culture and can ov4rcome that in it which is hard and strong. Notes Terrence W. Tilley, StoO, Tbeolog~ (V~lmington: Michael Glazier, 1985), pp. 11-16. All quotations from the Foundations are from The Collected Works Review for Religious of St. Teresa ofAvila, Vol. 3, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1985). 3 Alex Garcfa-Rivera, St. Ma~-tin de Porres: The "Little Stories" and the Semiotics of Culture (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995). 4 As several commentators have noted, Teresa's style of rhetoric is "women's language"; that is, not only is it the vernacular instead of Latin, but it is conversational, imagistic, elliptical, and aimed at the general populace rather than an elite. See, for example, Elias R. Rivers, "The Vernacular Mind of St. Teresa," Carmelite Studies 3 (1984). In recent years feminist analyses have revealed how this "women's lan-guage" is far more sophisticated than it first appears; it often functions as a sort of "Trojan horse" strategy that lets Teresa speak in places and ways that would otherwise be closed to her. See especially Alison Weber, Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), and Carole Slade, St. Teresa of Avila: Author of a Heroic Life (Berkel.ey: University of California Press, 1995). s See Antonio P~rez-Romero, Subversion and Liberation in the Writings of St. Teresa of Avila (Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996). 6 For an overview of these trends, see Te6fanes Egido, "The HistoriCal Setting of St. Teresa's Life," trans. S. Payne and M. Dodd, Carmelite Studies 1 (1980); also Gillian Ahlgren, Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), especially chap. 1. 7 Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Maki~zg and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 8 See Weber, Slade, Ahlgren, and P~rez-Romero. 9 Among the above commentators, Ahlgren and P~rez-Romero offer an interpretation of Teresa's motives that is similar to my own. 10 Ahlgren, chap. 7. On the tradition of women visionaries, see Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 1, See Ahlgren, especially p. 10 I, for discussion of Teresa's devel-oping theology in relation to visions. ,2 Garcfa-Rivera, p. 36. ,3 In the Life, chaps. 11-22, she wrote of the "Four Waters," and in the Way, chaps. 19-21, of the "fount of living water." In the Interior Castle the same imagery appears, most prominently in the First, Fourth and Seventh Dwelling Places. 14 The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1980). ,s Having been given this quotation on a prayer card, I consulted several English versions of the Tao-te-Ching without being able to locate this specific translation. I was able to determine, however, that .~anuary-February 2002 Frohlich ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian the first half of the quotation comes from poem 8 and the second half from poem 78. The Beast of Contemplation I walked past someflattened grass behind the house this morning, where an animal had lain in the night, touching a mystery by touching the fringe of the turf where something wild had passed and paused and passed again. What did the animal lying in that place think (or not think) in the otherness of its sojourn there? I ask this, even as I know the wild creature lying behind the house to be none other than myself. This, after all, is the patch of grass where I sprawl under the stars each night, sometimes lost in contemplation, other times in sleep. Them is an animal of God that makes its lair in me, some distance, often,from my mind. It comes as stranger, glimpsed in a vestige of presence, a pressed-smooth swath ofunmowed lawn. I marvel at the wildness of this elusive beast, leaving only the bay of its body at the place where God has passed and paused and passed again. Belden C. Lane Review for Religious NIHAL ABEYASINGHA Instilling Christian/ Religious Culture: Instinct and Connaturality At on the Internet, there is a link to Chimpanzee Cultures Website. Accustomed to speaking of culture as a human creation, one wonders how it might apply to the animal world. In fact, given that there are certain characteristics common to an entire species in the ani-mal world and that there are variants identifiable within the species, there is some evidence that one animal's "discovery" can gradually spread to other animals of the same species) The key words here--common, variants, spread--contain concepts to consider in discussing culture in human societies. The pre-sent article will use those concepts in looking at the culture of religious life. Religious or consecrated life has not been of a single mold through history. Common to it always and everywhere is the following of Christ in accord with one's baptismal commitment. Variants include hermit life and common life, enclosed monas-tic life and mendicant life, institutes of apostolic life and secu-lar institutes. Religious life that sprang up in one set of circumstances has often spread to other circumstances, and today religious life cannot hold itself entirely aloof from the many rapid changes occurring differently all over the world. Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR wrote for us twice in 1999. His address is 454/9 Piachaud Gardens; Peradeniya Road; 20000 Kandy; Sri Lanka. ~-2~ --- 2- January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture The present article makes two proposals. First, if there is transmission of a common way of life all through a group and if innovations can be spread within a given species in the animal world, one can envisage a rationally planned and directed pro-gram for transmitting to new entrants the culture of the Christian life and the subculture of religious life. Second, I pro-pose certain "settings" where new entrants might be placed, where their religious instinct and sense of connaturality could be fostered. How Transmit Culture? Culture can be considered as the behaviors, skills, and knowl-edge that you acquire from and share with others of your species, but that differ from the way of life lived by members of your species elsewhere. This culture is neither acquired genetically nor compelled by the environment, but neither can it be taught-- it has to be caught. In odaer words, there is a memory (one could call it "institutional memory") that the older generation of a species embodies and carries. In associating with that genera-tion and experiencing various of its devices, the younger gener-ation comes to share in the culture. These younger members do so not by compulsion, but because that way of doing things is "connatural" to them. They do it because they want to do it. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) suggested "that our most natural mode of reasoning is, not from propositions to propo-sitions, but from things to things, from concrete to concrete, from wholes to wholes.''2 He says that, as regards "the great fun-damental truths of religion, natural and revealed, and as regards the mass of religious men, these truths, doubdess, may be proved and defended by an array of invincible natural arguments, but such is not commonly the method in which those same logical arguments make their way into our minds. The grounds on which we hold the divine origin of the church and the previous truths which are taught us by nature--the being of a God and the immortality of the soul--are felt by most men to be recondite and impalpable, in proportion to their depth and reality.''3 Animals seem to have this concrete kind of "reasoning." Endowed with a natural sense, they learn their "culture" by liv-ing it and doing the things that accord with it. People are born Review for Religious with natural instincts and reason; they learn to be human beings within a culture somewhat as animals do. But, because of their reason and free will, they are not determined by their instincts. Yet--and here we enter the sphere of religion--the human being cannot be satisfied with the material. "Our hearts are made for you, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you" are the famous words of Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Religion provides for the restlessness of the heart. Some indi-viduals experience that restlessness more intensely, and often with particular nuances. This leads them to seek rest for their restlessness not only in Christian living within the broad framework of the church, but along a specific way of following Christ closely. This they find instinctively in a par-ticular religious congrega-tion. When asked why they entered this one and not that, they have their own idiosyncratic modes of saying so. But most impor-tant is that they feel at home in the institute and are happy in its life and apostolate. Today's religious come from a different social background from the religious of the first half of the 20th century. Ministering to Today's World Feeling at home and happy does not mean that they have reached the end of their journey. In fact, they have only begun. And that is why I suggest that there must be some way in which they can be helped to grow. Instinctively and by way of con-naturality, they should be assisted to grow, incorporating what is in accord with their quest and rejecting what is contrary to it. Today's religious come from a different social background from the religious of the first half of the 20th century.4 They bring with them a certain culture and the popular piety with which they have grown up in their homes. During the training period they are filled with a whole range of knowledge. But, once the period of training is over, they try to use as the basis of their ministry the popular piety they carried with them at their entrance.~ This does not work. ~tanuary-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture Change (rapid, radical, in almost every sphere) and diversity (abundant and bewildering) are unavoidable present-day reali-ties, but Christians have no cause to fear them. By baptism (see Rm 6:3-11) we are participants in the most radical of changes, the death and resurrection of Christ, phenomena that express themselves in a never-ending variety of ways. This reality, how-ever, needs to be instilled more and more into the life and min-istry of religious. In other words, in their response to problems related to all the change and diversity in the world, Christians and especially religious are continually called to return to the Christian mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. Popular piety is inadequate to face the modern world. Popular piety can be seen as "contractual": if one fulfills certain set obligations, then one will grow as a Christian and attain sal-vation. Sometimes this piety may border on the magical: if one does certain things in a certain way, then various desirable results will follow. This approach, still present in the life of many peo-ple, has helped many on the path of holiness. But is it the answer to today's problematic of change and diversity? Is going with the practices of many a help or a hindrance for religious in their life and work with and for others? Today's change and diversity have far-reaching effects. The Christian perspective on this situation might be stated briefly as follows: Human freedom is used and abused, but, no matter what, God remains faithful. The death and resurrection of Christ shows this, and Christians share in it. Their share is in what they do, not merely what they talk about. Jesus, knowing who would betray or deny him, shared a special meal with them. The church continues to remember that, on the night he was betrayed (by his disciples and by us), he took bread and said "Take and eat . " This meal shared with his betrayers--and continued by the community of believers--is the place where we learn how to handle the world in which we live. We learn, not by study, but by doing.We learn, not bj~ logical reasoning so much as by a kind of instinct and connaturality. This doing (in memory of him) is the source of knowledge, knowledge of a unique opportunity for us to turn to the pure victim of our betrayal and find both salvation for ourselves and cordial reciprocity with one another. If we learn by what we do, it follows that there can be no Review for Religious predetermined curriculum. We can only seek or provide set-tings where connaturality and the religious instinct can be evoked and then try to adopt or inculcate a "rationalized asceti-cism," that is, a commitment to continual self-control and dis-cipline over what does not serve our vocation as religious--in other words, engagement in ongoing discernment. The religious instinct and discernment need to work in har-ness. In a variety of settings, rationalized asceticism is only a means. What is primary is the goal, namely, following Christ according to the particular focus of one's institute. A kind of rationalized asceticism, however, could function, not so much by logical reasoning as by instinct and connaturality. The one who joins an institute feels "at home." In that situation, one is helped to rationally understand and discern one's way in the actual world where one lives. Gradually, feeling at home takes on a focus and content. Settings Where Connaturality Can Function By a setting I mean something on the lines of the Santiniketan, the school established in 1901 by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). That school was meant to be a place where students could absorb the Indian spirit. It was out of the ordi-nary; it had eminent teachers, but few pupils. Yet those few learned something which others did not and made a contribu-tion to India as a whole. Times have changed, but the need remains for us to experience the world existentially and to work out our response in accord with the gospel and the charism of our institute. The extraordinary, if it happens, is something to be thank-ful for. Normal growth takes place in the ordinary situations of life. Growth in religious life occurs best, I think, when religious envision their own life stories (with their own memories, behav-iors, skills, and knowledge) against their faith-vision of their baptism--which made them sharers in the mystery of Jesus Christ dying and rising again. A certain interpretation and synthesis of his own life can perhaps be detected in Pope John Paul's first encyclical, Redemptor hominis (§ 14): Man in the full truth of his existence . . . --in the January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture sphere of his own family, in the sphere of society and very diverse contexts, in the sphere of his own nation or people, and in the sphere of the whole of mankind--this man is the primary route that the church must travel in fulfilling her mission: he is the primary and j~tndamental way for the church, the way traced out by Christ himself, the way that leads invariably through the mystery of the incarnation and the redemption. In 1979 (within the first year of his pontificate), during the Mass celebrated in the Oswiecim-Brzezinka (Auschwitz- Birkenau) concentration camp, he said: Can it still be a surprise to anyone that the pope born and brought up in this land,, the pope who came to the See of St. Peter from the diocese in whose territory is situated the camp of Oswiecim, should have begun his first encyclical with the words Redemptor hominis and should have dedicated it as a whole to the cause of man, to the dignity of man, to the threats to him, and finally to his inalienable rights that can so easily be trampled on and annihi-lated by his fellow men?6 John Paul II lived and was educated in the West. Naturally his categories of thought are derived from the Western tradition. Is it not possible, though, for people of the East as well as the West, to see beneath these thoughts of his the process by which he worked through various situations and reached a synthesis that was connatural to him? That is, to see his experience of life in Poland (as worker, stage actor, writer, and so forth), the experience of the concentration camps, the search for the "causes" of the concentration camps, the articulation of the principles of his life, and finally, the synthesis of Christ, the church, and man as all interrelated.7 And this in the first year of his papacy! And now the evening of his life is filled with sym-bolic gestures flowing from that same synthesis--attempts to bring about reciprocal relations among human beings, Christ, and the church--a visit to a synagogue in Rome and to a mosque in Syria, asking pardon of God and of fellow human beings for the sins committed by the church and tendering apologies to the Greek and Ukrainian churches. Review for Religious Experience and Exemplary Religious Behavior Popular piety, as I have said, cannot respond to the present world with its change and diversity. No matter how much one repeats this to new entrants, the response is to point to how well popular piety is doing in pilgrimage centers, among a high percentage of regular churchgoers, among the Christian right, and in various emerging movements. Perhaps they are correct. The majority of Christians are rooted in popular or traditional piety. But is that the climax and high point of the following of Christ? Hardly. Without the interaction of popular piety with its roots in the Christian tradition in a context of continual conversion, does popular piety not dete-riorate into the justification and ratio-nalization of the baser instincts? Well-known preachers advocating a pop-ular and populist piety have been dis-covered to have been leading double lives. Corruption and violence are known as much among "practicing" Christians as among the general population. Religious, too, may experience a dichotomy between their piety and their work, between what they do in church and what they do outside. It can be valu-able to experience it, to have an ordinary job while at the same time trying to fulfill the obligations of a religious.8 This is a common situation for ordinary Christians-- the need to combine work with family life. In ordinary work-places, individuals claim no privileges, but simply share the lot of the others. In such circumstances, people discover the pres-sures that flow from the pace of change and the range of diver-sity that has to be confronted. Confronting the real world of jealousy, fraud, cutthroat com-petition, and intrigue provides an opportunity to reflect care-fully on one's behavioral response in the light of one's Christian commitment. In a study of the attitudes of people working in several private-sector companies in Sri Lanka, the following atti-tudes were measured (on a scale of ten): Among superiors: authoritarian 8, egalitarian 2, and permissive 5; among subor-dinates: rebel i0, cooperation 1, ingratiator 5.9 It is highly likely Popular piety, as I have said, cannot respond to the present world with its change and diversity. January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Cbristian/Religious Culture that Christians and religious in similar work situations have adopted similar behavioral patterns. How does such behavior fit in with gospel norms? Is equality not implied in baptism, the root of the religious vocation and of cooperation in the mission of a religious institute? Does the high score for authoritarian attitudes not imply that Jesus' exhortation about the greatest and the least, about the master washing the feet of his disciples, has been forgotten? The question arises: Can a process of"con-scious reflection" for religious be initiated on these lines? Conscious Reflection When young people tell Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee that they are having a difficult time understanding what it means to be a Catholic,-he tells them to participate in the Eucharistic celebration with the same parish community every Sunday for six months and, during the same six-month period, to work in a soup kitchen. If they follow these two prac-tices, they will see for themselves what it means to be a Catholic.1° The question posed is conceptual ("understanding"); the remedy suggested is an existential commitment (the Eucharist in the same community, the same soup kitchen, for six months). It leads to a realization that Christian life is about worship and service. Commitment to the same group--but why? Because then one works one's way beyond immediate emotions (sense plea-sure), beyond the true-false dichotomy (intellectual pleasure), and beyond control-or-be-controlled situations (the pleasure of power), towards accepting realities for which no words can be found and tasks which are not directly pleasurable--but all of which, at a deep level, give satisfaction and joy. Following that advice, one avoids a "shopping" mentality; one learns through the drudgery and happiness of one's commitment. Oliver Goldsmith implies this about the parson in his "Deserted Village": "All his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. / As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, / Swells from the vale, and mid-way leaves the storm, / Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,/Eternal sunshine settles in its head" (lines 188-192). The "eternal sunshine" 6f a holiness that brings joy and fulfillment is for all. Religious are meant to pursue holiness Review for Religious with great intensity in the service of all Christians. In the Middle Ages, religious were more prominent in the guidance and accompaniment of the faithful in holiness than priests were.~L "All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the holiness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity" (LG §40). "Mother Church rejoices at finding within her bosom men and women who more closely follow and more clearly demonstrate the Savior's self-giving by embracing poverty with the free choice of God's sons, and by renouncing their 6wn wills . . ." (LG §42). The point of the "specialized" pursuit of holiness is to bear witness among the followers of Christ that everything should not be cut down to the size of the self, but rather that the self needs to be expanded to recognize and embrace the glory of God man-ifested in the world, in one's fellow humans, and in Christ. Religious Cultural Literacy In the Catholic tradition, faith is a personal adherence to God that involves, inseparably, "free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed" (tides quae). It differs from faith in the Reform tradition, which emphasizes trust and commitment (tides fiducialis). Sometimes the distinction is forgotten. It is important to maintain the difference if one wants to remain rooted in the Catholic tradition. Thus a first requirement would be cultural literacy~2 within the Catholic tradition--in church doctrine, in religious life in general, and in one's own institute in particular. What is needed is a clear and accurate understanding of the truths that one's community shares and the standard of behavior that community members together endorse, as approved by the church. This is not expert knowledge, but simply accurate knowledge. Accuracy is, I think, not too much to ask in an age of computers, where email addresses and Web sit~s have to be keyed in without an error of even a single letter. Beyond an accurate minimum, one can and should, of course, increase one's knowledge, while not necessarily claiming that one always practices the behavior that one endorses. This knowledge and these standards of behavior must, however, be understood as constituting the bottom line without which the present collectivity will not survive as a group. January-February 2002 Abeyasingha ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture This minimum has to be learned by rote. "Learning by heart" is one of the most popular techniques of education in Asia. It has to be tested not just once but periodically. This knowledge and these behavioral standards should be the content of discussions, decisions, and vision statements. Otherwise, indi-viduals might interpret the words to mean exactly what serves their own personal interest within the existing network of roles and relationships. Before entering the novitiate, candidates should be able to move easily and accurately within the idiom and grammar specific to the Catholic tradition. Afterwards, in the novitiate, they can learn the idiom, grammar, and standard of behavior specific to the institute. The Eucharist as Cultural Activity The great formative influence in Christian living and a for-tiori in religious life is the Eucharist and the other sacraments. There is a constant danger in Asia that these sacramental rites may be reduced to the level of popular religion and sometimes even of magic. Two aspects of the Eucharistic celebration are relevant here. First, people should have a basic knowledge of the elements that come together in the liturgy.~3 Second, but far more important, is the actual celebration of the Eucharist. Every Eucharistic celebration includes the great metaphors and images of Christianity. Every celebration has at least seven points of reference--assembly and gathering, table of the word, memo-rial, sacrifice, food for the journey, eschatological reality, and cosmic transformation.~4 Every celebration cannot highlight all these, but the meaning of the celebration is in the reality that is done by the group of believers. The liturgy is not an act of per-sonal piety or a situation for personal devotion. It is of its very nature community building. Even these ordinary actions and realities are sacred, binding the group together in Christ as they do. In Christ, the Eucharist makes the church and the church makes the Eucharist. This imposes a certain style and spirit on the participants.~5 Linked to this style and spirit is a rationalized asceticism, a renunciation of self in order to share the celebration with others. This elementary structure, idiom, and grammar of the liturgy needs, then, to be understood and the liturgy's forma- Review for Religious tive process realized. This formation is also a journey. Its out-line is the Rite of Initiation of Adults,16 which consists of our personal pilgrimage to know ourselves, reflection on the story of other Christians, purification and enlightenment, accepting the mystery, reflecting on the mystery and renewing our lives. Here, in the context of the metaphors and images of the Christian faith remembered and celebrated in the liturgy, can-didates move to total conversion: intellectual (without which there is no growth in under-standing the Christian mystery), moral (with-out which one does not seek to improve one's life), and religious (without which one makes no judgment about the condition of one's own faith). One learns from what one does (the way of action). This has a knowledge dimension in which the memory is recalled and cel-ebrated, a pledge of future glory is given, and devotion is nour-ished for continued Christian living. Christian cultural literacy provides one with the language and communication needed to be part of the Christian tradition as it is at this time in history. Lamentation about what might have been serves little purpose. What possibilities exist within the Asian tradition for carrying the Christian tradition further? While the idiom and grammar of the Christian tradition can be stated and understood briefly, there is a richness of imagery that aims at evoking faith beyond some brief concepts. Take the language of the creed: "I believe in Jesus Christ, [the Father's] only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead." Clearly, this profession of faith includes more concrete images than abstract Before entering the novitiate, candidates should be able to move easily and accurately within the idiom and grammar specific to the Catholic tradition. January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture concepts. It is perhaps, in this area that Asia would be most com-petent to make a contribution. Possible Asian Enrichments The "text"--the idiom and grammar--remains untouched. Without denying the text, Asia is supremely gifted to enrich the imagery. Jacome Gonsalvez (1676-1742), who is considered an important writer in Sinhala (the local language of Sri Lanka), did not try to reexpress theology in the Sinhala idiom: his the-ology repeats the Scholastics. But, relying on the apocryphal tradition (as regards details of Mary's early years) and on an abundance of imagery drawn from local sources, his work evokes an attitude of respect for the Christian faith even among read-ers of other religious persuasionsY Given the technique of learning the idiom and grammar by heart, the specific Asian contribution would be faith reflection in love--not by negating that idiom and grammar, not by lamenting the shortcomings of history, not by challenging or seeming to defy authority, but by being rooted in our tradition and proposing to our countrymen, especially fellow believers, images and perspectives that serve to enrich their faith. Another element of enrichment is the liturgy. Here we are to find meaning in what we do within our community of believ-ers. But there is the danger of making the liturgical action (com-munitarian of its very nature) an act of private and personal devotion. This is a real danger, and not only in the Christian religion. In Sri Lankan Buddhism, certain innovations, espe-cially the inclusion of the vernacular in a form of devotion (Bodhi Piija), have become popular in a short time. But other (quasi-magical) rites and patterns of popular thinking that were in no way in the mind of the innovator have found their way into the rite.L8 This development has taken place within some twenty-five years. Similarly, Christian Asian religious can offer new perspectives. Most p~:obably, in the Eucharistic prayer of Addai and Mari, there was no narrative of the institution. Would evi-dence of such a liturgical tradition give indication (for the uni-versal church) that the meaning of the liturgical action is in what is done? Asian celebration could give the liturgy an enrich-ment (and sometimes, unfortunately, a deformation). Review for Religious If cultural literacy is an "understanding that follows love and commitment," the liturgy is the celebration that "faith and promise are correlative." The word of God proclaimed to the liturgical assembly is received in faith; its promise is fulfilled today in the midst of the assembly. It is not a question of con-cepts so much as the reality of the commitment. Ever Searching for God The present article considers religious life as a search for God. That search is intense--as intense as the desire of a drown-ing person for air. Growth in the religious life is giving focus and content to that desire in accordance with the Christian tradi-tion (particularly the idiom and grammar of doctrine and litur-gical celebration) and th~ specific charism of the religious institute. The process is within the realm of the ordinary, and the manner is by way of instinct and connaturality. The search occurs in a world permeated by both sin and grace. The vision always involves the death and resurrection of Jesus. In this search, reli-gious in Asia, after identifying the specific contribution they can make, need to make it with courage without jeopardizing com-munion with the universal church. As St. Irenaeus (c. 130-c. 200) wrote, "though languages differ throughout the world, the content of the tradition is one and the same. The churches estab-lished in Germany have no other faith or tradition, nor do those of the Iberians, nor those of the Celts, nor those of the East, of Egypt, of Libya.''19 Yet there has to be a distinct element in the manner in which the faith is lived, celebrated, and expressed as spirituality. As Francig de Sales (1567-1622) has said, "the prac-tice of devotion must differ for the gentleman and the artisan, the servant and the prince, for the widow, young girl, or wife. Further, it must be adapted to their particular strength, cir-cumstances, and duties: . True devotion never causes harm, but rather perfects everything we do."2° Notes ~ It was reported in Newsweek (21 May 2001) that scientists dis-covered in 1981 a humpback whale creating waves with its tail to trap fish. That innovation of a single reported case is now said to have spread to half the humpback whale population. January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture 2 John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Garden City: Image Books, 1955), p. 260. Some examples provided by Newman of how this sense of natural inference works are worth recording: "A peasant who is weather wise may yet be simply unable to assign intelligible reasons why he thinks it will be fine tomorrow; and, if he attempts to do so, he may give reasons wide of the mark, but that will not weaken his own confidence in his prediction. His mind does not proceed step-by-step, but he feels all at once and together the force of various combined phenomena though he is not conscious of them. Again, there are physicians who excel in the diagnosis of com-plaints, though it does not follow from this that they could defend their decision in a particular case against a brother physician who dis-puted it. They are guided by natural acuteness and varied experience; they have their own idiosyncratic modes of observing, generalizing, and concluding; when questioned, they can but rest on their own authority, or appeal to the future event" (pp. 261-262). 3 Newman, Grammar, p. 264. Thi~ "feeling" of which Newman speaks is "a feeling in the human mind., allied perhaps to that sense of danger which animals exhibit when placed in the vicinity of natu-ral enemies of their race, and which makes birds cower when the hawk is in the air, and beasts tremble when the tiger is abroad in the desert" (p. 264; read pp. 260-299 for a better understanding of this natural inference and illative sense, as propounded by Newman). 4 See N. Abeyasingha, "The Next Generation of Religious in Asia" in Review for Religious 58, no. 6 (November-December 1999): 621-629. 5 Some years ago I was asked by a boy whom a religious in a lead-ing Catholic school was preparing for First Holy Communion whether it was true that, if he were to bite the host, it would bleed. In fact, he asked me this after he had observed me biting the host at a Mass I cel-ebrated. 6 L'Osservatore Romano (English edition, 16 July 1979), p. 6. 7 "In recent times--particularly during the Second Vatican Council--there have been long discussions whether this relationship is theocentric or anthropocentric. There will never be a satisfactory answer to this question if we continue to consider the two terms sep-arately. In fact, Christianity is anthropocentric precisely because it is theocentric, and simultaneously it is theocentric, thanks to its extraor-dinary anthropocentrism. But it is just the mystery of the incarna-tion which, in itself, explains this relationship" (John Paul II, L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 7 December 1978, p. 1). 8 I am the only Catholic priest working in a state university that has a large majority of Buddhists among staff and students. Over the years I have had to make certain decisions and adopt certain behav-ior patterns in order to practice a minimum degree of Christian wit-ness. Review for Religious 9 See Gunapala Nanayakkara, Public Administration: The Socio- Cultural Milieu (Study Series: Public Administration 88-2, Jayawardenepura: Postgraduate Institute of Management, 1988), p. 10. 10 Cited in William C. Spohn, "The Need for Roots and Wings: Spirituality and Christian Ethics," Theology Digest 47, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 329. 11 See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §927. See also Sacramentum Mundi, Vol. 4, p. 394: "In Palestine, for example, in the 6th century, the abbot of a monastery exercised penitential discipline even in regard to capital sins. Sometimes little attention was paid to whether the monk-confessor was a priest or layman (as early as the 5th and 6th centuries), but this drew protest from Pseudo-Dionysius. After the Iconoclast controversy (8th century) only the priest-monks had in practice the right to hear confessions." ,2 See E.D. Hirsch Jr., Cultural Literacy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987) and The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (1988). 13 See Dennis C. Smolarski, Liturgical Literacy from Anamnesis to Worship (New York: Paulist Press, 1990). ~4 See Kevin Irwin, "Models of the Eucharist," Origins 31, no. 3 (31 May 2001): 33-44. ~s See Aidan Kavanagh, Elements of Rite: A Handbook of Liturgical Style (Bangalore: NBCLC, 1996); Dennis C. Smolarski, How Not to Say Mass: A Guidebook for All Concerned about Authentic Worship (New York: Paulist Press, 1986). 16 See J.D. Dunning, "The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: Model of Adult Growth," Worship 53 (March 1979): 142-156. See N. Abeyasingha, Towards Contextualizing Theology with a CSsR Bias (Bangalore: Joint Secretariats, 1990), pp. 80-95. ~7 There is a precedent for this kind of reading, reflection, and interpretation of the Christian tradition. Very early in the New Testament, there was a Christological interpretation of the Exodus (1 Co 10:1-4). Aphraates (260/275-345), the oldest Syrian father, wrote: "Jesus the son of Nun led the people over to the promised land. Jesus our Savior promised the land of life to all who, passing over the true river Jordan, have believed and are circumcised in their hearts" (Dem 11, 12). The title "physician" is applied to Jesus by Ignatius of Antioch (+ c. 110): "There is one Physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and not born, who is God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first able to suffer and then unable to suffer, Jesus Christ our Lord" (Letter to Ephesians 7.2). The early fathers were so rooted in their faith and commitment that their understanding and interpretation of Scripture and doctrine fol-lowed that faith and commitment. Perhaps their interpretation of the January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture Scriptures and the tradition may not be endorsed by modern exege-sis, but they still remain a "faith reading in love" of the Scriptures and the Christian tradition. Through narrative, drama, allegory, allit-eration, and other literary devices, they contributed to the faith by evoking it in their fellow believers. It was in this particular and lim-ited way that they contributed to the enrichment of the tradition of other churches. It was a "pedagogy" in the sense that "nothing exists except what God causes to be. "There is nothing, therefore, that is hated by God, nor is there anything hated by the Word. Both are one, both are God" (Instructor of Children 1.8.62.3-4). 18 See Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 348-410. 19 Adversus Haereses 5.20.1. 2o Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 1, chap. 3. "Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul" Nicolas de Malebranche A new resident in the yard: pink stars, in clusters, growing in the hollows of the lawn where the old copper beech roots sank. Four-petaled blossoms, a tube, perhaps, slit four ways and splayed to points, each crayoned pale magenta on the vein, centers barely green, white stamens half an eyelash thick, white pollen feet in the air, visible only an inch from the eye. The buds are tight pink dots, slightly gray, sand-grain small. Alone they'd be invisible. They grow in clusters, three or four rising frrom a claw of six petals, green and spiked as cosmos seeds, opening like orange slices around the straight, slightly furred stem. Doretta Cornell RDC Review for Religious KATHLEEN MCALPIN Conversion: A Summons from the Word of God All conversion happens through a summons from the Word of God. There is an intensity about the word summons ("called with authority or urgency"l) that heightens it beyond a simple call. It poises us to respond. In this instance the summons calls us to a journey of conversion. God's Word comes to us in special moments and in ordinary and unlikely places. The word of God comes in Scripture. It summons us as a personal and communal call to encounter the Mystery of God. The gospel readings abound in calls to deeper faith and more confident hope and to ever effective love of God, neighbor, and all creation. The word of God is God's self-communication, God's love.2 The ultimate word of God's self-communication is the paschal mystery--the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ--a mystery that remains in God's ongoing self-communication. The Letter to the Romans assures us that God's love is poured forth in our hearts (Rm 5:5). We know this mystery as grace, a pers6nal encounter with God. Grace is the word of God, the self-gift of God, telling us of a God with us and3'br us.3 Kathleen McAlpin RSlVl works with theological students at Regis College in its integration-for-ministry and spiritual-direction programs: Regis College; 15 St. Mary Street; Toronto, Ontario; M4Y 2R5 Canada. January-February 2002 conversion process . 40 McAlpin ¯ Conversion The Word of God in Ordinary Places How does the word of God have its origin in natural events and forces? The movie Chocolat offers a good example of how conversion comes in ordinary and unlikely places. For the inhabitants of a storybook town in France, conversion comes in the form of the stranger who opens a chocolate shop. This myth is set in a sleepy but rigidly conservative village in southern France in 1959. Vianne, a young woman of multiethnic background (Latin American and French) arrives in town, her young daughter in tow, hoping to establish a chocolate shop using some secret Mayan chocolate recipes with strange mystical properties, recipes handed down to her by her mother. Vianne has a great compassion for people and a capacity to listen to them. She becomes a catalyst for change. For some in the village, she becomes a healing presence. In others' eyes, however, because she does not share in the Jansenistic spirituality of the Catholic community, she appears scandalous and represents temptation. The word of God has summoned Vi~nne to conversion--in her relationships with the townspeople, through her involvement in the joys and sorrows of the lives about her, and through love. For Vianne also finds love and support in Roux, yet another stranger, whose arrival in town is a further catalyst for conversion not only for Vianne but also for the townspeople. The word of God comes from love. It calls people to love. The word of God came to me in a similar way. At a liturgy at Romero House, a center for refugees in Toronto, I met a refugee couple from Uzbekistan, a country of the former Soviet Union, near Afghanistan. They left because of the extreme religious and political persecution they suffered. Circumstances forced them to leave their two teenage daughters behind. They hoped to bring them to North America soon after their own arrival, but were unaware of all the protocols involved. They now realize they may have to wait for more than a year--if the plan works at all. The deep empathy I felt was a call to be in prayerful solidarity and close community with this couple as they wait in their political dark night. As we prayed at Mass, their presence, their story, haunted me. I united with them as whispers of translation occurred between them during the liturgy. The word of God comes to us in the everyday world of our relationships, in society, and in the mystery called church. The Review for Religious summons to conversion comes in the word of God: from a friend asking for prayers during struggles, in the news of family grief, in the snow falling on cedars, in the call to be patient with an irritating person, in delight at the sun breaking through darkness, in the efforts of racial reconciliation, in the call to reuse and recycle, inthe faith exerted in a trial of doubt, in the hopeful efforts of a community trying to respond to the reign of God. The summons is God's self-communication that reveals what we love. The summons to conversion is a call to find God in all things, and to fall forever in love. "Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.''4 In finding God, in falling in love, our lives hope to be changed in a permanent way. In times of doubt and anxiety, we may have many questions about the darkness or seeming nothingness of the world, and the powerlessness of our lives. In times of hope and joy, we often find it simple to seek and to know the living God and discern our response to God with full hearts. In other words, "what you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evening, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything." s What or whom do we love? What seizes our imagination as women and men, as religious, in the church, in the world? What gives us hope in our relationships and in our decisions? Falling in love is more about relationships than it is about issues or agendas. We are seekers of God on a mission. Our God is a living, loving God. Our mission is the dream of God, the reign of God. Our very lives reveal what we have found and with whom we have fallen in love. In grace, a living and loving God is present with us when our hearts are encouraged to respond in trusting relationships. God is with us when our hearts are broken over the unending wars and disasters that envelop our world, the universal suffering of women and children, the oppression of the Our mission is the dream of God, the reign of God. January-February 2002 McAlpin ¯ Conversion earth, and the prejudice regarding those who are "other" by race or culture, poverty or status. God is with us and for us as we endure personal grief with our families and friends. Grace abounds in sorrow and in the amazement of love. God embraces us as we embrace others and our own conversion in the unfolding events of our daily life. Conversion in the Experience of Religious Life The history and the wisdom of our Christian tradition have led us to believe that the only reason for religious life is the experience of God. This experience can come through other forms of life, and ~o there is wisdom in being mutually supportive in our search for the living God. We search for this mystery explicitly in relationships with associates and partners in ministry. This can be done only with oil in our lamps. In her recent book Finding the Treasure, Sandra Schneiders reminds us that religious life is about our quest for God. Our life is about the "one thing necessary":6 being in a loving relationship with God, living our sorrows and joys in the embrace symbolized by the religious vows. As I understand it, the early vow formulas of religious were simpler. Women and men dedicated their lives to the love of God and neighbor and professed this love in one vow. For almost a thousand years, the vow for this self-donation-in- love was "ongoing conversion of life." This vow was a deepening of the first call to conversion, baptism. .Religious life has always been influenced by developments in the world community. By the high Middle Ages, the centuries-old practice of special dedication to God as hermits or cenobites was being carefully studied by Scholastic theologians. They focused especially on three principal practices that had long been identified with that special dedication: celibacy or chastity, poverty or unpossessiveness, and obedience or consciously seeking God's will in one's life. Some of this study went into much detail, sometimes enough to distract people from the original intent of their dedication, namely, seeking God exclusively or following Christ closely. Consecrated life itself came to be thought of and ceremonialized as the life of the (three) vows. For almost eight hundred years now, most orders and congregations have expressed their consecration in terms of those vows. In the early history of Review for Religious the Sisters of Mercy, a fourth vow, service, was included--a vow to care for the poor, the sick, and the uneducated. Similar modifications have occurred in other congregations. Over time the idea of the ongoing conversion of life was lost in some communities of religious life. Or was it? Ongoing Conversion Religious life is an ongoing drama of individual and communal experiences of conversion. Most religious have had numerous experiences summoning them to conversion. They have known the limitations and graces of ministry, personal prayer, friendships, deaths in families and communities, political struggles, retreat experiences, natural disasters, personal and community griefs and joys. In communal conversion they have known the power of the whole gracing them with more ene.rgy than any individual could have imagined. They have experienced a call to a deeper awareness of the connection between Christ and the cosmos. They have known chapters calling for renewed faith in the paschal mystery. They have experienced charisma and resistance in this continuing mystery. Each event summons a response to new life. The life, death, and resurrection moments of our lives continue to reveal the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. An early example of my particular experience of this mystery was the use of the word justice in our community. It was quite a political term in the 1960s and early 1970s; born of revolutionary stands, it was quite controversial. At a 1975 prechapter meeting, a vote was taken on the issue. By the grace of God, the acceptance of justice as a topic slipped through by a narrow margin. It was a resurrection moment: the chapter document was ritled "Mercy Looks at Justice." More than twenty-five years later, we gathered to reimagine a new justice structure. It is clear now that justice is not a peripheral issue, but rather the heart of the matter for us. Justice is the very term for the slow, developmental process of conversion in our life of faith. The paschal mystery is interwoven with the conversion of the community. Our current chapter is calling us, as women of the church, to ongoing conversion at the very roots of the spirituality of .~anuary-February 2002 McAlpin ¯ Conversion religious life. We are called to our own conversion as we face the concerns of the earth: multiculturalism, racism, solidarity with the poor. This call comes from no other source but the Source of life, of wisdom, of sophia. Our response connects us with all the religious figures who have gone before us; through them we seek courage and grace. The Spirit of God desires integrity of word and deed even more than we do. We are called and graced--and we are limited by our own weakness--to renew the very structures of our community with the wisdom of justice. Conversion is initiated by God and given as gift. A gift presumes a giver, and for persons of faith the giver is ultimately God. The initiative, the invitation, the summons to conversion is with God. Simply stated, conversion is the movement away from evil and toward good or from one good to a greater good. We trust that through discernment we will learn how to move away from such evils as racism and consumerism and grow in appreciation of all creation and of other cultures, grow in compassionate and just relationships in society and with creation. Three images found in theologies of conversion are helpful when reflecting on a desire for conversion: conversion as God's flooding of hearts through the Holy Spirit, conversion as the awakening of the gifts of the Spirit, and conversion as the loving, compassionate life of Jesus. All three images lead to radical religious conversion of Christian conscience, which ultimately leads us to the loving compassion of the life of Jesus. 44 God Flooding Our Hearts Bernard Lonergan uses the image of God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit given us in Christ (Rm 5:5).7 He considers conversion as the heart of the Christian life. Conversion, through the work of the Spirit, enables persons to make new judgments and decisions and to .move beyond established horizons into new horizons of knowing, valuing, and acting. Conversion transforms and affects all relationships. "It is not merely a change or even a development; rather, it is a radical transformation on which follows, on all levels of living,~ an interlocked series of changes and developments. What hitherto was unnoticed becomes vivid and present. What had been of no concern is a matter of high import. So great a change in one's Review for Religious apprehensions and one's values accompanies no less a change in oneself, in one's relations to other persons, and in one's relations to God." 8 These changes can be dramatic or slow, intimate but never solitary, concrete and communal, dynamic and ongoing.9 This is consistent with our experience as a community of faith and of the reflections of many of the people encountered in ministry. Conversion "can happen to many, and they can form a community to sustain one another in their self-transformation, [to] help one another in working out the implications and in fulfilling the promise of their new life. Finally, what can become communal can become historical. It can pass from gen-eration to generation. It can pass from one cultural milieu to another. It can adapt to changing new situations, survive into a different age, flourish in another period or epoch." 10 This conviction about conversion engenders hope in current experiences of communal conversion--as a community, among our associates, and with our collaborators. We trust that this grace influences all those in relationship with us from one generation to another. Conversion is initiated by God and given as gift. Awakening to God The second image of conversion is the awakening of gifts of the Spirit that challenge relationships to be mutual and courageous. Awakening is the empowerment of the Spirit of Wisdom. Sophia releases the capabilities of giftedness in the individual and in the communal experience of conversion. Elizabeth Johnson places empowerment and relationships central to her understanding of conversion: "A permanent process of both turning away and turning inward--turning away from all that intellectually, morally, and spiritually keeps one mired in abusive relationships characterized by domination, inti~nidation, fear, or dishonesty and turning toward the unlimited grace of God ever calling us to relationships characterized by mutuality, respect, courage, and truthfulness." ~ January-February 2002 McAlpin ¯ Conversion In this image, conversion is empowerment and affirmation of one's strength and responsibility. It is rooted in women's experience of an excess of self-denial in following the call to conversion. Conversion is the movement toward the discovery and appropriation of the potential gifts within an individual, group, or society. As women of the church, we are summoned to discover the gifts necessary to be converted in solidarity with the poor, to value multiculturalism, to eliminate racism, and to act in harmony with all of creation. Our summons is a word of God calling us to appropriate our gifts in the name of Christ for the sake of the reign of God. The Loving, Compassionate Life of Jesus From the conversion experience of Thomas Merton, it is clear that Christian conversion reorients a person's whole life to the truth, value, love, and experience of God as brought to us in Christ. The fruit of conversion in the life of Merton was a transformation of conscience to loving compassion. As Walter Conn says, "the personal measure of Christian living, therefore, is the conscience which has experienced a Christian conversion at once cognitive, affective, moral, and religious. Only a person thus converted is fully and concretely sensitive to the loving life of Jesus. In Merton's life we discovered again the fundamental gospel truth that lies at the heart of Christian tradition: The radical religious conversion of Christian conscience finds its fullest realization in loving compassion--the self-transcending perfection of human empathy and justice. In its total surrender such religious conversion radically relativizes the moral autonomy of Christian conscience." 12 As followers of the gospel, we are summoned to a life of self-transcendence lived in a life of empathy and justice. In the life of Merton, we see that contemplation liberates the conscience for conversibn. Self-transcending love is found to be at the heart of the holistic development of the converted Christian. The fruit of conversion is compassion born of reflection on the life of Jesus. In community we hear of many who are willing to surrender to the needs of the others and thus be a part of the struggle for world freedom. The mystery of Christ is seen through contemplation of suffering and through reflection on the cross Review for Religious and the resurrection of Christ. Though we retain the freedom to refuse God's summons, any movement toward conversion is already the movement of God's grace within us. As I listen to stories in ministry, I frequently hear of how people are changed through events not of their own making, through persons and situations that were beyond their control. Conversion is grace. Conversion as Grace In Sacred Scripture we see grace offered in the prophetic calls to repentance and intimate love. John the Baptist made such calls, and, of course, Jesus did too. In Mark the first words of Jesus are a proclamation of the good news and a call to conversion: "The time is fulfilled and the reign of God has come near. Be converted and believe in the good news" (Mk 1:15). Matthew speaks of "seeking" God, or the reign of God, as the beginning of conversion. Jesus may have sought this experience at his baptism: "Jesus was not renouncing his sinfulness, but was taking his place with all those in. Israel who were saying: 'We are ready, Lord; please make this the moment of your Messianic salvation.'" ,3 In this, Jesus may have been responding to a call to a kind of conversion: "Jesus' experience at his baptism, so far as it can be recovered from the gospel records, seems in many respects akin to the effects of a sudden conversion. There was a sudden and intense personal experience of God. There was a new awareness of personal status with God, a call to a new way of life and acceptance of that call. There was, in fact, a reorientation of his whole personality.''14 Such an experience of God can have a transforming effect on a person's life.'5 While contemplating his baptism, Jesus heard the Spirit of God assuring him, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with whom I am well pleased" (Lk 3:22). Through this prayer, Jesus experienced an unconditional acceptance of God. Grounded in this religious experience, Jesus reorganized his life for the sake of Matthew speaks of "seeking" God, or the reign of God, as the beginning of conversion. January-February 2002 McAlpin ¯ Conversion the .reign of God. He moved from one way of living to another: "He gave up an earlier aiad long-standing way of life as no longer satisfactory, in order to take~ up a new and perilous way of life that now seemed to him imperative.''16 Through the conversion at his baptismal experience, Jesus turned to his mission of public ministry by affirming the reign of God. Elaine Wainwright notes that the reign of God is "the just and righteous purpose of God for all humanity.''~7 She says that after his baptism Jesus continued the mission of announcing this vision of God, which entails hearing, understanding, and doing God's word (Mr 13:23). Jesus enfleshed this vision in his compassionate encounters with those considered least (Mt 25:40).18 Called to a prophetic role, Jesus proclaimed a confidence in God's activity and lived within the reign of God. Jon Sobrino describes his acts and gestures: "His most fundamental gesture is taking sides with human beings in a concrete situation where the existing political religious structure has dehumanized people . Jesus does all he can to concretize and make present real love as the quintessence of the kingdom." 19 The story of the Canaanite woman illustrates a conversion in Jesus' public ministry (Mt 15:21-28). This woman is an ethnic and religious outsider in Israel. She pleads with Jesus for mercy for herself and healing for her daughter. At first Jesus does not respond to her; he understands his mission to be to the Israelites. The disciples, lacking understanding and compassion, want Jesus to get rid of her. Persistent, she continues to appeal to Jesus for help. As he listens to her, he is moved to enter into deeper discussion and uses a familiar parable to oppose her request. He refuses her plea for help with the image of the family's bread not being meant for dogs. Picking up on the image, the woman asks for crumbs from the master's table, thus boldly claiming a share in the reign of God that Jesus proclaims. Jesus is moved by her faith and expands the boundaries of his ministry to include the Gentiles. And so it is that Jesus, through dialogue with an outsider and a woman, sees his God-given mission changed to a greater inclusiveness. This decision of compassionate love comes from a summons through relationship. God is revealed through-others. In relationships we know and experience God. In his relationship with the Canaanite woman, we see Jesus Review for Religious emotionally engaging the spirit of the woman as she challenges his position. He realizes that he has to be responsible to this new interpersonal relationship. His decision is a moral choice within a sociopolitical and religious setting. His discernment is based on a wider understanding of the reign of God. This story gives evidence that even Jesus had a kind of conversion upon receiving a word-of-God summons through someone else's plea for mercy. The Principle of Conversion When we engage in a life of merciful love, when we place ourselves in situations where we work for and develop relationships with others, such relationships begin to include compassion. As this compassion deepens, it leads us to a greater justice. When systems and strategies meet an impasse, we are led into the deeper mystery of Christian love. Conversion to mercy is not primarily about doing specific works. It is an attitude, a horizon of being, or what Jon Sobrino calls a principle. The "principle of mercy is a fundamental attitude at the root of every human interaction," which then "affects all subsequent interactions." The principle of mercy "becomes justice" by engaging all levels of energy: intellectual, religious, scientific, and technological.2° Mercy animates a conversion that leads to changes in relationships, changes in thinking, acting, and believing. Sobrino learned an amazing truth through the martyrdom of his brother Jesuits and the women who worked with them. He now believes that nothing is as "vital in order to live as a human being than to exercise mercy on behalf of cn~cified people, and that nothing is more humanizing than to believe in the God of Jesus.''21 The exercise of mercy becomes a quality of being in all who engage in merciful justice. In discerning mercy as justice, we are summoned to share in the life of the Word of God, to fall in love, and, through ongoing Christian conversion, to live forever. Notes Gage Canadian Dictionary (Toronto: Gage Publishing Co., 1983). Karl Rahner, Foundations, trans. William V. Dych (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), p. 127. January-February 2002 McAl~in ¯ Conversion 3 Karl Rahner, Nature and Grace (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), pp. 24-26. 4 Attributed to Pedro Arrupe, superior general of the Jesuits from 1965-1983. s Attributed to Pedro Arrupe. 6 Sandra M. Schneiders, Finding the Treasure (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000), pp. 37-39. 7 Bernard J.E Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), p. 105. 8 Walter E. Conn, Conversion: Perspectives on Personal and Social Transformation (New York: Alba House, 1978), p. 13. 9 Conn, Conversion, p. 45. 10 Conn, Conversion, p. 45. 11 Elizabeth Johnson, She l.Vho Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1993), p. 64. 12 Walter E. Conn, Christian Conversion: A Developmental Interpretation of Autonomy and Surrender (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), p. 268. 13 Demetrius Dumm, Flowers in the Desert: A Spirituality of the Bible (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), p. 28. ~4 Donald Gray, "Was Jesus a Convert?" Religion in Life 43 (Winter 1974), citing Hugh Montefiore, Awkward Questions on Christian Love (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964), p. 449. ,s Conn, Conversion, p. 215. 16 Gray, "Was Jesus a Convert?". p. 449. ,7 Elaine Wainwright, "The Gospel of Matthew," in Elizabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, ed., Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary (New York: Crossroad, 1994), p. 636. ~8 Ibid, p. 637. 19jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads (New York: Orbis Books, 1978), p. 92. 20 Donald L. Gelpi SJ, The Turn to Experience in Contentporary Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), p. 134. 21 Jon Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross (New York: Orbis Books, 1994), p. 10. Review for Religious STEVE WLUSEK Seminary Formation and Lonergan's Conversion Theory i~arpe~P diem! Seize the day! Make your lives something ~ remarkable!" With these words Robin Williams's char-acter in the movie Dead Poets' Society begins to inspire his students not to just go through the paces of the educational system, but to make something of their time in school and of their very lives. He evokes their conversion from apathetic docil-ity to active participation in their own education. At turning points such as this, people begin to discover their own identity and mission. Bernard Lonergan's theory of conversions can illu-minate such personal development, anyone's, but here my focus is on seminary formation. Lonergan identifies four main conversions in life: moral, affec-five, critical moral, and religious.1 Each of these conversions opens people to a deeper awareness of their true self and brings about greater self-transcendence, allowing true relationships to develop with other people and especially with God. Lonergan bases his theory of conversions on the concept that everyone is self-cen-tered to some degree and that everyone's growth must begin from that point.2 From my perspective of ministering to many people in both parish and seminary, I have seen a number of degrees of self-centeredness. Steve Wlusek, a diocesan priest, is a faculty member of his diocese's St. Peter's Seminary; 1040 Waterloo Street; London, Ontario; N6A 3Y1 Canada. January-February 2002 Wlusek ¯ Seminary Formation A brief description of these conversions of Lonergan's will, I think, elucidate the validity of his theory for the ministry of seminary formation. Lonergan defines conversion as a fateful call to a dreaded holiness, an about-face by which we move into a radically new horizon, a personal entrance of God into our life and history, a communication of God to us.3 A person's con-version does not just happen; rather, it is a fundamental choice: "Conversion is a change of direction and, indeed, a change for the better. One frees oneself from the unauthentic. Harmful, dangerous, misleading satisfactions are dropped. Values are apprehended where before they were overlooked. Scales of pref-erence shift."4 Moral conversion is "choosing value as the criterion of one's life.''s In undergoing this form of conversion, one realizes that there is more than oneself that needs to be protected and respected. One's sensitivity is changed from wanting one's own life to be fair, to wanting justice for others and realizing that one has an obligation to work toward providing that justice. Moral conversion, therefore, is an impetus to move outside of oneself, which stretches that self to becoming other-conscious. Lonergan likens affective conversion to falling in love. Whereas moral con-version moves a person to be concerned for the well-being of others, affective conversion arouses one to be so moved regard-ing the other's well-being that one's entire orientation shifts to a concern which is expressed in action. Affective conversion involves not only the possibility of committing oneself to a course of active servi~e of another, but also the ability to execute that decision over the long haul.6 Lonergan identifies critical moral conversion as changing one's standard for personal orientation. Those who undergo this conversion come to a healthy sense of the sacred within themselves. They do not need to look somewhere else beyond themselves to discover what is real or valuable; they accept the validity of their own judgment. During the gradual process of their personal development and their prudently increasing autonomy, they reach a crucial point. They discover that their own judging and deciding affect them no less than the objects of their judgments and decisions. They realize that they are respon-sible for what they make of themselves, and that their choices are crucial in the process of becoming authentic persons.7 Review for Religious Through religious conversion, one falls in love with God and surrenders oneself completely to God. This conversion moves one to live with this attitude: "Whatever you want for me, God, I want it too." Lonergan portrays the one who has been trans-formed through this religious conversion as being "a subject in love, a subject held, grasped, possessed, owned through a total and so an other-worldly love.''8 Religious conversion creates a basic consciousness that enables one to appreciate all as gift from God. This consciousness impacts how one views oneself, one's situation, and one's role in the human condition.9 In mov-ing out of oneself to embrace God in religious conversion, then, one also lovingly em-braces other people, sensing their Beloved dwelling therein. Lonergan's theory of con-versions can have constantly renewed application, for the Christian life is one of ongoing conversion, with people's lives seldom following his theory once and for all, neatly, step-by-step. Ongoing conversions, relevant as they are for people in general, are relevant also for seminar-ians and those who assist in their discernments on their path toward the priesthood. Using composite portraits of three sem-inarians, I hope to show how Lonergan's theory may be of help. The first of these three, John, had a sense of conversion at around the age of twelve. He had for several years been a server at parish Masses and had a deep admiration for his parish priest. John saw in him a man of Eindness and deep faith and love for God. As John served at the altar with this priest, and watched him minister, he came to a growing awareness that he wanted to be a priest just like his pastor, dedicating his life to serving God. His parents were eager about the prospect of their son becom-ing a priest. John entered the minor seminary at age thirteen. John has completed his college studies and is now studying the-ology in the major seminary. Although John is ardent in his prayer and during liturgies, he seems deficient in some of his relationships. He comes late for class and other formation group Lonergan identifies critical moral conversion as changing one's standard for personal orientation. January-February 2002 Wlusek ¯ Seminary Formation events, and he shows little respect for his peers. He and a friend from his hometown talk exclusively to each other at meals, ignoring the other seminarians nearby. Lonergan's theory reveals that John may have experienced a moral conversion, which set him on the path to serving God as a priest, but he still seems to need an affective conversion so as to have much more respect and compassion for others. Peter, another seminarian, was very much involved in his parish before entering the seminary. He experienced conver-sion through youth retreat weekends, which seemed to change his life. Since these weekends, he has served in many ways through his parish youth ministry: visiting nursing homes, vol-unteering at a soup kitchen, and packing boxes in his local food bank. In his seminary activities he does tremendous service at his field-education placement. His supervisor reports that he is looked up to by everyone at the center and that the physically challenged people he works with look forward to his visits with them. Although all of this is true and highly commendable, Peter's behavior in the seminary community is less than could be desired. He forgets his duties to read or serve at Eucharist, he gives people who disagree with him the silent treatment, and he snubs those who are not in his select group of friends. Peter seems to have undergone moral and affective conversions: he has been moved to work for the care of others and for justice towards them. Peter, however, has compartmentalized this awareness; it pertains only to those outside his immediate com-munity. He is eager to go out of the building to do outreach, yet he fails to recognize opportunities for outreach right in the hall-way where he lives. The third seminarian, Mark, entered the seminary after graduating from university and working in a respected career for several years. While engaged in this career, which involved help-ing others, he came to a realization that what he was doing was not enough. Even though he was helping pgople, he felt he could help them only materially. He came to understand deeply that God was calling him to use his intelligence and ability to help people not only materially but spiritually. Currently, in the seminary, Mark quietly serves others and looks after the needs of sick seminarians and those overly stressed by their studies. He does so in a quiet manner, seeking no recognition or praise. He Review for Religious goes to his parish field-education placement eagerly, seeing an opportunity for the kind of service to which he feels God is calling him. While others complain around the meal table about the food or about the workload they are under, never is "heard a discouraging word" from Mark. He has lived on his own and has done plenty of work in his former career. In the chapel he is often found in prayer or reading books from the spiritual masters. Mark is a man of self-assuredness, maturity, and desire for God. He seems to have undergone moral, affective, and crit-ical- moral conversions. I believe that Mark and the other semi-narians mentioned have experienced different degrees of religious conversion as well. All of them, however, still need further growth toward a complete yes to God (as we all do). Understanding the level to which seminarians have under-gone these conversions is crucial in the role of seminary for-mation. Part of the role of seminary formators is to discern, with other faculty members, candidates' readiness to progress further in the formation program. Lonergan's theory of con-versions can help tremendously in this work. Awareness is the first step towards action. By being more aware of the levels of seminarians' conversion, we will be able to identify areas in which we can help them grow. The saying that "faith is caught and not taught" is good to remember when reflecting on our seminarians' conversions. It is not simply the teaching of the-ology that will evoke a personal about-face. We need to foster various circumstances wherein conversion may be experienced: in supportive and nurturing encounters of spiritual direction, in open and mutually respectful formation-group dialogues, in teaching filled with dynamism and conviction, in field education and theological reflection which help students reflect on the needs of people in their community, in experiences of working with the poor, and in celebrations of liturgies that are inspiring and affectively moving. The teacher in Dead Poets' Society took seriously his respon-sibility to motivate his students to make their lives remarkable. Through the insight gained from Bernard Lonergan's theory of conversions, we can appre.ciate in a new way our role in priestly formation to discern the status of candidates' conversion life and to present them with opportunities for deeper conver-sion, so they can make of their lives what they were made for. January-February 2002 Wlusek ¯ Seminary Formation Through these experiences of faith, nurture, and co~nmunity, seminarians will be able not only to come to deeper conver-sion, but to embrace more fully their true identities in union with God. Notes 1 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), p. 238. 2 Walter E. Conn, The Desiring Self(New York: Paulist Press, 1998), p. 67. 3 Lonergan, p. 113. 4 Lonergan, p. 52. s Conn, p. 118. 6 Conn, p. 121. 7 Mary Kay Kinberger MSC, Lonergan on Conversion: Applications for Religious Formation (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), p. 38. 8 Lonergan, p. 240. 9 Kinberger, p. 46. January January blizzards on the heels of Christmas. Winter grips the snow-encrusted land with the iron determination Grandma whipped egg whites into stiff miniature Alpine peaks. The time of rushing has passed. No birds sing joyously. Nor do dogs bark with gusto. Last year's wild roses have long gone into seed. It is a season for me to listen: maybe to a heartbeat, an old man fingering his worn beads. Or, in my moments of stillness, hear the whisper of the Epiphany Child inviting me go out into the cold and visit those who are old, grieving, sick, and forgotten. Richard Heatley Review for Religious PATRICIA ANN LAMOUREUX AND PAUL ZILONKA The Workers in the Vineyard: Insights for the Moral Life Bracelets with the letters WWJD are popular these days. They are meant to remind the wearer and others to keep asking What Would Jesus Do? This practice assumes that we can fairly quickly see or reason to what Jesus would do in response to the moral dilemmas of life in 2 lst-century America. It ought not surprise us that these bracelets are promoted more by evangelical groups than by those who take more seriously the challenge of modern biblical exegesis and hermeneutics. In light of the Second Vatican Council's call to develop moral theology in accordance with the biblical vision, Catholic moral theologians have given the relationship of Scripture and ethics increased scholarly attention.1 Increased knowledge, however, has led to greater appreciation for the complexity of the task. Although constructive proposals for relating Scripture and ethics are still only being tested, many people nowadays are better prepared to avoid facile answers and improve inadequate ones. In this essay we try to discern ethical implications of the parable about the workers in the vineyard (Mt moral insight Patricia Ann Lamoureux teaches moral theology and Paul Zilonka CP teaches Scripture at St. Mary's Seminary and University; 5400 Roland Avenue; Baltimore, Maryland 21210. ~tanuary-February 2002 Lamoureux and Zilonka ¯ The Workers in the Vineyard In Galilee at that time, there were three types of relationship pertaining to work: patronage, exploitation, or cooperation. 20:1-16). The story disconcerts many people's sense of jusfce. We undertake this task with recognition of the danger of selecting one text from "a rich symphony of literary forms . . composed of a chorus of voices speaking out of a variety of historical and cultural contexts and a number of theological perspectives and addressing a broad spectrum of moral questions.''2 While focusing on the vineyard parable, we are not attempting to reduce this "rich orchestration" to a "simple melody line.''3 Nor are we suggesting that this story somehow contains all that Scripture has to say about morality in general or justice in particular. We approach the parable in three steps: (1) investigating the original set-ting and meaning of the parable (the exegetical task); (2) assessing how to appropriately employ this parable within the various levels of moral reflection (the methodological task); (3) interpreting the meaning of the parable for our contemporary situation (hermeneutical task).4 Let us begin with the parable: For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, "You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is just." So they went off. When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same. And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, "Why are you standing here idle all day?" They said to him, "Because no one has hired us." He said to them, "You also go into my vineyard." When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, "Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first." When those hired about five o'clock Review for Religious came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat." But he replied to one of them, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last." (Mt 20:1-16) Exegetical Task In this section we explore what the parable meant to the people who first heard or read it. It is possible and even likely that Jesus' original audience, and Matthew's community too, included people of the social class of the vineyard .owner (landholders, merchants, entrepreneurs) as well as employed and unemployed workers. In lst-century Galilee, harvest time in a vineyard was fraught with tension. When the crop was ready, there could be no delay. All hands were needed to bring in the fruit at the peak of maturity. Also, the condition of day labor in the Hellenistic-Roman world was dreadful. The employer of the ancient world was master of his money; he could do with it as he chose. Commonly, employers looked in the marketplace of the city for unemployed men hoping to be hired. The agreement with those called at dawn was for "the usual daily wage" in that agrarian context. These men worked for whatever the employer was willing to pay, usually subsistence wages at the lowest level for a day's work. As the day went on, more laborers were needed. Thus we can understand the repeated excursions of the owner of the vineyard back to the town square seeking extra workers, even as the day waned. These others were promised what was "just," but the amount remained unspecified.5 In Galilee at that time, there were three types of relationship pertaining to work: patronage, exploitation, or cooperation. The January-February 2002 Lamoureux and Zilonka ¯ The Workers in the Vineyard latter would seem to explain the parable in regard to the workers of the first hour and those of the subsequent hours too. They agree to cooperate in doing the work for a stipulated amount, "the daily wage" for the first group and "what is just" for the latter groups. They are day workers rather than those enjoying the pati'onage relationship, which has a more permanent quality. Nor are they being exploited as slaves.6 Yet they grumble when workers hired at the 'end of the day receive the full daily wage. Over the years many people have been upset by the logic of the landowner, startled by what seems to be his "unbusinesslike" behavior. Those hired in the last moments of the workday could hardly have hoped for more than a small fraction of what the first would receive. After all, they had worked so little. The vineyard owner's payments take

Issue 62.4 of the Review for Religious, 2003. ; Church Dii~ection D evo tion a 1 Life Religious Life Pers 3ectives QUARTERLY 62.4 2003 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ V~Zeb 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 Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2003 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 th~ personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. MI copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the crehtion of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. fo r religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor ¯ Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 62.4 2003 contents 340 church direction Alphonsus's Perspective in the Post-Vatican II Church Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR highlights the God-given perspective of St. Alphonsus Liguori and suggests that such a perspective can be pgeserved even though the content of the Christian message has new dimensions after Vatican II. 354 Belief, Augustine, and the New Religiosity Paul Graham OSA enters us into a reflection on the shape of our faith, as opposed to its content, in contemporary Western society. devotional life 363 Rediscovering the Rosary Dennis J. Billy CSSR reviews the pope's apostolic letter on the rosary as a venerable form of prayer that will help Christians "to contemplate with Mary the ffice of Christ." 37O Mirroring Jesus: The Luminous Mysteries and Religious Life Mary Joseph Schultz SCC reflects on the luminous mysteries of the rosary not only as a new graced opportunity to deepen our faith by bringing the public life of Jesus into the rosary, but also as a special gift to vowed religious to reflect on essential elements of consecrated life. Review for Religious 379 reOi ious perspectives Why Newly Professed Religious Leave Peter Cantwell OFM reflects not only on what younger people are disillusioned by in religious life but also on what current members might provide as helps in a mutual effort to live the charism. 402 Ignatian Insights into Evangelical Poverty Donald C. Maldari SJ explores the richness and relevance of evangelical poverty and its relationship to theological hope in the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola. departments 338 Prisms 423 Canonical Counsel: Papal Enclosure 431 Book Reviews 440 Indexes L33-7-- 62.4 2003 Te naturalized British writer Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) came to the United States for the first time with hope of winning a young lady's hand. He had met her and her mother earlier, when they were visiting England. Sometime during his unexpectedly 16ng and difficult land trip west to California to propose to her, Belloc was stimulated to write the following light verse: Kings live in palaces, pigs in sties, youth in expectation. Youth is wise. Despite Belloc's idealistic inspiration, we might hesitate to agree that such youthful expectation is wise. When our hopes, our expectations, are not realized, we can become disillusioned or bitter and angry or, perhaps, if we have a certain psychological makeup, resilient. As it happened, Belloc's marriage proposal was rejected by the young lady's mother, but he returned to England with his expectations intact. A year or so later, he took another trip to the United States with the same purpose in view, and this time he was successful. He married the young lady. Undoubtedly he felt that he had made his own the truth he had expressed in his verse. Our Catholic faith seems to agree with youth, even finding that living in expectation is a divine way of living. Jesus, after all, taught us to Review for Religious pray daily "Thy kingdom come." Certain times of the year, like Advent, and holy days like All Saints, All Souls, and Christmas highlight for us the virtue of hope or expectation. God has such divine expectations of each one of us that there is no limit to how often he forgives our wrongdoing. Likewise there are no restrictions on the graces of God's intimacy with his sons and daughters in Christ. Scripture would have us believe that God expects to delight in us. Expectation, then, considered in a Christian light, is not just for the young, but it is the graced quality of those who are called to be young in heart by their Christian baptism. Living in expectation, we look forward to growing in holiness. We have expectations about ourselves as saints, just as God does. Living in expectation, we look for the ways that God shines forth in the world he created and leads us towards God's reign. Entering into St. Paul's heart, we have expectations that God keeps working at the century-by-century fulfillment of his creation in Christ. We as members of Christ's Body expect to play our own part, with God, in bringing about this fullness of redemption. Of course, we all have our natural fear of dying, especially faced with its unknown pain and circumstances. But we as Christians can at the same time look towards death with expectation, welcoming our further identity with Christ in receiving death as one more gift of the Father so that we can rejoice in resurrected life forever. As we say in our Creed, we expect the res-urrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Yes, to live in expectation is a profound Christian calling. Such living is rooted, not in youthfulness, but in God, and is sustained by God. We the baptized are meant to live in expectation. We devoutly pray for God's presence gracing us in this way. Then we are youthfully wise. David L. Fleming SJ 62.4 2003 church NIHAL ABEYASINGHA Alphonsus's Perspective in. the Post-Vatican I! Church direction Redemptorists were for a considerable period of their history called "hellfire preachers." And so indeed they were. At the time of Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, the preaching was accompanied by "audiovisuals" that would be considered macabre today--the exhibition of a skull, an imaginary dialogue with a damned soul, and thepreachers going around the town in the dark crying out "Save your soul!" Obviously, these procedures cannot and should not be duplicated today. But, if what he did represented a God-given perspective, I think it would be a pity to lose the perspective even today. In this article I intend to highligh,t Alphonsus's perspective and suggest tentatively that it can be preserved even though the content--or the awareness of the content--of the Christian message has new dimensions after Vatican Council II. Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR lives at 454/9 Piachaud Gardens; Peradeniya Road; Kandy, Sri Lanka. Review for Reli~ous Background of the Ministry of Alphonsus The Council of Tren.lt (1545-1563) met to counter the effect that Luther's andI other Reformation perspectives were having on the church. The perspectives were primarily doctrinal. They had serious implications, however, for the institutional and disciplinary structure of the church. There was pblarization: Scripture alone versus Scripture and Tradition;'I faith as commitment alone (tides fiducialis) versus faith ificluding content; only God and grace versus God in Christ acting through human ministry and grace being mediate.d through the church. When the council met in 1545, the attendance was poor, some forty bishops, most of the~m Italian. They began with disagreement, but by 1546 they decided to deal simulta-neously with both doctrifial and disciplinary issues. . The shadow of thel Reformation cast a permanent shadow on the council's deliberations. The result was an emphasis on 'what the Reformers had gotten wrong by Catholic criteria, ignorin, g altogether what they got right. (In the words of G.K. Chesterton, every heresy is the revenge of a forgotten ~r_~-uth.) Among other things, Trent stressed the veneration iof the saints, devotion to Mary, the Mass as sacrifice, th~ importance of suffrages for the dead, and other matters! against the Reformers, Spin-offs of these lines of thought in Catholic culture included stress on Euchanstac ad.orataon, a deemphasls of the role of the laity, and undu~e emphasis on the role of the . ordained minister who c.onfects the Eucharist. In the Catholic trad, ition the theology that followed was highly systematized, the disciplinary structure rigid and centrahzed. But the, ology also reflected attempts to find places of accord with Luther. For example, Michel de Bay of Louvain (+1589) thought of original sin as depriving human beingi of what constitutes the human condition--another vergion of Luther's understanding of humanity's "radical corruption." Bay's position was 62.4 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Alpbonsus's Perspective Alphonsus's ministry was "popular," directed to the masses who lacked competent pastoral care. defended by Cornelius Jansen (+1638). Even though views such as these were repudiated by the church, they had effects on requirements for receiving the sacraments. I suggest that Alphonsus used the "last things" (death, judgment, heaven, and hell), which had a major impact on Luther, as a call to conversion for those in sin. The response of conversion that he sought was oriented towards the sacraments of recon-ciliation and the Eucharist, the ecclesial communion that is based on the true faith and true sacraments. Alphonsus's ministry was "popular," directed to the masses who lacked competent pastoral care. These people were steeped in superstition and magic, and lived in fear of frightful evils such as the devil coming into their lives. That is where Alphonsus started; he addressed their emotion of fear by proclaiming the last things. Beginning his preaching of the Christian message here, he le~l individuals to the sacraments. He wanted to make it as easy as possible for sinners to confess to a priest (in contrast to the Reformers' idea of confessing directly to God). He advocated a gentle manner with those who committed sins by almost unconscious habit and with those who fell again and again into the same sin (consuetudinarii and recidivt). In his time the laxist view allowed absolution as often as penitents confessed, while the rigorist view demanded thorough amendment of life before they could receive absolution. Mphonsus proposed a middle path of sound common sense. He said that absolution should be refused to consuetudinarii and recidivi unless there were clear signs of repentance, which he listed: tears, weeping, a lessening of the number of sins, notable efforts at amendment such Review for Reli~ous as fasting or almsgiviOg, evidence of a search for new means of improvement, spontaneous confession, special motivation such as the fear of some impending disaster, confession of sins previously and culpably omitted, prior restitution, new awardness, of guilt. He advocated that absolution be deferred only when the confessor was morally certain of the penitent's wrong disposition; that is, .for deferral he needed to make a prudent probable judgment about ,tpheen'i te"n t s' fundamental lack of sorrow. He said, too, ~at absolution is not to be deferred if there is danger of more harm than good being done.1 Through reconciliation followed by the Eucharist (the emphasis more on Holy Communion than on the Mass), people were weaned ,away from sin. What was taking place is pictured on thd cover Alphonsus designed for his book Selva: The Digni~ and Duties of the Priest. The priest is hearing confession .'in front of a large crucifix. Rays from the crucified Lo,"rd stream towards the penitent. Alphonsus's pastoral r~alism saw God's action in Christ reaching penitents thro.'ugh the sacramental mediation of the church. The perspelctive is close to that of Irenaeus of Lyon (+202): "God is~ man's glory, but it is man who receives the effect of Gbd's activity, who is the recipient of all God's wisdom and power. Just as a doctor proves himself in his patients, ~o God reveals himself in men." 2 Alphonsus facilitated reconciliation with a bias in favor of penitents because of his own trust in the power of God's grace. He-k~ew that generally the habitual sinners would fear death, judgment, hell, and the loss of heaven and so would approach sacramental recon-ciliation. He knew thht fear as a motive does not last long. He knew that "~erfect love casts out fear" (1 Jn 4:18). So, to lead therfi beyond fear and enable them to remain converted, to p'ersevere, he offered the motive of love and a support structure of prayer and fellowship, namely, confraternities. 62.4 2003 Abeyasingba * Alpbonsus'sPer~ective To sustain people's effort and stir up love in them, he presented considerations that would naturally lead to love. Look how much God loved you, sending his Son in human .form; that Son died for you amid unspeakable suffering; that intense love continues in his abiding presence, especially in the Eucharist. Will you not return love for love? In such works as The Practice oft be Love of Jesus Christ, he would go further into the qualities that true love for Jesus entails. He knew, of course, the sinner's obvious objection: I am too weak to respond with any degree of intensity of love. He forestalled that objection by his teaching on prayer. Christ has said, "Ask and you shall receive." Ask God--that is prayer. Because God has said it, you will receive. Everyone and anyone can do this much. He bolstered this position by citing respected authors and by telling stories of how sinners who did not stop praying " received a final chance to repent and be saved. Even daough many of the stories would be laughed at today, in those days they made his point effectively. Parish missions were considered finished only when all had had an opportunity for confession. After the mission Alphonsus established some ongoing programs: regular mental prayer in the church and confraternities where people supported one another with fellowship, prayer, and regular instruction to stay on the path of their conversion. There is a clear overall perspective in these programs. Today one can object that in this model popular piety and liturgy merely coexist and that the former can even take precedence over the latter.3 It is likely that Alphonsus knew of Ludovico Antonio Muratori, a 17th-century writer who in Della Regolata Devozione dei Cristiani (Norms for Christian Devotion) proposed a religiosity that drew from the liturgy and the Scriptures to offset superstition and magic, and that he also knew of Benedict XIV's important initiative of permitting the use of the Review for Religious Bible in the vernacular. But Alphonsus did not bring these perspectives into his work for the pastorally most abandoned, chiefly uneducated people inclined to superstition. It would make little sense. They might give a symbolic assent to the matter presented and engage in a symbolic act of conversion, but their lives would not be much changed. Alphonsus said that the test of a good sermon is when the people leave the church striking their breast and not talking about the preacher. A New Context As the church in mid-20th-century Europe was facing something of a crisis of neglect and indifference, some new theological perspectives and initiatives in Scripture, catechesis, and liturgy were appearing. Without intend!ng to imply that Redemptorists were in the forefront of the pre-Vatican II theological scene--in fact, they were not--I venture to suggest that two Redemptorists made a significant contribution to this evolving theology. They did this by examining the existing perspectives in the light of Alphonsus's call-response perspective (fear as initial stimulus leading to love in the long term). This was obvious in the German Bernard H~iring.4 EX. Durrwell, from France, highlighted the grandeur of the resurrection in God's redemptive plan so that believers could more attractively show those who were ignoring the Christian message the way to conversion and growth.5 After all, the motto of the Redemptorist congregation is "With him is plentiful redemption." Paul Hitz CSSR, of Switzerland, even though he did not receive much international notice, contributed to catechetics, which too is a call to grow as believers. Vatican II bro,ught into focus several aspects of theology for which 'Isome theologians had been disciplined. It rediscove~'ed the paschal mystery and, with that, found a new view df the ¯church: its being sacrament, I 62.4 2003 Abeyasingha ¯ Alphonsus's Perspective the common priesthood of all Christ's faithful (and some consequences of this), and a renewed liturgy.6 Alphonsus's Perspective in a Post-Vatican II Context Can Mphonsus's perspective fit in this post-Vatican II context? I do not know whether this question has been posed in this way. It is claimed that Alphonsus's perspective is embodied in a story that is loved, remembered, and lived by Redemptorists. Without assessing that claim, perhaps articulating some contemporary dimensions may not be out of place. In his Confessions Augustine (+430) made this prayerful observation: "Since the time I first learned of You, there is nothing of You I have discovered that I have not discovered by remembering." And what he discovered in responding to the Manichees, Donatists, and Pelagians of his time has influence even in our day. Perhaps one may suggest that a hint of a Vatican II perspective was already present in Alphonsus. In his Duetto (Dialogue with the Soul) he imagines a soul meeting Christ going to his death. The soul asks: "Where ¯ are you going?" Jesus replies: "I am going to die." The soul wants to follow him. Jesus asks the soul to give him his heart and then go and live, always remembering his (Jesus') love." In practice, one emotion seems dominant in the Redemptorist recognition of, and conversion from, sin, and that is joy, thankfulness that one is forgiven. "Father, you show your almighty power chiefly in your mercy and forgiveness" (opening prayer, 26th Sunday, Ordinary Time). Put this grateful joy felt by Redemptorists into the picture of alertness for clear signs of repentance--fear as a starting point of conversion, tears, fewer sins, fasting or almsgiving, seeking new ways to improve, and so forth--and perhaps you have something that at least resonates with the perspective of the Exsultet of the Easter Vigil, stemming from well Review for Religious before Vatican II: 'iWhat good would life have been for us had Christ not come as our Redeemer? Father, how wonderful your care for us! How boundless your merciful love! To ransom a slave you gave away your Son. O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!" Does this Redemptorist picture from before Vatican II fit in with post-Vatican II theological reflection? I think it does. After being careful to identify those who are in the greatest pastoral need, we must remember a few basic principles. First, it is important to touch people where they are. Where Muratori proposed drawing popular piety from Scripture and the liturgy, Alphonsus's program was to meet people where they were and then lead them beyond it. Second, a clear distinction needs to be made between stimulating conversion in the short term (Alphonsus used fear for this) and maintaining conversion in the long term. (For the latter, Alphonsus had only one prescription: love.) Third, how does one propose love? The short answer is: as a call that evokes a response, or an offer that invites acceptance. It is important to keep God's initiative in mind, as in the picture of rays from the crucified Jesus shining on the penitent. Alphonsus's call to love focuses on Jesus' passion: "Greater love than this.no one has, than that a person lay down his life for his friends." But this emphasis should include the following: "Therefore does the Father love me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again" On 10:17-18). Death and resurrection are inseparable. Psychologically, selfless suffering unto death is deeply evocative of response, but it is not complete by itself.7 Rather than being isolated from the resurrection, Jesus' passion should be presented as a step on the journey to fullness of life. "The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God," says Irenaeus of 62.4 2003 Ab~yasingha ¯ Alphonsus'sPerspective Lyon. Incorporation into Christ's deat[h and resurrection in baptism should be the basic paradigm for preaching about death and resurrection. For there to be resurrection, there must be passion (suffering) and death; one chooses this journey because of the hope of resurrection. "Christ has passed beyond our sight, not to abandon us, but to be our hopE. Christ is the beginning, the head of the church; where he has gone, we hope to follow" (Preface 1, Ascension). The grandeur of that goal makes the call to conversion attractive today: "With him is plentiful redemption." It is well to remember that even on Good Friday, when the liturgy focuses on the suffering and death of Christ, it is not separated from the resurrection. (The Via Lucis, Stations of the Resurrection, may be one way to maintain the link between death and resurrection.) Note, too, that the apparitions of the risen Lord involved some renunciation (of previous expectations) and often a call to mission as a condition for recognizing the "stranger" as the very Jesus whom the disciples had known. This is the version of the resurrection as call to death and call to love that needs to be worked out in popular idiom for people today. The resurrection is contingent upon the Son's having taken human flesh. If the incarnation had not taken place, no death-cum-resurrection would be possible. This mystery highlights the incarnation as an emptying (Ph 2:6-11), the rich one becoming poor for our sakes (2 Co 8:9). Jesus' life in the flesh meant sharing our condition and emotions. But, because it was not a life limited to the flesh, he was raised to life in the Spirit (Rrn 1:1-4). In the liturgy we pray, "May this sacrament [Eucharist] restrain our earthly desires and enable us to grow in love of the things of heaven" (After Communion, Tuesday, First Week of Lent). The child Jesus shared in the development that every child goes through--from the first stages, whei'e self- Review for Religious reference is the norm, to the point of total unselfishness in love ("He loved them to the end" Jn 13:1). The incarnation is the call to grow. Here one does well to keep in mind that excellent training in a particular discipline (medicine, accountancy, or whatever) does not automatically mean that one is an adult in regard to one's religious growth (the commitment based on content that Catholic faith requires). Many adults remain at the level of children (often the faith content they had at confirmation) and think that a vague "feel good / do some good" religion is growth. God's invitation is to deeper growth, an incar-national growth guided by the Spirit. The journey from the Father to this world and back to the Father is the program for all Christians. It is eriacted (as a "today") in the Eucharist. There is a continuing call to recommitment, to baptism's death and resurrection themes. The Eucharist is a third focus of Alphonsus. For him, Jesus is the prisoner in the tabernacle, awaiting, calling, and welcoming those who come to visit him. But the Jesus of the tabernacle is first the Jesus who was born, lived, died, and rose again, who celebrated that Passover with his disciples and continues to do so in the community of believers. And this is perhaps the high point of the call: to recognize that we are betrayers who are called by the one betrayed (Jesus) to share a meal with him. For this he accepts what we offer (bread and wine, products of the earth and of human hands) and returns them to us transformed (his risen body and blood, the new creation). One can add some glosses to the Eucharistic narrative to highlight this perspective: "On the night he The journey from the Father to this world and back to the Father is the program for all Christians. 62.4 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Alpbonsus's Perspective was betrayed [by his disciples, with whom we are all complicit], Jesus took bread [that supports life---he was not seeking revenge] and gave thanks [for everything, including the betrayal, life and its support, death, because this is the prelude to resurrection and glory] and shared it with his disciples [betrayers become .companions, "bread fellows"], saying [not only in word but in deed]: 'This is my body, which is broken for you' [the principle enunciated in the Gospels: 'Unless .the grain of wheat dies' and 'Take upyour cross']. Do this in memory of me [the call addressed to all his followers, sinner and saint alike, a call to 'do this' not only in word but also in deed].''8 Finally, for continuing the journey of conversion over the long haul, Alphonsus proposed a program of prayer. He emphasized, not the amount of prayer, but fidelity to it. A short prayer every day is better than a long period of prayer occasionally. Prayer means recognizing one's limitations, acknowledging one's need for God. Beginners in mental prayer need some method, but, as they grow, they should not let the method become a hindrance to prayer. When difficulties arise, they can fall back on the method. This advice of Alphonsus remains valid and relevant in our day, but support groups are needed too. For the community as a whole, Alphonsus proposed confraternities, which were support groups. Today's psychological research has identified the roots of various problems. Lay people should be encouraged to use .their skills to help others in various difficulties, even if it means merely lending an ear to one other person. When people feel that they havebeen heard and understood, they are often able to work their way through their own problems. Such support is very much in the competence of laypersons, and those devoted to pastoral care would do well to keep encouraging them to fulfill their special role in the world. Review for Religious Charisms as Life-Giving Roots The present article indicates the need for religious institutes not to take their agendas from current theology. Theology has its place, but institutes have their own particular orientations and perspectives. It is in rediscovering and living according to their foundational perspectives that religious institutes can make their authentic contributions. These solidly rooted agendas are indeed their very reason for existence. When Cyprian (+258) became bishop of Carthage, he made it a rule to do nothing on his private opinion without the counsel (consilium) of the presbyterate and the agreement (consensus) of the people. The two Latin words are significant. As the one who presided over the presbyterate, Cyprian needed their counsel. Often it would be far more "advanced"--aware of many more theological perspectives, one could say--than the laity. But he also wanted to have the consensus of the people, a fellow feeling of where they were. I suggest that Alphonsus started with the consensus of the laity and, as preacher of repentance, led them to commit their lives in love to Jesus, supporting one another along the journey. The challenge is to be "popular," to meet people where they are, but also to lead them beyond, in terms of call and response, invitation and acceptance. There will be changes in the content and style of post-Vatican II proclamation and ways of celebrating the sacraments, but the apostolic perspectives of Alphonsus and other founders can, I am convinced, well remain unchanged. Notes ' See Raphael Gallagher, "The Fate of the Moral Manual since Saint Alphonsus," in Histo,3v and Conscience: Studies in Honour of Father Sean O'Riordan CSSR, ed. Raphael Gallagher and Brendan McConvery (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1989), pp. 212-239. 2 Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, 3.20.2. 62.4 2003 Abeyasingba * Alpbonsus's Perspective 3 See Directory on Popular Piety and the Litu'rgy: Principles and Guidelines (Vatican, 9 April 2002), §41: "The 'popular missions' emerged at this time and contributed greatly to the spread of the pious exercises. Liturgy and popular piety coexist in these exercises, even if somewhat imbalanced at times. The parochial missions set out to encourage the faithful to approach the sacrament of penance and to receive Holy Communion. They regarded pious exercises as a means of inducing conversion and of assuring popular participation in an act of worship." 4 See Bernard H~iring CSSR, The Law of Christ, 3 vols. (Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1961o1966), and his later work, which is more diffuse and wide-ranging, Free and Faithful in Christ, 3 vols. (New York: Century, 1979). 5 EX. Durrwell CSSR, The Resurrection (London: Sheed and Ward, 1960). 6 See Directory, §§48-49: "History shows, first of all, that the correct relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety begins to be distorted with the attenuation among the faithful of certain values. essential to the Liturgy itself. The following may be numbered among the causes giving rise to this: ¯ a weakened awareness or indeed a diminished sense of the" paschal mystery and of its centrality for the history of salvation, of which the Liturgy is an actualization. Such inevitably occurs when the piety of the faithful, unconscious of the 'hierarchy of truths,' imperceptibly turns towards other salvific mysteries in the life of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or indeed of the angels and saints; ¯ a weakening of a sense of the universal priesthood, in virtue of which the faithful offer 'spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God, through Jesus Christ' (1 Pt 2:5, Rm 12:1), and, according to their condition, participate fully in the church's worship. This is often accompanied by the phenomenon of a Liturgy dominated by clerics who also perform the functions not reserved to them and which, in turn, causes the faithful to have recourse to pious exercises through which they feel a sense of becoming active participants; ¯ unfamiliarity with the 'language' of the Liturgy--that is, its language, signs, symbols, and ritual gestures---causing much of the meaning of the celebration to elude the faithful. This unfamiliarity can even make them feel like outsiders to the liturgical action, and so they are quick to manifest their preference for pious exercises whose 'language' is closer to their own cultural development, or Review for Religious else for private devotions more in keeping with the details and demands of their daily life. "Each of these factors, and both in certain cases, not infrequently produce imbalances in the relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety, to the former's detriment and the latter's impoverishment. These should therefore be corrected through careful and persistent catechetical and pastoral work. "Conversely, the liturgical renewal and the heightened liturgical sense of the faithful have often recontex~ualized popular piety in its relationship with the Liturgy. Such should be regarded as a positive development and in conformity with the most profound orientation of Christian piety." 7 See Sean O'Riordan, "The Human Psychology of Repentance," Studia Moralia 21 (1983): 79-102, and "The Nature and Function of Pastoral Psychology," Studia Moralia 1 (1963): 348-387. 8 Karl Rahner, "The Episcopate and the Primacy," in Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, The Episcopate and the Primacy (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961), p. 25: "Essentially the church is the historically continuing presence in the world of the incarnate Word of God. She is the historical tangibility of the salvific will of God as revealed in Christ. Therefore the church is most tangibly and intensively an 'event' where (through the words of consecration) Christ himself is present in his own congregation as the crucified and resurrected Savior, the fount of salvation; where the redemption makes itself felt in the congregation by becoming sacramentally visible; where the 'New and Eternal Testament' which he founded on the cross is most palpably and actually present in the holy remembrance of its first institution. Therefore the celebration of the Eucharist is the most intensive event of the church." I would add that the consequence is that every word in the church must be understood in connection with the memorial dimension of the Eucharist (see I Co 11:26). It is like the prism which separates light intoits constituent colors and also refocuses the different colors into a unity. 62.4 2003 PAUL GRAHAM Belief, Augustine, and the New Religiosity ~/ nd what remains when disbelief has gone?" That striking line from Philip Larkin's poem "Church Going" poses a question that is characteristic of the times we live in. The problem today is not so much disbelief or unbelief, but belief. The onus is now on those who claim they do not believe in God. According to the European Values Study for 1999/2000, 77.4 percent of the sample surveyed believe in God. Even in secular Sweden, which has the lowest number of believers in God in Western Europe, the number is 53.4 percent. Clearly, unbelievers are in the minority. The agnostics, according to this scenario, are not those who are unsure about their belief in God, but those who are not sure they disbelieve. The line from Philip La~'kin's poem cap-tures beautifully the anxiety of the unbeliever who has a nagging suspicion that perhaps there is a God after all. The present-day anxiety, the anxiety of a post-Christian society, is in the possibility that there is a God. Paul Graham OSA is provincial of the English-Scottish province of the Augustinians. His address is Provincial Office; 15 Dorville Crescent; London W6 0HH; United Kingdom. Review fbr Religious In these circumstances, those of us who through our faith have been freed from the burden of unbelief--and it is a burden--have a corresponding responsibility not to take our belief for granted. Belief is something that grows and deepens; it is not static. In the famous words of St. Augustine: "Make progress, my brothers and sis-ters, examine yourselves honestly again and again. Put yourselves to the test. Do not be content with what you are, if you want to become what you are not yet . Always add something more, keep moving forward, always make progress" (Sermon 169). An important part of reflection on faith is its social context. The shape of our belief, as opposed to its con-tent, is influenced by the world around us. If we lived in 13th-century Italy, for instance, unbe-lief would not have been a problem; even the gross sinner would be expected to believe in God. Faith was characterize~l by an intense devotion to the person of Christ in his passion and in the Eucharist. Belief had a tangible feel about it then, and peo-ple were not afraid to express it publicly. In Poland during the Communist times, faith was shaped by the need to take a firm stand against state-controlled atheism. Belief in God was caught up in nationalism: to be Polish was to be Catholic, as being Irish in Ireland was until recently. The object of faith in these differenttimes and places remains the same: God in Jesus Christ. This leaves us with the question: In contemporary Western society, what is the shape of our faith? It is now fashionable to have a "spirituality" in these 2 l st-century "postsecular" times. The problem is not so much religious belief as what to believe in. People today have become spiritually gullible. G.K. Chesterton noted perceptively that, when people stop believing in the true People today have become spiritually gullible. 62.4 2003 Graham ¯ Belief, Augustine, and the New Religiosity God, they start believing in anything. One of the charac-teristics of this new religiosity is its individualism. People now pick and choose the bits of religion they want to believe in and reject the distasteful parts. It has become a lifestyle choice: a bit of Zen here, a bit of Feng Shui there, a touch of white magic perhaps, and even some aspects of Christianity--the nice bits. This is nondemanding, non-threatening religion, a pick-and-mix spirituality. It has become fashionable to make a distinction between "religion" and "spirituality." By "religion" is meant institutional religion, the church; by "spirituality" is meant the "good" things about religion without the awkward bits like the hierarchy and the church's teach-ings. One can now have a spirituality, even if it means rejecting or sitting loose to the institutional form of the church. The problem is, once you detach spirituality from religion, it can quickly become self-seeking and inward-looking. Belonging to the church prevents that from happening. The Latin word religio implies "ties," ."obligations." We are bound to one another and to God, in the church. Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of Great Britain, has an interesting observation to make here (see Credo in The Times, 24 August 2002). He challenges those who claim to have a "spirituality" but reject organized reli-gion. Spirituality, he says, marks the beginning of a search for God, leading on to religion, to belonging to a community of believers; otherwise it tends to be escapist and self-indulgent. He illustrates this by referring to Robert Putnam, the Harvard sociologist, whose recent book Bowling Alone (2000) is about the breakdown of community in the United States as a result of growing individualism. The metaphor for this breakdown is to be found in ten-pin bowling. In the 1950s bowlers belonged to leagues and clubs and went bowling together, as teams. Today those leagues are no longer so Review for Religious popular, and people prefer to go bowling on their own. Sacks therefore declares, "Spirituality is what happens to religion when it goes 'Bowling Alone.'" Britain faces a similar problem of individualism. A recent sociological study (Changing Britain, Changing Lives, (London: Institute of Education, 2003), involving three birth-cohort studies of people born in 1946, 1958, and 1970, found that in the last fifty years there has been a marked decline in social cohesiveness and awareness, evidenced in the universal decline in voting, community activity, and church activity. The political philosopher Eric Hobsbawm is quoted in this study as saying, "Prosperity and privatization broke up what poverty and collectivity in the public place welded together" (p. 9). This individualizing tendency in society as a whole, I suggest, is influencing deeply the way we believe. St. Augustine understood this very well. Father Tom Martin OSA, in Our Restless Heart: The Augustinian Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003), takes up this issue: "Does Augustinian spirituality lead to a privatized spirituality? While it is clear that Augustine privileges the heart and the journey within, he would be the first to decry any reading of him that would turn the Christian life into a solitary journey. It is always a shared pilgrimage, a community of fellow believers on a journey of faith to God" (p. 47). In another passage, speaking of the need to "return to one's heart," he says: "Yet for all this talk of 'heart,' this empl~asis on interiority, its inten-tion is never meant to lead to an introverted spirituality. What is fundamentally interior to me is, for Augustine, the point where I am also closest to my brothers and sis-ters in the human family. From the heart I come to Christian faith, become a member of the church, the Body of Christ . [Augustine's] insistence upon the heart is thus not a self-serving escape from responsibil-ity into interior religion and privatized faith" (p. 43). 62.4 2003 I believe this to be one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith today, the challenge posed by the privatization of belief. I have labored this point because I believe this to be one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith today, the challenge posed by th4 .privatization of belief. As Cardinal Hume once said, "faith is always personal but never private." Augustinian spirituality is one of the greatest safeguards we have. However, because of its emphasis on interiority and the need to find God within, it can very easily be hijacked by the "privatizers" of faith. Martin makes it quite clear that such an interpretation of Augustine is a distortion of his spirituality, which is at all times ecclesial, rooted in community, rooted in the church. "To remove or isolate or separate God or self or community within the thought of Augustine," he says, "would only result in a profound distortion of his spiri-tual vision" (p. 49). So, as we struggle with belief ina society that wants to reduce everything--whether fast food or spirituality-- to individual choice, Augustine provides us with a nec-essary corrective to the "McDonaldization" of religion, as a Scottish theologian calls it (John Drane, The McDonaldization of the Church, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2000). Return to your hearts by all means, but not to stay there, rather to encounter the God who opens up our hearts to those around us. Augustine himself was only too aware of the temptations of interiority. His first experiment in community life was with like-minded friends near Milan just after his bap-tism. He established a community apart from the hustle and bustle of life in order to spend time in contemplation and reflection: otium sanctum, "holy leisure." He brought Review for Religious this idealized form of Christian community back to North Africa, to Thagaste, where he established a lay community, but he had a.rude awakening. Visiting a church in Hippo one day to look for a candidate for his community, he was grabbed by the congregation and presented to the aging Bishop Valerius for ordination to the priesthood--and he wept. Augustine knew that from then on his life would no longer be his own. Gone for the rest of his life was any notion of otium sanctum. The life of contemplation would lead him now to share that contemplation with others. It is a paradox of his life, and indeed of the Christian life in general, that the journey within becomes at a certain point a journey outwards, to God and to others. Hence his famous observation in the City of God: "For no one ought to be so leisured as to take no thought in that leisure for the interest of his neighbor, nor so active as to feel no need for the contemplation of God" (xIx. 19). The current resurgence of interest in religion and spirituality is evidenced in the number of books in the "Mind, Body, and Spirit" sections in most bookstores. Often the Christian section is quite small in relation to other religions. Clearly, many are hungry for a spiritual view of life. It has become obvious that people cannot survive for long on unbelief and on a purely secular view of the world, in spite of the predictions of the proponents of the "theory of secularization," who are now eating humble pie. Harvey Cox has said: "Today it is secularity, not spirituality, that may be headed for extinction" (Fire from Heaven, London: Cassell, 1996, p. xv). People yearn for enchantment. Secularity does not feed the human spirit, which is made for God. The Vatican has responded to this phenomenon by publishing Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the "New Age" (Pontifical Councils for Culture and Interreligious Dialogue, 2003). It 62.4 2003 Graham ¯ Belie, Augustine, and the New Religiosity This new religiosity is largely non-Christian. acknowledges that this renewed interest in spirituality and religion in general is evidence of a spiritual hunger in the contemporary world. There is in people a deep desire for the transcendent. "Our hearts are restless," says Augustine, restless for the true God (Confessions, I. 1). The document sees in this new religiosity "a genuine yearning for a deeper spiritu-ality, for something that will touch their hearts, and for a way of making sense of a con-fusing and often alienating world" (1.5). It also notes many positive aspects of this religiosity: its criticism of materialism, its sense of the sacredness of life, and its concern for the environment. But there is a difficulty. This new religiosity is largely non-Christian. As the document says, "it is on the wh61e difficult to reconcile it with Christian doctrine and spir-ituality" (2). It is important to remember that we are all subject to these influences in society at large. One has only to mention the example of Cherie Blair, the wife of the British prime minister, who has publicly declared her allegiance both to the Catholic Church and to forms of New Ageism, such as the use of crystals. I have no wish to judge an individual case, merely to cite her as a very public example of what I believe to be a common misapprehension: that you can mix Christianity with alternative spiritualities and think there is nothing amiss. Some of it may be harmless, but one needs to be dis-criminating. The current tendency towards the privatization of faith and spiritual individualism is also picked up by the Vatican document, which refers to "spiritual narcissism" and the "private world of ego-fulfillment," quoting a well-known commentator On New Age (3.2). It also cautions against looking for religious experiences "engen- Review for Religious dered by turning in on oneself." This leads on to the fundamental point that "Christian prayer is not an exer-cise in self, contemplation, stillness, and self-emptying, but a dialogue of love" (3.4). Certain kinds of religion can easily become an ego trip, and this document is not afraid to say so. Augustine's search for God, expressed in his Confessions, appears on one level to be the classic "journey within," and indeed he gave succeeding generations the spiritual vocabulary for that necessary journey. But he is at pains to point out that, unbeknownst to himself, God was with him at all times on that journey. It was not so much a search for self as a search for the Truth outside of self. In a sense, it was God who went in search of Augustine, not the other way round. It was grace that prompted him to seek God in the first place: "You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself . You called me, you cried aloud to me, you broke the bar-rier of my deafness" (X.2 7). As Jesus says in John's Gospel, "you did not choose me; no, I chose you" (Jn 15:16). It is important to mention this, as Eastern forms of prayer and meditation are very popular. While there are many rich insights to be gained from these traditions, like the need for stillness and proper bodily posture, one has to remember that these are not Christian forms of prayer. They are mainly exercises to bring about an expe-rience of peace and enlightenment. But Christian prayer is not fundamentally about such experiences, unless they come as a grace from God. It is a relationship more than an individual experience of heightened consciousness or awareness. As the Vatican document points out, "life in Christ is not something so personal and private that it is restricted to the realm of consciousness. Nor is it merely a new level of awareness" (3.5). To quote a contemporary theologian speaking about Augustinian interiority, Christian prayer is not a "diving expedition into the soul" 62.4 2003 Graham ¯ Belief, Augustine, and the New Religiosity (John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, London: Blackwell, 1990, p. 291), but an encounter with the living God in the person of Jesus Christ, the bearer of the water of life. Dry Rain It is as if a great party is under way: with every wind falling leaves, multicolored, natural confetti, gigantic golden snowflakes fr6m a sycamore. Autumnal dry rain in its festive, roundabout fashion waters next spring's growth, rots its way to fruitfulness, an ordinary embodiment of mercy, another promise of life from death, another reason to hope. Bonnie Thurston Review for Religious DENNIS J. BILLY Rediscovering the Rosary On 16 October 2002 Pope John Paul ~I promul-gated an apostolic letter on the rosary titled Rosarium Virginis Mariae. The purpose of the letter is to help Christians rediscover the rosary as a venerable form of prayer that will lead them "to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ" (§3). Addressed to the church's bishops, clergy, and faithful, the letter is continuous with the pope's earlier reflections in his apostolic letter on the new millennium, Novo millennio ineunte, where he insists on the importance of developing "schools of prayer" for helping the members of Christ's body to "set out in deep waters" (duc in altum) and experience the fullness of the gospel message. "With the rosary," the pope says, "the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate th6 beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths Of his love" (~1). In order to help this process of reclaiming along, he has officially proclaimed a "Year of the devotional life Dennis J. Billy CSSR writes again from Collegio Sant'Alfonso; C.P. 2458; Roma 00100; Italy. 62.4 2003 Billy * Rediscovering the Rosary Rosary" spanning from October 2002 to October 2003 (§3). A Path of Contemplation In this letter the pope reiterates a statement he made in his letter on the new millennium: "What is needed is a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer." He presents the rosary as a "path of contemplation" that developed in the West and represents a counterpart to Eastern Christianity's "prayer of the heart" or "Jesus Prayer." It numbers "among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation" (§5). !n order to reclaim its full meaning, however, the rosary must be prayed meditatively against a backdrop of solitude. It sustains rather than conflicts with the liturgy. If properly revitalized, the prayer will be in touch with its Christological center and will aid rather than impede ecumenical efforts (§4). The rosary, moreover, is proposed as a preeminent prayer for peace and as a way of helping families cope with the forces of disintegration that threaten them on both the ideological and practical levels (§6). Mary is presented in the letter as the model of Christian contemplation par excellence: "No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary." Mary's gaze would at times be % questioning look," as when she found Jesus in the temple (see Lk 2:48). It would also be % penetrating gaze" capable of understanding Jesus and possibly even anticipating his decisions, as at the wedding at Cana (see Jn 2:5). It could also be % look of sorrow," as when she stood beneath the cross (see Jn 19:26-27) or % gaze radiant with the joy of the resurrection," as on Easter morning, or "a gaze afire with the outpouring of the Spirit" (§10), as on the day of Pentecost (see Ac 1:14). Re'levy for Religious Because the rosary starts with Mary's experience, the pope describes it as "an exquisitely contemplative prayer." Without this contemplative dimension, it would lose its meaning and risk becoming nothing more than "a mechanical repetition of formulas" (§12). When prayed with reverence and a reflective heart, the rosary enables believers to remember Christ with Mary, to learn Chris~ with Mary, and to be conformed to Christ with Mary, to pray to Christ with Mary, and to proclaim Christ with Mary (§§13-17). A Compendium of the Gospel "The rosary," for John Paul, "is one of the traditional paths of Christian prayer directed to the contemplation of the face of Christ" (§18). It is sometimes referred to as "a compendium of the gospel." To further emphasize its Christological depth, the pope has proposed five new mysteries, from Jesus' public life. In addition to the traditional joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries, these "mysteries of light" are "(1) Jesus' baptism in the Jordan, (2) his self-manifestation at the wedding of Cana, (3)' his proclamation of the king-dom of God, with his call to conversion, (4) his transfiguration, and (5) his institution of the Eucharist, as the sacramental expression of the paschal mystery" (§21). These mysteries span Jesus' public ministry. The first is traditionally understood as the first action of his public ministry. The second and third present him respectively as a miracle worker and as preaching and teaching with The five mysteries lead us from the beginning to the end of Jesus' public ministry and focus on the key elements of his message. 62.4 2003 Billy * Rediscovering the Rosary authority. The fourth foreshadows the resurrection and presents Jesus as the culmination of the Law and the Prophets. The fifth is traditionally considered the last action of his public ministry. The five mysteries lead us from the beginning to the end of Jesus' public ministxy and focus on the key elements of his message. As prophetic actions that effect what they signify, Jesus' baptism and his institution of the Eucharist encapsulate the whole of his ministry and serve as fitting bookends for all that comes between. Although the pope leaves people free to follow the traditional format (§19), he is quick to point out that these five new mysteries round out the contemplative focus of the rosary by adding Jesus' .public life to the profound mysteries of the incarnation, the passion, and the resurreEtion that the other three series highlight. In doing so, he roots the rosary even deeper in the Gospel narratives and encourages the faithful to see the intimate unity of the whole of Jesus' redemptive mission. Because the mystery of Christ also reveals something "about the mystery of man, the pope goes on to point out the important anthropological significance of the rosary for believers: "Contemplating Christ's birth, they learn of the sanctity of life; seeing the household of Nazareth, they learn the original truth of the family according to God's plan; listening to the Master in the mysteries of his public ministry, they find the light which leads them to enter the kingdom of God; and, following him on the way to Calvary, they learn the meaning of salvific suffering. Finally, contemplating Christ and his Blessed Mother in glory, they see the goal toward which each of us is called, if we allow ourselves to be healed and transformed by the Holy Spirit" (§25). When reflected upon with care, each of the mysteries of the rosary says something significant about the mystery of human existence. Review for Religious Assimilating the Mystery The.pope also devotes considerable space to how believers should pray the rosary. He highlights the constituent elements of this method of contemplation, one rooted in "the inner logic of the incarnation," namely, that in Jesus God wanted to take on human features. It is well to announce each mystery, perhaps with a suitable icon that will open up the biblical scenario for those praying. The announcement is meant to lead the imagination to focus on a particular moment in the life of Christ (§29). A reading from Scripture, long or short depending on the circumstances, can follow, and then a brief period of silence (§§30 and 31). After these preparatory exercises, those praying lift their minds to the Father with the words of the Our Father. Then come ten Hail Marys followed by the Trinitarian doxology (and sometimes a short prayer) to conclude the decade (§§32-35). Beginning and finishing the rosary as a whole is done in a variety of ways. Some people begin with a verse of Psalm 70: "O God, come to my aid; O Lord make haste to help me." Others begin with the Creed, an Our Father, and three Hail Marys (§37). Some people habitually pray all twenty decades of the rosary in a single day. For those who say five decades a day, the pope suggests the following format: the joyful mysteries on Monday and Saturday, the sorrowful mysteries on Tuesday and Friday, the mysteries of light on Thursday, and the glorious mysteries on Wednesday and The rosary invites believers to open their hearts with Mary to the Word of God seeking to be born within them. 62.4 2003 Billy ¯ Rediscovering the Rosary Sunday (§38). The beads themselves are more than a mere counting device. Flowing from and converging upon the crucifix, they remind believers that their lives must be centered on Christ, and can be seen as "a chain which links us to God," a symbol of "the bond of communion and fraternity which unites us all in Christ" (§36). The pope makes one point very clear: "Although the repeated Hail Mary is addressed direcdy to Mary, it is to Jesus that the act of love is ultimately directed, with her and through her." The repetition suggests our ongoing desire "to be conformed ever more completely to Christ, the true program of the Christian life" (§26). As a "method of contemplation," the rosary invites believers to open their hearts with Mary to the Word of God seeking to be born within them. Like the liturgy, it is a prayer which engages "the whole person in all his complex psychological, physical, and relational reality" (§27). Ten Purposes The pope's apostolic letter serves ten basic purposes: (1) it provides a fitting Marian complement to Novo millennio ineunte, his earlier apostolic letter on the new millennium; (2) it emphasizes the contemplative dimension of the rosary and encourages believers to use it "to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ"; (3) it reviews the method typically used when praying it and shows how it corresponds to the inner logic of the incarnation; (4) it draws out the Christological basis of the rosary and asserts that, when used appropriately, it will further rather than hinder ecumenism; (5) it highlights the anthropological dimensions revealed in the various mysteries and shows how the rosary can lead to a deeper understanding of human, existence; (6) it affirms that the rosary sustains the liturgy rather than being in conflict with it; (7) it breathes new life into the rosary by adding new mysteries that will root it even more deeply Review for Religious in the Scripture; (8) it shows parents that the rosary can help hold their family together in the faith and can foster their children's spiritual growth and development; (9) it presents the rosary as a prayer that by its very nature can advance peace in the world; and (10) it designates the year October 2002-October 2003 as a special time for rediscovering the power and beauty of this ancient and venerable form of prayer. The goal in all of this is to help the faithful recognize the grea( gift they have in the rosary and use it in new and creative ways as they face the challenges ahead of them. In his conclusion, the pope asserts that the rosary is "a treasure to be rediscovered." It has something to offer to everyone: bishops, priests, deacons, religious, and laypersons. He asks all members of the church to take this old and venerable form of prayer once again to heart: "I look to all of you, brothers and sisters of every state of life, to you, Christian families, to you, the sick and elderly, and to you, young people: confidently take up the rosary once again. Rediscover the rosary in the light of Scripture, in harmony with the liturgy, and in the context of your daily lives" (§43). soundings for one of the sisters in the infirmary little does she know she teaches me how to eclipse her deafness. i am brief, no, spare in my attempts. at eighty, she is the poem: words are few mixing with her grief which ebbs like the tides at twilight Lou Ella Hickman IWBS 62.4 2003 MARY JOSEPH SCHULTZ Mirroring Jesus: The Luminous Mysteries and Religious Life TRhosea rHy-o-lOyc Ftoabtheer r2'0s0 n2a tmo iOncgt oobfe trh 2e0 Y03e-a-cr aomf et,he certainly not coincidentally, during a time of profound unrest, conflict, and anxiety. Our world and our church are in labor, struggling for a birth, a release, new life, The feelings of fear, hopelessness, and anxiety that have invaded the lives of all of us call for healing and a new vision. The luminous mysteries of the rosary offer all Christians a new perspective, a new graced opportunity to deepen our understanding and love of our faith, namely, by bringing the public life of Jesus into the rosary. Here we can find refreshment for our souls in these complicated and strife-filled days. We can also find here an additional special gift as vowed religious. I would like to examine the new mysteries in relation to ~onsecrated Mary Joseph Schultz SCC is president of Assumption College for Sisters, the only rerfiaining sister-formation college in the United States. Her address there is 350 Bernardsville Road; Mendham, New Jersey 07945. Revie-w for Religious life, reflecting on how each one can be linked to an essential element of it. The Baptism of Jesus--"You are my beloved Son. On you my fax;or rests" (Mk 1:11). Baptism the Foundation of Religious Life. By virtue of our baptism, all Christians are consecrated for evangelization. We are reborn in Christ; our life is no longer our own. This exalted reality of the indwelling, always challenging and sometimes downright scary, takes a lifetime, indeed an eternity, to grasp. We have been chosen by God to take on the image of his Son, to be his child in our world today. And naturally we cannot attempt this alone, but God's abiding presence, the surpassing gift of grace, enables and ennobles us from within. What does being reborn in Christ imply, particularly for a religious? We are doubly chosen. Cradle Catholics were first called by God through our own particular birth circumstances; converts to Catholicism followed a circuitous adaptive route to being cleansed, empowered, Christified. Whatever the circumstances of our baptism, we have been called and sent, challenged by the Spirit to put on Christ. But as religious our further call is yet more radical. By our call to religious life, the fire that burns in the heart of all Christians is ignited into a new flame of desire for deeper union, deeper consecration, through the gift of our lives. As John Paul II tells us in Vita consecrata, "in such a life baptismal consecration develops into a radical response in the following of Christ through acceptance of the evangelical counsels" (§14). Apart from the consecration of our baptism, it is unlikely that we would .have heard any call to religious life. It is baptism's sacramental spark that ignites the steady flame of Christianity. But, for the steady flame to be strong, it requires of everyone the living of the evangelical counsels. For religious there is a renewed 62.4 2003 Scbultz ¯ Mirroring yesus commitment to them. This is a new source of fuel, our life newly offered to God in all its aspects, like so many grains of incense. The religious life, often symbolized by burning candles too, takes on a new intensity and brings the baptismal vows into a concentrated focus. Perhaps this is why the profession of the evangelical counsels has never been elevated to being a sacrament in the Catholic Church (which some have proposed). It is so obviously an efflorescence of the permanent sacramental character of baptism already present. It is also a deepening of that already living root. The Wedding Feast of Cana--"Do whatever he tells you" (In 2:5). Obedience. In this wonderfully human and touching scene from the life of Jesus, we hear the only recorded words spoken by Mary during the public life of her Son: "They have no wine" and "Do whatever he tells you." Indeed, these words inaugurate his public life. And, for religious women and men, this scene and these words teach a lesson on the vow of obedience. During the thirty years or so since I began learning about the vows in the novitiate, obedience, of all the vows, has undergone the greatest transformation. It has also held the most difficult challenges. (As in most paschal realities, these are not unrelated developments.) My juvenile understanding of "blind" obedience and merely "doing what your superior tells you" has unfolded into a passionate desire to seek the will of God in all its manifestations. Let us face it, how many direct injunctions do community leaders issue during a year to the group as a whole or to me individually? My obedience must be daily and personal. It cannot be relegated to a once-a-year acceptance of my assigned apostolate, though that has sometimes been traumatic enough. Because of the gift of my vow of obedience, I Review for Religious must strive each and every day to hear God speaking to me in a multitude of people, places, and circumstances. I must keep my heart attentive to all of God's calls and then responsive, doing "whatever he tells you." The response could be as small as picking up the phone when I am already engrossed in another task, or lovingly setting aside my own agenda when a sister needs my help. It could be as large as accepting a call to community leadership, or adjusting to the death of a loved one. I laid down my will at my profession. The "freedom" I renounced back then has given rise to a new deeper freedom of spirit. I am free to pursue holiness through the directives of God mediated by my community leadership, other community members, and the circumstances of my life. United with my sisters in community, I stand before God's will, ready to discern and accept. This requires an ongoing grace of faith, a sense of responsibility for myself and others, and a growing awareness of my gifts and limitations. In due time Jesus takes the water of my desire and turns it into the wine of his desire for me. Because of the gift of my vow of obedience, I must strive each and every day to hear God speaking to me in a multitude of people, places, and circumstances. Proclamation of the Kingdom--"The kingdom of God is at hand" (Mk 1:15). Chastity. In the eyes of society today, chastity for the sake of the kingdom is perhaps the most mystifying and countercultural of the three vows. It has been much written about in the past two years alone. Vv'hy give up marriage and the practice of a holy sexuality when it is 62.4 2003 Scbultz ¯ Mirroring yesus such a gift of God, when the witness of true marital fidelity is so sorely needed in today's world? Precisely to proclaim the kingdom! As John Paul II tells us in Vita consecrata: "Yes, in Christ it is possible to love God with all one's heart, putting him above every other love, and thus to love every creature with the freedom of God!" (§88). Not only is it possible, if one has really been called to it and possesses the graced capacity for the vow, but it is a most powerful means for proclaiming the message of the kingdom. The pure love called forth by this vow flows .from the very life of the Trinity, a communitarian life and love revealed to us in Christ. This life, this very same love, is the "stuff" of the Good News that we are called to proclaim, first by our lives, then by words if necessary, as St. Francis would say. By the evangelical counsels consecrated persons are immersed in the life of the Trinity, freed from the constrictions of an exclusive love, able to be totally available for the mission of the church as lived according to the particular community's charism. My chastity enables my obedience to come to fruition as I am called from one ministry to another, one house to another, even from one moment to another. I can and should live my life unattached, in the light of faith, with the joyful freedom of the new heavens and the new earth (see Rv 21:1). I have died and risen with Christ, and I am called to live in the now of the kingdom. The life of a religious man or woman symbolizes what it in fact is, a contact point between Christ and his church--and God's kingdom is truly at hand. The Transfiguration--"And he was transfigured before them" (Mt 17:2). Poverty. This mystical event in the life of Jesus gives his three apostles a glimpse of who he really is. His Review for Religious divinity shines forth, and they behold the glorious face of the Son of God. In reflecting on this incident afterwards, did it not strike them over and over what a tremendous emptying had taken place when Jesus assumed our human nature and for thirty-three years walked the earth as ordinary as themselves? These apostles, unlettered though they were, could not help reflecting on what they had witnessed. They were able to surmise the real identity of the One who called them to follow, the One for whom they too were emptying themselves, relinquishing things in their discipleship. During the vision Peter had exclaimed, "Lord, how good that we are here!" (Mt 17:4). Then he wanted to install three tents and make the experience a more permanent one. Jesus, however, drew them out of their mystical reverie: "When they raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone" (Mr 17:8). He walked with them down the mountain, back to ordinary reality. This was the ordinary-looking Jesus, the man they knew and were used to, the friend they were leaving their ordinary lives to follow. He was "himself" again, and asking them to say nothing of what they had seen. For religious women and men who have left all things to follow the Master, the transfiguration can serve as a meditation on our vow of poverty. Jesus in his divine frugality "left behind" his Godhead to assume humanity, but how divine this poverty is, this incarnation, this "taking the form of a slave and being born in the likeness For religious women and men who have left all things to follow the Master, the transfiguration can serve as a meditation on our vow of poverty. 62.4 2003 Scbultz ¯ Mirroring Jesus of men" (Ph 2:7)! While on his earthly mission, Jesus downplayed his divinity or kept it to himself except for this sacred moment when his human poverty became apparent by contrast. Later Calvary was seen as the ultimate of human pain and humiliation, not by contrast as on Tabor, but in the depths of its willing self-sacrifice. By religious poverty we voluntarily give up personal accumulation and full personal use of worldly goods, even such things as time and talent. This emptying for the sake of Christlike availability is a way of doing something radical for God. It is true imitation of Jesus, "who made himself poor though he was rich" (2 Co 8:9). Where better do we see this stark reality than on Tabor? Living this vow, following the pattern of Christ, calls us to be poor in fact as well as in spirit. Religious need to give evidence of a simple lifestyle, with variations according to community charisms. We need to follow the call to empty ourselves radically, in imitation of the One who for our sake modeled a life of emptiness perfecdy. We face the challenge, especially in a materialistic society, of opting not to have, not to be caught up in the consumer mentality that is so suffocating and numbing. This voluntary self-renunciation makes sense only with the humble Christ before our eyes as ideal and strength. The Institution of the Eucharist--"This is my body to be given for you" (Lk 22:19). Community and Holiness. Religious life without a focus on the Eucharist is, to me, unthinkable and unlivable. How better can we be Christ, fulfill our baptismal consecration, and live the evangelical counsels than by daily receiving our nourishment from his very body and blood, by becoming what we eat? The gift of the Eucharist is the divine imagination's chosen way to be with us always, even to the end of time. Tending toward the holiness to which all founders and foundresses Review for Religious aspired, whatever their historical milieu, the members of religious communities must seek the Source of their graced desire for holiness in their Eucharistic communion. Finding it there, they also nurture one another. The bond of community is one of the distinguishing marks of religious life. We came to accomplish together what none of us can do alone. As members of the Mystical Body by virtue of baptism, we draw strength, light, and urgent zeal for evangelization from the sacramental Christ. "In the celebration of the mystery of the Lord's body and blood, the unity and charity of those who have consecrated their lives to God are strengthened and increased" (Vita consecrata, §95). In communal worship, community members reflect on Jesus' act of servitude in the washing of feet, his giving of himself in service. Turning to one another, we daily echo his words about his body being given for us (see Lk 22:19). To you, my sister, to you, my brother, in community, I give the gift of my personhood. Becoming bread and wine for the world, becoming nourishment for God's pilgrim people through our various ministries, is what consecrated persons are called to. No matter what our apostolic works entail, no matter where or how we minister to God's people, whether through prayer or action, we as religious are called and consecrated for holiness. We owe it to the Mystical Body. We owe it to the world. Our call, though individually discerned and individually professed, is lived in common. Our holiness can never be a private matter. We must be and become ever more really what we have publicly professed. While I am by no means suggesting that religious are on a pedestal, we surely are in a fishbowl, especially in the last few years. We must be who we say we are. Today's people have the right to expect that, when they look at religious, they will truly catch a glimpse of 62.4 2003 Schultz ¯ Mirroring Jesus Christ and the gospel values he preached and lived. It is he who must shine forth publicly. It is he who mysteriously and subdy works thi'ough our dull and sinful human selves, alone and in community. For putting on Christ, for living our vows and making ourselves receptive to communal Eucharistic holiness, we can hope to find the rosary's luminous mysteries providing us with fresh encouragement. Mary, our mother and guiding star, will be there as we begin, and at the end, and in between. Exchanging Gifts Even then, in that first star-guided Giving of gifts imported from lands afar: Not the most practical or the most useful For a young household, those gifts are That they offer: gold (of course, money Matters at any season of any year), . But however richly boxed, their potpourris Of high-priced frankincense and myrrh Fail to feed a family; still, nothing At all was ever expected in return, Unlike our ritual passings back and forth Of pricy imports and baubles, meant to earn More than mere admiration: the like exchange Endlessly of acquisitions from off the shelves Of shops, while that first starlit gift-recipient Gives us back endlessly our ransomed selves. Nancy G. Westerfield Review for Religious PETER CANTWELL Why Newly Professed Religious Leave This article was written to assist Franciscan lead-ers. They and others found it helpful.Without rewriting .it at the risk of losing some of its orig-inal flav~r, I offer it to other religious in the continuin~ conversation about this vital issue. As Francis of Assisi neared death, he said to his brothers, "I have done what is mine to do; may Christ teach you what is yours to do.''1 Implied in these words is a challenge for his followers to discover anew in each generation how to express his ideals. There can never be one fixed expression of such a rich gospel charism, nor should there be. Every age, every season of life, and every culture requires us to dig deep into the gospel as Franci~ read it and find new ways to live his simple but demanding religious perspectives Peter Cantwell OFIM, a Franciscan friar, has been a lecturer and practitioner in individual, couples, and family therapy for thirty years, and is director of ongoing formation for the Australian Franciscan province. His address is St. Francis Xavier Church; 1087 Whitehorse Road; Box Hill, Victoria 3128; Australia. 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Wby Newly Professed Religious Leave message. Failure to take up that challenge condemns us to irrelevance and extinction. Over recent years I have often reflected on why some young friars who join us with enthusiasm and excitement depart from our community soon after final commit-ment. Just at that moment when possibilities for min-istry open out, when there is the exciting chance to walk the path of Francis in our world, some choose to leave us. (Incidentally, I believe the following reflections also apply to why more young men do not join us.) These are my own personal musings on this vexing question, musings with which you, the reader, might dis-agree. Behind them lie some of my own story in the Franciscans and several of my deeply held beliefs about our life. For thirty years I have been involved in renewal programs for religious and in the screening program for candidates for our Australian province. As a professional counselor I have helped many religious and priests at the moment of their departure. Visiting other provinces of the order, I have observed similar phenomena. My teaching of counseling in secular and religious tertiary settings has enabled me to talk with adults about how they see religious life. Behind my reflections are one deep personal convic-tion and one fact. My conviction is that the message and ideals of Francis--of bringing the gospel's peace mes-sage to the world, of seeing beyond the allurement of consumerism, of having a special concern for the poor-- are what is most needed by today's world, particularly today's youth. There is no malaise in the ideals proposed to us by Francis. They are as radiant and relevant as ever they were. The fact about Franciscan religious life today is that there is a gap--though perhaps it is narrowing-- between Francis's ideals for us friars and the lived real-ity of our fraternal lives and ministries. We express 6ur ideals in ways that have lost their relevance. Because of Review for Religious this, some young religious cannot recognize the fire of Francis in our daily structures, and they seek to imple-ment their ideals elsewhere. I do not share the pessimism of friars who say they would not invite young people to join us. I find such defeatism thoroughly unlike Francis; it betrays an unwill-ingness to make changes that we need to make. I write these reflections with hope and rising excitement. Hope and possibility are being shown by those with daring and vision. Baggage We Still Carry with Us In thinking and (alking about why young friars leave, we have often focused on only part of the picture. Thus, some have said that young friars leave because their gen-eration is selfish and not willing to make a commitment. Recent developments in family therapy suggest looking to the big picture--the whole family or, in our case, the whole "system"--for the cure. Formerly, acting-out ado-lescents were usually treated with individual therapy, on the theory that there was something wrong within the adolescent: correct that and all would be fine. But often there was a relapse. Therapy began to realize that the problem might be a reflection of what was happening in the entire family--and that the entire family might need to change its way of operating. Certainly there are times when the difficulty is mostly within the individual, but people cannot not be affected by the systems in which they live. Can these insights help us understand why some friars leave? Is saying that young brothers leave because their generation is "selfish and unwilling to make com-mitments" being fair about the part the system of reli-gious life plays in their departure? When I joined religious life in the mid 1950s, it somewhat resembled what is sociologically called a "total 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave Francis founded his brotherhood as complementary to the monastic movement. institution," one where the identity of the institution assumes priority Over the identities of the individuals who make it up. We dressed identically; we were exhorted to behave the same. To stand out or be "sin-gular" might indicate pride. Community life was the con-veyer of grace, so conformity to a detailed daily regimen was expected. Personal relationships were discouraged because they endangered celibacy: We were trained to be self-contained and to let our conformity and work express our commitment. Though much is now chang-ing, the nonrelational tone of some communities can cause isolation in young friars. Contemporary research says that religious life had become caught in a monastic lifestyle that many founders did not want) Francis founded his brotherhood as com-plementary to the monastic movement. He deliberately did not want to be absorbed into monasticism. He founded us to be a stark challenge, even a shock, to both civil and ecclesiastical society through living the gospel in a radical and transparent way. After his death the brothers, channeled into the monastic movement, lost mobility, lostpublic visibility, and lost a credible lifestyle. One writer says that we were tamed by the insti-tutional church. We do not live on the edge anymore except by courageous individual choice.3 Young friars find these monastic remnants quaint and a block to their ide-alistic vision. Do we provide opportunity for them to live out their dreams, or are they merely educated to fit in? After the departure of a young brother, I have heard such remarks as "He lost his vocation. I could see it coming. He had all those friends outside community." l~eview for l~etigious These words may reflect a theologically crass way of describing a vocation, absolving the community of any contribution to the departure. The vocation seems to be pictured as something in a hermetically sealed container, given to the recipient by God, and totally immune to and separate from fraternal influences. On one level there is nothing mysterious about the growth of a vocation. I had never met a Franciscan till I did a retreat during the last year of high school. I was impressed by the Franciscan who gave the retreat. He had been a professional reporter with a bright economic future, but he gave it up to be a friar. I thought there must be something pretty good in that life. I approached him. He was interested in me, came to visit my family, kept contact, became a friend (with a big age difference). He nurtured my interest and fanned the small flame of inquiry. He gave me literature on Francis, and I discov-ered that Francis had made a similar decision seven hun-dred years earlier. Francis had everything he wanted, but realized it was not enough. Wow! I could feel excite-ment when I left home to join thefriars. My three broth-ers had all married and were pleased with their choices. I felt I was making an equally exciting choice. It was the start of an adventure, an adventure that has never stopped. Friars supported me and cared for me; I formed deep friendships over the years. These friends offered me opportunities, and they challenged me to live the life. Would my vocation have .grown without them? Could I have nurtured my personal "grace of vocation" without them? I doubt it. A vocation is a delicate seed. It needs warmth and careful watering, especially during the early days. The atmosphere, the environment, affects its interior and exterior development. In a recent article a young per-son says that "true rapport, indeed a real friendship, with one religious is more valuable in discernment than one 62.4 2003 Cant'well ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave IIll hundred religious asking me if I am interested in their order . It is very important that religious communi-ties develop friendships with us that nurture growth in faith and commitment to God.''4 In looking at the place of larger systems in the devel-opment of a vocation, we must say a word about the church. As is the case in the order, there are many seeds of hope within the church today. But ~here is something else as well. In a secular university where I teach coun-seling a couple of days a week, I have wonderful students on the whole, postgraduate students of mature age. About a third of them are nonpracticing Catholics. We often have interesting discussions at lunch breaks. They find it hard to understand how someone who is more qualified in their profession than they are can be both-ered being highly involved in church matters. They are not angry with the church. They just find the church irrelevant. The church sometimes gives the impression that it does not need to listen to people's .needs, that it knows the questions they should be asking. But, as Giacomo Bini says, the church can spend its time answer-ing questions that people are not asking. A Change of Culture The worst way we friars can live our Franciscan com-mitment is to ape in our time what Francis did in his. Our age presents challenges different from his, and here lies the rub. As friars we are called to be mobile, not only with our dwellings and our phones, but with our thinking. Change is of the essence of decent physical, emotional, spiritual, communal growth. The strange thing is not that yeligious life is changing, but that it managed to stay the same for so long. "It is equilibrium, not change, that is fatal." 5 The challenge is that we need to change. Are we Willing? The following thoughts try to catch the spirit of our Review for Religious times, point out the needs that we have to answer, sketch the cultural milieu to which we have to be relevant with our exciting Message. To be relevant, we will have to make 180-degree turns in many areas. Years after we ourselves grew up, what are some of the characteristics of the culture in which our new friars have grown up? One dramatic change in today's society is a shift from a work world to a relational world. Recent research in Australia society shows that around one-fourth of the people between the ages of thirty and sixty are "down-shifters"; that is, they have changed careers or reduced work hours and taken a pay cut in order to have more time for family and friends: "The lifestyle has given them a wealth of new friends from a wide cross-section of backgrounds, and the dis-tinction of knowing the names 0f everyone who lives in their street.''6 Obviously not all people are choosing to make this shift, nor should they, but it represents a new emphasis in modern life, a move away from workplace efficiency toward the full growth of the human person. The young writer quoted earlier supports such adaptation: "One of the most com-monly found features of Generation X is its sense of iso-lation and its yearning for stable companionship . We Xers are drawn wherever we feel welcome and find friendship.''7 "Intimacy" (how I relate to another human being) is an important element of human growth, occurring in early adulthood and building on people's sense of iden-tity (who I am). In popular parlance, intimacy is often wrongly identified with sexual intimacy. Intimacy tech- One dramatic change in today's society is a shift from a work world to a relational world. 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave nically means the capacity to function "up close" to another person in any situation of life. There is no evi-dence that physical sexual intimacy is "necessary for mature development, but there is a wealth of evidence that having close friends, feeling cared for and loved, and being able to relate to others without unnecessary barriers are central to happiness. Closely allied to having healthy relationships is the search for true community. More so than previous gen-erations, today's young people meet many of their inti-macy needs by belonging to a group. A young person observes that in his view "religious life is special in pro-viding everyday community practices that foster spiri-tual growth in ways that are difficult to find on one's own.''8 The young today value being in a supportive envi-ronment more than having job security. The breakdown of traditional neighborhoods and the mobility of Western populations are the causes of much loneliness and isola-tion. The multitude of support groups--from therapy groups to reading groups--witnesses to contemporary culture's hunger for community. Young adults do not Seek community as a soft option: "We do not want community just to comfort, us and give us a sense of security. We want to be stretched and chal-lenged to serve God and others with the community life serving as a support that allows us to reach beyond our-selves in the service of God through prayer and works.''9 And they actually seek structures in community, but ones that are alive and thoughtful and provide human and spiritual support. Among the tertiary students I teach, I find it.easy to initiate a discussion on "spirituality," but mention the word religion and the energy for the discussion dimin-ishes. "Religion" is seen to be connected to mainstream churches, which are often experienced as irrelevant. The young seek a spirituality that builds on human whole- Review for Religious ness. For them being "fully spiritual" is being "fully human." They often experience mainstream church life as a spiritual desert. "Xers are known for their great spir-itual hunger. When this deep hunger for religious mean-ing has not been satisfied within the religious practice of families, many of us have looked outside of the tradi-tional familial practices to come into contact with the transcendent meaning that we crave." 10 Young adults today are perceptive about genuine-ness: the medium is the message. "Religious need to present, themselves as people who have benefited immensely from their vocation and have found peace, mission, love, and a passion for the gospel and for God through their decision."11 The culture of the young has little time for the phony, for performance that does not come from the heart. They are very sensitive to any gap between what we ask them to profess and what they observe us living. Do we ask them to profess "poverty" and then live like upper-middle-class people? "In sum, Xers are not going to make a radical countercultural decision unless they see a radical lifestyle being lived out, one that has benefits that married life does not.''12 We ask them to give up everything. What is the excit-ing challenge we offer them? I am convinced that the issue for today's world is "justice," especially for disenfranchised groups and par-ticularly those without a social voice. Issues of church dogma--while not in any sense unimportant--evoke lit-tle energy compared with issues of people's rights to just treatment. Daily newspapers are full of human-rights and justice issues. "Experience indicates that [young adults] have a very strong sense of the common good and of collective social and civic responsibility.''13 They have little truck with cover-ups and social dishonesty, and find the behavior of some church officials in recent sexual-abuse issues obnoxious. 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave Today's young adults demand authenticity of person and action. Seeds of New Life My hope for the future of our brotherly life comes from my conviction that Francis calls us to a style of fra-ternal living and mission for which there is a thirst in our culture. If our young adults are calling for transpar-ent authenticity in personal life, for communal life that is supportive and challenging, for relationships rather than material efficiency, for spiritualwholeness, and for engage-ment with justice and peace in our world. Are these things not the message of Francis of Assisi and the ideals that today's Franciscans have at heart? It would take us beyond the present article to elabo-rate on these five emphases, nor is it necessary. I would like simply to quote from our Rule, from the contem-porary document Priorities of the Order, and from sev-eral other sources to show that what the young seek has always been and is now central in theory to our life. Today's young adults demand authenticity of person and action. Nothing characterized the life of Francis more than his untiring personal conversion, his belief that the best message he could offer to people was the transparency of his own life, being a "living memory of the gospel ofJes.us.''14 His journey to La Verna was a call to purify his own life, to make it as close to his Lord's as possible. The stigmata was the recognition, the physical manifestation~ of the union of Francis's spirit with that of his Lord. For Francis, fraternity is the first witness of the apos-tolate. For him, our relationship with our brothers and, of course, with God is the foundation of our way of life. What statement on fraternity could be better than the one in our Rule (chapter vI)? "And wherever the broth-ers may be together or meet [other] brothers, let them Review for Religious give witness that they are members of the one family. And let each one confidently make known his need to the other, for, if a mother has such care and love for her son born according to the flesh, should not someone love and care for his brother according to the Spirit even more diligently? And, if any of them become sick, the other brothers should serve him as they would wish to be served themselves." 15 The recent publication from our general chapter offers the same challenge for fraternity: "The Project of Fraternal Life. should be drawn up. so as to help the ministers, guardians, and friars to build up a real and profound fraternal life, to cultivate human values like dialogue, deep-level communication, a family spirit, mutual friendship, courtesy, willingness to serve, joy, jus-tice, transparency." 16 And Giacomo Bini says: "What a paradise . . . the atmosphere of the community becomes when the mem-bers have learned how to get to know one another and to engage in dialogue with themselves, with God, and with the others . We must therefore invest all our talents in promoting a formation to fraternal relationships and to relations with God. No excuses are acceptable: neither age nor temperament nor 'venerable' tradition can dis-pense us from this duty.''~7 One of the most delightful characteristics of both Francis and Clare was their abil-ity to relate to the high and the lowly, the rich and the poor, the powerless and the powerful, with equal com-mitment of spirit. The primacy of the spiritual in young people's search is highlighted in one simple quotation from Francis's Rule: "Those brothers to whom the Lord has given the grace of working should do their work faithfully and devotedly so that, avoiding idleness, the enemy of the soul, they do not extinguish the Spirit of holy prayer and devotion to which all other things of our earthly exis- 62.4 2003 Cantwell * Wb~ Newl~ Professed Religious Leave tence must contribute." 18 And in Priorities of the Order we are told: "The contemplative dimension must be that priority which orientates and animates our whole life: the manner in which we seek and live the presence of God in every day also determines our concrete style of life and our manner of pastoral action in the Fraternity.''19 Francis has been strongly identified with the peace movement, and his peace prayer is recited by many inside and outside the church. Francis devoted his energies to the justice and peace issues of his time. His attempts to mediate between local warring towns and his journey to speak with the Sultan of Egypt are just some examples of his commitment to and preoccupation with peace between peoples. The present pope gathered religious leaders in Assisi when he wished the world to pray for peace. The increasing concern with justice and peace throughout our order--seen in recent publications from our JPIC office in Rome and in the heavy involvement of friars in different parts of the world--witnesses to the clear focus of our communities on these issues. Priorities of the Order sums up the same idea: "The friars in their lives and in their words should be promoters of justice, and heralds and builders of peace and reconciliation, so as to be prophetic signs which fearlessly denounce all that which destroys the dignity of man and of creation." 20 How We Can HelpClose the Gap I believe that some friars leave our fraternity soon after final commitment because the gap between the "lived experience" of fraternal life and ministry and the ideals that were fostered and experienced during initial formation becomes too broad. Great work has been done on initial formation in our order over recent decades, but with final commitment the friar experiences the more ordinary lifestyle of the brotherhood. This older system with its more impersonal tone, overly routinized prayer Review for Religious life, and rugged individualism leaves them feeling iso-lated and unsupported, and they become work-oriented. After years of counseling numerous religious who have left, it is hard for me to remember someone who departed because interesting ministry was unavailable. The common comment has been that life became "too damn lonely." How can the different parties help to close the gap in this time of transition? Times of transition involve cri-sis, and any crisis has two possibilities: opportunity if the crisis is faced, danger oth-erwise. Facing the crisis means avoiding any split by keeping the conversation going, talking of differences and commonali-ties. No one side ever has the whole truth; the truth is a shared truth. I note much good-will on the part of older friars and enthusiasm on the part of the younger ones. There is much "good wine" in both generations. Given this good environment for cooperation, how can we work together? Are there practical moves we can all make? The follow-ing are some of my random suggestions, and maybe you can come up with others: We need to continue moving away from monastic-style buildings towards more ordinary homes. We need to find more visible, credible, and transparent ways of living. For many friars brought up on the older model, where relationships were discouraged and closeness was taboo, this change could present challenges. Contemporary research on religious life indicates that there is a move towards small groups immersed in local communities where there can be a more relational life. "We have need in our society for a countercultural way of life that wit- No one side ever has the whole truth; the truth is a shared truth. 62.4 2003 Cant'well ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave nesses to the gospel call to transcend hedonism, greed, and the desire to dominate.''21 Living in more ordinary houses also makes us more mobile. If we need to do something different, we just sell and buy an ordinary house and are not stuck with a monastery to sell. But young friars .are often looking (like Francis) for a deeper challenge than "living in ordinary houses." They would like to live more simply than their ¯ surrounding culture. They are looking for a palpable sacrifice expressed in our way of living. Smaller houses also demand some of the ordinary decencies of day-to-day living that can be avoided in large houses: "How was your day?" "Sorry!" "Thank you." "May I--?" (Incidentally, the increasing tendency for religious to live alone in ordinary dwellings avoids, in my view, one of the fundamental witnesses of religious commitment.) My own picture of future community life has us liv-ing in ordinary houses and going from there to work. This provides some kind of boundary between work and fraternity. The very acts of leaving home for work and returning home after work are important symbolically. There is no reason why a parish community could not live in an ordinary house within the parish. Friars whose ministry is giving retreats or giving parish missions or working with the poor in the immediate neighborhood or teaching in a nearby school could live fraternally in an ordinary house. We should be slow to build homes or offices specifically for ourselves. If we need office space, we can always buy or rent--then move more easily if the need arises. The move to smaller community living requires more "conscious formation in relationships. Many of the broth-ers in my age group missed out on the "intimacy" stage of formation. There was no encouragement towards friend.ships, towards closeness, towards just ordinary con-nection with other friars. Often those who joined reli- Review for Religious gious life as late vocations have already experienced this stage of development. Gentle encouragement for older religious towards a more relational life can be a big help. Larger communities are sometimes necessary, espe-cially for those who are ill or need more attention, but a large building does not have to impede good fraternity. Attitude is the ruling factor. For instance, even a large din-ing room can be made homey through the use of smaller tables and random seating. House meetings can address, besides strictly busi-ness agendas, matters such as "How are we with each other?" Simple questions like "What is going well in the community?" and "What needs to happen for our life together to be even better?" focus on the positive and require friars to look ahead rather than grumble about difficulties. Such questions create space for friars' needs to be attended to regularly--a good principle of group dynamics. Having a community night--no scheduled work and no work" unless urge.nt--can really help to build frater-nity. Make the night a little special. The meal might be special or served differently or eaten later. The spiritual aspect of our lives should be present. A Eucharist that is thoughtfully prepared is one option, or a special variation on the prayer of the breviary. We need to keep reviewing our commitment to our min-istries, Youth are looking for an exciting ministry that gives witness to our Franciscan values. No ministry is excluded for us, but each ministry must flow out of who we are. The area of our lives which has been most tamed by the institutional church is that of ministry. We have become very mainstream. "Is the societal need that moved us into these works many years ago still relevant? Is the countercultural stance that characterized the socially radical and politica!ly subversive vision of the founders still operative?''22 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave Why are we doing what we are doing? One reason offered is "We have been doing it for a long time." Not good enough. Another is "We are doing good work and the people love us." I hope that the people will always love us, but that is not a sufficient reason to stay or.go. One danger is that, as priests become fewer, we will be tempted to fill slots for demanding bishops. We speak much about preferential option for the poor. Some of the exciting ventures in our order--and quite ordinary ones as well--are focused on this societal need. In my own province we have a small community of friars living in a housing settlement. They are doing great work in ordinary ways: forming neighborhood groups to keep the suburb clean, finding furniture for the needy, helping build local community support groups, being resources for addressing neighborhood troubles. Young men who are thinking of joining us rightly ask: "Why are you Franciscans doing that particular min-istry?" Can we answer them? I believe the recently introduced custom of mentoring younger friars is an excellent idea that deserves being imple-mented. Being a mentor has been challenging for me, and I believe that it has helped build bridges. Being mentored by more experienced friars has helped me enormously. Meetings of young friars and even meetings, of young reli-gious from different congregations provide support through the sharing of experiences and thus getting a sense of solidarity in a common venture. When the meeting has involved only friars, they have appreciated the presence of the provincial administration for some of the time during the meeting. Meetings of friars in which the experiences of the differ-ent age groups are shared can help build bridges. Recently in my province we asked our two newly professed friars, who had completed a very good novitiate in another Review for Religious pro-~ince, to share with us their experience of the novi-tiate. The theme was expanded to include what young people seek in religious life. Young and old enjoyed the experience. Often what seems like bad will is lack of information. I believe that young friars benefit enormously from hearing the experiences of the older friars, and that sharings like these help close the gap between generations. The proviso is always the priority on listening, coming to learn and understand, rather than being a know-all on either side. In particular, are we attentive to the promptings of the Spirit in the young friars? Do their contributions have their rightful effect on policy decisions? Have we helped them to be skilled at the culture gap? I want to make special mention of the great wisdom and contribution of the older friars. Often in this paper I have referred to age gaps. More correctly, they are cul-ture gaps. Some of the most up-to-date, psychologically flexible, and spiritually wise friars are those who have borne the heat of the day and who are able to offer their wisdom to any who listen. Keeping the conversation going between the different age groups is important in a time of transition. If we do not talk to each other, we build up fantasies of what "that other group" is thinking or doing. I believe we all have lo~s of goodwill, and behind our unwillingness is often fear. When I was prenovitiate director, I used to invite any friar who was passing through the area to "come and talk to the prenovices." The common worry was: "What will I talk about? I don't understand young people?" My response was: "Simply tell them what it has been like for you to be a follower of Francis." We had many enjoy-abl. e evenings, and imagined barriers were broken down. A prayer life that is simple but refreshing is the core of my fraternal life. There are many simple ways to vary common prayer: sing the hymn or play a CD, have some-one read the canticle reflectively, have silence instead of 62.4 2003 Cantwell * Wby Newly Professed Religious Leave Youth hearken to religious callings that offer a countercultural witness to the cultural trends of greed, power, consumerism, individualism. one of the psalms, omit a psalm and have a longer gospel reading or a nonscriptural reading. These suggestions do not require hours of preparation, but they draw us out of a numbing routine that certainly does not refresh my spirit. Faith sharing, too, deepens the experience of fraternity. There is often fear when faith sharing is mentioned: par-ticipants feel they will be asked to bare their souls before the brethren. I like to begin such sessions by saying that it is fine for any friar to be totally silent if that is his wish. One group with which I meet has a simple shared prayer that goes like this. First of all a text is read, usually from the Scriptures. After a short silence anyone who wishes shares just a phrase or word that stood out for him (no embellishment). The text is read a ,second time followed ¯ by a few minutes of silence. Then anyone who wishes . tells briefly what that text means to him or her. Finally we round off with a prayer. I always come away with some small inspiration. We will probably become poorer as a fraternity. Youth hearken to religious callings that offer a countercultural witness to the cultural trends of greed, power, con-sumerism, individualism. One of the most difficult chal-lenges I personally find is not taking the standards of average Australian society as the ones-for my own life. Some young friars have said that, when they joined the order, they went "up" in their standard of living. Can I live in such a way that, when lay people visit the com- Revie~ for Religious munity (or my room), they would find a simplicity of lifestyle that would make them think? Can we use for others the money people generously give us for our min-istry- and maintain a simple lifestyle in our fraternities? I believe Francis would want us to. As our numbers become smaller, we will probably become poorer as an order. I believe that will not do us any harm. When people--of whatever culture or race-- find that we are actually living side by side with them and are in need, they will provide for us. Finally, dare we do something new and exciting when numbers are going down--or even because numbers are going down? If young friars experience only the closing down of houses and nothing else, they might just feel they are on a sinking ship. If I Were a Young Man. If I were a young man with many bright opportuni-ties in Life before me, what kind: of Franciscan religious life would inspire me to join the fraternity? ¯ When I met individual friars, I would want to see the light in their eyes (like I found in the first friar I met) that would tell me they lived life with a passion. ¯ When I visited the communities~ I would want to feel genuinely welcomed (and I reckon I would quickly work out whether it was genuine, or not), not just another statistic. As I joined in community prayer, I would hope to find it fairly simple and thoughtful, not a rushed ver-sion of monastic prayei'. I would not want a lot of prayer--rather a quality about what I experience. And a certain atmosphere of silence at some times of the day would appeal to me. ¯ At recreation I would want to feel that the friars really wanted to have fun together and were not just going through another routine. I would be listening for such ordinary comments as "How was your day? What 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave were the results of Brother Juniper's visit to the doctor? Who has a new joke to tell?" ¯ I would want to talk to the older friars, to find out how they had experienced following Francis, to learn from their endurance and patience. I would want them to pray for my young journey and have confidence that I could make a contribution, even though different from theirs. I would want them to listen to my hopes, and I would want to hear theirs. Could they translate their struggles into something meaningful to me? ¯ I would hope the kitchen is a place where we all contribute--simple good food and good wine being essential to life. ¯ When they told me about their works, however simple, I would want to ask them why they did those particular things. How does the fire in their belly moti-vate what they do? I would be particularly excited about working for justice, for those without a social voice, for those who feel abandoned by our society. ¯ I would want to experience a rich diversity of min-istries: parishes (why this parish?), retreat work, work with the disadvantaged, skilled individuals doing some unusual ministries. The common denominator v~ould be the "Franciscan need." ¯ I would want to think that there is a certain mobil-ity about the brotherhood, that the friars have their ears to the ground ready to respond to new needs. ¯ I would want the accommodations to be simple yet comfortable--and that the rooms not be so self-contained as to be able to survive a nuclear attack. I would want the neighbors to call in when they think it important--and to be able to share our prayer life. But I would also hope there was a certain sacred space just for the community. ¯ I would want to feel encouraged to give rein to my dreams, to feel there is space for new wine as well as old. ¯ I would be most affected by friars who palpably Review for Religious enjoyed and passionately lived their lives, and who felt fulfilled as human beings and followers of Francis. Franciscan Fire I believe our world today is crying out for precisely those human and spiritual attitudes that Francis of Assisi lived so courageously. Through no bad will, we seem to have lost some of Francis's fire through excessive struc-tures and institutionalization. There is excitement in rediscovering it today, seeing the spark in people's eyes when they hear of Francis. Why do young friars leave? The ultimate answers are all individual. But some leave because the gap between the ideals of Francis and the lived experience of Franciscan life is or appears too great. Rather than blame either side--for blame simply darkens the space between us--can we see these departures as a call to stir the fire in our own lives? Numbers do not really mat-ter. Whether we are few or many is irrelevant, provided that friars are not leaving our midst because we are uncertain trumpets of truly good news. Our task is to echo credibly the ringing values of the poor man of Assisi. Francis and Clare became living and prophetic words to the people of their time. We are challenged to do the same, not alone but in tune with the Spirit. Let the last word be Oscar Romero's: This is what we are about. We plant the seed that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. Notes 1 Murray 8odo, The Way of St. Francis (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1995), p. xvi. 2 Michael J. Breen (ed.), A Fire in the Forest: Religious Lift in Ireland, survey by John A. Weafer (Dublin: Veritas, 2001). 3 Johannes Baptist Metz, Followers of Christ: The Religious Life and the Church, trans. Thomas Linton (New York: Paulist Press, 1977). 4 Matthew T. Eggemeier, "Generation X and Religious Life: A Personal View," Review for Religious 59, no. 5 (September-October 2000): 485 and 484. s Breen and Weafer, Fire, p. 61. 6 Sydney Morning Herald, 11-12 January 2003, p. 12. 7 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 482. 8 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 482. 9 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 483. 10 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 481. 11 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 486. 12 Eggemeier, "Generation X," pp. 486-487. 13 Lori Spanbauer, "Snapshot of the Millennial Generation," Horizon 27, no. 2 (2001-2002): 15. ,4 Giacomo Bini, Clare of Assisi: A Song of Praise (Rome: Franciscan Press, 2002), p. 15. is Rule and General Constitutions of the Order of Friars Minor (Pulaski, Wisconsin: Franciscan Publishers, 1974), p. 29. 16 Priorities of the Order, General Chapter 1997 (Rome: Franciscan Press, 1998), pp. 8-9. 17 Giacomo Bini, Clare, p. 55. Review for Religious 18 Rule and General Constitutions, p. 28. ~9 Priorities of the Order, p. 6. 2o Priorities of the Order, p. 11. 2~ Breen and Weafer, Fire, p. 68. 2~ Breen and Weafer, Fire, p. 106. Seminary Woods The oak leaves quietly drift from the tall trees, landing softly on the lake, their edges curled skyward as they float along, blown by a gentle breeze. Father, may my hands ever be lifted to you in prayer, as I am blown about life's surface, a little leaf made to glorify your Name. Christine Diensberg OSF 62.4 2003 DONALD C. MALDARI Ignatian Insights into Evangelical Poverty Over the centuries Christian spirituality has, ironically, valued the practice of poverty as an aid to becoming rich in holiness. The inspiration for this evaluation of poverty comes first from its most limpid example, that of the kenosis (emptying) of the Son of God in the incarnation (Ph 2:7) and then from the lives of every person whom Christianity considers a saint. Catholic tradition recommends the practice of the "evangelical counsels" to all Christians as aids in their growth in holiness.~ They are manifold ascetical practices, especially obedience, poverty, and chastity, designed to counter sinful tendencies. They aim at checking human delusions of independence from God, such as pride and self-centeredness. They promote a relationship with God animated by the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.2 They all appear oddly paradoxical, like pursuing wealth by way of poverty. Ignatius Loyola's spirituality sheds light on this paradox for all struggling to find hope. The young Ignatius sought fulfillment in the ways that conformed to the values of his or really any Donald C. Maldari SJ is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies; Le Moyne College; Syracuse, New York 13 214. Review for Religious materialistic society: in riches and honor. His life was driven by the pursuit of courtly honor and of physical gratification. His convalescence from a serious wound at the battle of Pamplona forced him into a poverty of sorts: a lack of distractions that afforded him the opportunity to find authentic fulfillment in a newfound relationship with God. Upon reflection Ignatius concluded that the riches and honors that people seek may lead to a pride that is self-destructive. This pride obstructs a life-giving relationship with God. In order to battle against the suicidal temptation to self-sufficiency that riches, honors, and pride offer, Ignatius turned to evangelical poverty. Along with the great tradition of Christianity, the mature Ignatius understood evangelical poverty neither as destitution nor as austere disdain for material goods to earn divine favor. Destitution wounds the inherent dignity of human persons by depriving them of what they require to develop as God desires. Disdain for material goods denies the goodness with which God endowed creation. As is evident from the First Principle and Foundation of his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius, on the contrary, rejoiced in the vocation to fulfillment that God extends to all people and recommended using created things for that purpose (SpEx §23). He grew to understand evangelical poverty as a spiritual attitude and material lifestyle that promotes the most fulfilling creaturely relationship with the Creator. That relationship is made possible by the life that flows from God to creatures, that is, by grace, and the hope that animates creatures and draws them into participation in the very life of God. There appears, therefore, to be a relationship between evangelical poverty and theological hope in the spirituality of Ignatius. Ignatius pursues evangelical poverty as a means of cultivating theological hope. This hope puts Ignatius in direct contact with God, as is 62.4 2003 Maldari ¯ I~natian Insights into Evangelical Povert~ Ignatius's spirituality of poverty and hope is countercultural, as is Christianity itself. characteristic of the theological virtues. One can trace the development of Ignatius's embrace of evangelical poverty in his Autobiography, and one can glimpse the results in the fragments of his Spiritual Diary that have survived. In these fragments one is privy to Ignatius's growing relationship with the Holy Trinity, which he perceives as a community of love that shares all it is and has. It, too, lives evangelical poverty! In his Spiritual Exercises Ignatius invites exercitants to develop their own relationships with the triune God. Ignatius's spirituality of poverty and hope is countercultural, as is Christianity itself. The Gospels assert that those who wish to live authentically need to lose their lives whereas those who selfishly cling to their lives destroy them. Sacrifice, the root meaning of which is "to make holy," seems inevitably to involve some sort of renunciation. The Christian tradition believes that this renunciation is necessary because of the sinful and selfish inclinations of humankind. Evangelical poverty is one of the sacrifices which Christianity values. The hope which it cultivates nourishes people, allowing them to participate even now in the life of God. Ignatius's Understanding of Evangelical Poverty Ignatius's Autobiography reveals a man who grows in his love for God. He attributes to God the initiative in their relationship, but recognizes that people can cooperate with God by taking graced action in developing the relationship. Ignatius grew in his recognition of the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, as the mediator between God and humanity. He encounters the Son in all creation, Review for Religious which, created through him, is charged with his presence. He encounters him in a privileged way in the incarnate Christ, the fullness of the revelation of God. In Christ Ignatius experiences the dynamic of salvation: the descent of the Son into the human situation in order to effect the ascent of humanity into the life and work of God. As mentioned above, Ignatius relates to God not only in his divine unity but also as the divine community of the Holy Trinity. Poverty, which he refers to as a "mother," plays a crucial role in the development of Ignatius's relationship with this community (Constitutions, §287). As Maurice Giuliani opines, he even recognizes it in the Holy Trinity and in each of its members: The poverty of Jesus who does the work of his Father, the poverty of the divine Persons whose richness is the love which they have for each other, the poverty of the creature who wholeheartedly desires "reverence and respect" along with fidelity and service. How could Ignatius, thus interiorly instructed, henceforth choose anything else but this way of material poverty, a visible sign of human poverty vis-a-vis God and participation in the poverty of God himself?.3 Poverty was an ascetical practice for Ignatius. He understood asceticism as the exercise a person undertakes to attain a goal. His understanding of it developed from an integration of the insights of Christian tradition with insights drawn from his own experiences.4 He used it as an aid to his relationship with the Trinity.5 Javier Osuna Gil suggests that one consider Ignatius's understanding of asceticism from three perspectives: (1) as an effort to remove all disorder, all impediment, whatever makes us less free to receive the transforming action of God, who embraces us with his Love; (2) as a task for transforming oneself into an agile and flexible "instrument" of God, 62.4 2003 Maldari ¯ Ignatian Insights into Evangelical Poverty with increasing availability; and (3) as a way of "carrying the cross," the necessary cost of the historical impact between the project of Jesus and the project of this world.6 Ignatius uses ascetical practices in order to promote the disposition of sinners who seek to respond to Jesus' invitation to follow him and to cooperate in his mission.7 The Spiritual Exercises themselves are ascetical in character in that they are means of preparing and disposing our soul to rid itself of all its disordered affections and then, after their removal, of seeking and finding God's will in the ordering of our life for the salvation of our soul. (SpEx §1) They propose to facilitate the self-communication of God to the exercitant (SpEx § 15). In 1544 Ignatius penned a short document titled The Deliberation on Poverty that provides an insight into his discernment regarding the prescriptions on poverty in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. In this document one perceives Ignatius's use of evangelical poverty as an ascetical practice intended to promote his relationship with Christ. Manuel Ruiz Jurado distinguishes three motivations for Ignatius's choice of absolute poverty in this text: ascetic-mystical, apostolic, and Christocentric. The ascetic-mystical reasons include the recognition that poverty promotes absolute hope only in God because it separates one from reliance on secular things.8 The apostolic reasons include giving greater edification through example, having freedom to travel in imitation of Christ and the first apostles, whom Christ charged to live in poverty, and relying for consoling hope, not on secular goods, but on God alone.9 The Christocentric reasons include the desire to imitate Christ, who was poor and faced great adversities and who contin

Issue 61.5 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; Challenge and Response Life and Death Theory and Reality Time and Eternity SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 5 Revie~ forReligious belps p~ople respo~ anit b~ fi~itbful to God's universal call to bbliness . ~, Oy omaki~tff available to,~tbem tbe sp!ritual legacies that flow from tbi cbarismsof Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ \Veb 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 Mouut St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, MaD, land 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, ~\tN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 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 distrihu-tiott, 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. view for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Fopp~ Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest Eo Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 5 contents 454 challenge and response Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation Donna Markham OP spells out the healthy interpersonal life necessary for the women and men accepted into ministry. 462 Lessons from a Time of Distress Joel Rippinger OSB reflects as a male, a monastic, and an ordained religious on the sexual-abuse scandal in the church in order to discern the voice of the Spirit and the signs of the times in the events we have experienced. life and death 472 Choose Life: Reflections Ten Years after Five Deaths Regina Siegfried ASC celebrates the tenth anniversary of the murder of five Adorers of the Blood of Christ by noting 1) that Liberia is still in the grip of a life-and-death struggle, 2) that the paschal-mystery chari.sm of the ASCs is in clearer focus, and 3) that ASC mission in Liberia continues on. 481 Made Perfect through Suffering Marie Beha OSC reflects on the meaning of suffering seen in the light of the September triad of feasts--the Exaltation of the Cross, the feast of the Sorrowful Mother, and the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. Review for Religious 494 hsory Right Relationships in Consecrated Life Dennis J. Billy CSSR applies the clear and extensive teaching on the spirituality of communion, what it means to live in right relationships with others, to the community life of reli-gious congregations. 511 Contemporary Theologies of the Vows Ellen M. Leonard CSJ compares and contrasts central ideas about religious life from contemporary writers Barbara Fiand, Diarmuid O'Murchu and Sandra Schneiders. 522 Discouragement Viewed through Mark's Gospel Eugene Hensell OSB enters us into an imaginative reading of Mark's Gospel in order to help contemporary religious communities to move away from our preoccupation with quantity and focus on the quality of our discipleship. 535 Time as Gift Carolyn Humphreys OCDS reviews how we might make time, God's gift to us, our gift back to God. 541 Heaven: The Day the Drilling Stopped Sister Mary Stephen Brueggeman PHJC reviews her changing ideas of heaven which bring her closer to the truth of our life forever with God. flep r n en s 452 Prisms 546 Canonical Counsel: Automatic Dismissal 552 Book Reviews September-October 2002 prisms L the United States the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack upon the New York World Trade Center towers and the Washington DC Pentagon headquarters rouses many reflections about the changes in daily life that this vivid sad event brought about. With the subsequent anthrax scare, mail service was delayed and has never fully recovered because of precautionary restrictions on packages and letters. Any major public event-- sporting, political, musical, and even religious--now includes the aspect of a heightened security. Even more evidently, the rigorous security screening that has been imposed upon all air travelers has caused a reduction in the number of passengers, no matter how hard the major airlines have tried to entice them back. Review for Religious, too, has been affected by the September 11 events. Let me share with you how I have experienced this effect. In my fourteen years as editor, I have generally had a large number of manuscripts--unsolicited--flowing across my desk. I estimate that among them I have chosen one third for publication. But last October to January, it was as if the river had run dry. The flow of manuscripts became a trickle, and there was little improvement until the recent summer months. Why such a dramatic and universal change, including even our writers from other parts of the world? Let me offer an interpretation of this phe- Revie'~ for Religious nomenon. There is a classic book about mystical prayer, by an anonymous author, titled The Cloud of Unknowing. I do not want to talk about mystical prayer, but I would like to describe our human status after September 11 as entering a cloud of unknowing. The events of that day raised up life-and-death questions, yes, but more than that. An urge to examine human relationships, religious motivations, social inequalities, and the secularizing of world cultures came to the fore. In addition to these huge issues came the church scandal of sex-abuse by priests and the mishandling of these cases by bishops. Questions abounded, but not many ways of making an ade-quate response. In this tumultuous milieu, talking of pieties and priestly service and religious-life problems seemed unimportant or even petty. Important issues had arisen, and dealing with them seemed far more necessary than writing about them. I was reminded of St. Paul's words "we are perplexed, but not in despair." I believe that we all were caught in a kind of cloud of not knowing what to think or say. We were perplexed, but our mood was not one of despair. True, article submissions show something of a rebound in recent months. But I am under no illusions. Just as we live with the continuing effects of this day, so I believe that we will continue to find that our thoughts are being stirred in new ways, our affect is being shaped, and our choices are being challenged. We still remain perplexed. September 11 is more than a tragic event in one nation's history. The year just past has seen dyings in many aspects of civil and church life. We have entered a new era of examina-tion of our humanity in relation to one another and to God. The September I 1 event challenges the secular domination of any one culture and demands that social inequities within coun-tries and between countrie~ be dealt with in new ways. With St. Paul, we too can say that we are always carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus, the confusion that sin is and brings. But we live--and our authors are continuing to write--so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. Our hope finds expression in this prayer: "On each of our dyings, shed your light and your love." David L. Fleming SJ September-October 2002 DONNA MARKHAM challenge and response Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation What can be said about vocations in the midst of the " fire storm in which we find ourselves these days? How do we encourage idealistic, good-hearted, and generous young women and men to throw their lot in with us in the midst of such sinfulness and pain? Over the course of my Dominican life, when I have been particularly grief-stricken or have found myself afraid or angry or unable to think clearly about a given crisis, I have called upon my Dominican "ancestor" Catherine of Siena to intercede for me, to beg the Spirit to help me. In that spirit I summon up this prayer, written by a contemporary Dominican woman, Patricia F. Walter, to set the scene for these reflections: Fire of Exodus, Flame of Pentecost, time and again you have beckoned us into the desert and propelled us from the upper room. Melt our resistance, dispel the frost of fear. Enkindle our longing, warm our compassion, and transform us in your fiery Spirit. Donna Markham OP, executive director of Southdown, presented these reflections (here somewhat edited and abridged) as a talk at the Serra International Convention in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on 30June 2002. Her address is Southdown; 1335 St. John's Sideroad East; RR #2, Aurora, Ontario; Canada L4G 3G8. Review for Religious Living Flame of Love, burn deep within us. Give us the strength to endure the heat and set our hearts afire. Catherine herself lived in and preached to a church in crisis. She was somewhat of a scandal in her day. She was a woman who others felt did not know her place, a woman who went into prisons, a woman who traveled with men, a woman seeming "not too tightly wrapped" as she spoke with God in strange ways, a bold woman who dared confront the pope. Nonetheless, we see in her the fusion of wisdom and love that led her to the marginalized and suffering poor, and also to the suffering within herself. God does not call perfect people to discipleship. As Catherine faced the suffering deep within the church and the suffering deep within herself, the dark side of life and of her own personality became apparent to her, and she faced it. She was not afraid to respond to God's call. "Vghen we are whom we are called to be, we will set the world ablaze," she wrote. It was in that conviction that she extended her love unreservedly to those she met along the way. Her compassion and mercy touched the imprisoned, the terminally ill, the intellectually misled, those condemned to die, and social pariahs of all sorts. Her loving determination to be true to whom God called her to be emboldened her. She found the courage to take on some of the most painful situations of her day. Catherine shows us that, even when everything is stripped away (our status, our security, our comfort), if we are whom God has called us to be, unreservedly extending ourselves to suffering people of every kind, we will fill our world with the fire of Pentecost. This is the Christian vocation. It is to this that we dare to call our young people, to be dedicated women and men of Jesus' gospel-- persons who, true to their personal call, bring healing and mercy into this broken world. God does not call perfect people to discipleship. Our Contemporary Context These days we Catholics are experiencing how suffering calls us to purification and forgiveness, how it beckons us to September-October 2002 Markham * Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation transformation. God's Spirit nudges us in our shock and sadness to open our innermost selves ever more humbly to the Pentecostal fire of conversion. We do so in the assurance that a loving and faithful God promised to be with us in the cloud by day and, in the darkness of the night, to be with us as a pillar of fire. So it was for every stage of the Israelites' journey (Ex 40:38), and so it is for this suffering church, brought low and humbled in desert days. We count on God to be with us now, to lead us forward and to call us to purification and transformation. The community of faith needs leaders who are as generous and dedicated as they are unafraid. We count on strong lay leadership, and we count too on those who are willing to give themselves to the service of the gospel as chaste, celibate religious and clergy. Our humbled and sinful church--led by God throughout salvation history and infused with God's spirit-- calls forward those who will lead. We dare to do so knowing full well that this is an extraordinarily complex time, a time of shattered trust, the disillusion of broken shards. At the dawn of this postmodern era, when we face crises in our world and in our church, we more than e~er need leaders who will counter narcissistic individualism and alienated self-reliance. We need leaders who will witness to and proclaim the healing power of a compassionate and merciful God. We cannot settle for mediocrity. Among us are spirit-filled women and men. Members of our families, they are old, young, and in between. We need to believe in the church's power to be an influence toward good; we need to pray for God to call them, and we ourselves need to call them. Rampant skepticism, pervasive questioning, and the deconstruction of authority typify this emerging postmodern era. We can neither turn back history nor simply reapply modern solutions (that worked well several decades ago) to postmodern crises. Walking along humbly and perhaps quite anonymously in these fragmented times are those who will inspire us and help us make sense of what appears chaotic and meaningless. My sense is that the only way we can survive on this planet is by countering postmodern deconstruction with gospel-focused reconstruction. The leaders of the postmodern faith community must be courageous souls willing to pose serious and soul-searching questions. Will we proclaim with our actions and our Review for Religious words the centrality of relationship with God, with the communion of saints? How will we commit to sharing faith across the community of believers, with Christians and with other persons of faith as well? Will we act as agents of healing and reconciliation in our broken world? Will we develop new ways of standing amid the tension of our differences, becoming parmers rather than adversaries in the midst of some inevitable conflict? Clearly, perhaps more than ever, we need clergy, religious, and lay leaders who will help us notice the good that we hold in common and will move us to deepened generosity, justice, compassion, and forgiveness. VCho are these people who will minister among us, this humbled people of God whom we call church? Those who can be instruments of healing and hope; those who will venture into areas of the world, or of the intellect and the soul, where others cannot or will not go; those who will walk into areas of human experience that desperately need the gospel to be proclaimed-- women and men courageous enough to let themselves feel the Spirit's fire, become deeply converted, and thereby lead others to conversion. Aptitude for Priesthood and Religious Life This is no time to settle for less-than-healthy p~ople in our seminaries and formation houses. We do not ask for perfect people, but we ask for fundamentally healthy people. A balanced and healthy spiritual life--people at home before God, with a personal relationship to God--is the basis of a vocation. Without sometimes finding Jesus in the contemplative silence of prayer, and also in activity with and among the worshiping community, ministerial life becomes hollow rhetoric and wooden routine. Similarly, as people's relationship with God must be strong, so must their relationships with others be mature, rich, and fulfilling. We all have memories of relational disasters that have punctuated the history of ministry in the church. Frightened, socially uncomfortable, hostile, and aloof religious and clergy have been professed or ordained, sometimes unwittingly and sometimes as a conscious way of filling slots. At this time we must not repeat such arrangements. Rather, we must count on psychologically stable men and women who can handle the Septentber-October 2002 Markham ¯ Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation demands of working in a church and world that are in a period of upheaval. The capacity to endure the stresses of this time, remain faithful to the gospel, and proclaim the countercultural message of Jesus' compassion and care is predicated upon mature psychological development. Relationship with God, relationship with others, and relationship with oneself constitute the basic health of ministers of the gospel. The mature human being is able to connect with others, can sometimes separate from others without becoming despondent, and can be interdependent, reliant on others. Without his intimate relationship with God, Moses could not have risked the harshness of the desert, the Israelites' long exile, without a clear home, without even the comfort of a clear destination. All the while, however, the pillar of fire was there. And it is still with us. When we are grounded in relationship with God--even when we are'not certain of the terrain we walk upon, even when we seem lost, even when we are tempted by mirages or seduced by the securities of the past--we dare to continue on. A strong reliance on God enables healthy ministers to rely also on companions in the difficult search for a true and loving response to the signs of these times of ours. Those who cannot relate, who do not have close or sustained friendships, or who are exploitive or manipulative in their interactions with others do not belong in the priesthood or religious life. Nor do stiff, distant, rigid, detached persons who are dismissive or controlling of others. Living with a damaged ability to connect with others in healthy ways, such persons are highly vulnerable to exploitive sexual behavior. As the ability to connect with others and with God is important, so is the ability to take leave, to separate from others. In the spiritual life there are times when God seems silent or distant. Spiritually healthy persons are attuned to the God of silence, the God shrouded in the cloud. Emotionally healthy individuals can tolerate separation. They do not function out of an insatiable neediness for continued nurturance and affirmation. Clingy, demanding, possessive people do not exercise ministry well. Their pastoral style is indecisive, hesitant, and largely ineffective. Good pastoral ministry includes the capacity to be interdependent. Priests and religious must be able to find God in Review for Religious the community of believers, even as they are stretched and challenged within that community. Stand-alone "talking heads" who believe their mission is to infuse knowledge and faith into subordinates manifest the worst of postmodern narcissism. Puffed-up arrogance issues from deep insecurity and gnawing inadequacy. Because they are preoccupied with themselves, their pastoral style is likely to be experienced as secretive and mystifying. The women and men accepted into ministry today must be secure in their personal identity and confident in God's incredibly persistent accompaniment, even in the nighttimes of their experience. They must be deeply aware that the mission of Jesus transcends their own self-focus. We might well ask ourselves what must occur in our admission and formation processes to ensure that those who will be ordained or professed are persons of this kind. As is evident from these comments, a healthy interpersonal life is the place to begin. In her classic book, The Birth of the Living God, psychoanalyst Anna Maria Rizzuto comments exquisitely on the important connection between people's relationship with God and their ability to form relationships with others. People's relational life--including their ability to depend on, separate from, and collaborate with others--is mirrored in their God quest and thus is the touchstone for their spiritual life as well as their ministerial life. This is evident in Moses' life in the desert, in the lives of the disciples' gathered and inspirited in Pentecost's upper room, and in the life of Catherine of Siena bringing the gospel's truth to so many. Implications for Formation When, from their personal experience of candidates, admissions board members have made positive evaluations, those judgments should be confirmed by psychological evaluations. Far from being enemies of the faith journey, the social and behavioral sciences can give candidates valuable insight and assist their continued growth, along with confirming that they have the psychic strength to handle ministry in a restive church. The Thomistic adage that "grace builds on nature" seems apt. That is, we cannot take severely damaged persons into our seminaries September-October 2002 Markham ¯ Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation and religious communities with the expectation that somehow, if they pray enough, they will be able to take the stress of ministry today with a modicum of effectiveness. That would be unfair to both the individual and the people of God. Psychological evaluation is helpful in screening out those who have personality disorders or cognitive deficits that would interfere with trustworthy and effective ministry. After admission to a seminary or a religious congregation, discernment continues. That two-way process of determining if there is a fit between the individual's gifts and the charism of priesthood or a particular religious institute should be diligently undertaken by the candidate and the formation directors. If either party has any doubt, the process should be terminated. Serious errors are made when either the individual or the formators decide to continue the process in spite of serious concerns. The candidate who says he or she must simply pray harder in order to be happy and at peace in the life, or the formator who says "Let's give him one more chance" or "Let's send her to psychotherapy," is setting the stage for unhappiness or, worse, for future ministerial dysfunction. The discernment process must take place in prayer and serious dialogue. Wonderfully dedicated persons may not be called to a life of chaste celibate ministry. Doubts on either side necessitate making the difficult decision to terminate the process. In light of the demands of these times, other things too seem imperative in fostering healthy vocations in seminaries and houses of formation. Along with necessary courses of study, serious spiritual direction by trained directors is probably more important today than it ever has been. The general quest for meaning in our culture, people's longing for connection to the Sacred, and pervasive skepticism affect all of us and inevitably affect the spiritual life of candidates for priesthood and religious life. Assisting candidates to have a contemplative personal relationship with God and to be comfortable seeking harmony with God's spirit active in our world is surely a crucial undertaking of the formation process. Candidates today must experience a radical call to ministry. They must have a strong altruistic desire to extend themselves to others, especially those in critical need. Central to formation, and I would say crucial today, is some form of immersion among Review for Religious the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the suffering, the angry. The world cries out for compassion and healing. People yearn for the love that can cast out the terror that lurks in corners of rage and despair. Without burning desires to put lives wholeheartedly at the service of Jesus' mission, without willingness to feel uncomfortable or inadequate, ministry in the postmodern marketplace is likely to be sadly ineffective. Critical and Creative Fire It is my growing sense that we are not engaging in formation in ways that meet the needs of persons preparing to minister in this time. I wonder if we are not still imposing modern solutions on postmodern realities. In a world disconnected, divided, and fragmented, heightened attention to community-building seems crucially needed. With our seminaries and houses of formation still separated from the culture, I wonder if we are missing something terribly significant as we prepare people to be healing agents in that culture. Regarding formation, critical and creative thought is needed. Varied apostolic opportun-ities, cooperation across gender lines, and intelligent immersion in the crises of these times must be balanced by solid theological knowledge and spiritual experience and commitment. We search for ways to promote vocations, and we strive to have minds and hearts ever more ready for the fire of God's Spirit. We believe that our faith life is precious, that healing can and will happen, that there is more life than death, no matter how cold or dark things may seem. Like Catherine, we too pray that our resistance may be melted, that the frost of our fear may be dispelled, and that, warming us by burning away impurities in us, God will give us a fierce fervor that can set hearts of the next generation on fir!! In a world disconnected, divided, and fragmented, heightened attention to community-building seems crucially needed. Septentber-October 2002 JOEL RIPPINGER Lessons from a Time of Distress Inf the citizens of the United States developed an entirely ew way of looking at things in the months after 11 September 2001, members of the Roman Catholic Church in North America underwent a similar transformation in the first six months of 2002. The numbing succession of stories on cler-ical sexual abuse, episcopal cover-ups, and lay outrage over the betrayal of trust by church authorities have constituted a seismic shock, whose tremors continue within the Catholic Church in the United States. The reaction of laity and religious alike has been accelerated and imensified by the extensive media cover-age of these matters. In describing American Catholic reaction to the sexual-abuse scandal, one can say that it is equal parts outrage, sad-ness, and alienation. One of the notable and positive consequences of these events is that church authorities have given greater heed to the voices of Catholic lay people. Opinions of the laity are now received with a seriousness and sympathy that until recently were hard to detect. This development is all to the good. At the same time, the ordained in the church and those in positions of authority have been chastened and humbled more than many would have thought possible, an eventuality that few think would ever have been self-initiated. All that being said, a perspective on recent events that has not received much attention is that of religious in the church. Joel Rippinger OSB writes from Marmion Abbey; Butterfield Road; Aurora, Illinois 60504. Review for Religious More particularly, I can speak from the position of a male, a monastic, and an ordained religious. Perhaps more uniquely, I can speak as an historian whose perspective sees all that has occurred as an unprecedented watershed in the church's his-tory. From this perspective my hope is that my reflection may enable fellow religious to discern the voice of the Spirit and the signs of the times in the events we have experienced. Before attempting an objective historical judgment of this crisis in Catholicism, an inventory of personal emotions seems appropriate. The images that come to mind are of being caught in a storm at sea without a rudder or being thrown into one plot twist after another like a character in an action film. For any man who spent all of his adult years as a religious (and then also as ordained), never before these events was there a need to cope with a feeling of collective shame. If at one time vowed celibates sometimes felt that they were being distortedly per-ceived as asexual persons or just marginalized singles, now they felt that people were perceiving them as among the sexually perverse. The sense of accomplishment that for many years had accompanied their apostolic labors was now undercut by reve-lations that the very people being served had been betrayed by ministers themselves. People have long been aware, of course, that religious have in their communities a support system that diocesan priests and numerous lay ministers often do not have. I agonize over the plight of the growing number of new DPs, not displaced persons but displaced priests, men who have been removed from their assignments as a result of allegations but who lack access to the same network of healing that religious communities have and who, hounded by the press, seem to have become nonpersons like people struck from party lists in totalitarian states. For the increasing number of religious engaged in the ministry of spir-itual direction, the size of the crisis is soon evident. Lawyers and public-relations personnel for dioceses find themselves in a war zone as they face a hostile press and wounded families of vic-tims of sexual abuse. Catholic social services confront the dispir-iting discovery that their funds have been siphoned away for payments to victims of sexual abuse. Ranks of good priests find their public profile diminished and their spiritual strength sapped as they go about their ministry with the self-conscious- Septeml~er-October 2002 Rippinger ¯ Lessons from a Time of Distress ness that comes from ,facing misplaced suspicion at every turn. It is arresting to consider that among the few safe places of hos-pitality and confraternity for these persons to seek restoration in are religious houses. The Lens of History When one looks at the present crisis historically, a number of seminal issues come to the surface. The first is that nativist and anti-Catholic sentiment, so powerful in various periods of American history, has reappeared. That sentiment was clearly seen in the way that the secular press seized on the issue of sex-ual abuse. The New Yorker and National Review, the Boston Globe and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, odd bedfellows on other topics, joined in their insistence on full disclosure and even in their misunderstandings of Catholic teaching. The confusion of the vow of consecrated celibacy of religious and the promise of celibacy taken by diocesan priests was only one of many errors regarding the Catholic Church that appeared in the press. Fact checkers could be unconcerned that some simple down-to-earth accuracy escaped their investigative radar scanning. The print media, however, paled in comparison with the television indus-try. The traditional networks and the cable news leaders were both drawn to the story. Whether it was the American cardi-nals meeting in Rome or the American bishops meeting in Dallas, the confluence of church symbolism, sexuality, and inept or corrupt authority drew coverage that smacked of tabloid jour-nalism. (One had to strain to find any voice given to superiors of religious houses or congregations. With a few notable excep-tions, both local and national networks ignored that realm of Catholic vowed life.) In all this, one wonders what direction the film industry, already given to frequent caricatures of Catholic priests and religious, might take in future screenplays involving the church. Compared with earlier periods of anti-Catholicism in American history, however, contemporary treatment is less offensive. When one thinks of the fictionalized treatment of women's religious life in The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk in the period prior to the Civil War, even the present-day embel-lished broadsides are slight in comparison. As much as the polit- Review for Religious ical cartoons that burst into the attention of the American pub-lic in 2002 seemed to lack all respect for the institutional church, they do not approach the Thomas Nast cartoons of the 19th century or the caricatures of Al Smith when he ran for president in 1928. An element of the current crisis that is a significant change in popular perception of the Catholic Church in the United States is an anticlerical slant. The American hierarchy, which until recent years had been heralded for its leadership regarding respect for life and in forming public policy on social-justice issues, was now the target of not only mavens of the media but also many ordinary Catholics. On the intertwined matters of sex and money and power, people scrutinized the conduct of the church's ordained authority figures. For those called to witness to the evangeli-cal counsels of consecrated celibacy, poverty, and obedience, there was little chance to miss the irony. While the United States for years resisted the per-vasive anticlericalism of European nations such as France, Italy, and Spain, it is increasingly evident that the status of the ordained in North America has been reduced markedly. Although this reduced status has not been felt with the same forcefulness among religious men and women, the high percentage of ordained members among the former and people's proclivity to think of both groups together sug-gest that the status of religious in Catholic eyes will be not be as high as it was up to the council. Beyond any doubt, there is a growing resentment toward the clerical culture of recent years. Whether directed towards closeted decision making by bishops or towards an air of unassailable authority among local priests, resentment is real and not restricted to feminists or to lay men and women with liberal agendas. Establishing the extent of this resentment by opinion polls would not seem as pressing a need as dealing with discernible causes of such resentment. It is hard to gauge just how powerful the media were in generating adverse public opinion against the Catholic Church Nativist and anti- Catholic sentiment, so powerful in various periods of American history, has reappeared. September-October 2002 Rippinger ¯ Lessons from a Time of Distress Scandalous behavior on the part of the clergy and religious, and also closeted policy making on the part of bishops, have been recurrent themes of American Catholic history. in the face of so much questionable behavior. Today's media have no real historical antecedent. The media treatments of Watergate and Humanae vitae provide matter for suggestive comparison but not for accurate assessment. In the public eye, the hierarchy and its representativesappear to have suffered an erosion of credibility that is without parallel. Insofar as this will have an effect on the church's image as a whole, it is bound to undermine the perception that ordinary Catholics and others have of members of religious congregations. Another historical perspective worth noting is that scandalous behav-ior on the part of the clergy and reli-gious, and also closeted policy making on the part of bishops, have been recur-rent themes of American Catholic his-tory, not merely developments of recent years. One strains to see such histori-cal awareness present in assessments of today's situation. Before the screening mechanisms of today, communities of men and women religious often took in individuals whose pasts were at best questionable. When sexual promiscuity or the misuse of alcohol occurred, typically it would take place outside the cloister and.involve the clergy in their pastoral assignments. When such misconduct became known publicly, the tolerance of the faithful was amazing, especially when the perpetrators would be reassigned to other parishes or missions. Therapeutic interventions and the reporting of specifically criminal actions to civil authorities were absent as procedural options until recent decades. Even many years after these events, historians found themselves frustrated by the selective purging of pertinent correspondence or data in community and diocesan archives. The upshot was that the press did not have access to records in the manner that exists today. In addition, there was an understanding that journalists would not cross a line in regard to investigating Catholic Church institutions. The culture that produced Hollywood's idealized images of priests and religious Review for Religious portrayed by Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Loretta Young, Gregory Peck, and Ingrid Bergrnan did not deem it appropriate to uncover the darker side of that image. New Aspects of the Present Crisis One striking irony in the unfolding of recent events in the sexual-abuse scandal is the supporting cast that came into the public eye. The pray, pay, and obey lay people of the preconciliar era had now acquired positions of power and influence within the church. So, although the persons accused of criminal or immoral behavior were almost exclusively male and ordained, the church voices being heard were largely lay and even female. Women religious serving as chancellors (coordinating the func-tioning of diocesan offices) were asked to speak for the church. Lawyers, whether representing victims or perpetrators, pro-fessed their Catholicism and often a background of Catholic education. Catholic education, in fact, has had a role in the overall picture of the current sexual-abuse crisis. The primary apostolic work of many religious communi-ties, religious education has proved to be the very venue in which much sexual abuse took place. The large-scale lawsuits instituted against orders in Canada and the United States (to say nothing of Ireland and Australia) for systematic victimization of students signaled how vulnerable these institutions had become. The moral scandal in all of this seems to have been more the sin of omission by persons in authority who failed to intervene than the sexual crimes themselves. Some critics took note of the lack not only of moral integrity among administra-tors of Catholic schools, but also of a professional stance and adequate structures to deal with such criminal behavior. In both cases, administrators of religious schools were forced to admit to a complicity in allowing perpetrators of abuses to continue in their work. This situation pointed to a real deficiency in religious for-mation as well. Just as the sexual-abuse scandals in the United States in the last half of the 20th century indicated the flawed formation provided for many priests in seminaries, so too the formation programs of religious communities do not appear to have prepared people well for celibate commitment. Celibacy September-October 2002 Rippinger * Lessons from a Time of Distress and sexuality in formation programs were usually treated only in a general and allusive way that was felt to be circumspect, seldom with a candid and detailed explanation of realistic areas of struggle. An even sadder irony is that considerable numbers of vocations to the religious life were themselves sexually abused. Fear of divulging any information about such abuse only made the climate of conflicted feelings and shame more pronounced. Maintaining that secret and carrying the hurt of their past exacted a price that religious orders are only beginning to real-ize. As important as the vow of consecrated celibacy was for the identity and witness of all religious, it did not "keep up" with the culture. The sexually saturated American culture since the 1960s sent people to religious houses with sexual experience and atri-tudes that were considerably removed from, if not at cross pur-poses with, the ascetical tools they were expected to acquire in their spiritual life. For many generations, candidates came to religious com-munities at an early age and led lives sheltered from the wider world. In recent decades, more mature (that is, older) candi-dates with more education and more independent and sophis-ticated career experience made for an entirely different set of expectations. As much as Generation Xers and the millennium generation were recognized as requiring a new manner of for-marion, especially for developing the skills required by a celibate commitment and for developing a deeper understanding of their sexual identity, formation programs that provided this were the exception rather than the rule. Sadly, too, the emerging need in the last decades of the 20th century to assist older religious who had awakened to their sexuality as a more complex reality than they had previously realized was typically overlooked or ignored by religious communities. In recent years there has been tension and conflict between the discipline of psychology and the more traditional skills of the spiritual life such as fasting, mortification, and a deepening prayer life. Too frequently the matter appeared as an either/or proposition. Either one bought into the therapeutic model and relied upon the work and recommendations of trained clini-cians to deal with misbehavior, or one thought that only an ascetically proficient religious could be trusted to give effective witness. In truth, both the discipline of psychology and the tra- R~vie~ for Religious ditional methods of acquiring gospel holiness were needed as partners, not opponents. Religious superiors, many of whom had trained therapists in their communities, began to see the need to model such a partnership. Another facet of religious life that has been accentuated by the distressing events affecting the larger church has been, for want of a better term, a sense of entitlement. Part of the judg-ment rendered on the American ~riesthood by contemporary observers is that ordained men have generally been encouraged to see themselves as special, people having a status that put them on a pedestal. The connection of this attitude with nar-cissistic behavior and a feeling of deserved entitlement is not hard to make. The same holds true for the attitudes of exclu-sivity and domination that were attached to the role of the ordained. Insofar as religious communities, consciously or unconsciously, adopt such attitudes, they play into the hands of those who want to write them off as irrelevant to the modern world. One of the commonly employed descriptions of religious life in the last forty years of renewal has been its prophetic role. The term implies a forceful, unsparing, and honest stance in the face of evil or oppression. The fact that the veil on much of the evil behavior in the Catholic Church had to be lifted by persons and institutions outside it says much about consecrated life's complicity. For many years, communities and congrega-tions expended much energy and resources on the small minor-ity of the "troubled." It became standard operating procedure to deal with such matters in the closed circle of community. The reasons for this seemed evident. First of all, only the superiors would have all the facts to make the decision. And there was the need to respect both promised confidentiality and the good name of the institution. Somehow this learned behavior was able to compromise any impassioned effort to deal with the issues underlying these cases of moral failing and misbehavior. How much of the moti-vation behind this was because of religious obedience and humil-ity and how much of it was indifference and a desperate desire to preserve an image is hard to say. But the fact remains that few voices of prominence from the ranks of religious (one thinks of the Dominican Father Thomas Doyle, whose recommendations September-October 2002 Rippinger ¯ Lessons from a Time of Distress on sexual abuse to the American bishops in 1985 were largely filed away) were willing to play David against the Goliath of the church hierarchy. In some respects, many church authorities, when confronted with the revelation in early 2001 of sexual abuse of religious women in Africa by church figures, were other instances of not wanting to hear the prophetic voice. The history of religious life tends to teach that the minis-terial needs of each generation change, and so religious com-munities have to adapt to those needs. The church today would do well to prepare a good number of compassionate and com-petent men and women religious to minister to the victims of sexual abuse. The great capacity of religious in previous eras to form new ministries and institutions to deal with changing pas-toral needs will be tested again in this case. The professional training needed to provide such personnel should be a part of ordinary programs of formation. If seminaries throughout the United States are now committed to detailed screening and comprehensive instruction in the area of sexuality and celibate skills, religious communities should do no less. Historians can also be of assistance in future years. When one reads the available popular or scholarly histories of reli-gious congregations and communities in the United States (and they are many), one searches largely in vain for any serious or systematic discussion of sexual misbehavior, or of substance abuse and severe emotional problems. Part of the reason for this, as alluded to earlier, is that much of the record of such activity has been expunged from archives and other records. But there is no evading the truth that such scandals have had an influence on the character and development of many commu-nities and congregations. A beginning needs to be made towards having discreet, honest, and sensitive histories written on such matters so that the problem of silence and averted eyes no longer prevails. In the history of the modern church and modern conse-crated life, real transformation and spiritual progress have almost always been initiated by outside events. The Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution's destruction of reli-gious houses had positive effects within the Catholic Church. Reformed congregations and new houses of religious emerged to confront the new challenges of the time. Review for Religious The situation today, in the church and in North American relig!ous life, has similarities with those earlier historical moments. As much as the current crisis contains elements that are entirely new (for example, the mass media that shape much of public opinion and the "age of litigation" that surrounds the church in the United States), there nonetheless is much to learn from both the distant and the immediate past. New voices must be heeded, and a new genera-tion of leaders will be needed to change church and com-munity structures that have failed. To accomplish that daunting challenge, they must preserve the best of tradition and listen more carefully than their predecessors to the lessons of the past and the voice of the faithful around them. New approaches to ministry will be proposed, and they will enlist the ranks of religious women and men to The church today would do well to prepare a good number of compassionate and competent men and women religious to minister to the victims of sexual abuse. redirect their commitment and their resources. A new paradigm of formation in religious life must more realistically and pro-foundly prepare people to live a celibate commitment. Such a paradigm will blend the distinctive charism of tradition with the revised understanding of how religious life at the dawn of the new millennium has been changed unalterably by yet another tectonic shift in the geography of consecrated life. The proto-cols of the past (whether they be called secrecy, damage control, or protecting the institutional image at the expense of individ-uals) have been found wanting. It is incumbent upon the present and future generations of religious to effect a conversion wor-thy of their vowed commitment. September-October 2002 life and death REGINA SIEGFRIED Choose Life: Reflections Ten Years after Five Deaths Ten years ago five Adorers of ~he Blood of Christ were murdered in Liberia, where the congregation had had missionaries for twenty-two years. It seemed then that the deaths ended what the sisters had worked hard to build. God, though, told us long ago: "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live" (Dr 30:19). Now, ten years later, some of the picture does not look nearly as bleak as it did in 1992. Three things are more obvious now than they were when the five Adorers were killed on 20 and 23 October 1992. One is that Liberia is still in the grip of a life-and-death struggle; another is that the paschal-mystery charism of the ASCs is in clearer focus for many members. The third is that the ASC mission in Liberia has not ended with the deaths of the five missionaries. Commemorating the tenth anniversary and celebrating the lives of the five murdered ASCs, this article focuses not on their deaths Regina Siegfried ASC last wrote for us in our May-June 2002 issue. Her address is Department of Theological Studies; Saint Louis University; P.O. Box 56907; St. Louis, Missouri 63156. Revi~'w for Religious but on the situation in Liberia and on the valiant spirits of people there who continue their legacy. The community's mission in Liberia began in 1970 in the coastal village of Grand Cess, in the Cape Palmas diocese. By 1984 the Adorers had eleven sisters ministering in Gardnersville (a suburb of the capital city, Monrovia), in Kle, and in Grand Cess. In 1989 civil war broke out, with Charles Taylor leading the rebel forces. Allegedly, rebel soldiers shot Joel Kolmer ASC and Barbara Ann Muttra ASC on a Tuesday, while they were on a short automobile journey away from their Gardnersville convent, and three days later other rebels came to their convent and shot Kathleen McGuire, Agnes Mueller, and Shirley Kolmer. My community has had ten years to assimilate those stark facts, to grieve intensely, to remember lovingly, and now to celebrate gratefully those lives generously poured out. Liberia Ten Years Later To keep these five deaths in perspective, it is necessary to realize that, since 1989, 200,000 Liberians have died; 800,000 more are refugees in neighboring countries and elsewhere. More than 1 million Liberians are internally dis-placed within the country. All of the country's infras-tructure lies in ruins and the economy has collapsed. However, leaders of the seven warring factions in Liberia are engaged in a lucrative underground econ-omy. In June 1996, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Ambassador William Twaddle testified before Congress that the National Patriotic Front of Liberia alone may have made $75 million a year from the sales of Liberia's timber, iron ore, rub-ber, gold, and diamonds.' The murder of Liberian President Samuel Doe in 1990 brought intense civil war. The seven Adorers then in Liberia fled the country. By March 1991 Sisters Shirley Kolmer and Joel Kolmer returned and were followed in August by Sisters Barbara Ann and Agnes and by newcomer Sister Kathleen. The sisters worked with youth to help them refocus their lives after fighting at too young an age. September-October 2002 After the sisters' deaths in 1992, fighting .continued to devastate the country. In September 1996 Ruth Sando Perry headed the Liberian New Transitional Government. During that same year armed conflict once again erupted in Monrovia, but by August the warring factions signed the Abuja II Peace Accord. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf opposed Charles Taylor, leader of one of the factions; he defeated her for the presidency in May 1997. On 14 March 2001, testifying before the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Senator Russ Feingold unequivocally labeled him a war criminal: "We have all read the appalling accounts of atrocities committed in the region. I believe that some of the responsibility for these terrible abuses rests upon Charles Taylor's shoulders. In fact, I believe that Liberian President Charles Taylor is a war criminal." Jeffrey Bartholet's in-depth article and analysis of Taylor in the 14 May 2001 issue of Newsweek argues that Taylor is "a dictator adrift . He maintains the faCade of democracy, while ensuring that no one threatens his power" (p. 31). In May 2002 the International Herald Tribune reported that fighting had once again broken out in Monrovia. Taylor's government troops attempted to quell a rebel offensive. Adding to Taylor's self-serving indifference to the plight of the people of Liberia are other grim conditions that compound the misery: child soldiers, illegal diamond trade, crumbling and destroyed country-wide infrastructures, and deforestation of a once breathtakingly beautiful and fertile land. Boys orphaned by the war joined factions that offered promises of booty, power, and the glamour of guns. Girls became the mistresses and servants of older soldiers, with rape and resulting pregnancies fo~ girls too young to be mothers. Some children were forced to kill as part of an initiation rite and to ensure their complicity and loyalty to a faction? With the theoretical peace of August 1996, many of the child soldiers were disarmed. But taking guns from children does not mean they are educated, prepared with skills, or rehabilitated for society. Often with no parents, no home, and no school to return to, these child soldiers were well on the way to becoming today's lost young adults. In assessing the plight of the child soldiers, Stephen G. Price, of the office of justice and peace for the Society of African Missions, has written: Revie~a for geligio~,s Rehabilitation requires some kind of reconciliation in the larger Liberian society, where the atrocities of war experience can be faced in some way, and a means of living with the memory of them is achieved. It also involves responsible persons hearing young fighters tell their own stories of personal involvement. The grief, terror, and guilt will be a huge emotional burden, and a bomb waiting to explode again, if it is not expressed.3 Although the war may be technically over in Liberia, the fighting and refugees have spilled into neighboring Sierra Leone. That country's Revolutionary United Front smuggles diamonds through Liberia, where Charles Taylor reportedly takes a cut of the pro~fit.4 The African Faith and JustiCe Network newsletter of March 2001 reports that nongovernment organizations and the United Nations have succeeded in getting the diamond industry to commit itself "to rapidly developing a Certification of Origin system that would allow global markets to exclude diamonds originating in civil-war situations. However, the industry has moved slowly to implement this commitment, prompting more active calls for UN or government action" (p. 5). The same newsletter says that fighting over diamonds has closed so many clinics and pharmacies that people are unable to get appropriate drugs or treatment for common, easily treatable illnesses. Child soldiers, illegal diamond smuggling, and ordinary Liberians without ordinary social services and a working infrastructure--all are signs of death, destruction, and general mayhem. But only on one level. Liberians continue to choose life; the forces for life outnumber the seemingly grim, death-dealing, and nearly hopeless situations they face every day. Their natural tendency toward optimism and a God-centered hope sustain them. Nongovernment organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, the Society of African Missions (SMA fathers), other missionaries, But taking guns from children does not mean they are educated, prepared with skills, or rehabilitated for society. September-October 2002 Siegf!'ied ¯ Choose Life the Africa Faith and Justice Network, Senator Feingold's testimony, the clean diamond act, and programs such as Development, Education, and Leadership Teams in Action (DELTA) and Development Education Network-Liberia (DEN-L) are slowly, surely, and quiedy restoring life to this country. Located in Gbarnga, Bong County, and committed to training lay leaders to "promote grassroots participation in sustainable development and good governance,''5 DEN-L trains workers, community leaders, and unionists to analyze local and national situations and to network, advocate, and work for a Liberia where life is sustainable. DEN-L is but one example of an organization staffed by fearless committed people who envision a country where peace and reconciliation bring new life. The ASC spirit lives on in lay associates who still gather to pray, to remember, to celebrate. Lay people now staff the Catechetical Village Leadership Training Center in Kle, Bomi County, begun by Antoinette Cusimano AS in 1986. The sisters' house in Gardnersville is a clinic. Five Liberian brothers staff Sister Shirley Kolmer School in Barnersville. Sister Kathleen McGuire School is a newly built structure in Cooperfarm, a village near Monrovia. The work of Sister Barbara Ann in healthcare is continued in Tubmanburg and Kle and many surrounding villages by a nurse trained by Barbara Ann and her staff. Another aide trained by Barbara Ann works in the clinic in Kle; the clinic had been the sisters' home. Since it is the custom of the Liberians to name their children after some persons important to them, some Liberian girls now answer to the names of sisters who served in Liberia, including the slain sisters. Despite it all, perhaps because of it all, the spirit nurtured by the five ASCs and other ASC missionaries lives in the people who carry on their legacy without their presence. The missionaries have risen in the people. ASCs Ten Years Later The sisters have risen in the people of Liberia. How do their spirits live in the congregation of Adorers of the Blood of Christ? The answer to that question impels us to focus on the charism, our legacy from Maria de Mattias, founder of the Adorers. The Review for Religious Constitution of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ is quite clear about the charism: Our charism as Adorers of the Blood of Christ is deeply rooted in the death-resurrection mystery of Jesus. Ours is a paschal identity, signed in the blood of the Lamb. As a congregation we are to bear witness in hope and joy to the living presence in our world today of Christ's redeeming love, which gives meaning to human suffering and can render it powerfully liberating and life-giving. (§22) Shaped by and immersed in this basic mystery of Christianity, the Adorers expect this "paschal identity" to permeate their corporate and personal lives. Baptized into the life and death of Jesus, vowed to God as sisters in a congregation whose constitution encourages its members to be "ever more credible witnesses of God's tender love, of which the blood of Jesus is vibrant sign and unending covenant pledge" (§3), the paschal-mystery charism of the Adorers found stark reality in the lives and deaths of the sisters in Liberia. These five credible witnesses lived and died the charism. Charisms of communities are wild, fiery, free, hard to control by law and institutionalization. If this is true of eharisms in general, it is certainly true for the Precious Blood charism, which pulses with the life of the paschal mystery, urging contemplation, speech, and action, impelling us to mission.6 The Precious Blood charism is rooted in historical times that were rife with political and social unrest. Injustice for the poor of society was so common that it was not given much consideration except for the countercultural founder who was on fire with the gospel message of God's reign. Fire and passion for the mission, the urgency to be with the marginalized of society, pushed our founder and our pioneer members to take risks that appeared foolish to the complacent. These are the same qualities that urged five Adorers to return to Liberia in the face of evidence that pointed to staying home, staying safe. Such vision demanded conversion on the part of Maria de Mattias and of the five killed in Liberia. It calls for the same in us. Joe Nassal CPpS writes in a similar vein when he says: To be a disciple of the Precious Blood today is. to stand with those of Matthew 25: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the ill and im- September-October 2002 Siegfried ¯ Cboose Life Our sisters died because of what they believed in-- God's love for all people, especially the poor and suffering. prisoned. This implies that, when we stand with those who are at the margin of our society, we are no longer in the center ourselves. We allow those with whom Jesus identifies to pull us out of our cozy and comfortable cocoons into the real world where pain and suffering is ever present.7 Ten years ago grief was too raw, tears and disbelief too close, for comfort. But ten years have given the Adorers time and space to contemplate the mystery of those terrible days in late 1992. Life has indeed gone on. We know the slain sisters would expect us to get on with the mission. But, for many Adorers, "getting on with the mission" meant and means soul-searching, questioning, pondering the paschal mystery in a new light. Contemplation of Jesus' life with a focus on the paschal mystery means reflection on the reality of blood poured out for the sake of others. The fact and the symbol of Jesus' shedding of blood calls Christians, especially congregations dedicated to the Precious Blood, to consider the totality of a life gift, the meaning of giving all even to the point of death. From a pragmatic view, both Jesus and the sisters killed in Liberia were in the wrong place at the wrong time, yet they stood up to the wielders of power and the forces of destruction. The disciples of Jesus, like the Adorers, needed to theologize about the meaning of seemingly meaningless deaths. Marcia Kruse, a U.S. Adorer,s reflects that: "Actions and events become signs or symbols of a deeper meaning. Our sisters died because of what they believed in--God's love for all people, especially the poor and suffering. Their lives and deaths are symbols, examples of total giving, and that total giving is what we are called to." Wherese Wetta, another Adorer from the United States, writes: "Five of our Adorers had given their very lives because of their solidarity with the Liberian people. The sisters knew that Review for Religious the Liberian people were brothers and sisters to us, redeemed by the Blood of Christ and sacred in God's eyes." Mini Vadakumchery, an Adorer from India, communicates in the same vein: "They offered themselves as a living sacrifice and answered the cry of the poor. Today I . . . am ready to risk and challenge my life in any situation." Violence, political and social unrest, and neglect of the weakest in society are streams that run through the time of Jesus, through the 19th-century founding of our congregation, and through today's world--the living and dying in the present-day neglected country of Liberia being a prime example. But another stream of compassion, standing with, and advocacy mingles with those deeply stained waters. Whenever people throw in their lot with the disenfranchised of society, with those who need our presence as much as we need theirs, then the saving power of Jesus finds a home, and everyone finds a home. The stream of life weakens the stream of death. This is the cycle of paschal-mystery theology--life ultimately means resurrection. The wood of the cross had its effect on bitter desert water, as Moses experienced typologically at Marah: "He cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet" (Ex 15:25). This is part of paschal-mystery theology. Jesus came that people may have life and have it to the full; this means going beyond the bitter and the sad, beyond death, to resurrection, that joy beyond joys. Matija Pavic, one of the Adorers in Croatia who lived amid ¯ the war and destruction in that country, writes in a similar vein: Since their martyrdom I can say we feel greater closeness among us, at the level of the province and of the congregation as well, as if their martyrdom itself strengthened and drew us together, waking us up to the seriousness of our life commitment at the same time. We experienced the truth of the word that we are called to witness to Christ even to shedding of our own blood. We were overwhelmed by feelings of worry, compassion, and prayer; it was as if th¢:ir suffering spilled over into us. At the same time we were sure that their blood was not shed in vain. We know that it will be a new seed for the kingdom of God here on earth.9 September-October 2002 Sieg?Cried * Cboose Life The congregation continues to choose life. Many of us are ministering in the same areas that we were ten years ago, but the awareness, the consciousness, is deeper than before the events in Liberia. As a United States province we offer more assistance to victims of violence, are more attentive to women and children and to work with refugees. Today the charism has taken on a new dimension of reconciliation. We want to be reconcilers in our torn world, living the life, death, and peace of Jesus where we are and seeking out areas where reconciliation is needed. Life is precious; we cherish each other and try not to take one another for granted. If we are to become our charism in our society, we must respond to the call that the charism voices in our hearts. The paschal mystery invites us to life through death. It is our legacy to insure that the spirit of the sisters killed in Liberia lives in us as vibrantly as it does in the people of Liberia, whose lives they touched graciously, joyously, and effectively. Notes ~ Ezekiel Pajibo, "Liberia: A Brief Overview," Africa Faith and Justice Network, March 1977. 2 Stephen G. Price, "Child Soldiers in the Liberian War," SMA Office of Justice and Peace, March 1997. 3 Price, "Child Soldiers." 4 Washington Post, 17 April 2000. s Taken from "Information about the Development Education Network Liberia." 6 Some of the ideas on paschal-mystery charism are taken from my article "The Missionary Heart," Review for Religious 54, no. 6 (November-December, 1995): 913-917. 7 Joe Nassal CPPS, Passionate Pilgrims: A Sojourn of Precious Blood Spirituality (Carthagena, Ohio: Messenger Press, 1993), p. 17. 8 Adorers worldwide were invited to submit reflections on the effect the sisters' deaths had on them. Some of their comments are included in this article. 9 Translated by Viktorijika Tomic ASC. Review for Religious MARIE BEHA Made Perfect through Suffering ISn the days immediately after the terrorist attack of 11 eptember 2001, the liturgy celebrated--yes, "celebrated"-- a familiar cycle of feasts: on 14 September the Exaltation of the Cross, the next day the feast of the Sorrowful Mother, and two days later the commemoration of the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. This triad has always touched my heart, but I never really understood the reason. Last year the cycle's themes grew in clarity as, in the light of the September tragedy, the why of suf-fering demanded deeper answers. So many innocent people had died, so many others suffered multiple losses, and so many of us, perhaps all of us, had our lives, our attitudes, changed. As has been said over and over, "nothing will ever be the same." Amid all this, what was the liturgy asking us to celebrate? How did these past events touch the present of our suffering? What did it all mean? Exaltation of the Cross The very titling of the feast holds paradox. If familiarity were not dimming the challenge, we would all be aghast every time a cross is exalted to a place of honor in a church or home, every time it is raised up in blessing. Unfortunately, we take Maria Beha OSC, frequent contributor to our pages, lives at the Monastery of St. Clare; 1916 North Pleasantburg Drive; Greenville, South Carolina 29609. Septe'mber- October 2002 Beha * Made Perfect through Suffering this linking of cross and glory for granted. After all, it is the cross of Jesus that we are lifting up. Familiar religious senti-ment blunts the starkness of the reality. But what about our own suffering? Could that be lifted up? This was my question. As I explored the readings for this feast, they only height-ened the cross's mystery, inviting us in the entrance antiphon to "Glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" and stressing in the preface that God has "decreed" that we should be "saved by the wood of the cross." As I pondered the paradox of these too familiar phrases, still others came to mind. "It was fitting that God . . . in bringing many children to glory should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Heb 2:10). And, equally mysterious, "he learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb 5:8). Suffering redeems. That is what the phrases proclaimed, what I had always heard and said. But was it what I believed, what I had experienced? To raise the question in the first person singular was to realize just how much ambiguity remained in my act of faith. Certainly I believed that the suffering of Jesus was redemptive; that was unquestioned bedrock. But what about human suffering, other people's as well as my own? Specifically how did the tragedy of 11 September hold potential for redemp-tion? And how about the bone-wrenching pain of my friend so seriously injured in a near-fatal auto wreck? And the grief of a single mother whose three small children died when flames swept through their trailer home? The examples easily became an almost endless litany.of human misery and grief. I began to feel myself slipping down into a vortex of tragedy that could only paralyze. I hurried back to Jesus and the exaltation of his cross. From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus revealed God's compassion for human suffering. Just the sight of the grieving widow at Naim was enough to call forth a life-giving response. Jesus took the dead man by the hand and "gave him back to his mother" (Lk 7:11-17). No one had asked Jesus to do anything. It was as though the mother's suffering compelled him to act. And how many times throughout the Gospels Jesus responds to pain in the same way, healing lepers, the blind, the deaf, the lame. As Mark says, "wherever he put in an appearance, in vil-lages, in towns, or at crossroads, they laid the sick in the mar-ketplaces and begged him to let them touch just the tassel of Review for Religious his cloak. All who touched him got well" (Mk 6:56). Others ~possessed by demons, many of whom we would today consider emotionally ill, also called forth Jesus' compassion. He drove out the demons, freeing those who had been in their grip. In word and deed Jesus tells us that God is on the side, not of suffering, but of new life, freedom, health, healing. In other words, suffering is not to be gloried in but rather to be worked against. In the end time of a "new heaven and a new earth [God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more" (Rv 21:1, 3-4). This is where we are going, but the life and death of Jesus amply testify that suffer-ing is integral to our ever arriv-ing at that kingdom of glory. While working against suffering in the life of others, Jesus also accepted it in his own. He real-ized early on that responding to God's call would bring suffer-ing, not only to himself but also to those whom he loved. From the beginning of his ministry, he warned his disciples of his coming passion and rebuked Peter sharply for refusing to accept this reality: "Get behind me, Satan" (Mt 16:23). Even the everyday of Jesus' life was punctuated with the hardships of an exhausting ministry, complicated by a lack of understanding on the part of those closest to him and subject to harassment by the religious leaders. Mark's Gospel (6:6) says he was "amazed" at their "hardness of heart." How it all must have hurt him! His own family thought him "out of his mind" (Mk 3:21) and came to take him away. His closest friends, the likes of James and John, were more concerned about their sta-res in the kingdom (Mk 10:35-40) than in what Jesus was trying to teach them. On the last night of his life, his disciples' lack of understanding would degenerate into a cowardice that left him alone at the end. If suffering was present throughout Jesus' life, his death and dying were terrible: an innocent man condemned to the most shameful of deaths, done in by the jealousy of religious leaders Jesus tells us that God is on the side, not of suffering, but of new life, freedom, health, healing. September-October 2002 Beba ¯ Made Perfect through Suffering For suffering to be redemptive we must not seek it out, exaggerate it, or add to it. whose legalistic observance covered over the corruption of dead men's bones. Betrayed by one of his own, deserted by all but a handful of his alleged followers and supporters, tortured and mocked by his executioners, yet "he did not open his mouth" (Is 53:7). Even in the agony of death by crucifixion, his words were full of love for his mother, for the one disciple who remained faithful, and for the dying thief. To his Father his final plea was one of concern for others, "Forgive them, they know not what they are doing," accompanied by his own complete sub-mission, "Into your hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:34, 46). Jesus' death summed up his lifelong attitude of accepting the suffering that came to him in accord with his prior choice. "Not my will but yours be done" (Lk 22:42) summarized who he was and what he was about. As a conse-quence of this first love, Jesus responded to the suffering in his life in such a way that it became redemptive. That is what we cele-brate on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and what we must experience in our own salvation history if we are ever to embrace the mystery of suffering. Have we ever, perhaps only in retrospect, seen something painfully difficult become redeem-ing grace? I know that for me a debilitating illness that con-fined me to total bed rest for six months when I was a cocky twenty-two-year-old was grace beyond compare. During those endless days of being unable to do anything, I had time to think long thoughts, to sift through my life values and lay aside some of the driving ambition that might very well have detoured my whole religious life. I began to learn how fragile my control of events and how life's meaning had to go deeper. I am sure you can add your own experiences of the redemp-tive value of suffering: the family that finds unity and union in caring for a sick child, the marriage that is strengthened by cop-ing with serious financial difficulties, the struggle to get an edu-cation that makes learning a lifelong priority. The list goes on and maybe needs to--showing us over and over how our faith can grow stronger through the redemptive power of suffering. Revie~v for Religious But at some point the very examples we recall also reveal that suffering is a two-edged sword. Its redemptive potential is not automatic. We all know people whom suffering has shrunk into self-absorption, and we know whiners and complainers who specialize in self-pity. Many of us do not have to look any fur-ther than our own hearts to recognize how destructive suffering can be. It can occasion a crisis, with people choosing a path of lifelong bitterness, defeat, despair. Redemptive suffering moves in the opposite direction, open-ing us to others and to God. It shrinks our pain, putting it in perspective, not the stoic perspective that "well, things could be much worse," but faith's perspective that suffering is not the end, that God brings healing, health, joy, resurrection. For suffering to be redemptive we must not seek it out, exaggerate it, or add to it. Ours is not to be the self-centered pain that protests with injured innocence, "Why me?" Nor should we try to find some husk of self-satisfaction by compar-ing our burden of pain with someone else's. Each person's suf-fering is unique, if for no other reason than that this present difficulty is piled on a unique miscellany of memories and past experiences. Trustful acceptance of suffering keeps us moving in the direction of redemption and healing. Our suffering takes on true meaning when it is caught up in the passion of Jesus. In our suffering we are being invited to "complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col 1:24). Already in baptism we are immersed in the dying and rising of Jesus. What began in his redemptive act continues as we accept the cross into our own life. Each time a choice of ours says no to sin and yes to new life in Christ, we live out the possibilities of our baptism. Each time we offer God the daily bread of our ordinary lives, we present to him a living sacrifice of praise. The Eucharistic transubstan-tiation changes not only ourselves but our world. We must focus, not on our own immediate experience of pain, but on Jesus, "fixing our eyes on the head of our faith . . . who suffered the cross" (Heb 12:1). I can recall vividly a woman who suffered ten long years from multiple sclerosis, experiencing all of its terrible dimin-ishments till at the end she was completely immobilized, unable to so much as move herself in bed. When asked, foolishly September-October 2002 Beha ¯ Made Perfea through Suffering enough, "How are you today?" her invariable response was, "Just the way God wants me to be. And how are you?" I think hers was a highly personal, well-lived translation of Jesus' own faithful response "Not my will but yours be done." She did not choose suffering, but when it came she accepted it and so dis-covered grace and peace despite the pain. Compassion's Power Suffering comes not only in our own flesh but also in the pain that others must bear and we with them. In some ways this suffering-with-another is more difficult than simply bearing our own pain, since pain deepens when all we can do is stand by helplessly. We can neither prevent another's journey toward death nor live the journey for them. We cannot force anyone to choose health and healing. Demanding that someone get coun-seling is not therapeutic; hiding the cigarettes only adds decep-tion to the mix; neither leads to conversion. Yet just "being with" another seems too little. How often I have heard parents express their wish that they could wrestle with cancer themselves rather than stand by helplessly while their child endures the awful rounds of surgery, chemo, and radiation. And how much pain is added to the suffering of a dying husband or wife, leaving behind a. spouse whose loneliness they know will never be healed. People suffer the added burden of helplessness when their friends lose their job, their health, or their home. "I don't know what to say, what to do!" we exclaim, with truth. But, hopefully, we do not use such inability to solve another's problem as a pretext for noninvolvement. Perhaps this is one of the uncon-scious reasons we seal our hearts against caring too much; instinc-tively we know it will cost us. True love is willing to risk the personal suffering that accompanies compassion. If love exposes us to greater suffering, it is also true that suffering with another can open our hearts for greater love. Children who have lost their parents in a tragic accident pull at our heartstrings. Accompanying someone facing a terminal ill-ness can give us an impetus to sort through and rearrange our own values. The terrible tragedy of 11 September 2001 stirred an unprecedented outpouring of generosity, people giving because they just had to. Strangers worked together as part- Review for Religious ners. People who lived next door became neighbors. People dis-covered strength they did not know they had when others' needs called it forth. Helping someone even in ordinary circumstances can cre-ate a close bond. Just taking a few moments to greet a new-comer can open the door to a lasting relationship. Taking the first step toward reconciliation may result in a friendship cemented now in the experi-ence of mutual forgiveness. It almost seems that some expe-rience of shared suffering, of difficulty overcome, is neces-sary if relationships are to mature into true intimacy. Exposing our vulnerability, allowing another to be with us in our pain, not only presup-poses trust but enlivens it as well. We come to know each Pain and suffering offer not only opportunity for growth, but also possibility of destruction or division. other in deeper, more personal ways. Our love has been tried and is more secure because it has passed the test. Love "suffers with," and "suffering with" can deepen love-- but not always. Once again, pain and suffering offer not only opportunity for growth, but also possibility of destruction or division. The sickness of a child may lead to parental quarrels and divorce. Friendships falter and fail in the face of difficult times and circumstances. How many siblings find themselves locked into bitter quarrels after the death of a parent? And, on a larger scale, a national tragedy can initiate a cycle of blame and mutual suspicion, of escalating violence and threats of revenge. Suffering is always a two-edged sword. It reveals hearts. That is what we celebrate on the feast of our Sorrowful Mother. Mary's love for her Son exposed her to tremendous suffering, and that suffering deepened and revealed her love. "A sword will pierce your own soul" (Lk 2:35) was a promise consequent on her accepting her unique vocation. A call from God, any call from God, implies going beyond one's present comfort level. So Mary's "Be it with me according to your word" (Lk 1:38) meant that her life would never be the same. She was being asked to transcend her power to understand, control, even September-October 2002 Beba * Made Perfect through Suffering explain. Inevitably others would be uncomprehending, some-times judgmental, even condemning. There was nothing she could say or do to make it easier for those who loved her, or for those who did not. Her only option in the face of this suf-fering was to trust that the God who called was faithful. That faith would be tried when her own Son remained behind in the temple without a word of explanation to her or Joseph. "Why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been searching for you with great anxiety." Their mother-son relationship was secure enough to survive his counterques-tion, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" (Lk 2:48-49)~ Out of this suffering must have come some deeper level of trust and understanding. Still later their tested relationship would grow into Cana's fuller confidence, "Do whatever he tells you" (Jn 2:5), and all through Calvary's final hours. There their love faced its ultimate test of mutual surrender. Mary gave her Son back to the Father; Jesus gave his mother to another "son." Mary's "Be it done according to your word" .was consummated in Jesus' "Into your hands I commend my spirit." But that cry of ultimate shared suffering was not the end. Out of it came new and eternal life, pain transformed into last-ing joy. We have no recorded appearance of the risen Jesus to his mother. Maybe it occurred but was too private, too personal, to be recorded. Maybe Jesus and Mary knew each other so well that there was no need for such confirmation. What we do know with faith's assurance is that now they are united beyond suf-fering in love's joy. Compassion breaks hearts open, leaving them vulnerable to more pain but also to more love. It did so for Mary; it can do the same for us if we are willing to risk a love that suffers because of caring for another. Such love is very different from the passivity of self-centered suffering that we bring on our-selves and which has almost no value. Worrying over all the "maybes" of our fears for self or others is common enough, but it accomplishes nothing. While acknowledging that we .are wor-riers, we also need to move proactively toward more produc-tive thinking. Similarly the murmuring and muttering that runs its compulsive tape through our minds needs closure, not the self-defeating stance that allows the pain to go on because "that Review for Religious is just the way things are." Ill health, our own or other peo-ple's, is not allowed to serve as a semilegitimate excuse for imposing unnecessarily on the goodwill of others or withdraw-ing from the concerns of the wider community. Similarly, true compassion does not permit people to become victims of the tragedies that have befallen them. Contrast self-indulgent forms of suffering with true compas-sion, where an individual goes beyond ego's narrow, rigid bound-aries to reach out to others in their pain. Such self-sacrifice is life-size, opening us to love's demands, risking involvement beyond our capacity to control the cost; it is redemptive. Such was the passion of Jesus; such was Mary's compassionate love. Christocentric Suffering Fruitful suffering is incarnational. It both accepts and works against the here-and-now pain that comes into our own lives and the lives of others with whom we risk love's involvement. This kind of suffering makes a real difference in us, in our very selves. It did so in particularly dramatic ways in the life of Francis of Assisi, and this is what we celebrate on 17 September when we remember his reception of the stigmata, having his body marked with the wounds of Jesus. What happened to Francis is what must happen in some way in our own lives. Sharing in the pas-sion of Jesus is meant to mark us, to make us different. The process begins when we look long and lovingly at Jesus and see how unlike him we are. This is the sinful self that needs conversion, and such radical repentance is bound to be costly. Changing old patterns of behavior which we recognize as self-defeating, but which still offer the comfort of familiarity, exposes us to the awkwardness of the new and untried. Letting go of habits, even habits that have been helpful in the past but no longer contribute to our growth, seems as risky as a child's first steps without support. All of these changes, not only from bad to good but also from good to better, initiate a cycle of falling, failing, struggling, starting, over. It is the cross of repentance that encourages true growth. The pain of conversion, both initial and ongoing, is made more bearable as long as we feel we are in control. Determining what we are going to change, the timing, when and how much, September-October 2002 Beha ¯ Made Perfect through Suffering There comes a time when all our activity is fixed on only one point, that of obedience and surrender. means that the very self is never much threatened. And yet it is this self, which has a mind of its own, a will of its own, that must die. Growth into Christ implies obedience. Suffering that is redemptive, then, is both active and passive. These two elements are related not as contradictories, as though some pain were active and some passive, but rather as the con-cave and convex of the same reality. Living as a Christian requires asceticism. We must make a choice, take a stand, do something. Even when pain comes into our life unbidden, we are actively responsible for the attitude we take toward it. And yet suffering is not to be chosen for its own sake; it must, as we have seen, be worked against. Still there comes a time when all our activity is fixed on only one point, that of obedience and surrender. In the end we are asked to give back to God all that God has first given us: our activities, our gifts, our relationships, our very lives. But this is not where we begin. First we give thanks to the "one who has given us everything needed for life" (i P 1:3) by using whatever we have received in the service of others. And we continue to do that as long as we can, accepting the suffering that is implicit in generous service: fatigue, the disci-pline of constancy, the boredom of daily routine. We continue to give despite the discouragement of failure, of plans that go wrong, and perhaps of the ingratitude of those whom we are trying to serve. In simply doing what is ours to do, we come to know the purification of active suffering. We learn that saying yes to others includes a no to ourselves. Francis knew this only too well. His decision to follow Christ more closely cost him dearly. He lost his relationship with his family (especially his father) and with friends, gave up his dream of glory through knighthood. Kissing the leper at the beginning of his conversion meant going beyond the comfort-able generosity of tossing someone a coin. His call to preach the gospel included all the hardship of an itinerant lifestyle. Embracing Lady Poverty meant going without the security of Review for Religious possessions. Even the great number of followers who were attracted by his example brought its own suffering, complicat-ing with the onerous responsibility of administration the simple life he desired. In addition to these sufferings, Francis also deliberately practiced a demanding asceticism. In fact, he afflicted his body so severely that he ruined his health, a mistake he came to rec-ognize and regret. At the end of his life he owed Brother Body an apology and said so. But Francis's initial mistake does not mean that freely chosen asceticism is of no value. On the con-trary, the small suffering implied in such self-imposed disci-pline incarnates our desire for God and makes room in our hearts for deeper union. This was Francis's experience and that of so many of the saints. It can also be ours, if we embrace the active asceticism of emptying ourselves of some perfectly good and legitimate things in order to make room for God. Fasting is the classic example of such discipline. Food is necessary for our survival and is one of our everyday pleasures as well. Our enjoyment of food is healthy. Unfortunately, many and even most of us overeat or undereat, and that is unhealthy. We indulge ourselves, passing up the vegetables and taking a second desert. We abuse food and ourselves in the process. I sometimes suspect that a piece of fruit as the symbol of the first temptation is especially apt, since eating remains a problematic area for many people. And so fasting retains its importance as a spiritual discipline. Setting some limits on what, when, and how much we eat can give some realism to our need to die to that demanding self of ours which expects ready gratification. A reasonable fast not only does not endanger our health, it p~obably promotes itq while also letting us share in some small way in the hunger of the multitudes in our world who lack enough food to live on. What we save by cutting back on snack food, or on expensive kinds of meat, can be given away? as an immediate fruit of our fasting. On a more profound level, some experience of hunger can stir in our hearts a greater hunger for God. This is what Francis knew when he incorporated fasting into his way of life. Because his fasting was both a consequence and an expression of love, it finally came to be strict without being rigid. His severe fasts during six forty-day Lents left him //0'1 Septentber-October 2002 Beba ¯ Made Perfect tbrougb Suffering with an empty stomach but a heart full of love for creation, for his brothers and sisters, and above all for God. At the end Francis became free enough to enjoy good food, the sweetmeats his friend LadyJacoba brought him, and to exhort his brothers to rub the very walls with meat on Christmas. His fasting along with occasional feasting came to incorporate the worship of enjoyment, gratitude, and praise. Yet as time went on Francis's suffering was less and less a matter of his own decision and choosing. It became more pas-sive, something done to him where his only activity was the choice of response. Illness, aggravated by the imprudent asceti-cism of his early days and by the crude medical practices of the time, wearied both his body and his spirit. His stomach gave him almost constant pain. His eyes failed, and this man who had so rejoiced in the beauty of creation became almost blind. Even more of a heartbreak, some friars who had at first embraced his gospel way of life came to find it too much for them. They rejected Francis, demanding that he turn over the governance of the order to another. He lived out his final years in submission and obedience. Suffering abounded in his last years, and to this was added the pain of the stigmata. The wounds in his body were real; they bled profusely enough to require bandaging. The nail marks in his feet made every step difficult, and in the end he had to consent to ride on a donkey. His hands became more and more useless, and he hid them in the ample sleeves of his tunic. How did Francis respond to all of this suffering? When his eyes were cauterized, he prayed Brother Fire to be gentle with him. When his body was too worn to go any further, he returned to San Damiano, the place of his beginnings. There Clare and her sisters tried to care for him, and there in the midst of des-olation of body and spirit he composed his glorious Canticle of the Creatures: "Praise, my Lord, for Sister Moon and Brother Sun. for Sister Water and Brother Fire. for fair and every kind of weather." Yes, praise for every kind of weather and every gift of nature and grace, for the good times and the days of pain. Praise. And gratitude, because it is all gift. This is what the stigmata celebrates: not just the fact that Francis's body was marked by the cross, but that his whole life was. He embraced suffering, accepted what came to him, while Review for Religious working against it in his ministry of healing and serving oth-ers. His heart was filled with compassion for all God's creation, his own friars, the lepers, all in need. And at the end his lifelong desire to be like Christ left him marked with the wounds of the passion. What happened in his life must happen in ours, if not in such dramatic ways, at least with equal reality. Suffering will mark us as Christ's own. We will be signed with the sign of the cross. This is what I think we celebrate in the triad of feasts that mark mid September: the Exaltation of the Cross, the Sorrows of Mary, and the Stigmata of St. Francis. Each feast hints at suffering's true meaning. First of all, it is redemptive, intended to lead us into greater freedom and love. If this is to happen, we need to accept the suffering that inevitably comes into our lives, but also to move with all our strength in the direction of health and healing. And we need to do this regarding not only our own pain but the pain of others too. Compassion, standing with others in their pain, will open us to more suffering. But there is where we will want to be if we love enough. Still, it will be costly. Life will bring us suffering that we somehow choose, but also some that we do not choose but must learn to accept. This suffering will mark us with the wounds of the passion. What our little cycle of September feasts celebrates, then, is this: that in our lives suffering is redemptive both as gift and as given. This is what it was for Francis, for Mary, for Jesus. It is what the suffering that comes into all our lives is meant to be for us. Starshine Starshine is sometimes all the light we need to get our bearings. a heavenly.reminder of light beyond measure, that will not yield to the nightclouds haunting the horizon of our heart. Diana SeagoOSB September-October 2002 DENNIS j. BILLY Right Relationships in Consecrated Life theory and reality Right relationships reminds me of Anne Quirk's children's novel, Dancing with Great-Aunt Cornelia, a story about a dysfunctional New York family and a thirteen-year-old girl's discovery that her eccentric, incredibly tall, and extremely rich great-aunt is really her grandmother. Near the end of the story, the family finally comes to terms with its denial, insensitivity, anger, and odd way of relating. The reconciliation takes place at a dance party hosted by Great-Aunt Cornelia in her enormous Manhattan town house just off Fifth Avenue. Although tensions run high at first, eventually the entire family let down their guard and end up dancing with one another--and quite enjoying it. As Connie, the young narrator, puts it: "I'm sure I danced with my father, with Bendey, with my mother, and with Eleanor, too. For a while I guess we were all dancing together, in a sort of tango with seven people and a large dog. Maybe it was actually more of a tangle than a tango.''~ Dennis J. Billy CSSR, a frequent contributor to our pages, may till 25 January 2003 be reached at Mount St. Alphonsus Retreat Center; P.O. Box 219; Esopus, New York 12429. 1~eview for l~etigio~ Festivity and Dance To my mind, living in right relationship with others is much akin to taking part in a festive dance. What matters is not whether we know how to dance, but whether we are willing to participate and, if need be, even play the part of the fool. Many of us, unfortunately, have failed to recognize this important fact of life. Quirk's funny and eccentric story with its festive (and quite unexpected) ending reminds us of our human penchant for being continuously "out of step" with each other and refusing to take part in the celebration of.life. It pokes fun at our pet peeves and silly vanities that get in the way of our capacity to love. It puts a mirror before us and encourages us to take a good look at ourselves and at those around us. We may see that our attempts at getting along with one another are often "more of a tangle than a tango." But we may notice, as well, our deep desire to get it right, to be "in sync" with the people in our lives, despite the differences, the awkward diffidences, that keep us apart. Our desire to participate in this great dance of life comes from deep in the human heart, evincing the divine love within us. The Christian God is the God of the living. The life of the Trinity affirms the sacred character of festivity and dance. Celebration, for this God, flows from love and is closely allied to it. In his book The Third Peacock, Robert Farrar Capon breaks through our traditional stereotypes of God and involves the Father, Son, and Spirit in a heavenly bash of ongoing creation: And God the Father looked at the whole wild party and he said, "Wonderful! Just what I had in mind! 7by! 7by! 7by!" And all God the Son and God the Holy Ghost could think of was to say the same thing. "Tbv! %v! Toy.t" So they shouted together "Tbv meod!" and they laughed and laughed for ages and ages, saying things like how great it was for beings to be, and bow clever of the Father to think of the idea, and how kind of the Son to go to all that trouble putting it together, and how considerate of the Spirit to spend so much time directing and choreographing. And forever and ever they told old jokes, and the Father and the Son drank their wine in unitate Spiritus Sancti, and they all threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.2 September-October 2002 Billy ¯ Right Relationships in Consecrated Life Our yearning for reveling, celebration, and dance, the desire to be at one with ourselves and to live in communion with those around us derives from something within us that is, at the same time, far beyond us. According to our Catholic belief, it is rooted in the ground of all reality, in the intimate life of love of a God who simultaneously is both one and many. The Christian God exists in and for communio: for unity in diversity and vice versa. Our desire for communion and right relationship stems from our being created in the image and likeness of this mysterious, personal, yet transcendent ground of love. Even though we are fallen, dysfunctional, bent out of shape (however one wishes to term it), the imprint of divinity grows within and manifests itself in our deepest longings. We yearn for communion with one another ultimately because of God's yearning for communion with us. We are miserably out of step with one another, yet haunted by the deeply rooted hope that things can and will get better, not through our own doing, but because of the God who made us, loves us, and holds us in being. A Spirituality of Communion Recent church documents highlight how important it is for believers to nurture a "spirituality of communion" in their lives. In Novo millennio ineunte (2001), his apostolic letter on the new millennium, John Paul II puts it this way: A spirituality of communion indicates above all the heart's contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us, and whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of the brothers and sisters around us. A spirituality of communion also means an ability to think of our brothers and sisters in faith within the profound unity of the Mystical Body, and therefore as "those who are a part of me." This makes us able to share their joys and sufferings, to sense their desires and attend to their needs, to offer them deep and genuine friendship. A spirituality of communion implies also the ability to see what is positive in others, to welcome it and prize it as a gift from God: not only as a gift for the brother or sister who has received it directly, but also as a "gift for Review for Religious me." A spirituality of communion means, finally, to know how to "make room" for our brothers and sisters, bearing "each other's burdens" (Ga 6:2) and resisting the selfish temptations which constantly beset us and provoke competition, careerism, distrust, and jealousy. (§43) It would be difficult to come up with a more comprehensive vision of living in right relationship with others. The pope invites us to contemplate the mystery of the Trinity within our hearts and to discern its presence in those around us. He asks us to be aware of the presence of others, to minister to their needs, and to reach out to them in a spirit of friendship. Doing so means making room for others in our lives and allowing them to make room for us. It means living in communion with them on every level of our human makeup: the physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual. The pope's words describe a vision of "right relationship" that few would fault or disavow. Most of us have no problem accepting his vision of communion or right relationship. Our trouble is putting it into practice. I am reminded of Walter Principe's distinction about the different levels of spirituality: the experiential, the doctrinal, and the analytical? We accept the teaching on the "spirituality of communion" and can easily accept it as a vision that we should look to and strive to implement in our lives. We can even study, analyze, and criticize it for the purpose of making it a more coherent body of teaching. On the experiential level, however, many of us have difficulty taking the steps to make this teaching on communion and right relationships an integral part of our lives. We experience a gap between what we envision and who we really are. That gap may be small or large. The size of it determines how much dysfunction we experience in our personal, family, and community lives. The pope invites us to contemplate the mystery of the Trinity within our hearts and to discern its presence in those around us. 497 . September-O,'tober 2002 Billy ¯ Right Relationships in Consecrated Life To my mind, the key question is not whether the gap between vision and experience exists, but whether we recognize it and are taking steps to make it smaller and smaller. We need to recognize the gap, accept it as something that will never fully go away (at least in this life), and take appropriate steps to narrow it. This task is not a one-time challenge, but must be taken up again with each new day. The Vision of Vita Consecrata My suspicion is that religious have a particularly difficult time coming to terms with the discrepancy between the vision of the life to which they have been called and their actual experience of it. I say this because the church places so much hope in consecrated persons' being "true experts" at achieving communion that the gap between vision and lived reality is bound to be quite large. This vision is presented quite clearly in Vita consecrata (1996), John Paul II's postsynodal apostolic exhortation on the consecrated life. As the following excerpt demonstrates, consecrated persons must live up to enormous expectations: A great task also belongs to the consecrated life in the light of the teaching about the church as communion, so strongly proposed by the Second Vatican Council. Consecrated persons are asked to be true experts of communion and to pradtice the spirituality of communion as "witnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the crowning point of human history in God's design.". The sense of ecclesial communion, developing into a spirituality of communion, promotes a way of thinking, speaking, and acting which enables the church to grow in depth and extension. The life of communion, in fact, "becomes a sign for all the world and a compelling force that leads people to faith in Christ . In this way communion leads to mission, and itself becomes mission"; indeed, "communion begets communion: in essence it is a communion that is missionary." (~46) A little later the document makes it clear that an important aspect of this "spiri~ality of communion" is "an allegiance of Review for Relig4ous mind and heart to the magisterium of the bishops, an allegiance which must be lived honestly and clearly testified to before the people of God by all consecrated persons, especially those involved in theological research, teaching, publishing, catechesis, and the use of the means of social communication." To be sure, "because consecrated persons have a special place in the church, their attitude in this regard is of immense importance for the whole people of God." The document points to the testimonies of founders and foundresses, who demonstrated "a constant and lively sense of the church." To further its claim, it cites the loyal devotion, to the church of such great saints as Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, and the Little Flower. Such examples of full ecclesial communion need to be constantly recalled if consecrated persons "are to resist the particularly strong centrifugal and disruptive forces at work today" (§46). Speaking, thinking, and acting with the magisterium are thus considered in the light of a vital role given to consecrated persons in the church universal in accord with the venerable tradition of great saints and founders and foundresses and with a view to the church's missionary nature. These ever expanding contexts give an added richness to the concept of the spirituality of communion and should not be overlooked. Only by taking them into account can consecrated persons understand their important role in the post-Vatican II era and "be nourished from the wellspring of a sound and deep spirituality" (§93). Another key text on the spirituality of communion comes later in the same document when institutes of the consecrated life are given the specific task of spreading this spirituality of communion: The church entrusts to communities of consecrated life the particular task of spreading the spirituality of communion, first of all in their internal life and then in the ecclesial community, and even beyond its boundaries, by opening or continuing a dialogue in charity, especially where today's world is torn apart by ethnic hatred or senseless violence. Placed as they are within the wbrld's different societies (societies frequently marked by conflicting passions and interests, seeking unity but uncertain about the ways Septentber-October 2002 Billy * Right Relationships in Consecrated Life to attain it), communities of consecrated life--where persons of different ages, languages, and cultures meet as brothers and sisters--are signs that dialogue is always possible and that communion can bring differences into harmony. (§51) This paragraph affirms the pope's hope "that all will grow in the understanding and spirituality of communion" (§50). It also supports his earlier statement about the obligation of fraternity as a form of witness to the Trinity: "By constantly promoting fraternal love also in the form of the common life, the consecrated life has shown that sharing in the Trinitarian communion can change human relationships and create a new type of solidarity" (§41), one which does everything "in communion and d!alogne" (§74) and which favors "that 'dialogue of life' which embodies a basic model of mission and of the proclamation of Christ's gospel" (§102). Notice the threefold range of this special task entrusted to consecrated persons. They are to spread the spirituality of communion first within themselves, second within the ecclesial communion, and third beyond its boundaries. Motivated by their deep personal love for Christ (see §84), they reach out in dialogue that "is the new name of charity, especially charity within the church" (§74). --YO0 Implications for Consecrated Life I would like to take a. deeper look at just what this "particular task of spreading the spirituality of communion" (§51) might mean for members of institutes of consecrated life. The threefold framework of internal life, ecclesial communion, and beyond will be particularly helpful in this regard. Internal Life. In the first place, institutes of consecrated life are called to put their own houses in order and live in harmony: "In an age characterized by the globalization of problems and the return .of the idols of nationalism, international institutes especially are called to uphold and to bear witness to the sense of communion between peoples, races, and cultures" (§51). They do so first and foremost by living out their common charism in communion with each other, even though they represent various age groups, nationalities, cultural backgrounds, and theological perspectives. The attempt of such communities to dialogue Review for Religious among themselves and to bring unity out of the diversity of their experience is an effective sign of that community of heart and mind to which all are called. This communion in the institute's internal life should exist on all levels of its communal makeup-- local, provincial, and general--and should foster cooperation between these levels, in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity. A natural outgrowth of this internal application of the spirituality of communion is cooperation among the different institutes themselves (see §52). Bound by the common call to the evangelical counsels, these institutes, both old and new, should regard one another with profound respect and strive to work together in their efforts to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. Relationships among such institutes should not be marred by jealousy, indifference, or suspicion. The document recalls St. Bernard's words about the various religious orders: I admire them all. I belong to one of them by observance, but to all of them by charity. We all need one another: the spiritual good which I do not own and possess, I receive from others . In this exile the church is still on pilgrimage and is, in a certain sense, plural: she is a single plurality and a plural unity. All our diversities, which make manifest the richness of God's gifts, will continue to exist in the one house of the Father, which has many rooms. Now there is a division of graces; then there will be distinctions of glory. Unity, both here and there, consists in one and the same charity. (§52) In this spirit the document encourages coordinating bodies such as the conferences of major superiors and the conferences of secular institutes to work in harmony with each other as well as with the episcopal conference of each country. They are also encouraged "to maintain frequent and regular contacts with the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as a sign of their communion with the Holy See" (§53). The point of all this is that the spirituality of communion, once it is lived within the life of an institute of consecrated life itself, should naturally overflow into similar relations beyond its boundaries. Ecclesial Communion. For this reason, the pope also encourages mutual relationships of respect and collaboration Septentber-October 2002 Billy ¯ Rigbt Relationships in Consecrated Life between institutes of consecrated life and every level of ecclesial communion: with other states of life within the church (the laity, the clergy) and also with brothers and sisters of the various Christian confessions. All of this should be done out of respect for the common dignity shared by all the faithful (§31), but in such a way that "the identity of the institute in its internal life is not harmed" (§56). In this context, cooperation with the laity receives special mention. The document notes that "many institutes have come to the conclusion that their charism can be shared with the laity" (§54). This sharing takes many forms, from sharing their spirituality to various kinds of pastoral collaboration. As a result, "the participation of the laity often brings unexpected and rich insights into certain aspects of the charism, leading to a more spiritual interpretation of it and helping to draw from it directions for new activities in the apostolate" (§55). Emphasizing the equal dignity of both men and women before God (§57), the document specifically deals with the role of consecrated women. It describes them as "signs of God's tender love towards the human race" (§57) and points out that "women's new self-awareness also helps men to reconsider their way of looking at things, the way they understand themselves, where they place themselves in history and how they interpret it, and the way they organize social, political, economic, religious, and ecclesial life" (§57). Ecumenical dialogue is yet another level of ecclesial communion to which institutes of consecrated life must give due attention. Lectio divina, common prayer, dialogue in friendship, cordial hospitality, and common undertakings of service and witness are among thq many forms of ecumenical dialogue. The work of Christianity is not just the work of these institutes that were specifically founded for this purpose or because of a later calling (§57). The pope makes it quite clear that "no institute of consecrated life should feel itself dispensed from working for this cause" (§101). Special emphasis is given to the monastic tradition in the Eastern Catholic Churches for the help they can give in promoting unity with the Orthodox churches and given also to monasteries of contemplative life, to whom the pope entrusts "the spiritual ecumenism of prayer, conversion of heart, and charity" (§101). Review for Religious Beyond. The spirituality of communion moves consecrated persons beyond the bounds of the Christian communion of faith into dialogue with other faiths and cultures: "Because 'interreligious dialogue is a part of the church's evangelizing mission,' institutes of consecrated life cannot exempt themselves from involvement also in this field, each in accordance with its own charism and following the directives of ecclesiastical authority" (§102). They do this primarily through "the testimony of a life of poverty, humility, and chastity, imbued with fraternal love for all" i§I02). Dedicated to that "dialogue of life" which finds its mission in the proclamation of the Good News, they "promote appropriate forms of dialogue, marked by cordial friendship and mutual sincerity, with monastic communities of other religions" (§102). Other areas for cooperation include concern for human life and efforts to promote the dignity of women (§102). All such efforts, moreover, require proper formation, study, and research, together with deep faith and personal and spiritual maturity (§102). Finally, the "spirituality of communion" asks institutes of consecrated life to place themselves at the service of all humanity. Their service to the world involves "a life of self-giving love" (§75). Indeed, "the fact that consecrated persons fix their gaze on the Lord's countenance does not diminish their commitment on behalf Of humanity; on. the contrary, it strengthens this commitment, enabling it to have an impact on history, in order to free history from all that disfigures it" (§75). This means, first and foremost, offering "the witness of a life given totally to God and to their brothers and sisters, in imitation of the Savior, who out of love for humanity made himself a servant" (§76). It also means living .a life of genuine inculturation, one that "requires attitudes similar to those of the Lord when he became man and walked among us in love and meekness" (§79). In their attempt to serve as "a gospel leaven The "spirituality of communion" asks institutes of consecrated life to place themselves at the service of all humanity. September-October 2002 Billy ¯ Right Relationships in Consecrated Life within a culture, purifying and perfecting it" (§80), they follow the church in its preferential option for those "in situations of greater weakness" (§82). This includes "the poor, in varied states of affliction., those on the margins of society, the elderly, the sick, the young, any and all who are considered and treated as 'the least'" (§82). Some of the concrete ways in which they meet the needs of the poor include the care of the sick, their presence in the world of education, their presence in the field of social communications, and the evangelization of culture (see §§83 and 96-99). Their life of evangelical poverty, moreover, "is a value in itself," which, "accompanied by a preferential love for the poor," is expressed "especially by sharing the conditions of life of the most neglected" (§90). To be sure, "there are many communities which live and work among the poor and the marginalized; they embrace their conditions of life and share in their sufferings, problems, and perils" (§90). To summarize: The spirituality of communion is kindled by God in the institute of consecrated life and is meant to have a ripple effect on the entire life of the church. Arising within the institute, where members of various ages, cultures, and educational backgrounds live together in a spirit of fraternal love, it reaches out to other institutes, to other states of life within the church, to other Christian denominations, to other religions, and to all of humanity. It does so in a spirit of dialogue and service to give witness to the personal presence of Christ in the world and to the power of the Trinity to transform human relationships. Its mission is to build relationships of solidarity wherever human beings congregate and to be a sign of the intimate life with God to which all are called. The Gap between Vision and Experience The above presen.tation shows that the Catholic Church has a clear and extensive teaching on the spirituality of communion, what it means to live in right relationship with others. While this teaching has concrete implications for communities of consecrated life, the problem we are facing, as I suggested earlier, has to do with narrowing the gap between the teaching we profess and our actual lived experience. We need to take a good, hard look at these urgent practical concerns. Review for Religious One way of doing so is to adapt the psychological language of action, voluntary disposition (or habims), and attitude to the experience and needs of consecrated life today. According to this understanding of human behavior, an action involves a single deliberate object and intention, while a voluntary disposition (as opposed to an unwanted involuntary habit) refers to an active pattern of behavior acquired through the continuous repetition of actions. An attitude, in turn, is an active disposition voluntarily acquired through the repetition of options, those value choices that define a person's life project. An action, in other words, is singular and concrete; a voluntary disposition, a deep-rooted deliberate pattern of behavior; an attitude, a deeply ingrained option for a particular set of values.4 Ideally, there exists a strong continuity be-tween a person's actions, voluntary dispositions, and attitudes. In real life, however, this continuity can manifest varying degrees of strength and is often even disrupted. The same could be said of the actions, voluntary dispositions, and attitudes of a family, group, or religious community. When applied to communities of consecrated life in the light of the church's teaching on the spirituality of communion and the gap between vision and lived experience, it is of paramount importance that we find a way of helping to shape people's attitudes. To do so, we must recognize that there is a circular relationship between actions, voluntary dispositions, and the formation of attitudes. That is to say, attitudes give rise to various actions and voluntary dispositions and are at the same time shaped by them. To overlook these important relationships is to risk forming consecrated persons whose actions run contrary to, or at best are inconsistent with, the values they truly hold and which define their life's project. This circular relationship between actions, voluntary dispositions, and attitudes means that religious communities Ideally, there exists a strong continuity between a person's actions, voluntary dispositions, and attitudes. September- October 2002 Billy ¯ Right Relationships in Consecrated Life must develop complex strategies for narrowing the gap between vision and lived experience. Such a strategy must involve an ongoing interplay between teachings, structures, practices, and critical reflection that enables individuals and the community to test and verify the vision that defines them so that it can be authentically nuanced (and perhaps redefined) to express what they truly are called to. From there, the community needs to develop structures and practices that will reinforce in daily life the values expressed by this defining vision. For the desired attitudes to truly take hold, these structures and practices need.to be firm yet flexible, taking into account the three principles of church teaching about right relationships: the dignity of the human person, the common good, and the virtue of solidarity. In today's world, communities of consecrated life cannot be effective instruments of the spirituality of communion if they do not make great efforts to inculcate these principles in the lives of their members. To do otherwise would increase the gap between vision and lived experience rather than narrowing it. Narrowing the Gap In his popular bestseller Maybe (Maybe Not), Robert Fulghum offers some important insights into what he calls the public, private, and secret lives of everyday life: Public lives are lived out on the job and in the marketplace, where certain rules, conventions, laws, and social customs keep most of us in line. Private lives are lived out in the presence of family, friends, and neighbors who must be considered and respected, even though the rules and proscriptions are looser than what's allowed in public. But in our secret lives, inside our own heads, almost anything goes.s Although Fulghum is writing about American society in general, his insight has, to my mind, special significance for our topic. If, in their attempts to narrow the gap between vision and lived reality, communities of consecrated life do not give due consideration to the attitudes behind the various dispositions and actions that they ask of their members, a dangerous rupture can take place between the public face they present to the outside Review for Religious world, the private life lived within the community, and a secret life known only to a few, hidden from other members, and institutionally suppressed and even denied. When this occurs, the dysfunction within a community can reach great intensity and cause great misery for both the members and those they claim to serve. A religious institution, I am suggesting, has not only a public and a private life, but also a secret life. For members to live in fight relationship with others, all three of these lives need to be acknowledged, understood, and dealt with in mature and responsible ways. Otherwise the gap between vision and lived experience will increase rather than diminish, and the community will be based on an illusion, living in a house of mirrors, where appearances deceive. A community of consecrated life, in other words, needs to get in touch with its shadow side, the darker part of the community's life, which influences decisions even though the community may be only peripherally aware of them. Only by acknowledging this dark side, taming it, and then befriending it will a community ever come to understand itself and be able to channel its vast resources in creative and constructive ways. I do not intend to go into specifics about what all of this means for the evangelical counsels or life in community. The church's teaching on these constituent elements of the consecrated life is clear and has been adequately developed elsewhere. What I will say, however, is that, when examining the spirituality of their particular institutes, communities need to look at the various gaps that exist

Issue 61.2 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; Examen .Living with God Growing Older Religious Eife Perspectives MARCH APRIL 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 2 Review for Relig4ous helps people respond and be faithful ~ to God's universal call to holiness by making available ~to them the spiritual legacies that flow from the charisms of CathOlic consecratea life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: 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 Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written applicatign to the Editor, Review for Religious. L VING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Afin Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp ~Adarmiaens G~.nadu dJoinan S. CFelling Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos'A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CsJ MARCH APRIL 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 2 contents 118 feature Examen: Persons in Relationships Joseph A. Tetlow sJ provides new insights by focusing examen on our many personal relationships in daily life. 129 137 living with God No Rapine in the Holocaust: Eremitical Life Today Karen Karper Fredette surveys some of the different forms eremitical life has taken in a fresh flowering in church life today. Metaphysical Self in Other Mystical Traditions James J. Magee defines metaphysical self as one's self residing in God and God residing in it and then examines this term as it appears in Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim (Sufl) mysticism. 146 growing older Aging: Spiritually Present to the Burning Bush Geraldine M. Wodarczyk CSFN reflectively enters us into her six-year experience of living among her own congregation's aging and prayerful sisters. Review for Religious 166 Coping with Repetition: A Spirituality for Ministering to the Elderly Helen Jean Novy HM proposes some spiritual considerations to guide our responses to the repetitiousness of sick/elderly people. 169 religious ~i~e perspectives Medaille's "Means" and Religious Life's Renewal Joan Wagner ssJ focuses on six "means" derived from Father Medaille's writings that nourish religious community life. 183 The Decline of Religious Life: A Success Story Michael Dominic W. Ledoux OFM asks whether the next task for religious congregations is to let go of our hold on institutions and ministries and allow them to find a charism based upon their own stories and histories rather than being too strongly attached to religious communal stories. " 191 Membership and Leadership: An Organic Whole Beatrice M. Eichten OSF sketches out the patterns of interworking between leaders and members that enhance effective leadership in community life. flepar men s 116 Prisms 202 Canonical Counsel: Exclaustration: Further Considerations 211 Book Reviews March-April 2002 115 prisms Jesus' transfiguration was a favorite passage of the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. With his own description of evo-lution progressing by crossing thresholds, he found the transfigured Jesus giving promise of crossing the threshold from being Jesus a marginal Jew to being the risen Christ Pantocrator. Whatever our response to evolutionary theory, the crossing of thresholds gives insight into words and images used to describe the mysteries of our Catholic faith. We seem to be unaware that in faith we have crossed a .threshold between commonsense language and language bursting with faith realities. For exam-ple, our scripture and prayer language in the Lenten and Easter seasons describes redemption as our being purchased at a price. Sometimes this has led to the preaching and imaging of God paying off the devil by Jesus' passion and death. So we--the human race-- were bought at the cost of Jesus' death in order to release us from the grip of the evil one. At other times, it seems that our language has seen God as being appeased or satisfied by the pain and suffering and blood shed by his Son. And we have wondered: What kind of God is this? The New Testament writers built upon the imagery of the Hebrew Scriptures and presumed a poetic under-standing of the religious world. Following Scripture and inspired by their own culture and times, theolo-gians, artists, and spiritual writers over the centuries have all contributed, with mixed results, to various ways of understanding and celebrating the central mystery of our salvation/redemption. In the United States, with R~view for Reli~o~s our sometimes sanitized religious worship removing us from devotional or emotional involvement, we still tend to slip back to a rather morbid focusing on physical pain and the shedding of blood in Lenten prayer and especially in the Holy Week triduum. Perhaps we find ourselves praying with an unhealthy fixation on pain and suffering as the way to God. We need to acknowledge that Holy Thursday has more than just a chronological precedence to Good Friday. The Eucharist is key to a solidly Christian approach to the Passion and Cross, one that is psychologically and spiritually sound and healthy. As St. Ignatius Loyola points out, Jesus' institution of the Eucharist is "the greatest mark of his love." We may be surprised that it is not Jesus' passion and death that help us to understand the Eucharist, but it is the other way around. The Eucharist shows us that Jesus holds nothing back from us in his love. He gives all that he is, sacramentally, to be the food and drink of our life, a life in the same bloodline as God. The word redeemer from its Hebrew derivation points to one taking on the obligations of blood or familial relationship. In itself redeemer does not imply pain or suffering. In the Hebrew Scriptures redeemer describes God in this familial relation to his chosen people. In Jesus we see God fulfilling the redemption of all peoples. By instituting the Eucharist, Jesus intends that the sacramental "nowness" of a blood relationship--the reality of our being adopted as God's sons and daughters--is to be celebrated in our daily living. We have the saying that "love costs." On Holy Thursday Jesus is showing sacramentally that he pays whatever it costs. That is how much he loves us and loves his Father. All our scrip-tural words about payment--ransoming us with his blood, pur-chasing us for a price, and so on--are images, sometimes confusingly used, looking towards the heartfelt truth that "love costs." But God is not paying off anyone. Jesus is not buying us back from the devil. It is the reality that "love costs." Jesus shows us the face of the God who does not count the cost to show his love. The Eucharist is our key to all the events of the Passion and Death. The key presents itself to us every time we look at the crucifix, every time we come forward for Communion. We are invited to cross a faith threshold, thereby experiencing anew God as Love and our identity as beloved. David L. Fleming SJ II7 March-April 2002 JOSEPH A. TETLOW feature Examen: Persons in Relationships You are likely to take account of your relationships with others whe'never you make the examen that St. Ignatius Loyola recommends. But why? Deep down in our own hearts, is there not plenty for God and me to do, without distractions from all sides? Actually, no, and for good reasons. The first reason comes from revelation. The human person is created in the likeness of a God who is One only and also Three Persons. This impenetra-ble mystery reveals to us that each of the Persons has identity only in and through the relations among the Three. It is in that likeness that your own "person" is modeled: you are a person only in your relationships. You will always be your mother's child and your father's offspring, always your siblings' brother or sis-ter. Moreover, it is in and through those relationships and others--teachers, neighbors, friends, even ene-mies- that you have become the person you are. To tell who Jesus of Nazareth is, Matthew begins with a genealogy. After telling about incarnation and birth, he goes right to Jesus' relationship with John the Baptist. Joseph A. Tedow SJ last wrote for us in September-October 1998. His address is Secretariate for Ignatian Spirituality; C.P. 6139; 00195 Roma Prati; Italy. Review for Religious Here is the second reason, closer to the everyday, for doing this exercise. You are always relating to your family, where per-sonhood (self) takes early shape and within which you continue to develop throughout life. You work with others, creating another set of day-to-day relationships. You may belong to a religious community, requiring you to develop a subtle lifelong set of relationships with persons whom God has chosen for you. You may belong to an apostolic team--parish, school, center, hospital, program--which requires cooper-ation and planning. All of these relation-ships require attention and prayer, since "we are all parts of one another" and together we make up the Body of Christ (Rm 12:5). As a very practical matter, this exercise might be a regular part of the prayer of those who work in apostolic partnerships. These are not simple in the church today, and a lot of "personality conflicts" disguise rather dis-orderly emotions and affects. Moreover, a lot of apostolic planning and community planning gets scuttled because of unre-flected- upon personal relationships. Teams and communities commonly blame "the process" for failed planning, when the actual problem is the relationships among the members. This examen, besides helping you know whom to thank God for, helps reveal and even heal such dysfunctional relationships. There are reasons why everyone would benefit from this special exercise. Every life today is plagued in some measure by individualism and alienation. One consequence affects the examen. Even when examining how you are getting along with others, you tend to focus on your own part in the relationship-- "How am I doing?"mand less on the other or on the relation-ship itself. This exercise challenges that focus on the self. It draws you to appreciate, for the right reasons, the people whom God has put into your life. "Each of us should think of our neighbors and help them to become stronger Christians" (see Rm 15:2). You enact individualism by thinking about yourself in isolation rather than in relationships with others. This examen asks you to look directly at the others in your life and the relationships that hold you together in Christ. Every life today is plagued in some measure by individualism and alienation. 119 March-April 2002 Tetlow * Examen Your relationships are where, and the deepest reason why, you exercise the virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and tem-perance and a host of others that are needed in order to love the way Jesus loves. Relationships, especially your family and community relationships but also your apostolic and job rela-tionships, are where you give in to sins of pride, covetousness, lust, envy, anger, gluttony, and sloth. If you find this hard to believe, perhaps you really need to do this exercise for a while. Here is the last and ultimate reason to use an examen specif-ically about your relationships: to make sure you are loving the way Jesus loves. Ignatius's Contemplation on Love--the more descriptive title would be "Contemplation to learn to love the way God loves"--begins with two prenotes. The first is that love "ought to manifest itself in deeds rather than in words," and the second is that love consists in constantly sharing, the lover and the beloved giving and receiving in open generosity (SpEx §231). This is how Jesus loves, always in relationship with the Other and the others. This exercise takes you directly to the issue whether you are loving as Jesus loved or are, in actu-ality, doing something else. Practicing the Exercise What is recommended here can be used as a single exercise, in which case it will require a long period of quiet time. It has been used profitably as the material for an eight-day retreat. Once you have gone through it for a while, however, you will know which parts of it to apply on a given day or occasion. You will know that sometimes you need to run through and examine all of your relationships: family, friends, work, community mem-bers, parish council, and so forth. At other times you will want to examine something that has happened, like a disagreement that left you far more unsettled than the matter deserved, or a deci-sion not to phone someone. This exercise will help you to uncover your true purposes, responses, and responsibilities. You can think about one partner or colleague; you can look at one group or committee or team. And so on. (The exercise as it is given here is divided into five sections, following its Ignatian inspiration.) First, taking time to thank God for those whom the Spirit has put into your life. A good way to do this is by making three columns Review for Religious on a sheet of paper. In the first, write some names (parent, sibling, friend, coworker), choosing those who belong to the period you are covering. If you are moving historically through your life, you would begin with parents or grandparents; if you are covering your life situation today, you would name the people with .whom you relate regularly. In the second column, across from each name, write the relationship you have with this person. You might want to add some details beyond a mere title. For instance, to "childhood friend" you might add "first date"; to parent, "died too young"; to colleague, "real partner." This assigning of titles may not be entirely simple. Choosing the appropriate title for a sibling.who is also a lifelong inti-mate friend and a business partner would take some thought--thought precisely about the relationship that you are given and choosing. Then, in the third column, for which you will need plenty of space, describe the relationship you have with this person. How has this person helped shape your self and your life, in the past or more recently? For instance, "rooted me in Christ" about a deeply religious and well-informed parent who established you in your faith. A trust-worthy friend may have told you the truth about yourself and your opinions and decisions, bringing you to know yourself before God. This step will give you grounds for a good deal of thanksgiving. Someone taught you to read and write. Someone showed you how to play your favorite sport. Someone intro-duced you to the Scripture.s. Someone challenged you to for-giveness because he or she not only hurt your feelings but did you harm. Someone may have betrayed you as Judas betrayed your Master. In this examen you probe how you relate to these people, not only how you feel about them, but especially what you have done and are doing in this relationship. In every instance your Creator and Lord is giving you an array of gen-erous gifts, sometimes surprising ones, freely and constantly, gifts for you to be thankful for. There is no gift as great as the gift of a faithful friend or lover who means only good for you. 12I March-April 2002 Tetlow ¯ Examen People know that there is, no gift as great as the gift of a faithful friend or lover who means only "good for you. So here is occasion to name the influences that such persons have had on your values and choices. You may well have adopted a friend's special perspective on the church or on parenting. You may become a member of a solid program because a friend invited you into it. You may have made a life-shaping choice under his or her influence. This point is well worth dwelling on, because through these relationships God is moment by moment creat-ing us as persons. Whom has God put into your life to give it shape? How have they shaped it? How do you relate to them? Here is the core of this exercise. Thanking God for these friends and relations will be incom-plete- and perhaps impossible--unless we consciously approve of how God is even now creating us and those we relate with. If you have an elderly parent who is still clear and keenly interested in your life, that is a great gift. An equally great gift is an elderly parent who depends entirely on you. If you have colleagues who depend on you, that is a gift. So is it when there are colleagues on whom you can depend. And sons or daughters will be their parents' sons or daughters forever, however they may be doing just now. The members of a religious community--real persons--are the living environment of each religious's living, growing, and dying. This exercise asks that you grow conscious of a reality we take so much for granted that we do not think about it at all. How often do you note that the sun rose this morning? How much do you value the water that comes from your tap? We treat our relationships rather like that. They are just there. They do not take thinking about except in special circumstances like an argument or a celebration. But every day each relation is a gift greater than today's sun, and each person given you to love and to be loved by is as indispensable to your thriving as the pure water that you drink without giving it a thought. Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, when you walked this earth you lived a family life with neighbors and friends. When you began to spread the Good News, You gathered around you seventy-two, and twelve, and three, who were precious to you, each in a special way, because Review for Religious the Spirit of Love gave them to you. Never has there been a companion better than you, a colleague more trusting and compassionate, a partner more giving and generous. Help me to know those many, those most special ones whom the Spirit of Love has given me in my life, and, with you, to thank the Father for the gift of them. Amen. Second, asking for attention, insight, and courage. Call on the Holy Spirit to let you pay attention to the others in your life. Ask to feel real interest in others, to get outside yourself and your interior concerns to see the people around you as they are. Ask to pay this attention in the way that God does, who hates nothing he has created and lets rain fall on just and unjust alike. Ask for insight into each person and into your relationship. Some are growing more important in your life, and perhaps some are growing away from you. Ask to know how. Ask the Spirit to let you see what you are looking at, and also to let you hear what you are listening to--from and about those whom the Spirit has given you. Finally, beg for the courage to see clearly and to affirm your connections to others, to feel how they have grown into your life and yourself. How have you reached out to them and perhaps risked something to know and love them? Ask boldness to assert your attachments to others, or your detachment and distanc-ing. Ask to be able to see how another or others are calling you to grow or, alternatively, how another or others are inviting you to be less authentic. Prayer Spirit of the risen Lord, who moved the Holy One to care for friends with his still-wounded hands and pierced heart, make me attentive to my friends even with my fearing toudh and wearing spirit. Open my eyes to see what gifts they really are; open my ears to hear what good they really mean to say. Brace my spirit to feel what they need me to feel. And, as you steeled the heart of Jesus while he lived misunder-stood and then betrayed, brace me now--while I find how I have fared in risking my self--to remain true to who I am ~and to be open in giving and receiving love. Amen. March-April 2002 Tetlow ¯ Examen Third, examining how relationships are doing. To begin with, stay with relationships that are going well. Simply look down the three columns you have written and note the name, relation-ship, and influence, and let yourself be contented in Christ with this love that falls into his pattern of loving. Using the columns is an effective way of examining relationships, but there are other ways. You could begin with the persons most closely related to you by blood and move out through extended family to friends. Or begin with the people you spend most of your daytime with, colleagues, coworkers, and so on. You could begin with superiors and move to those who answer to you. All of these steps could be limited to a smaller set of people if that would be useful at this time. Then come to those relationship that are not going well. Possible failures are sometimes glaring, like anger or blatantly selfish action, and sometimes quite subtle and complex. For every relationship is triune: one person, the relationship, and another person, and all three matter. Honestly and exactingly lay five templates (to be described below) over each conflicted or faltering relationship. As you con-template your relationship with each person under each tem-plate, demand an account of yourself, for failures in relationships show up in many ways and manifest many personality limitations or flaws, or simple sins. For instance, perhaps you find yourself saying negative things about an old friend's character. What has happened in this r~lationship and what is your responsibility for it? What are you doing or failing to do that damages the rela-tionship, or the mission you share with this person (or persons)? These failures or dysfunctions can be variously accounted for. One way is by looking at them under five categories (which I borrow from Roberta Gilbert's Extraordinary Relationships). The categories will help you look clearly and honestly at any fal-tering relationship. They will demand that you take your respon-sibility for what you have done, what you are doing, what you must do, to make this relationship a strong and holy one. The Templates 1. Conflict. You cannot come to agreement with another in some serious matter. You have never got- Review for Religious ten over a rancorous argument. You answer each other with "yes, but." You are losing respect for the person. You question whether you can ever work together again. Any of these suggests a relationship of conflict, which is often a hot relationship. 2. Distancing. You hold each other at arm's length. You have become very polite to each other and a lit-tle standoffish. You rarely talk about anything serious; instead, you chat. You would deal as openly and warmly with a stranger. You would simply rather not have to pay attention to this person anymore. You are uncomfortable around him or her. This is distancing, and, though it seems to suggest that you have no relationship with this person, you have--a special one. 3. Cutting Off. You stay out of each other's way. You do not communicate even when you have to convey some information. You simply do not like this per-son. Your judgment is that this person is harming the family, community, apostolate. You would like to be rid of this person. This is a cutoff, and it is an intense relationship. 4. Excessive Mutual Dependency. You depend on each other, too much or far too much. One of you makes the decisions. One of you needs the emotional support of the other, and the other needs to give it. Others see you as a pair. You are cutting others out of this relationship, emotionally or practically. This is excessive dependency--in a way, too much of a relationship. 5. Triangling. You have an issue with another and, instead of going to the other, take it to a third person. You find yourself saying things about this person, not to him or h~r, but to others. You gossip about this person. You complain about his or her shortcomings to others, never to the person. Alternatively, you passively allow others to tell you things about this person which they ought to be saying to him or her. 6. Could there be another template? You may find a March-April 2002 Tetlow ¯ Examen better term for a ~elationship in your life that is faltering, a term that clarifies for you what you are doing and might do. The Applications When you are on a team with another, you are not free to remain unrelated. The only issue is how you will choose to relate: whether well or badly, creatively or destructively, and, indeed, holily or unholily--all the more, of course, within your own family or among those who have somehow become your friends. Each of the five templates names a relationship--dysfunc-tional, but a relationship. It is crucial to accept that you are related to a person even when you cut him or her off, or are constantly arguing and debating with him or her, or when you are triangling. Humility demands--since it is truth--that you affirm your own contribution to making a relationship bad, or your cooperation in any dysfunctional relationship. Each of your relationships will have its own intensities, its own occasions, its own mixture of the apostolic, social, intel-lectual, affective, and so on. Each lays on you the light yoke of responsibility to accept the relationship as a gift from God, who is giving you freedom and the chance to love as God loves. When you find that one of the templates describes a current relationship, you will have to look into your heart more deeply to find out what is going on. At the same time, you will have to keep aware that the relationship has its own life and tempo, and that there is always "the other" or "the others." Prayer Jesus of Nazareth, my good brother, you worked with many and loved many. You loved aging laborers and the idle rich. You loved holy sisters and disrep-utable women. You worked with tax collectors and scribes. You chose partners who doubted and one who betrayed. You chose them, accounted for your choices to the Father, and stood by your friends to the end. Let me find my way in sureness and in risk, and give me courage to name those I relate to and clarity to know our shared responsibility. Help me to Review for Religious give my account to the Father and to stand by my friends to the end. Amen. Fourth, asking forgiveness for your sins and healing for those you have wounded and for yourself. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." This is the only condi-tion in the prayer Jesus taught. You cannot overestimate the weight of forgiving others. Yours, after all, is "the ministry of reconciliation," for you are in mission with Jesus Christ. You cannot expect forgiveness and the experience of reconciliation, except to the extent that you have forgiven and become recon-ciled with others. This is no trivial matter, and as good a reason as any to make an examen something like this one. Pray for those whom you have failed, or offended, or hurt. You need to beg the Spirit of Love to make up for your short-comings. Prayer Holy Triune God, in you, giving and taking barely differ since both are done as love. I have taken and not given. I have given what I did not mean to give and not given what I wish I had, so far, so very far, am I from loving as you love. Grant'me to be close to you in this, at least: that I forgive wholeheartedly those who wound me, as Jesus forgave those who wounded him. And then I ask that you forgive me and make up for all that I have left undone. Amen. F~h, choosing to do one thing tomorrow. You are wise to choose a single act to do, a concrete act like making a phone call (some-times the hardest thing you will do that day) or writing a note. Your discernment brings you to see how you can enact your gratitude to God for the people in your life. You take responsi-bility for your part in the relationship, not trying to redeem, but only to help the other and to bring him or her closer to Christ. You may need to focus on one person: to reconcile, to praise or thank, to enjoy being with. You may need to focus on one group of people like your family or community or colleagues. You may need to focus on yourself: to accept that God is making you a unique lover, to accept others' acceptance of you as you are; or, alternatively, y6u may need to address some habit that you see aggravates others or turns them off. Or you may I27 March-~tprll 2002 Tetlow ¯ Examen need to see that you really have entered into in a new relation-ship. Or you may need to get ready for a meeting by spending precious time really preparing for it or praying that you.do well. Finally, you may need to focus on some concrete event that is coming up: an interview, a meeting, a confrontation. Or you may need to focus on some long-term development in a relarionship--unsettling conflict, growing distance, emotional-ities-- so that you can take some concrete action. In all of these focuses, you are trying to keep Jesus' own commandment, "Love one another the way I have loved you." Prayer 0 Lord, reconciler of us to ourselves, the whole world and all rime would barely hold all the acts that love demands of us. I beg you to accept the little act that for this time is what I can and would do to learn to love like you. Amen. Annunciation Holy one, favored one, the Lord is with you. Be it bright angel's word or voices in the dark or cannonball or caress, any manner of invitation is prelude to Yes Holy ones, favored ones, the Lord is with us. Eugene Cartier Review for Religious KAREN KARPER FREDETTE No Rapine in the Holocaust: Eremitical Life Today '~e what you are called to be--a passionate seeker of God through continual prayer that allows 'no rapine in the holocaust,'" declares a woman in her seventies dwelling in a rural hermitage in Massachusetts. She emphasizes the total dedication she deems necessary for her chosen vocation--that of a hermit. This apo-dictic statement is culled from 140 responses to a ques-tionnaire sent to 600 hermits and solitaries. The survey was circulated by an international newsletter for her-mits, "Raven's Bread: Food for Those in Solitude." Replies flowed in from such diverse places as New Zealand, French Canada, the Philippines, Bavaria, Ireland, Mexico, and forty of the fifty United States. This twenty-three percent response rate is con-sidered a phenomenal return on a survey and, of itself, says something significant about eremites. Interviewing a single hermit is a rare event; taking the pulse of large enough numbers to determine trends would be an impossible task if eremites themselves were the aloof, people-hating individuals portrayed in popular literature. This survey reveals, however, that Karen Karper Fredette writes from 18065 Highway 209; Hot Springs, North Carolina 28743. 129 March-April 2002 Fredette * No Rapine in the Holocaust a lifestyle seasoned by hours of solitary prayer produces human beings distinguished by hospitality of spirit and a rare compassion. The essential hiddenness of eremiticat life is achieved by blending into one's surroundings. Recent History of Eremitism Even before Vatican Council II, a movement toward solitude and eremitical living had been noted. An historical but almost forgotten intervention at the council by Bishop Remy de Roo initiated a process that resulted in a new canon (c. 603) being written into the revised'Code of Canon Law that appeared in 1983. Bishop de Roo expressed his con-viction that the renewed vitality of the eremitical calling "indicates a special influence of the Holy Spirit, who inspires initiatives beneficial to the church and the modern world." Additionally, de Roo made the prophetic point that recognition of hermits would correct the impression that the practice of poverty, chastity, and obedience is limited to those living communal religious life. The myriad forms of hermit life reported in the recent survey prove the validity of this forecast. When an ancient vocation is recovered, old modalities often prove inadequate and new styles are fashioned. But can one devise a single expression for a call that transcends definitions of religious groups and flourishes among a devout and' occa-sionally unchurched fringe of society? What demographics, if any, can be assigned to an amorphous and largely hidden sub-culture that owns no common affiliation--nor desires any? In an effort to assess the state of eremitical life in the 21st century, the recent questionnaire invited hermits to draw their own demo-graphics. The results have been illuminating and inspiring. ¯ For some of us, a hermit may be living in the next apartment or down the street. Contrary to the caricature of hermits in their far caves, only three out of 140 reporting solitaries live in the "wilderness." A large number (31 percent) dwell in rural areas, but even more (43 percent) are to be' found in urban or Review for Religious suburban settings. Eight of those responding to the survey have chosen a site in the inner city. The essential hiddenness of eremitical life is achieved by blending into one's surroundings in such a way as,~to pass unnoticed even by one's neighbors. Many hermits abhor being singled out and so avoid any identifying sign of their inner dedication to solitude. Others, however, accepting the value of witnessing to a transcendent Reality in our midst, choose a simple habit and seek a recognized status within the church. Their countercultural stance is not militant, but rather a silent encouragement to others that a dif-ferent life is possible from that preached by an all-pervasive consumer society. When and to Whom Does the Call Come? A woman living in the southeastern United States writes: "I first heard the 'call' when I was four years old. I did not know What it meant--I only knew that it shook me to my founda-tion. I married, bore two children, and became a single mother. In my studies for clinical psychology, I discovered the works of Carl Jung. My inner life began shouting for attention. I listened. I shut down my practice, moved, got the children on their feet, and became a solitary. That was twenty years ago." A woman in the Philippines says, "Friends thought I was a fool to give up a secure full-time teaching position in a univer-sity, which sadly didn't leave me space and energy to pursue contemplative living--the one thing that gave meaning to all the rest." A married hermit living in California says, "I was a Hindu monk for five years, but the community did not support my attraction to hermit life." Ninety-eight women and forty-two men responded to the Raven's Bread survey. One-third of these are in their fifties. One-fourth are in their sixties. Only six persons responding are in their thirties. Further data confirms that most received the eremitic call later in life rather than earlier. Twenty-seven percent of those responding said they entered an eremitic lifestyle in their fifties, and twenty percent in their forties. Only eighteen percent followed the call to solitude while in their twenties or thirties. Maturity and life experience are necessary before a person 131 March-April 2002 Fredette * No Rapine in the Holocaust can launch into the rigors of solitary living, though the desire may have been planted much earlier in life. This fact of mid-life transition is an echo of the ideal life-pattern espoused by many Eastern cultures. A person joins a monastery or becomes a monk, not at the beginning of life (except for a brief training period), but only after one has fulfilled family obligations and achieved a certain financial success that one then freely leaves behind. The initial results from the survey indicate that in the Western world the call to solitude replicates this wise rhythm. Good physical health and fitness are the norm among solitary dwellers. Forty-seven percent describe their health as "good," and thirty-eight percent claim "excellent" health. Mental and emotional stability radiate from the responses to the reflec-tion questions that accompanied the survey. For example, a Catholic priest in his fifties writes from an urban hermitage in California: "The grace and essence of solitary living is the abil-ity to live in and be continually conscious of the Presence of God, to become more aware of who one is, to become enlight-ened to see more and more with the vision of God, to struggle to live the compassion of God, to grow in serenity and peace-- in a word, to live the freedom of the children of God." Religious Affiliation and Status The largest number of respondents (92 of 140) are Roman Catholic, but the Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Baptist churches are also represented. Among the respondents we also find persons from the Society of Friends and Orthodox churches and from various Eastern mystical traditions as well. Of the Christian denominations, Catholicism has the most hermit-friendly atmosphere, but even here eremites frequently mention lack of support and outright discouragement of their aspirations. Of the ninety-two Catholic respondents, only seventeen had been recognized as hermits under canon 603; an additional six had professed a state of consecrated virginity under canon 604. The obstacle to canonical recognition most frequently cited by respondents was the indifference of bishops. Many local ordi-naries were suspicious and expressed unwillingness to allow per-sons to pursue church-sanctioned hermit life in their dioceses. Review for Religious In the United States, only three dioceses are reported in this sur-vey to have more than one hermit living according to canon 603. A woman living in an inner-city neighborhood in England says: "The one and only meeting I had with my present bishop (a Benedictine monk) lasted only a few minutes. I had pressured him into giving me an appointment and had waited eight months to see him. I asked if he would help me become publicly pro-fessed, and he said no. That was it, a monosyllable, no expla-nation, no hesitation, no interest, no concern. I had been living as a hermit for twelve years at that time." Sheila Richardson, who is working on her master's degree in canon law at the University of St. Paul in Ottawa, inquires pointedly: "Are bishops aware of canon 605? This canon requires diocesan bishops to strive to discern new gifts of consecrated life, assist promoters of such lifestyles, and protect these new forms by appropriate statutes." Eremitical life is flourishing without much active support from the establishment. This may well be a blessing, allowing persons seeking to live as hermits or solitaries freedom to devise the form of life that best expresses their aspirations without concern about standards only a select few can meet. Exploring the various categories of individuals who choose a predominantly solitary life, we find 67 single lay persons, 24 married people, 38 members of religious congregations, and 15 ordained ministers, male and female, from six different denominations. Catholic priests who are living as hermits often exercise a limited ministry among people living nearby. They have the permission of their local ordinaries to live in retirement from most of the demands of pastoral ministry and devote the larger portion of their time to the "works" of eremitical life in solitude. Others have established a rhythm of part-time ministry with a certain number of days each week spent in solitude. Another priest is searching: "I am now at the point of decision. I am looking for a hermit-loving bishop where I might support myself by celebrating weekend Masses and confessions, perhaps in some priestless parish. Beyond that, I would be free to live in my own cabin following my own hermit schedule." Being a member of a religious community, whether active or contemplative, does not guarantee understanding of or support March-April 2002 Fredette * No Rapine in the Holocaust for an eremitic calling--something which, incidentally, may arise after a person has faithfully pursued religious life for many years. Thirty-seven of the hermits responding to the survey are still members of religious congregations. But, of the laypersons now living as hermits, sixty percent were members of a religious con-gregation at an earlier stage in their journey. Half of the former religious women claim they left their community so they could follow their attraction to solitude. Many said they were deeply grieved by this "necessity" of departure. Only two of the male religious say that their reason for severing connections with their religious order was in order to pursue solitary life. In other words, twenty-five percent of the men who left religious life did so because they were unable to live solitary life within their com-munities; fifty percent of the women left for the same reason. The most surprising category to surface from an analysis of survey responses is that of married hermit. Strictly speaking, this is a contradiction in terms and one that is hard to justify. But, for those who so identify themselves, the vocation is real and valid. Of the twenty-three respondents who are married, not all claimed to be hermits, but more than half did so. In an effort to understand this phenomenon, the following question was posed: "If you are married and are attracted to solitude, how do you work this out with your spouse?" In reply a woman in Arizona said: "The working out of mar-riage and solitude contains., every contradiction that one can experience in making oneself vulnerable in love to God and the unfolding of God's call in another. Two people can be authen-tically called to solitude and to solitude with each other, but the expressions of it can be so very different. The sharing of phys'ical space has been of great pragmatic concern for us recently--how to arrange our home so it can facilitate simplic-ity of life, prayer, and solitude." A man in Connecticut said: "I decided to separate my own liturgy commitments from my marriage by rising each morning at three for my prayer schedule. Also, I go to bed a little before my spouse to be alone once more in prayer." A woman married to a permanent deacon said: "He shares my attraction to silence and solitude although his ministry is pastoral and mine is mainly prayer. Our small country parish requires very little contact with the people for me. I work qui- Review for Relig4ous etly and prayerfully in the background while he ministers to the people. Everyone seems to understand and accept this arrangement." A woman frankly confesses: "It [attraction to solitude] cre-ated great problems. The marriage ended because we could not work it out. We remained friends." Daily Lifestyles, Daily Problems One hundred and one of the 140 respondents to the sur-vey describe themselves as living alone with significant periods of solitude and prayer. Forty-four of these have a written sched-ule incorporating prayer, work, reading, and relaxation. Eighty-seven of the 140 respondents live an informal mix of these elements. Some of these noted that they had begun with a written schedule that gradually became a more flexible routine. Seventy-eight of the 140 re-spondents pray with others one or more times a week. The most frequent prayer-form cited was meditation. Almost ninety percent find daily periods of meditative prayer a necessity. Nearly as many include Eucharistic Liturgy as part of their daily or weekly prayer routine. Most respondents find special periods of retreat important. Almost half arrange for an "annual r~treat; some manage monthly or even weekly periods of retreat. Penitential practices preferred are fasting and vigils. Almsgiving is important, with forty-three percent giving either in cash or in kind. Thirty-six eremites have made public profession of the evan-gelical counsels. Thirty-eight have committed themselves pri-vately, their vows or promises witnessed by a church-related person. Almost all respondents (103) value spiritual direction, though many said that finding a spiritual guide has been diffi-cult. Forty-seven hermits function as spiritual guides for others. One hundred and one of the 140 respondents to the survey describe themselves as living alone with significant periods of solitude and prayer. 135 March-April 2002 Fredette ¯ No Rapine in the Holocaust The survey listed six areas that could prove problematic for eremites: housing, income, spiritual guidance, relationships with church representatives, physical health, and personal fears and insecurities. The most frequently cited problem is difficulties with church representatives; the next, finding adequate spiri-tual guidance. The expected difficulties of locating a suitable site and generating enough income had proved less trouble-some. In this third millennium of Christianity, eremitical life is experiencing a fresh flowering, with new blooms appearing on the ancient vine. Butthe essence remains the same: "For me, the grace of solitary living is Emptiness," a married hermit member of an oblate Benedictine community states categorically. "No rapine in the holocaust" continues to be the stark demand of solitary life. Lake's Edge At night I hear the motion of the lake. It sighs to its own heart. Foam frosts the weight of wetness flung toward the house where my light burns. I am waiting for the wind to bring the message that I long for, the meaning of breath and motion, and who it is that sends waves pulsing toward this empty shore. Kate Martin OSC Review for Religious JAMES J. MAGEE Metaphysical Self in Other Mystical Traditions Ion an article in this journal (1994), I examined the devel-pment of metaphysical self in the writings of eight Christian mystics, concluding with Thomas Merton's definition (1966, p. 180) referring to "the depths of people's hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes." In short, metaphysical self is the term for one's self residing in God and God residing in it. Respondents to the article took the occa- ¯ sion to point out that metaphysical se/fappears also in the writ-ings of mystics from other religious traditions and recommended that I enlarge the presentation by incorporating some of them. Since these correspondents were women religious more famil-iar than I with these various mystical traditions, I asked them to participate in a monthly online chat room to examine meta-physical self as it appears in Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim (Sufi) mysticism. Our group of nine has met for the past five years, and this article presents some of the riches these mystical traditions brought to our understanding of meta-physical self. Each month we decided upon two primary sources we would examine in common, one Christian and one from another James J. Magee has written nine articles for our journal, the last in 1994. He is professor of counseling and gerontology at College of New Rochelle; New Rochelle, New York 10805. March-April 2002 tradition. In addition, each of us read the historical and con-textuai introductions preceding the texts or a monograph explaining their specific themes and imagery. At the conclusion of this article is a bibliography of the sources that we found particularly fruitful. Each tradition has its own style, some directly didactic and others more metaphorical. Each elabo-rates upon metaphysical self with novel, arresting paradoxes and engaging imagery that invigorated our familiarity with our own Christian mystics. Each, too, emphasizes the following components of metfiphysical self: the relational, nondualistic rootedness of self in God; transcendent individuality; engaged detachment as an expression of metaphysical self. Throughout this endeavor we dealt with paradoxes and found the most exhil-arating paradox in the power of other traditions to confirm our Christocentric perspective. Residing in God's Unconditional Acceptance This brief sampling of Christian mystics illustrates the con-tinuing emphasis they placed on the-self-residing-in-God: From Meister Eckhart: The soul is so completely one with God that the one cannot be understood without the other. One can think heat easily enough without fire and the shining with-out the sun, but God cannot be understood without the soul nor the soul without God, so utterly are they one. (p. 309) It is God's pleasure and rapture to discover iden-tity, because he can always put his whole nature into it--for he is this identity itself. (p. 167) From Julian of Norwich: Our soul sits in God in true rest, and our soul stands in God in sure strength, and our soul is naturally rooted in God in endless love. (p. 188) Between God and our soul there is neither wrath nor forgiveness. For our soul is so wholly united to God that nothing can interpose . Though we find in ourselves anger, contention, and strife, still we are all mercifully enclosed in God's mildness and meekness. (p. 189) Review for Religious From Catherine of Genoa: My being is God;. my me is God. (W'ilber, p. 72) From Thomas Merton: We know God insofar as we become aware of ourselves as known through and through by him. We "possess" him in proportion as we realize ourselves to be pos-sessed by him in the utmost depths of our being . Our knowledge of God is paradoxically a knowledge not of him as the object of our scrutiny, but of our-selves as utterly dependent on his saving and merciful knowledge of us. (1969, pp. 103-104) Note how this same emphasis appears in the following excerpts from Jewish and Muslim mystics: From the Maggid of Mezhirech: Man's essence is only the soul that is within him, which is a portion of God above. Thus, there is nothing in the entire world except the Holy One. (Uffenheimer) From the Kabbalah: There is nothing that is not pervaded by the power of divinity. God is everything that exists, though every-thing that exists is not God .Nothing is devoid of its divinity. (Matt, 1995) From Rumi: Remember God so much that you are forg9tten, until you are lost in the Call, without distinction of caller and called. (Breton and Largent, p. 23). You are my face. No wonder I can't see you. (Breton and Largent, p. 168) From 'Abd Allah Ansari (Kwaja 'Abdullah Ansari): One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked. A voice asked, "Who is there?" He answered, "It is I." The voice said, "There is no room for Me and Thee." The door was shut. Mter a year of sOlitude and depri-vation, he returned and knocked. A voice from within asked, "Who is there?" The man said, "It is Thee." The door was opened for him. (p. 94) O God, I possess that mirror in which you are reflected. Rather, I am that mirror. You are not sepa-rate from me. (p. 196) From Fakhruddin 'Iraqi: 139 MarchoApril 2002 The EternalOcean spews forth new waves. "Waves" we call them, but there is only. the Sea. (p. 77) From Ibn Al'Arabi: As in the case of a mirror and the beholder, he sees the form in it, but does not see the mirror itself. In your seeing your true self, He is your mirror and you are His mirror in which He sees nothing other than Himself. (p. 65) Through the intimate imagery and ecstatic directness that pervade these writings, the mystics of three monotheistic traditions seem to strain the point that, while human beings par-ticipate in the divine nature, they never become the essence of God. Their mystical reach, on the other hand, does touch upon that mystery which "no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Co 2:9). The mystics intuit that persons are not dualistically separated from God, but "closely united with God in a love that is always moving toward oneness" (Johnston, p. 124). Transcending Individuality The Christian Scriptures address a second characteristic, the quality of relationships that proceed from metaphysical self. This characteristic also reappears in the mystical literature of other traditions, and our group members were able to find these paraphrases about metaphysical self-transcending indi-viduality: "Love is not self-seeking; it is not prone to anger; neither does it brood over injuries" (1 Co 13:5) becomes, in Rumi, the Sufi mystic, "Love has no calculating in itT' (Breton and Largent, p. 9) "Thanks be to God, who unfailingly leads us on in Christ's triumphal train, and employs us to diffuse the fragrance of his knowledge everywhere" (2 Co 2:14) occurs in Rtimi as "Vv~hether they know You or not, all creatures bend but toward You. M1 love for some-one else is but a whiff of Your perfume." (Breton and Largent, p. 141) "For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink" (Mt 25, 35) appears; Review for Religious in the Bhagavad Gita, as "Any offering--a leaf, a flower, or a fruit, a cup of water--I will accept it if given with a loving heart." (Mitchell, 2000, p. 118) "Let us profess the truth in love" (Eph 4:15) is, in the Bhagavad Gita, "Speak the truth with kindness, honesty that causes no pain." (Mitchell, 2000, p. 178) These mystical sources echo the scriptural message that in human beings metaphysical self is inherently relational. Each of us is a seat of consciousness and an experiencing agent with-out being independent of others. Aitken and Steindl-Rast go so far as to say: "Underlying 'Love thy neighbor as thyself' has to be the experience that the other is no other than myself" (p. 113). Engaged Detachment During our years of meetings, members recognized a third characteristic, engaged detachment, as the way metaphysical self conducts itself in the world. This oxymoron refers to the readiness to invest ourselves in causes, tasks, and relationships while remaining ready to foi'go achieving our goals. It focuses upon process, both the deservingness of the activity at hand and the affirmation that we shall die unfinished, our potential only partly realized, and that completion is ultimately God's work and not our own. The different traditions of mystical writings repeatedly express this theme: From Julian of Norwich: God does not want his servants to despair because they fall often and grievously; for our falling does not hin-der him in loving us. (p. 188) From Paul Tillich: You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you . Do not seek for anything; do not intend anything. (Church, p. 180) From Anthony de Mello: There is no clinging to a classical symphony and no hastening it. One does not wait till the end to enjoy . it, but takes in every note, every chord as it comes and lets it go to welcome the next uninterrupted flow. Any attempt to stop the performance, any "attachment" to 14! March-April 2002 Nlagee ¯ Metaphysical Self a single note, will ruin the symphony. (p. 164) From the Tao Te Ching: A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. (Mitchell, 1988, p. 27) The Tao gives birth to all beings, creating without possessing, acting without expecting, guiding without interfering. (Welch, p. 41) From the Bhagavad Gita: With no desire for success, no anxiety about failure, indifferent to results, surrendering all thoughts of out-come, unperturbed, he does nothing at all, even when fully engaged in actions. There is nothing that he expects. (Mitchell, 2000, p. 75) From Fakhruddin 'Iraqi: Give up desire. Think that whatever you get is what you want, and in this acceptance find ease and joy. Renounce desire a hundred times. (p. 114) Engaged detachment, like the other characteristics of meta-physical self, is paradoxical. It invites a response of passive atten-tiveness wisely expressed in this admonition from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke: Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart. . Try to love the contradictions themselves. Do not now seek resolutions, which cannot be given because you would not be able to live them, and the point is to live everything. Live the contradictions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the resolutions. (p. 97) Imagery, Paradox, Complementarity, Love The imagery, metaphors, and paradoxes which other mys-tical traditions use to illuminate the nature of mystical se/famplify and complement the attention Christian mystics center upon on this theme. The artfulness of these other sources can help sustain us both in the apophatic ~loud through which Christian mystics typically view mystical self and in the relaxed tena-ciousness of our commitment to love others as ourselves. Review for Religious References 'Abd Allah Ansari, 1978. Intimate conversations. New York: Paulist Press. Aitken, R., and D. Steindl-Rast. 1996. The ground we share. Boston: Shambala. Breton, D., and C. Largent. 1998. Love, soul, and freedom: Dancing with Rumi on the mystical path. Center City, Minn.: Hazelden. Church, E 1987. The essential Tillich. New York: Macmillan. de Mello, A. 1992. One minute nonsense. Chicago: Loyola University Press. Fakhruddin 'Iraqi. 1982. Divine flashes. New York: Paulist Press. Ibn Al'Arabi. 1980. The bezels of wisdom. New York: Paulist Press. Johnston, W. 2000. "Arise, my love . . .": Mysticism for a new era. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books. Julian of Norwich. 1978. Showings. New York: Paulist Press. Magee, J. 1994. "Shame, mystical writers, and a spirituality of self." Review for Religious 53, no. 5 (September-October): 746-752. Matt, D. 1995. The essential Kabbalah. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, p. 25. Meister Eckhart. 1986. Meister Eckhart: Teacher and preacher, ed. B. McGinn. New York: Paulist Press. Merton, T. 1966. Conjectures of a guilty bystander. New York: Doubleday. Merton, T. 1969. Contemplative prayer. New York: Herder and Herder. Mitchell, S. 1988. Tao te ching. New York: Harper and Row. Mitchell, S. 2000. Bhagavadgita. New York: Harmony Books. Rilke, R. 1978. When silence reigns: Selected prose. New York: New Directions. Uffenheimer, R. 1993. Hasidism as mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 74. Welch, H. 1966. Taoism: The parting of the way. Boston: Beacon. Wilber, K. 1983. Up from Eden. Boulder, Colo.: Shambala. Bibliography of Easily Accessible Sources Sources in Christian mysticism appear in the series Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press). Sources for Buddhist and Taoist mysticism Da Liu. 1986. Tai chi ch'uan and meditation. New York: Schocken Books. Deng Ming-Dao. 1990. Scholar warrior: An introduction to the tao in everyday life. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. 143 March-April 2002 Magee ¯ Metaphysical Self Kohn, L. 1993. The taoist experience: An anthology. Albany: State University of New York Press. Merton, T. 1968. Zen and the birds of appetite. New York: New Directions. Mitchell, S. 1988. Tao te ching. New York: Harper and Row. Reps, P. 1957. Zen flesh, Zen bones: A collection of Zen and pre-Zen writ-ings. Rutland, Vermont: C.E. Turtle. Thich Nhat Hanh. 1987. The miracle of mindfulness: A manual on med-itation. Boston: Beacon. Watson, B. 1968. The complete works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press. Wei, H. 1987. The authentic I Ching. North Hollywood, Calif.: Newcastle. Sources for Hindu mysticism Dehejia, V. 1994. The legend of Rama: Artistic visions. Bombay: Marg Publications. Heehs, P. 1998. The essential writings of Sri Aurobindo. New York: Oxford University Press. Jack, H. 1989. The Gandhi Reader. New York: Grove Press. Krishnamurti, J. 1994. On conflict. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Mitchell, S. 2000. Bhagavadgita. New York. Harmony Books. Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre. 1972. Women saints of East and West. London: Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre. Shukla, S. 1999. The Upanishads. Fremont, Calif.: Asian Humanities Press. Sivaraman, K. 1989. Hindu spirituality. New York: Crossroad. Vetter, H. 1997. The heart of God: Prayers of Rabindranath Tagore. Boston: C.E. Tuttle. Sources for Islamic mysticism 'Abd Allah Ansari. 1978. Intimate conversations. New York: Paulist Press. Breton, D., and C. Largent, C. 1998. Love, soul, and freedom: Dancing with Rumi on the mystic path. Center City, Minn.: Hazelden. Chittick, W.C. 1983. The Sufi path of love: The spiritual teachings of Rumi. Albany: State University of New York Press. Ernst, C. 1984. Words of ecstasy in Sufism. Albany: State University of New York Press. Fakhruddin 'Iraqi. 1982. Divine flashes. New York: Paulist Press. Ibn Al'Arabi. 1980. The bezels of wisdom. New York: Paulist Press. Review for Religious Ibn A1-Sabbagh. 1996. Mystical teachings of Al-Shadhili. Chicago: Kazi Publications. Ibn 'Ata' Illah. 1978, The book of wisdom. New York: Paulist Press. Massignon, L. 1982. The passion of A1-Hallaj, mystic and martyr of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Schimmel, A. 1987. As through a veik Mystical poetry in Islam. New York: Columbia University Press. Sharafuddin Maneni. 1980. The hundred letters. New York: Paulist Press. Sources for Jewish mysticism Ben Joseph, A. 1987. Book of formation (Sepheryetzirah). San Francisco: Holmes. Ben Zion, R. 1984. Anthology of Jewish mysticism. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Judaica Press. Cohn-Sherbok, D. 1995. Jewish mysticism: An anthology. Rockport, Mass.: Oneworld. Jacobs, L. 1997. Schocken book of Jewish mystical testimonies. New York: Schocken Books. Kamenetz, R. 1998. Stalking Elijah: Adventures with today's Jewish mys-tical masters. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Kook, A. 1978. The lights of penitence, New York: Paulist Press. Matt, D. 1983. Zohar: The book of enlightenment. New York: Paulist Press. Matt, D. 1995. The essential Kabbalah: The heart of Jewish mysticism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Nahman of Bratslav. 1980. The tales. New York: Paulist Press. Scholem, G. 1995. Major trends in Jewish mysticism. New York: Schocken Books. NEW ON OUR WEBSITE Searchable indexes of Review for Religious articles from January 1970 to the current issue Abstracts of the lead articles of the January 1997 isshe to the current issue and summaries of the others Complete text of A Spirituality for Contemporary Life: The Jesuit Heritage Today edited by David Fleming SJ and containing articles by J.J. Mueller SJ, Walter Burghardt SJ, David Fleming SJ, Monika K. Hellwig, Jon Sobrino SJ, Elizabeth Johnson csJ, and John W. Padberg SJ www.reviewforreligious.org -4 45 larch-, Jpril 2002 GERALDINE M. WODARCZYK Aging: Spiritually Present to the Burning Bush growing older For months now I have written multiple reflections on aging. They are connected with a book by Jane Marie Thibault2 She says that in later life people are invited to contemplation and that there should be contem-plative communities for the elderly. My congregation is 127 year old, and I have lived among aging and prayerful sisters for decades. I sought to formulate a theology of aging based on the spirituality of our foundress, Frances Siedliska. But, in spite of a wealth of material, no formulation presented itself. And so, with encouragement from Sister Judith Nero OSB, my local mentor for the gerontological program, I decided on a different focus, simply writing about my ministry experiences at Holy Family Manor. What are those experiences, and what are they calling me to in my own life? Perhaps, like Moses, I have discovered a "burning bush" and here, on holy ground, I learn of God. Geraldine M, Wodarczyk CSFN wrote this paper originally in a gerontological pastoral care program at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her address is Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth; 285 Bellevue Road; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15229. Review for Religious Years ago Sister Mary Paul Krasowski gave me a copy of a poem by an unknown author: The Moses in my heart trembles not quite willing to accept the prophet hidden in my being wondering how much it will cost to allow the prophet to emerge. O child of unnecessary shoes cast them off and stand in readiness on this awfully holy ground! For the Egypt in people's hearts demands that you see the burning bushes all around you aflame and burning wildly calling you forth away from the comfort of well-protected feet. The ground you stand on is holy! Take off your shoes believe in your Moses and go. Sister Mary Paul gave.me a copy a second time, when I was the superior at the Manor, my "holy ground" for the past six years. I realized that during this time I had been called to accept the prophet in me, and in others, as we search for God in our every-day realities. I have seen the Egypt in the hearts of sisters and heard their cry for freedom sung in many ways. Within the evening solitude that these days provided me, I discovered the Egypt within my own heart and heard a call to let go of false securities of my own and to find new freedoms within me. I have been present to "burning bushes" of experience with seasoned older sisters. In ways I never expected, God touched my life and called me from the comfort zone where I was six years before. 147 March-April 2002 Wodarczyk ¯ Aging With Fear and Trepidation In 1990, when first asked to consider being superior of the Manor, I flatly refused. I was already superior of a small convent of four sisters. I was engaged in full-time ministry as the province councilor for formation, and together with my brother, who was just beginning a family in Wisconsin, I was sharing long-distance care of our widowed father in Erie, Pennsylvania, who was steadily moving to a new stage of frailty in his life. These were the reasons I gave my provincial, but another rea-son was that I had never been present at anyone's death. Terrified, I could not imagine living where I would need to be present to sisters as they died. Time passed. In 1993 our father's condition became worse. When notified, I knew the seriousness of Dad's condition, but did not realize that, with the physician, my brother and I would be making decisions that Dad was not able to make about his failing life. As Divine Providence would have it, I was in Erie when decisions about the breathing and cardiac machines needed to be made, and I was present during Dad's last hours and death. I learned that a broken heart is a real experience. I was changed, and so in 1994, when a new provincial asked me about being superior of Holy Family Manor, I said I would be willing. The provincial was taking seriously the choice of the superior. First, after asking the sisters living in the Manor for suggestions and reviewing the list, she and her council had three sisters come to a mandatory day of reflection in a small cottage on our motherhouse grounds. Our retirement home had sixty-nine beds and sixty-six sisters at various stages of aging. The retreat director, Sister Ann Winschel CDP, invited us to consider our gifts and what might be our stumbling blocks in accepting the ministry. I went to my room in the cottage and prayed with open hands, letting God put there what I needed and giving God the freedom to take away any drawbacks to my willingness to accept this ministry. For most people, praying with open hands is a simple gesture, but for me--with hands affected by rheumatoid arthritis--the gesture spoke of my own human brokenness. Could God really want me, already a broken vessel, to shep-herd these senior religious in their last days? At the end of the retreat, after sharing our personal reflec- tions, we were asked to express our final decision in a letter to the provincial. I wrote of openness to the ministry, my aware-ness of my gifts in working with the elderly, and my recognition that I could use them only in the context of my own brokenness. I qualified my openness by saying that, if I had an incapacitating flare-up of the arthritis, I would take it as an indication that this service was not appropriate for me. Three months later my provincial telephoned me, saying that the council had unani-mously chosen me the next Manor superior. She wanted me to take some preparation time with the current superior, attend the upcoming American Society of Aging conference, and offi-cially begin on the first of May. On Sunday, 30 April 1995, in the early afternoon, I arrived at the Manor. I was scheduled to be in the chapel for a wel-coming prayer and commitment service at four o'clock. The previous superior had already left. Three sisters were waiting for me at the door, welcoming me with one breath and asking with another, "You will take us to the festival at Mr.Assisi, won't you?" Barely gathering my belongings from the auto-mobile and putting them in my room, I welcomed the excur-sion (a five-minute trip) to the Franciscan sisters' festival. Though a busy place, it was a respite where I could amble with-out any focus on the fears and anticipation that were part of me at this transition moment. We returned home and soon four o'clock came. In the presence of the retired sisters, the provincial asked me several questions: Will you accept this responsibility [to be local leader] which the sisters have confided in you? Do you promise to serve the sisters in kindness, compassion, and charity, in the spirit of our blessed foundress, Frances Siedliska? Will you strive to be faithful to the Covenant of Love [our constitutions] and the directives of your general and provincial superiors? Responding affirmatively, I was given a bouquet of roses by the provincial and was told: "Your ministry as servant leader will be a mixed blessing. Both joy and sorrow, possibility and I could not imagine living where I would need to be present to sisters as they died. !49 ~¥larch-April 2002 Wodarczyk ¯ Aging impossibility, success and failure will accompany you. These roses, themselves offering both beauty and pain, are given to you with our gratitude for accepting this mission." After the sisters voiced their support, I recited the following: As I approach this ministry of servant leadership, I pray: Hollow out in me, O God, a space in which I will find myself, find peace and a whole heart, a for-giving spirit and holiness, springs of laughter, and the will to reach boldly for abundant life for myself, this local community, and the whole human family. Grant me your peace, instill in me such awe of you as will make me wise, and such quiet courage as will enable me to make hope visible, forgiving delight-ful, loving contagious, faith liberating, and peace-mak-ing joyful. Shape my weakness into compassion and help me to make myself open and present to my sisters, to oth-ers, and to your kingdom. Amen.2 And so I began my sojourn as the convent superior of our retire-ment community. Except for my Franciscan festival invitation, my first encounter with one of the sisters came that evening, when Sister Maura3 told me, "On behalf of the entire community here at Holy Family Manor, .I want to tell you it is too cold in this build-ing." "Temperatures!" I thought; "after that profoundly religious service, I am supposed to adjust thermostats!" And so it was-- God was inviting me to listen to the concerns of everyday life, the little things that are so important in these sisters' lives. The Power of the Word The next morning I had an announcement to make in the first-floor dining room, where forty sisters sat. Besides some trembling, my voice did not carry well, especially for the good number with impaired hearing. Finally I got the message across. Shortly thereafter, a sister from the second-floor dining area came complaining that I did not give the sisters there any message. What was I to do? The next day I typed out some items of common interest and posted them in the elevator, Review for Religious thereby causing traffic jams. Sisters would ride up and down until they finished reading the note. I realized that we needed copies of the newsletter posted in various places, including the elevator. This simple arrangement, providing this large num-ber of sisters direction for the coming day, also informed them about what was happening in our home. Was this communication episode a "burning bush" in which I found God? At least I learned how impoytant the communi-cated word is to people, and that it could promote love and caring in this household. It calmed the fears of the sisters who wondered about who was in the house: other sisters, guests, contractors, maintenance work-ers. The daily newsletter included a prayer request list and kept the sisters informed about the health progress of the sisters in the hos-pital. The newsletter invited the sisters to share a joke as well as to request prayer for themselves I learned how important the communicated word is to people, and that it could promote love and caring. or others. It became their newsletter. It provided a source of unity and dismantled some rumors that institutions readily give rise to. It hung for twenty-four hours at eight places in the building. Each of us had plenty of time to return to it to get the news of the day. There is a power in the written word. It is a way love can be communicated. Isn't the Word the way God communicates the greatness of Divine Love? And did the Word not become incarnate in the most simple and humble way? Perhaps in some small way the newsletter really was a "burning bush." The Joy of the Resurrection After living a short while in the Manor, I noticed a heavi-ness- sadness in the sisters' demeanor, depressive postures; even the daily Masses were in remembrance of the deceased. Although all the bedrooms are quite alike, some were considered "dying rooms," and sisters shuddered at the thought of being placed there. March-April 2002 V~odarczyk * Aging When I arrived at the Manor in the midst of spring, I was still flesh with the message of the Easter season's life-giving liturgical readings. One reading kept coming back to me, the one about the women returning to the tomb who were asked, "Why do 3iou search for the Living One among the dead?" (Lk 24:5). One day these words, stirring in my h.eart, became reversed. I heard, "Why do you search for the dead among the living?" Something changed within me, and I realized how alive, even with some physical limitations, these sisters were. I knew that I needed to foster that life of theirs. I knew that I should help them help each other to build a happy life within this retirement community. By Pentecost I looked for the evi-dence of the Spirit as we tried new things and reviewed old practices. What brought the gifts of "love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness" (Ga 5:22-23) that Paul spoke about? The things that brought such results to the majority of the community would be fostering and increas-ing in the sisters the new life of Easter. How else does God speak to us and affirm our actions except by the gifts of the Holy Spirit? In late May 91-year-old Sister Ellen was rushed to the hos-. pital in excruciating abdominal pain. "A perforated bowel," the doctor told me and asked, "What do you want me to do? I don't think that Sister could survive the surgery." Asking Sister, who was fully conscious, was to me the obvious thing to do. The doctor explained the options: surgery or palliative care. Sister Ellen looked at me with the most trusting eyes. "You are my superior," she said. "Whatever you decide will be God's will for me." I could not believe my ears, nor was I prepared for this responsibility she placed on me. She remained adamant. "I trust that your decision is God's will for me." I had not been reared in religious life with that degree of surrender put into a supe-rior's hands. Mine was a formation toward dialogue, toward coming to a mutual decision. She, however, simply continued to insist. From her primary-care physician, I learned that Sister Ellen had specifically said a few weeks earlier that she never wanted another surgery. When I managed to contact our provin-cial superior, who was traveling in Europe, she concurred with the decision for palliative care. Review for Religious I remain humbled by the trust Sister Ellen placed in me. I learned that being an instrument of God in these sisters' lives is something very serious indeed. I learned of my own need for prayer and intimacy with a God who, though transcendent, is immanently present to us and our decisions. Second Floor: 0 God, Are You There? A visitor to our Manor told me happily that her little boy would be three years old in a couple of weeks. On hearing that, he began to cry, "I don't want to be three, Mommy." Holding her tearful child, she said to me: "When he turns three he has to go to the next room in the day care. He doesn't want to take that step." It can be like that with the elderly, too. In conversations with oth-ers who deal with the elderly, I have found that there is always some place where res-idents do not want to go. It may be called the A wing or Mary's Corridor or something sim-ilar. In our convent it is simply called "the second floor." It is where those needing the most care live. Agreeing to live on the second floor is, for some of us, accepting death--even though, in reality, it may be years away. When I came to the Manor, the frailest sisters on the sec-ond floor would sit or recline in geri-chairs in a semicircle in what was called the solarium. These sisters were clean and well kept, but some would randomly yell out a prayer, a request, a humorous remark, or something incoherent. When people passed by Sister Lynnette--her parochial school teaching over and end-stage Alzheimer's drawing near--she would insist, "Line up for the fire drill, without talking!" If you did not do so, your misbehavior called for discipline. Although humorous, these moments were also sad, for Sister Lynnette had been such an excellent teacher. Many sisters shied away from the second floor, and espe-cially the solarium, where these frail sisters spent long days, I have found that there is always some place where residents do not want to go. March-April 2002 Wodarczyk ¯ Agigg still as icons. This comparison struck me as I read some words of Henri Nouwen: Icons are not easy to "see." They do not immediately speak [appeal] to our senses . They do not reveal themselves to us at first sight. It is only gradually, after a patient, prayerful presence, that they start speaking to us. And, as they speak, they speak more to our inner than to our outer sense. They speak to the heart that searches for God.4 The frailest sisters on the second floor "do not reveal them-selves," or the Holy, immediately. It is only after I become prayerfully present to them that their presence, in their dimin-ished physical or mental condition, speaks to my heart. They tell me about life's brevity, about our dependence on God, and show that we are only pilgrims here. One day I took a visiting priest acquaintance to see our treasured sisters on the second floor. He began preaching to them about their duty to contemplate. With blank faces they just looked at him. A confused embarrassment seized him, and he became speechless. There was nothing more to say. Later I wondered if these sisters are in the contemplative state of being in God's wordless embrace. One cannot know such secrets. These sisters, and we ourselves, spend lives desiring such close-ness. But, because they and we have also spent years seeking responsible and prudent control of our lives, such vulnerability, such complete dependence on God and on others, is likely to be fraught with fear as well. On a recent visit to Pittsburgh, Trappist monk Thomas Keating, founder of Contemplative Outreach, spoke to an ecu-menical group gathered at another Franciscan motherhouse. He spoke of the prayerful consent that is part of Centering Prayer, for fostering contemplative experience. He spoke of the call to follow Christ and to let go of possessions--not external possessions so much as interior ones, the baggage of attitudes that we carry with us (in his phrase, the false self). At one point he looked up at the' choir loft, where the frailest of the com-munity's sisters were. He spoke directly to them, taking note of their willing acceptance of their present frailty, their loss of health, their losses of young self-reliance and of status in the community. He saw their disabilities as precious gifts from God, Review for Religious things to be grateful for. His words reminded me of my own sisters on the second floor. But to accept diminishment with gratitude is not easy. Solidarity with Suffering A few footsteps away from my office, my belief in the cru-cified and resurrected Christ was tested. Suffering is a mystery. We do not want to see others suffer, nor do we want suffering in our own lives. When faced with the suffering of people we love, what is our response? Henri Nouwen says: A friend who was very ill had a great devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and derided to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes to ask for healing. When she left, I was afraid that she would be disillusioned if no miracle happened. But on her return she said, "Never did I see so many sick people. When I came face-to-face with that human suffering, I no longer wanted a miracle. I no longer wanted to be the exception. I experienced a deep desire to be one of them, to belong to these wounded people. Instead of praying for a cure, I prayed that I would have the grace to bear my illness in solidarity with them. And I trust that the mother of Jesus will bring my prayer to her Son."s As for myself, I have never come to the point of wanting "to be one of them." I desire to be well. But so did this dear woman on her way to Lourdes for healing. Is true healing the ability to love so deeply that we long to share others' intense pain and sorrow? That is what Jesus did. When we are young, we find many ways to escape that question and that reality. As we age and see diminishment in ourselves, our families, and our friends, the question returns. That call to solidarity in suffering is a difficult call to hear, especially when the time actually comes for us to visit--or move to--the "second floor." Sacrament of the Present Moment - Even in Dementia "Where am I going?" she asks, her body slumped. The eyes, once sparkling with joie de vivre, now are dim, like smoldering wicks. "I can understand," she says, "why, without faith, one155 March-April 2002 Wodarczyk ¯ Aging could commit suicide. Not that I want to," she says, "but I understand. I know why others would do this." Coming out of my own uncomfortable search for something to say, I ask, "Do you have faith? . Why, yes, I do." But soon she is asking, "What should I do? What is happening to me?" These words rose in her during the initial stages of Alzheimer's. It is easy to agree with the maxim that "a mind is a terrible thing to waste." In a group where many have been educators, the relentless decline of mental acumen is truly frightening. In this place, you can imagine the ardor one brings to reading the "Nuns' Study" !6 In the light (or darkness) of this feared disease, a faith per-spective does not come easy, even in a congregation whose motto is "Thy will be done." I needed to be reverently present to any-one who was concerned about Alzheimer's, just as I did to those showing symptoms of it. I needed to be cautious about explain-ing away dementia-with pious sayings or even a quick quota-tion from Scripture. For many months Sister Mary would stalk me, particularly at sundown. Even when I did not initially see her, I could sense her presence and her foreboding look. I had learned earlier that I should keep touch with my own inner experience when relat-ing to others. With Mary, the more I avoided her physically and psychologically, the more she pursued and pressured me. Her cognitive impairment was becoming worse. I would think, "Oh, here she is, pestering me again!" or "She's got dementia. She doesn't know what she's talking about." One time she was particularly adamant: "How awful to be on the second floo!! How cruel you were to put me there!" And on and on, in a sort of frenzy. I wondered, "What ever happened to that loving and supportive friend I had for so many years?" I thought of relat-ing to her as a simple matter of"how to handle a difficult situ-ation." I thought of Christ being in her, but was far from experiencing it. Worn down by her raving, I was wondering if she had received her medication. I called the nurse to ask. Sister Mary heard me and said, "You think medication is going to take care of this? You are not around and you think medicine is going to cure this? That's not the way! That's not the way!" My "quick and appropriate solution"--so that I could be about more Review for Religious "important" things--stirred up more mistrust in Sister and greater frustration in me. Then my faith invited me to adopt a new perspective. I paused, put aside other matters, sat face-to-face with her, and listened. Soon both of us were at peace. After a while she returned to her room for the evening. This scenario occurred more than once. Afterwards, pondering the healing that took place when I was more present to her, I realized that there is a sacramentality in such moments. Jean-Pierre de Caussade says: There is never a moment when God does not come forward in the guise of some suffering or some duty, and all that takes place within us, around us, and through us both includes and hides his activity. Yet, because it is invisible, we are taken by surprise and do not recognize his operation until it has passed by us. If we could lift the veil and if we watched with vigilant attention, God would endlessly reveal himself to us, and we should see and rejoice in his active presence in all that befalls us. At every event we should exclaim: "It is the Lord!''7 Can I be alert to this potential revelation of God the next time I am stalked by one of my own sisters? When people complain to me about the odd behavior or mental confusion of a dear friend of theirs, can I help them see Christ's presence in the situation? How do I do that? Caussade reminds us of the power of faith: It is faith which interprets God for us. Without its light we should not even know that God is speaking, but would hear only the confused, meaningless bab-ble of creatures. As Moses saw the flame of fire in the bush and heard the voice of God coming from it, so faith will enable us to understand his hidden signs, so that amidst all the apparent clutter and disorder we shall see all the loveliness and perfection of divine wisdom.8 Seeking Life's Deeper Meaning A few years ago Sister Mary Stella came to my office quite excited about the prospect of winning a car or money for the 157 Vlarch-April 2002 Wodarczyk ¯ Aging community. A piece of mail had informed her that she had been "selected to win." I tried to explain to her about the money-maEing ploy of these contests. She insisted: "Fill it out for me. I can't see!" Hoping that somewhere in this experience there would be a teachable moment, I filled out the form and mailed it. A few weeks later she received a "free" watch. "See," she told me, "I am already winning! I will really help the congre-gation when the check arrives." Not long after the watch came, Sister was billed $75 for a magazine subscription. She called me to her room. Obviously upset, she said she did not have the money for this subscription and believed that, if she canceled it, she would be responsible for the salesperson's losing her job. "I should have listened to you," she lamented. My teachable moment had arrived! Though I was angry about companies that exploit senior citizens, I gently explained to her that this is an advertising gimmick, that all she needed to do was write "cancel" on the bill and mail it back; the matter would be over. She listened. I left the room thinking all was well. But within a few days Sister stopped eating. She did not come to morning Mass. She stayed in her room, depressed and despondent. Noticing this, I spent some extended time with her, but she was silent. She wanted to see a priest. I called the Franciscan priest who often served us, and he paid her a pastoral visit. Her depression lingered. I visited her again. She still lamented, "I can't pay the bill, and the poor man will lose his job." Her suffering was evident. Her sheltered and "precomputer" life did not prepare her to understand today's big-business advertising. So I listened, and then I suggested that we write the man a letter with an apology, explain her cur-rent financial situation, and return the watch. Her eyes lit up at the prospect. Together we composed a letter, which she signed and I mailed. In a few days she was back to normal. A few months later her health declined, simply by reason of her advancing age. When I visited, she looked up at me from her bed and with a most peacef~l look said, "I will never forget your gentleness to me when I thought I would win that money. You were so kind." The entire episode showed us God's grace working in both our lives. I continued to see how greatly these older sisters desire to contribute to the congregation. Review for Religqous Supporting the congregation financially gave meaning to the sisters all their lives, even as they themselves led a frugal existence. They had experienced the Depression firsthand and had stories to tell about begging alongside factories, begging h0use-to-house for summer stipends, or asking for funds by writing letters to family and friends. Today, for some, lotteries and various contests appear to be another source of financial support for the congregation. One sister, clear-minded at ninety-nine, had a lucky streak. Although she lived frugally, I heard rumors of her "having money." Family and friends would buy her lottery tickets and then cash them in for her when she mailed back the winning ticket. Although I was "out of the loop" of direct information about these transactions, I somehow always found out about them. Though some might find gambling question-able in light of the vow of poverty, I waited to see what would happen eventually, since Sister's participation connected her to others and caused no harm. Sometimes months would pass between rumors of her winnings and her eventual cash donation of $200 or $300. The happiness she radiated sent the message that even at ninety-nine she could contribute to the community. She rarely wanted anything for herself. Suspicions about a breach of her vow disappeared. I have often noticed with what pride the sisters contribute their Christmas, birthday, Easter, and anniversary donations to the communal kitty, expecting my gratitude as they do so. I appreciate what they do, but I have encouraged them to find meaning in other parts of their lives too. Their very presence in love, patience, and faith is a meaningful gift to the community, to their families, and to all who witness their kindness. I have invited them to look for ways of spreading the Good News in and beyond the community. I have tried to be attentive to the I have often noticed with what pride the sisters contribute their Christmas, birthday, Easter, and anniversary donations to the communal kitty. March-April 2002 Wodarczyk * Aging ordinary things they accomplish or experience, and I have lis-tened affirmingly as they speak about what they did and are doing with their lives. I have learned, too, about meaning that is not initially obvious. Sister Gina was a "collector." Her room was filled with any-thing and everything. Some might call it clutter. One day she said to me, "You know, when I die, people will complain about all the stuff I left behind. Some have already asked me to clean things up. But I want you to know something. Now that I can go nowhere, I have brought into my room all kinds of things that bring to mind the wonderful friends I have had in my life. These things always make me happy, and I pray for these peo-ple as well." When Sister Gina died, I took care of her things quietly, without others knowing, needing to respect the gen-uineness of her words to me. Most of this "junk" humbly con-veyed love and friendship and gave meaning to Sister Gina's last days. An Incarnational Spirituality When our sisters come to the Manor, transportation diffi-culties and their declining health limit their activity. Two things seem to arise in the absence of formal ministry. There is some-times an unhealthy focus on self and on the "world" of the Manor. Small matters become major concerns. Negativity can result. Teresa of Avila saw such problems in her cloistered monastery.9 There is perhaps no one remedy, but I have seen changes for the better when sisters choose other avenues of ser-vice or ministry or other activities compatible with their new status and their personal limitations. The healthiest and happiest in the Manor were those who were able to rechannel their formation-for-ministry in creative ways. Writing letters to friends, family members, and politi-cians and intercessory prayer for the needs of others are integral to the sisters' lives and are a genuine service they render. Decorating the chapel for feasts, participating as readers or Eucharistic ministers during the litu#gies, companioning another to the physician, sending get-well cards to the hospitalized, and visiting the "second floor" are but a few of the ways the sisters incarnate their love for God in service to their neighbor. Their Review for Religious humble acceptance of their limitations and their patient strug-gles day by day become invaluable tools in building up the body of Christ, as those who are touched by their witness can testi@. For the sisters, their personal sufferings take on deeper mean-ing as they offer them for the intentions of people who have requested their prayer and support. Perhaps some ecumenical healing takes place as well, as staff members of different faiths take care of these sisters, who have lived their lives with hearts so attuned to Roman Catholicism. The sisters remain educators, teaching young care-givers about faith, patience, forgiveness, hope, acceptance and nonacceptance of suffering and dying. The sisters, too, are stretched to go beyond the images of a vowed religious life that is past and gone. After fifty years or more of religious life, that is not a small stretch. Sports on television and radio, and movies, books, excur-sions, concerts, and so forth offer relaxation and outreach--for nothing can "separate us from the love of Christ" (Rm 8:35). Some sisters have become mentors or teachers in various spe-cialties. One Sister translated from Polish to English a valu-able book on the foundress of our community, Frances Siedliska. With phones now in every room, telephone ministry to family and friends became possible. Advocacy for human rights and other special interests is also a possible ministry for the sisters. If we live by the truth and in love, we can "grow in all ways into Christ" (Ep 4:15). All these ways of service build the king-dom of love among the family of God; they express the mis-sion of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. "Tell Him to Wait!" Several months ago Sister Helen, our 95-year-old, was quite ill. She ceased to breathe during an MRI, and the hospital staff, acting on impulse rather than consulting her advance directive, resuscitated her. The doctor called me and told me Sister had been placed on a breathing machine. Twenty-four hours later the doctor removed the breathing machine, and, staunchly, Sister Helen survived the ordeal. I visited her in the hospital and reminded her gently, "Sister Helen, you are very ill. Perhaps 1K1 March-April 2002 Jesus will call you soon." "Let him wait," she bellowed; "I'm not dead yet!" I was taken aback, slow to see the humor. Later I reflected: "She has been a baptized Catholic for ninety-five years and a member of our religious community for eighty years. She has prayed each day of those years. She has a profound rela-tionship with God. After eighty years of relating, a certain free-dom of relationship must exist between lovers. How free Love can make us!" Sister Caritas died several years ago, and I especially remem-ber her dying. Racked with fever, in great distress, she held my finger tightly--so firmly that it reminded me of what my friend Maureen told me about a birth. Her sister's husband was on a business trip, and Maureen was in the delivery room with her sister. Her sister grasped her hand so tightly during the birth that Maureen needed several weeks of hand therapy afterward. While grasping my finger, Sister Caritas, too, was being born, born into eternal life. I have been with others who have died, not all struggling as did Sister Caritas. Some have gone to the Lord gently. Others have chosen to stop treatment and accepted the palliative care that became part of that choice. Some died after years, months, or a few days of being bedridden; others, while taking a nap. Each "birthing" has been different, each one very final, each one inviting me to deepen my belief in the life hereafter. Here at the Manor--or anywhere, of course--other kinds of dying occur earlier, before that actual moment. Every stage of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's death-and-dying theory is lived out here: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.1° Are some stages more appropriate, more holy, than others? ls the sis-ter in denial less effective in dealing with dying than the one who is angry and displacing it at every available opportunity? And the one who bargains--"If I keep on living on the third floor, I'll never get like those on the second floor"--is she less holy than the one whose depression shows all over her face and in her every bodily move? And is she still less holy than the one who grieves her loss, accepts additional personal help, gently accepts the everyday deaths and dyings that are part of human experience? I think there can be no comparisons here. When one strug-gles in the face of d~ath, regardless of what type, the struggle is Review for Religious real. "It remains true," as Pope John Paul has observed, "that the years pass quickly, and the gift of life, for all the effort and pain it involves, is too beautiful and precious for us ever to grow tired of it." 1, And so we struggle and deny, are angered, bargain, and are depressed. In the end we do accept the reality that has been presented to us by Life. The challenge for me in the Manor community was to have faith in this precious journey and trust that the increasing pains are redemptive. I chose to permit people to be themselves: I challenge, but do not force. Rather, I wait in patience for God's grace to touch hearts and hurts and lead all of us into his sacred presence. My Beloved As we religious grow toward accepting death, the inevitable reality shared by all creation, I believe that a life of prayer sustains us. Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return . It is a Light within which illuminates the face of God. for the spiritual person is forever bringing all affairs down into the light, holding them there in the Presence, reseeing [sic] them and the whole of the world., in a new and overturning way.12 A life of prayer is different for each of us: some tending to more prescribed prayers, others to a more wordless prayer. What is common about prayer life is the deep relationship with God that is so special and so sacred to each one. Inscribed on each sis-ter's profession ring are the words "My Beloved is mine and I am His," from the Song of Songs (2:16). She not only wears that ring, she lives that reality. Recently I was asked to be the community witness when Sister Ann's casket was closed. Before burial we normally remove from the deceased our congregational cross and ring. On this occasion the undertaker could not remove the ring. I advised him to leave it and close the coffin. Reflecting on this moment afterwards, I considered it to be as symbolic as the ring itself. Sister Ann, orphaned as a child, surrendered herself to God March-April 2002 Wodarczyk * Aging through her vows and eventually, as Alzheimer's disease kept taking its toll, was stripped of family, friends, and even cogni-tion. The one thing that remained was the reality: she was her Beloved's and her Beloved was hers. The sisters at the Manor foster that relationship with their Beloved in many ways, including personal and communal prayer. Communally we have had to vary our prayer style here. Because of impaired hearing and sight and various other physical limi-tations, we no longer say Office in common. But the sisters pray faithfully --in their rooms, in the chapel, at Mass, on the porch, while walking outdoors or in the corridors, and during our spe-cial Friday mornings in the chapel. When they are very ill, they may say they cannot pray, and some are troubled by this. Others say that they are simply united with Jesus in their suffering, which is "nothing compared with His." Still others are quiet, their faith wrapping them palpably like a shawl. At times faith grows in darkness. It is no small discomfort when one who has dedicated her ehtire life to God questions the existence of God. When suffering is too much, "God, O God, why did you abandon me?" becomes the prayer of the day, or week, or even longer. In community, even as we pray in various ways, we journey in prayer together. Just as the psalms pray through the gamut of human emotion, so our lives together become a living psalter. Anlen I cannot think of any richer ministry experience within my thirty-nine years as a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth than the time I spent in service to my sisters at Holy Family Manor. But my two three-year terms as convent superior here have come to an end. "Relieved?" my current provincial superior asked me before announcing my replacement. "Mixed feelings," I mumbled. But I know that this is right and good. My body and my spirit home in on a few words in my Moses poem: "Take offyour shoes, believe in your Moses, and go." Now they have a fuller meaning: ". go, relax awhile, and then, changed by this burning-bush experience of yours, go on and minister to whatever people I, your God, choose for you!" I respond: Amen. Review for Religious Notes l Jane Marie Thibault, A Deepening Love Affair: The Gift of God in Later in Life (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1993). 2 The welcoming service was composed by Sister Therese Frankowski. 3 The names of most of the sisters in this article have been changed. 4 Henri J.M. Nouwen, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1987). s Henri J.M. Nouwen, Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994). 6 David Snowden PhD, Aging with Grace: What the Nuns' Study Teaches Us about Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives (New York: Bantam Press, 2001). 7 Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence, trans. John Beevers (New York: Image Books, 1975), p. 34. ~ Caussade, p. 37. 9 The Way of Perfection, chap. 4. ,0 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1969). '~ John Paul II, Letter to the Elderly (1 October 1999), §1. ,z C.S. Lewis, as cited in A Step Beyond: Advanced Training in Pastoral Bereavement Counseling (Archdiocese of New York: The Ministry to the Bereaved, November 1994), p. 32. School Day, 1947 I am seven, on my way to school, crisp snow sparkles in the sun. As I walk along, I reflect that some day a man will offer me a diamond ring, but today God himself has hurled thousands at my feet. Mary Hanson ~larch-April 2002 HELEN JEAN NOVY Coping with Repetition: A Spirituality for Ministering to the Elderly ~ehncoeuthneter rds uwriinthg tfhaem eilldye rvlyis iotfst eonr ifnovromlvael mdeianliisntgry w, iothur their habits of repetition. I have overheard "Dad, you say the exact same thing every time I come," and I have heard myself saying "Mom, you ask me that again and again." The proverb "Variety is the spice of life" inclines us to assume variety as a condition of anyone's continuing interest or at least as a lively attention getter. Repetition, however, is a necessary complement to variety. A systematic interplay of repetition and variation is a sine qua non for the arts. Consider the structure of sonatas or the form of songs. Aaron Copland's "Simple Gifts" in Appalachian Spring is an example of theme and variations, as is Max Reger's Variations on "America." In prayer, too, there is repetiton and variation. Christians regularly praying the Liturgy of the Hours, for example, are so accustomed to Morning Prayer's psalms for Week One that most know them by heart. Their predictability provides a rhythm that matches the regularity of breathing. But along with this comes the season's or feast's antiphon, giving a turn to the verses of the psalm and in a sense reinventing them. Helen Jean Novy HM is director of mission effectiveness at Magnificat High School; 20770 Hilliard Road; Rocky River, Ohio 44116. Review for Religious For Sunday of the First Week in Ordinary Time, this antiphon begins and ends Psalm 63: "As morning breaks I look to you, O God, to be my strength this day." The antiphon suffuses the psalmist's words that follow: "O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water." For the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, a different anti-phon frames the same psalm w"I know the one whom I have trusted"--and gives it a different tinge: "O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water." The synoptic Gospels, echoing each other in recounting the same events and sayings, do it with small yet significant differences. Compare the healing of Peter's mother-in-law in Mark 1 .'31 ("he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her"), in Luke 4:39 ("he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her"), and in Matthew 8:15 ("he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up"). Might these considerations guide our responses to the repetitiousness of elderly people who have debilities of memory or concentration? Each encounter with another person, even though seemingly routine, is a new arid original encounter. Both parties are changed by the passing of time--by the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual experiences of the intervening time--even if only minutely. Health has improved or declined; the weather has turned warmer or cooler; clothes are brighter or more uniform; the staff has been updated or has had a turnover; the family has been reunited or suffered a loss; a sacrament has been received or a prayer prayed. "No need to recall the past. I am doing a new thing" (Is 43:18-19). Could Yahweh God be doing this new thing daily? God indeed adds yeast to the dough of the soul, lets it work, and gives it the kneading it requires: prayer and contemplation, opportunities for good works and self-sacrifice, active or passive Perhaps the most mutually soothing response to unceasing repetitions is a silent laying on of hands, a gentle and loving touch. I67 March-April 2002 Novy ¯ Coping witb Repetition suffering, or simply love's perpetually re-creating thoughts and deeds and words. Does it take yeoman patience to hear the same questions, the same comments, the same concerns day in and day out, hour by hour, and even minute by minute? Of course, those who minister have to work on themselves, cultivating a reliable equanimity and ideally a blend of knowing tolerance and psychological and spiritual understanding: Thank heaven she can still respond., what a grace that we can still interact., how humbling that he takes his own debility in stride., bow merciful that she is unaware., what a gift.t that I can encounter the very Christ in the simplicity and vulnerability of this person. Perhaps the most mutually soothing response to unceasing repetitions is a silent laying on of hands, a gentle and loving touch. Only by taking the tensions and strains of working with the sick-elderly to prayer again and again will ministers discover each person as an "imago Christi, a living analogue of the crucified Christ. As they do this, the ministers themselves will be molded into other Christs. They may find themselves praying the antiphons and psalms of the Liturgy of the Hours in the persona of Christ in the sick-elderly: "For you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water." In the purview of faith, while the soul of the minister is being tuned to a new pitch, the souls of those they minister to become new songs. The Spirit sings through the adaptive constancy of the one and the dulling repetitions of the others, harmonizing both in the mystery of Divine Providence's unfathomable workings. G.K. Chesterton suggested that we should not take for granted the rising of the sun. Such a glorious phenomenon may well depend on the childlike delight of God calling for an encore: "Do it again, Sun!" Ultimately, deepening spirituality will not only expect the unexpected; it will expect the familiar, the recurring, the repetitious. It will perceive even the annoyance of repetition as a melodic refrain within the grand orchestration ¯ of God. Review for Religious JOAN WAGNER Medaille's "Means" and Religious Life's Renewal At our last meeting, in June 1998, I attempted to show that the primitive documents of the Sisters of St. Joseph indicate that apostolic endeavors have deep mystical foundations. In the present paper I examine other aspects of these primitive documents, aspects that pertain especially to the communal life of small communities that undertake apostolic ministry. Because this article focuses on the spiritual and apostolic insights of Father Jean-Pierre Medaille SJ, it is intended especially for those who walk in his tradition, but also for all professed religious who seek the deepening of their community life and their apostolic action. I will focus on six "means" derived from Father Medaille's writings, but first I draw your attention to two Scripture passages that were of major importance for Medaille: Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a p rspecliv s Joan Wagner ssJ presented this paper in Milwaukee in June 2001 at the fifth triennial meeting of the Conference on the History of Women Religious. Her address is Little Design Community; 171 Schiller Street; Buffalo, New York 14206. March-April 2002 Wagner * Medaille's "Means" servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Ph 2:5-11) That they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them that they may be one even as we are. one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become per-fectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. (Jn 17:21-23) I think that adopting Father Medaille's "means" could help contemporary religious to practice the emptying spoken of in Philippians and thereby achieve the unions spoken of in John's Gospel. After discussing these "means," I will offer some concrete proposals for living them. The new community to which I belong, the community of the Little Design, is attempting to establish its communal life on "the means of Medaille." Clarifying the Scope of Medaille's "Means" The six "means" that I will be discussing cannot be found at any one location within the Primitive Documents of the Sisters of St. Joseph. In fact, nowhere in Medaille's writings did he use the term "means" as I use it in this article. It is a concept that was first formed in the latter decades of the 20th century, that is, three hundred years after Medaille, by a commentator on the Primitive Documents, Sister Julie Harkins of the Boston Sisters of St. Joseph. I first encountered Sister Julie's work when I attended a charism retreat that she gave in Wichita, Kansas. In her presentation she referred to "six central means found in the lived experience of our first sisters to maintain unity among themselves and to be apostolic communities of love." Even as I Review for Religious taped her presentation at that conference, I felt that her ideas and concepts about Medaille's approach were truly a treasure. It seemed to me that Medaille had applied St. Ignatius Loyola's Rules for Discernment in a new way, using at the communal level the retreat pedagogy of reflection on experience. He adapted those rules to unlettered and diverse groups of women, to assist them in becoming apostolic communities of love. Other interpreters of the Primitive Documents of the Sisters of St. Joseph such as Sister Vacher and Sister de Vaublanc have analyzed the practices that Medaille proposed for the early sisters. Not all of these commentators would agree that the six "means" identified by Sister Julie Harkins capture the heart of Medaille's approach. Other phrasings and other lists of "means" have been proposed. It has also been suggested that Medaille's approach can be represented by one expansive "means," the sisters' sharing their hearts unreservedly. To shed additional light on whether I-Iarldns's six "means" adequately represent Medaille's approach, I suggest that we consider how difficult it would be to distill the central practices recommended by St. Paul. We know that Paul wrote extensively about the living of the Christian life. (His writings are far more extensive than Medaille's even if we consider all the Maxims and other Primitive Documents to be authentically his.) How then to express the central "means" of St. Paul? One commentator might comb through his writings and identify six "means" as central. Another might determine that there are actually four or eight or one. Obviously there is much room for disagreement. Keep in mind, then, that there are various ways of presenting the essence of Medaille's approach even as I now list Harkins's six "means." I advocate them as the basis of the community life of religious women, today--but always understanding their meaning within the Gospels' call to discipleship. Please note, too, that in Harldns's list there are two dimensions in Means 2 (and perhaps in Means 3 as well). And there is some overlapping among the various "means" since the boundaries among them are not tightly drawn. Finally, note that Means 6 is phrased in such a broad, all-encompassing way that it seems to subsume the preceding five "means." Here, then, is Sister Julie Harkins's list of Medaille's "means": 171 March-April 2002 _Wag~, er ¯ Medaille's "Means" 1. Sharing experiences and feelings in prayer and doing so with candor and simplicity (Reglements, p. 9 par. 6). 2. Sharing the state of the house (outer as well as inner) and sharing the next step to which ofie is called (Reglements, p. 8 par. 4; Primitive Constitutions, p. 16 par. 1; p. 21 par. 4, 5, 6; p. 39 par. 6; p. 51 par. 8). 3. Sharing the dangers (evils) that threaten community life; protesting (promising) to safeguard what will safeguard the common union (Primitive Constitutions, pp. 58-66; Protestations, pp. 67-68). 4. Sharing what is our city and dividing the city among ourselves to discover the evils and to work for their healing (Primitive Constiitutions, p. i1 par. 6; p. 29 par. 9; p. 30 par. 1-3; p. 31 par. 1-2). 5. Sharing with each other how through works of service they are building the kingdom of love among the dear neighbors and the members of the community (Reglements, p. 8 par. 4; Primitive Constitutions, p. 17 par. 2). 6. Fidelity to the core spirituality: being grouped in honor of the Father, Son, and Spirit; Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Maxims of Perfection, pp. 21-22; Reglements, pp. 4-5; Primitive Constitutions, pp. 12 and 57). Putting Medaille's "Means" into Practice You can see that the first three "means" listed pertain to spiritual bonding within the community; they deal primarily with discernment of spirits as a way of life. The next two "means" pertain to discerning the apostolic and prophetic stance to which the community may be called; these "means" address discernment as a decision-making process. Finally, the sixth "means" stands above the others and informs all of them inasmuch as it focuses upon the mystical relationships that are at the heart of the calling that Medaille identified for the Sisters of St. Joseph. I am keenly excited about having our Little Design community underway. This small community employs Medaille's own term, and it represents the fulfillment of a dream for refoundation that I have had for forty years. (Be it known, however, that at least one other person has called this dream my Review for Religious obsession.) As I write, this house is only three months old and at present has only two members. We have good hopes of attracting other young women who are interested in a life that is based on these six "means" of becoming an apostolic community of love. Let us now consider Medaille's first "means": sharing experiences and feelings in prayer and doing so with candor and simplicity. I will first try to explain why I feel that this is important, and then I will offer some recommendations about how to practice such sharing. The mystery of faith revealed to us in Scripture, particularly in Paul and John, is that all of history is now sacred history. This is the impact of the incarnation on our daily life (note--in Philippians 2:6-11, one of the passages cited above--the relevance of Paul's theology). All of our ordinary daily life is filled with God drawing our human consciousness to God's Self. God desires for us an ever-growing love and participation in the life of Jesus. This goes on in each moment of our human experience, and it registers as a thought, a tendency, a mood, a feeling. (Father George Aschenbrenner SJ has emphasized this approach in his conferences.) It is one thing to believe this. It is another to be deeply aware of it. It is a third step to be keenly sensitive to it. Our response is toward a greater share in living out Jesus' mission (note here the relevance of the John 17 passage on unity). To share within a community (I envision one of three to five sisters) one's experience in prayer presupposes incarnational theology and could move the community from believing to the final stage of responding. Submission to the group mandate for the purpose of growth enables believing, awareness, and sensitivity to develop. And movements of grace obviously become more explicit when inner awareness moves to vocal articulation. Sharing one's prayer experience with candor and simplicity is a demanding endeavor. An emptying is required, but I believe it leads to a new depth of communal unity if it is done in faith, All of our ordinary daily life is f!lled with God drawing our human consciousness to God's Self. --!73 Mt~.rcb-dpril 2002 Wagner ¯ Medaille's "Means" trust, and love. This depth is the mystery of God made more manifest in and among ourselves. We become more conscious of the call to respond and to be accountable. How would this be implemented? A possible scenario would be a biweekly gathering at which community members would relate movements of consolation and desolation during their prayer of the previous few days. Journaling after prayer periods would help members to be more responsibly prepared for the group gathering. Those who have had an Ignatian directed retreat will easily identify with this process. At present our small community enters into Morning Praise with a psalm, quiet time to reflect, and then the citing of a word, phrase, or line that was "given." The Gospel for the day is then read aloud. This is followed by a brief period of quiet and a brief time of communal sharing. All of this is done within half an hour and prepares us for deeper listening at liturgy. The content of our prayer in the future may vary, but the communal sharing is integral. Medaille's second "means" has three aspects: sharing the state of the house (outer as well as inner) and sharing the next step to which one is called. "The state of the house" has two meanings: first, the practical details of the community's living quarters. For harmonious living, responsibility and accountability are expected from every member. Such matters as cleaning, shopping for food, preparing meals, paying bills, scheduling prayer, hospitality, and times for silence are basic elements in a well-ordered "house." Honesty prevailing, the community will be aware of members' overextension or ill health, of things needing repair, and so forth. With solutions to be found, the quality presence of each member is important. The ebb and flow of external harmony is guaranteed by this practical sharing. The other "house" is the inner one, the heart. Teresa of Avila in her Way of Perfection notes that in praying it is essential to recognize and own how one is as one stands before the Beloved: weak, grateful, sinful, needy. This ownership of my incarnate self relates me to the incarnate Jesus. In truth, to articulate that inner state demands honesty, probes causes, and elicits understanding. What a sacred gift to offer my sisters: an emptying for the purpose of union,t My creaturely limitation stands naked before the Christ I trust, and before the Body of Review for Religious Christ in my sisters. Transformation in Christ occurs when I share in Jesus' life--in his being child of God and sharer in created human nature. The next aspect of the second "means," sharing the next step to which one is called, flows out of the group's increasing sensitivity. Articulation of deeper desires was a requirement for Jesuit novices, and this may have influenced Medaille to recommend this sharing to the first sisters. Great desires for God need to be fostered into action or they die. One's next step may be small and subtle or grand and significant. It could be to create a dream, to change a pattern of behavior, to attend to one's health, or to begin a new relationship. Such matters require careful handling with regard to the members' personal and communal mission. They begin in the human heart. It was the sharing that Teresa of Avila had with John of the Cross that enabled them to take the next steps for the refoundation of the Carmelite order. It was the vision that Ignatius shared with Francis Xavier that led to his bringing the faith to south and east Asia. Incarnational theology points out that our deepest desires are God-given. The word God gives us is to be spoken and enfleshed. The emptying required in taking next steps in our lives is attested to in the lives of men and women who accomplished much for God. A Saturday morning once a month could be set aside to ensure Medaille's second "means." Although the focus would vary, all aspects of this "means" would be attended to within this leisurely time together. Community members could take turns facilitating a simple process that might begin with listening to a member describe a project that she feels called to initiate. The listening could be followed b~ quiet reflection, questions, and dialogue. In this way one member's hopeful desire would be gracefully fostered and nurtured or deemed unsuitable or temporarily tabled for deeper discerning. At present our Little Design community gathers in the community room on Saturday mornings for about an hour and a Incarnational theology points out that our deepest desires are God-given. March-April 2002 H~ner * Medaille'~ "Means" half, a time we consider sacred. Because we are a new community, we do this every Saturday unless some special event interferes. We realize, too, that it is easy to spend too much time on the "outer" house, and so we strive to ensure the more interior and bonding elements of this second "means." Medaille's third "means" is sharing the dangers (evils) that threaten community life, protesting (promising) to safeguard what will safeguard the common union. One might ask wh

Part two of an interview with Julia Casey. Topics include: Food that was purchased and prepared when Julia was growing up. Formalities between the Italians in her neighborhood. How the children would play. The Roxbury neighborhood house that started a girls club and the types of activities they participated in. The nurses and doctors who would visit the neighborhood. Home remedies for sickness. How Julia and her husband met. How their marriage was received by their families. What it means to be Italian. Julia did not grow up in a religious community. What it was like to move to Fitchburg from Boston. The different expectations of boys and girls in Julia's family. Julia's children and their jobs. How speaking proper Italian has benefited Julia. ; 1 JULIA: In, in these little -- I mean, they still have the same candleholders. I've got them on my dining room table, but, but they didn't have -- I don't remember the candles. I remember these little wicks. I'm gonna ask my friend about that. And they would float on top, and you would think it would be kind of dangerous, wouldn't you? But I still remember these little candles they would keep bringing. Now, that was one of the customs, but they have special foods on the 19th of March. It was I think the Feast of St. Joseph, if I'm not mistaken. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, it is. Mm-hmm. JULIA: And the lady across the street would make that little Italian pasta they called orzo, and I think it was a type of barley. They would make the actual grain itself and the orzo pasta, O-R-Z-O—you can buy it in any market today—it was shaped like that. But they would make a dish from, I think, I think it might've been barley, and they made that on the Feast of St. Joseph. That was the custom where they came from. INTERVIEWER: Did they also make -- I don't remember what it's called -- but fried dough, little pizzas? JULIA: No, that was not, not common. I didn't know any -- no, and we didn't eat pizza, not like they do today. I know that my father, there was a barroom about a mile away from us, an Italian barroom in another Italian section, and that then made pizzas. And very, very seldom did I ever know of anyone who made pizza. You know, one of the ways that they did was they used to dip bread in tomato sauce, which is all pizza is, but I never actually knew families who made pizza. That didn't come into fashion until long after the war. INTERVIEWER: So living with all of these different people, no one really made pizzas? JULIA: No, no one made pizza that I knew of, you know.2 INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. JULIA: And nobody made lasagna. And raviolis, very seldom did anybody make raviolis. Why, I remember that in the [Piedmontese] family they would make these very fine Italian sausages with white wine, you know. Some of them made bread, but it was a problem because the bread man from the Italian, the big Italian bakeries in Boston, would come through the street. We -- they went out shopping but they went out mostly to buy different kinds of meat and specialties. But we had food then, clocks with fresh food, fish. The chicken man came, vegetable man came through the streets, and the women would just buy what they needed right on the street. On Saturdays they'd go shop; everybody went out with bags. They'd go into downtown Boston and buy special things that they, you know, couldn't get, but for the most part they went shopping once a week. They would go to their special stores to buy, you know, different kinds of spaghetti and pasta. They used to buy them in big boxes, some of the families, 10, 20-pound boxes of fine -- long, long spaghetti. And they didn't have the varieties that they have now, you know, but I mean, if they wanted salamis they'd have to go to the Italian delicatessens where they sold the different kinds of salami and everybody ate different kinds, you know. My father would go in and bring home these packages. The markets -- we went to the -- in the north, and with Petrini and Baldini, and they would slice the salami paper-thin and they'd weigh it out on gorgeous pieces of wax paper in beautiful, even rolls, every kind all rolled up. You know, he'd bring them home and we'd go crazy. Italian bread and salami, those are our idea of living, prosciutto, you know, salame crudo, salame cotto, [unintelligible - 00:05:11]. And they used to make -- my mother made lintels with a special, big liver sausage and other kinds of, 3 you know, pork sausage, and that was a dish that they had once in a while. So the food was very -- it was, whatever house you went into there was a different tradition. Every region had different… INTERVIEWER: Was there a lot of sharing? JULIA: No. I wouldn't say that, no. There was -- they maintained, really, a great deal of respect and formality. You know my mother lived with these families, 13, 18, 20 years, she would never think of going downstairs without, you know, knocking on the door and saying permesso when someone answered. You always said permesso before you entered. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. JULIA: She -- and they referred to each other as signora. They didn't call each other by their first names for many, many, many years, you know. INTERVIEWER: Even with the… JULIA: Unless they were said, unless you were told, you know, "Call me Angelina," "Call me Celestina." They knew the first names, but they really observed quite a formality. INTERVIEWER: Is that among people even in the same region, from…? JULIA: No, if they were from the same region, you know, then they would call each other that, that way. But from another area, until they got to really know each other, quite a while, you know. They -- some of the southern Italians worked in stitching shops. We had a family who had a pants -- he was in manufactured pants, and various of his women relatives and men relatives were in downtown Boston, you know. Most of them did well; they were frugal people. Their children bought automobiles, very few of the originals, you know, immigrants, bought any. So we had a kind of a clear street for playing. That's why we were able to play jump rope and hoist the 4 green sail and red rover and hide and seek. We played all these games on the street. The girls who were a little bit older than we were, they'd come out of the laundries, and if we'd be playing double-dutch jump rope, they'd come and swing -- we're talking long clotheslines -- swinging long clotheslines in the street, double-dutch, you know. Now, I think only the black girls do it, very complicated. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, the cities. I think it's popular in the cities still. JULIA: Yeah. Well, now you have too many cars. You don't have any clear spaces to play things like that. The boys made -- what do they call them, I don't know, scooters out of roller skates of two by fours on orange crates [laughter] and go whizzing along the street with these homemade things, you know. INTERVIEWER: Did the girls ever do that? Do they ever borrow these scooters? JULIA: No, we were, we were not tomboys. As I said, our mothers kept an eye on us, and they would play stickball, the boys. We would play catch, among the girls. But -- and we belonged to a settlement house, a bunch of us did, and they took us to camp… INTERVIEWER: Was there any…? JULIA: In fact, I still have a picture of a group of us. INTERVIEWER: The settlement house, was there any…? JULIA: The Roxbury neighborhood house on Albany Street, which was there for, maybe, 50, 75 years. Its special work was to help the immigrants integrate into American ways of society, and they provided clubs. Somebody came to our street and started up a library, a girls' club, and as a result of that group -- and it was one of the Boston's Brahm-, a woman from the Boston Brahmin family who, you know, belonged to -- this was their way of doing social work, women that were brought up very well-educated in the Back Bay or Beacon Hill area of Boston, belonged to these old families 5 whose, many of whose ancestors had made their money on merchant ships, you know. And that was one of the works that they did. And they take to our street, and the street next to ours, and they started a girls' club. They would bring books, and we learned to do a little crafts, knitting, and then eventually, we joined the neighborhood house and they had a camp in Bennington, New Hampshire, to which we went, and they would take us to wealthy homes for once a year, say, for picnics out in the country. And then at the neighborhood house, we put on plays. I remember one time we went to Simmons College, and a group of us put on a play, Little Lord Fauntleroy. One of us had a green velvet costume, put it on for the students, and then we danced, and we talked about different things. And as I said, we did some crafts and they encouraged whatever they saw, for instance, they -- I liked classical music. I don't know why because, you know, I mean, in that generation very few people had pianos—but they did have phonographs, you know. We didn't. But somehow I was attracted to classical music and I was able to get tickets to the youth concerts at Symphony Hall through the neighborhood house. And it was wonderful, you know. In fact, the girls that grew up after us did the same thing. They belonged to the neighborhood house and had their own little group. INTERVIEWER: Now, is this a place that really catered to the Italians? JULIA: No, it catered to -- Roxbury was sort of in the area, there were a lot of Italians there, but it didn't cater to them especially. There were people, you know, from other groups and this -- the odd part was that our neighborhood was not connected to any other neighborhood. It was isolated; that's what made it so close. Many of the young people that grew up there married each other. That's one of the reasons that the families maintained contacts, you know. 6 A number of people that I knew married other people from the neighborhood, and so from one, you would hear the news of what's going on with others even though they lived in faraway suburbs through those family connections. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. JULIA: But we didn't interact with other Italian neighborhoods at all. We had this industrial area that we had a big playground that the kids on my street didn't use very well, and it was right next to our elementary school. But our families would never let us go to these industrial areas in the afternoon or night; that's why we were confined to our streets. INTERVIEWER: And that's where you'd play. JULIA: Right. INTERVIEWER: So when you were part of the Roxbury neighborhood house, was that your first exposure, really, to other ethnic groups? JULIA: But we stayed together; the girls from my street stayed together in their own group, and we did not interact unless we were -- and we put on our own little plays. Oh, we put on a supper one night for the staff of the neighborhood house, the head of it. Dear God, what was her name? Her brother was a very, a world-famous Shakespearean actor. I can still see him now—tall and thin, with great refinement. These women were all college graduates. Some of them had gone to the Simmons School of Social Work. At that time that was a very important area of study. You know, at the house in Chicago, these women became -- well, it was called social workers but not the same way as they do in the Welfare Department. This was real social work. And the house was an offshoot of the settlement house movement that started with our house in Chicago. They had them all over the east, eastern part of the country, you know, so they'd seen all 7 different kinds of ethnic groups. But they were very refined women. They taught piano, they taught music, and they had a library. They got college girls to come in and help tutor students who wanted to be tutored. They provided many services. They went out into the neighborhoods. And they, along with our elementary school nurse, provided wonderful medical services for those neighborhoods. My sister, who was born two years after I was—I said she was my brother's twin—was very seriously brain-damaged, and the result of that was that, you know, my mother's life was pretty terrible for the -- until she died, she was a serious epileptic, at ten. INTERVIEWER: She was epileptic until she was ten? Is that it? JULIA: She died when she was eleven. INTERVIEWER: Old enough. JULIA: At the age of ten, when she was about ten or eleven, my mother found herself pregnant with my youngest sister. And the visiting nurses used to come to the street, whom I think, it might've been through the Metropolitan Insurance Company. They would come in their blue uniforms, and they would visit all these Italian women who had any need for any kind of medical service. If one of them was pregnant, she came and spoke to you and advised you how to take care of yourself. She did the prenatal work. You didn't go to the hospital or a doctor if she advised you, but she did notify the hospital of when the birth was expected. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. JULIA: But she gave you, you know, information on good health and hygiene and what you needed to eat. Because the Italian women, they were naturals at this, except my mother, who had grown up in a family that was extremely reserved and she knew absolutely nothing when she came. You know, they didn't -- you grew up in Italian families in rural areas, then you, knew because they taught. 8 And, in fact, my mother even had a midwife, one of them had midwives who were… they were trained in folk medicine, you know. They weren't like the [unintelligible - 00:18:09]. That was why some of the births were pretty bad. INTERVIEWER: Oh. JULIA: But anyway, they would help each other by, you know, in that way, but they -- the visiting nurses and the school nurse. The school nurse, if she detected a problem with any student in the school, either from information by the teachers or -- we also had physical examinations, and doctors would come in once a year, and physically examine every child. She detected vision problems. If they detected anything, like they would catch phases of diabetes, they would catch all kinds of problems. The visiting nurse would immediately visit that child's family, and she would make the arrangements to have the child sent for examinations at Boston City Mass General, wherever there was specialists for whatever they saw, you went. Once a year you brought five cents, a bus would pull up to the school in relays, and everybody went to the dentist in Forsyth Clinic. For five cents, they did pulling and filling, and this is where the dentists were trained, so the student dentists would take care of you. INTERVIEWER: Do you feel that the settlement house then had changed your life in any way? JULIA: Oh, definitely. You know what? It performed wonderful services. In the first place it taught us, it taught -- besides the playing that we did on the street, it brought us into a little bit more of the American way, you know. It brought a little more cohesion, and we learned to do things that we couldn't have learned on our own. Although, on our street they used to put on, like, shows, so we'd dance in -- strictly amateur, and one of the mothers made crepe 9 paper costumes. She could run them up so rapidly, I could still remember this purple crepe dress that was [laughter] with ruffles and a [unintelligible - 00:20:43] here, a ruffles on the skirt, and I still keep in touch with her daughter. INTERVIEWER: Wow. JULIA: They were clever. This lady would go into the stores and see something in the window, a dress. And she'd fix it in her mind and come home and cut out a pattern out of newspapers from what she remembered, and she would produce dresses for her daughters. INTERVIEWER: So it exposed you more to an American way of life? JULIA: Yeah, it did. And you know, besides our old school teachers, they spoke beautiful English. INTERVIEWER: Were you going to school with mostly Italians? JULIA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Only Italians, or…? JULIA: Well, I would say a lot. The Irish had more or less moved away from that section of Roxbury, even though our parish church was St. Patrick, and the Irish had moved well up beyond Dudley Street because they were by that time much more affluent. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. But it sounds like the neighborhood that you grew up in was so harmonious. JULIA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Did you ever feel any sense of conflict when you went to school or outside the confines of the neighborhood? JULIA: We did. We felt that, so there must've been a lot of what we used to refer to as American kids, who are probably mostly Irish descent. But we didn't have very -- we had hardly anything to do with them at all. There was one Irish family, the Kellys, and they went to parochial school, but actually they married into the Italian community. And that was the only Irish family I knew. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm.10 JULIA: My father had a few Irish tenants who we didn't think too much of. Going to the Depression they would never pay their rents, you know, but then… INTERVIEWER: In that six-family house that your father owned, were there other relatives living in the house? JULIA: No. INTERVIEWER: No? JULIA: No. There were, you know, strange people who came. And during the Depression men sold wine, you know. In fact, even during Prohibition some of them did. We would find taxis coming into the street, and I don't know how people got, you know, the names of people who would sell the wine but if you had no money, or very little money, you made money any way you could, you know. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. JULIA: So. INTERVIEWER: So what about the other families from different regions? Would you call them by regions? JULIA: They were very -- they were, yeah. INTERVIEWER: I heard… JULIA: Calabrese, Baresi, Sicilian, yeah. INTERVIEWER: But when you referred to them I heard you just mentioned a little while ago that… JULIA: Yeah, Piedmontese. We had about four or five Piedmontese family. And of course, their dialect was even different. And that's next to Lombardi, but see, their dialect takes from the [unintelligible - 00:23:56]. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. JULIA: Right. INTERVIEWER: And where does yours? JULIA: More, you know, we -- down to the east of Lombardi is the Venetian province, and then you go up into the Tyrol, which today 11 is bordered by Austria. So the northern Italians, they don't put final vowels on their words. They chop it off, you know. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. So I was -- I've been noticing your pretty green eyes. Where did you get those? JULIA: All Italians have their, you know, you'll -- there's a brown-eyed type, but you can find green-eyed Italians in Sicily. INTERVIEWER: Really? JULIA: Oh, yes. Hazel, you know. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. JULIA: Grey from my mother and father. They didn't have brown eyes. Nobody in my family had brown eyes. INTERVIEWER: Hmm. Wandering in your neighborhood, was there a woman that people would go to for advice, or…? JULIA: On the next street there was a lady who apparently had been, you know -- there were many ways to educate people, have always have been. And some people were very wise. She was in America a lot longer than the other women. She had a big family with grown, with grown-up sons, so she was -- and she came from a family where she was told a great many things and learned many things. So yes, there were some women who knew about things, but since they all came from different regions they all knew their own customs, and they had different ways of treating, you know, headaches, or -- I remember my grandmother used to slice potatoes and put them inside wrapped, fold them into a cloth, and when somebody had a headache, my aunt did that, too. They would put these sacks of potatoes in this cloth; they would just tie the cloth and bath with them. I don't know why. They used to string garlic if they thought a child had worms, and a child would wear this string of garlic around his neck. And if you had a boil, my mother would cook linseed flower. They'd buy them in the drugstore, only in the Italian drugstore, and you would 12 make poultice—that was very common. Some people used bread and water, and you would have this thing on whatever bump you had that you wanted to [unintelligible - 00:26:47]. They were really strep infections, but they didn't know strep infections, you know. There were boils, and if you have a little infection in your finger or thumb, you'd wrap it up in bread and water with a bandage or poultice of some kind. Even the American doctors would recommend them. They'd tell you, you got -- check moisture and heat would cause these things to mature. INTERVIEWER: Did you notice that different regions…? JULIA: They would bring chamomile -- yes, Mrs. Mucci downstairs kept herbs, dried herbs, chamomile and what they referred to in America as mallow [unintelligible - 00:27:41] and I -- if that [unintelligible - 00:27:44] grew here, I had a plant one time. And they would buy these dried herbs at the Italian drugstores, and they would make teas out of them. You would drink them. If you had indigestion, the northern Italians would buy it in liquor stores. It was called Fernet, F-e-r-n-e-t. It's actually an [unintelligible - 00:28:10] in medicine containing a great deal of -- bitter, bitter! But many times you'd go visiting in, after you wake, sometimes before, you would get a tiny glass of Fernet. Branca – that was the trademark. It came in a green bottle. And it was co-, it was a digestive. It was -- because it was so bitter, it was considered to be good for your stomach. INTERVIEWER: So no matter what your age, you would get that? JULIA: Then we -- everybody had Belowski. INTERVIEWER: What's that? JULIA: May I give you either some hot tea or coffee? You must be exhausted. INTERVIEWER: No, I'm fine. I'm fine. It's not much longer. Thank you. JULIA: And get you as hot as broth, or as a broth.13 INTERVIEWER: No, I'm fine. Do you need something? JULIA: I get like this once in a while. But yes, I don't wanna move this thing. INTERVIEWER: I can take it off if you'd like. JULIA: I find the only thing is -- part of the [unintelligible - 00:29:15]. Five months ago he's a co-host by the senior -- high-styled program on FA-TV, so we call him the Mike Wallace… INTERVIEWER: And you've been married [unintelligible - 00:29:32] years? JULIA: [Unintelligible - 00:29:32], Linda. Linda! [Unintelligible - 00:29:35] HUSBAND: Oh, pardon my cold hand. JULIA: That's my husband, Phil. INTERVIEWER: Nice to meet you. HUSBAND: My pleasure. JULIA: In his museum of … in New… museum about neckties that I paid a fortune for. HUSBAND: Well, I sure got TV exposure today. JULIA: Yeah. He get to… who did you interview today? HUSBAND: I interviewed a very interesting 91-year old woodcarver. JULIA: Oh, my heavens. HUSBAND: Louis [Charpentier]. And then that was followed up by a group of Irish step dancers. And I didn't do anything on that, so they just dragged me from dancing, so all I could do was say, hello and goodbye. INTERVIEWER: Oh. HUSBAND: It was frustrating. JULIA: You know, Edcel Johnson wants you to let him know when that program is on now. HUSBAND: Oh, I'd bet they… JULIA: Teddy, too.14 HUSBAND: I bet -- all right. I bet they did that thing so I -- in my notebook there. INTERVIEWER: Was it a cable TV show? JULIA: Yes. It's at ATV. You know, the informational video… HUSBAND: It started innocently enough. I'm on the board for an organization called The Resources for the Elderly, and their primary function is to sponsor the Meals, Meals on Wheels and the Elderly Nutrition Program. Like they some -- it goes back about three, four years ago. It's been quite a while. They started this program—these are all volunteers and all seniors—it's called Senior Lifestyles. And as a TV show material that is supposedly of interest to the seniors, and it, it's partly information and partly entertainment. And so, as I say, I'm on the board for the Resources, and we were having a board meeting, and it just so happened that the woman who was then serving as host for the program for some time decided that that was enough for her, so they're looking for somebody to fill in as a host for the TV show. And one of the board members [woke] up and said, "Mr. Casey would be a good replacement." And somebody else said, "Yes, indeed. He would be great." JULIA: Oh, he loves women. HUSBAND: And I couldn't think of any reason why I couldn't or wouldn't do it, so before I knew it I had been drafted and I was serving as host to it. Then that's what I do. It's on once a month, and they have two half-hour segments. Usually last -- monthly only has one half-hour, but today we have two half-hour segments, and the first one was this Louis Charpentier. And my god, he was -- you know that guy we saw in the coffee shop? JULIA: I thought he was gonna be easy… HUSBAND: No, no, no. This is… JULIA: … interviewing famous carpenter. Oh, Louis Charpentier.15 HUSBAND: … this Louis, he is -- he claims to be 91 years old. JULIA: Oh, my heavens. INTERVIEWER: He looks wonderful. He does. JULIA: Did you see any of his work? INTERVIEWER: No. HUSBAND: I used to… JULIA: I think they have it at the library? HUSBAND: He used to be head of the plastics industry. And the plastics industry was an organization, apparently, that did work for all of the plastic shops in and around… JULIA: When you came with your ham sandwich a little mustardy. INTERVIEWER: I thought… JULIA: I thought you'd have sandwich. You've got to listen to me talk for four hours and have nothing. HUSBAND: Yeah. I'll have a ham sandwich. INTERVIEWER: Well, you have to get those though, because you said you had to wait… HUSBAND: Oh, that's all right. JULIA: I'm gonna call the lady and tell them you're gonna be a little late. HUSBAND: But anywho, this Louis is something else, and he was -- he started his woodcarving when he was only about two years old, apparently, while he had a carving that sold his home up to the farm up in -- well, back and around or back there, and there was the oxen that was plowing, there was his father, there was the house he lived in and his school, the whole bit. INTERVIEWER: So do you interview these people? HUSBAND: I interview them. I try to make intelligent conversation with them. JULIA: I have made intelligent conversations with them. HUSBAND: The thing that makes this fascinating is that I usually don't know until I arrived at the studio who is going to be the guest for the day. INTERVIEWER: Oh, that's difficult.16 HUSBAND: I have to -- I know it was… INTERVIEWER: Oh, Julia was just telling me about the tapes that you found in the [unintelligible - 00:34:30]. HUSBAND: Yes. INTERVIEWER: That's remarkable, especially because here I am two days later. JULIA: I know. INTERVIEWER: All about Italian dinner. JULIA: And on the other tape, what I said -- think it's a, seems to be a little illogical, I was wanting to say the least. In the other tape, you would have to guess who the family Christmas but then I'd read, since I wrote it all out, it's more logical, you know. It's more -- or less of a timely sequence. But I do give you the information I've given you about the broth. INTERVIEWER: Okay. JULIA: And… INTERVIEWER: It'll be interesting to make a… JULIA: Oh, yeah. I'm gonna make myself a sandwich if I can figure out how to open this slice of cheese. INTERVIEWER: Do you want some help? JULIA: Oh, I -- oh, here it is. Heavens! I thought. What's the matter with this? INTERVIEWER: How does your husband feel marrying an Italian? JULIA: It was an adjustment; let us put it that way. INTERVIEWER: Was it? JULIA: I met him… thank you for this. INTERVIEWER: Yes. HUSBAND: Tried one this morning. INTERVIEWER: Oh. So who made these? HUSBAND: The man I interviewed, Louis Charpentier. INTERVIEWER: Oh.17 JULIA: Oh, he gives you -- oh, I've seen him do that at the Historical Society where he teaches you how he got started. HUSBAND: Right. JULIA: And he tries to teach everybody that they can do the same thing. INTERVIEWER: Oh, so he was -- his work is just so good. Oh, he's so… HUSBAND: No, he used to work in plastic. And as I say, he works for -- he works in an organization that designed methods for making just about anything you wanted, buttons or, how do you say, [unintelligible - 00:36:18] or whatever it was called for… JULIA: I know he's just working now. He's in the library and… HUSBAND: No, no. He's retired. JULIA: Yeah. But where is his work? I know he started, he started on display somewhere. HUSBAND: Yes. It's in a home. He has it at home, because I asked him if it was all insured and he said that it was. JULIA: I don't know how… INTERVIEWER: So Phil, let me ask you, how did you feel marrying an Italian? HUSBAND: Oh, wow, it… JULIA: You should ask his mother. HUSBAND: No, we -- and now seriously, we had a problem. It's not because I married an Italian, no. It's just that my mother didn't particularly like Julia, unfortunately. I'm not sure what the root of her prejudice was. It might have been because of her heritage, or it might have been just because my mother didn't want me to get married at that point, although I was not exactly a teenager. I had come home from the war, and I was a book. But whatever reason or reasons my mother had she didn't actually… didn't actually -- she didn't oppose the marriage, but she didn't support it, and she didn't even show up for it. My father and my sister came. JULIA: Though she was my [unintelligible - 00:37:48], she cooked. She was great to the children.18 HUSBAND: Oh, yeah. That's right. She loved the, she loved her grandchildren. She was very -- and they had a great time. JULIA: She was very generous to me in many ways. HUSBAND: My son approved of Grandma's cooking, and they had a good time visiting her. And we all, every holiday, we make sure that there was a delegation that went to Grandma, though we tried and made a compromise. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. Now, did you -- where did you grow up? HUSBAND: I grew up in Roxbury prior to the days when Roxbury had the… with the ethnic… JULIA: Now it is. HUSBAND: It is now. When I was -- I was there prior to that. INTERVIEWER: Thank you. JULIA: Lemon juice? INTERVIEWER: Thank you. HUSBAND: And by one of those strange coincidences, Julia lived the one part of Roxbury, I was in another. We had never laid eyes on each other before the war. Did she tell you about how…? INTERVIEWER: No. I don't know how you met. No. HUSBAND: Well, we met -- it was like something out of one of those [unintelligible - 00:39:12] that tells -- she had that series of how people tell how they -- I was in the Navy during World War II in an organization called the [CVs], and I was stationed overseas in New Guinea. I met her brother, who was in the combat engineers, and there was this [unintelligible - 00:39:37]. So I got to know him, and his platoon was involved in the invasion of the Philippines. They were moving out agents. So he said to me, he said, "Phil," he said, "we're going to be cut off from correspondence for a while. Would you do me a big favor and write to my mother and tell her that if you don't hear from me, not to worry, I'm all right?" So I said, "Sure, all right." And I did 19 that, I wrote to his mother, and his mother who was living in Roxbury, I sent a letter to Washington where my girlfriend was thankfully employed as a government girl. And I -- with instructions for her to answer this letter. So she answered the letter, and Julia and I started corresponding, and that's how we get to know each… JULIA: Fifteen months. HUSBAND: And then after the war, when I came home, I… JULIA: It was all over. HUSBAND: And then there… INTERVIEWER: What? What was all over? JULIA: It was all over. He was hooked. INTERVIEWER: Oh, he was flirting as soon as he saw you. HUSBAND: Then there was some kind of a breakdown in the romance, and we had separated. [Unintelligible - 00:41:00] and we get back together again and we could get married in 19… INTERVIEWER: How did her parents feel about her marrying an Irishman? HUSBAND: Oh, as far as I know… JULIA: Horrible. HUSBAND: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Oh, with him? JULIA: My father… HUSBAND: There was a point in time when her father didn't care who she marries and who would take her off his hands. INTERVIEWER: Oh. JULIA: I was going to [unintelligible - 00:41:24]. HUSBAND: Yeah. I was even supposed to get a bicycle, a motorcycle for marrying her. JULIA: "Philly, I give you motorcycle [unintelligible - 00:41:34]." HUSBAND: No, but she… JULIA: You better [unintelligible - 00:41:38]20 HUSBAND: Neither one of those gifts materialized so, anyhow. No, I liked her father and mother. And of course, I had -- I was very friendly with her brother and sister. And so, we had the wedding, and that was a [unintelligible - 00:41:57] together. INTERVIEWER: How was she different from the, let's say, Irish girls that you went to school with? HUSBAND: Oh, she was a different. -- I didn't actually – I didn't know that many girls when I was going to school because you have to remember that when I was going to school, this was in the days when the boys went to one school and the girls went to another. Boy's school was an English high school. JULIA: But in elementary school… HUSBAND: Elementary was all boys because of… JULIA: Oh, you did? HUSBAND: Yeah. That's -- I went to the all… JULIA: Oh, I didn't know that. HUSBAND: With the nuns [unintelligible - 00:42:34]. JULIA: Well, I was actually the first female person you ever met. HUSBAND: No, not exactly. I met… JULIA: You may have seen New Guinea. HUSBAND: You have to define, there, the word "met." Kind of -- you were the first female that I was—let's put it this way—that I little became involved with. JULIA: Well. No. That's enough. INTERVIEWER: Well, we're in all kinds of things today. JULIA: Are you gonna have a ham sandwich? HUSBAND: Yes. I'll have a ham sandwich. So what is this project here? INTERVIEWER: This is a project that's recording the experiences of -- by Italian-American family in the Fitchburg and Leominster area. HUSBAND: Oh, yes.21 INTERVIEWER: But we had seen Julia at a -- one of the Italian night, the films that Fitchburg State College had put on, and Julia started talking extensively after the movie, Big Night, I think it was called Big Night. HUSBAND: Yes. INTERVIEWER: And we realized it was someone that maybe we'd like to talk to because she seems to know so much about the culture. HUSBAND: Yeah. And she is the one member of her family that has -- that is interested in the [unintelligible - 00:43:57] of the family extensively. JULIA: I was also the first one born in this country of my family. INTERVIEWER: Your family. HUSBAND: She was born in this country, which makes her an Italian-American, but she maintained contact, through her mother, maintained contact with Italy. She knows how to speak Italian, including the dialects of northern Italy. And now she is in the process of learning how to speak… INTERVIEWER: Right. HUSBAND: She's starting again. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Now, were there any surprises though when you married…? JULIA: Yeah. Seven. INTERVIEWER: That's -- wow. Seven children, right. But the Italian culture, I'm wondering… HUSBAND: No, I didn't have any problem with that. I was very fond of her family. Wherever her family gathered then there was a party. And her family had always been most cordial to me. INTERVIEWER: What do your children consider themselves? HUSBAND: They consider -- when they think about it, they… you probably have to ask them how much they consider themselves to be Italian. JULIA: More than half. HUSBAND: Well, I don't know whether they really think about it.22 JULIA: They went to the parochial school in Dorchester, and their last name was Casey. So they fit right in. Even though there were a lot of Italians. And by this time, Dad is gone. You know, we're not immigrants anymore. Your father was a professional man who's a graduate of Boston College, and so that they didn't have to go through that. They… HUSBAND: I came up here; this is the first place I've ever been to where they couldn't spell Casey. They would actually went, "Case-, how do you spell that?' And I thought at first they were kidding me, because down in the Boston area there was a very large population of Irish-Americans. There's still a lot of Irish down there, some of them from Ireland itself, and some of them are there illegally. INTERVIEWER: And what traditions do you try to carry on in your family? JULIA: Well, the traditions are that they know that I'm intensely interested in the Italian part of the family. I have furniture, for instance. I have, you know, [unintelligible - 00:46:38] for years and other pieces that my mother gave me when she was… HUSBAND: They have -- girls have a lot of respect for Italian culture, and one of them had been over to Italy. Take your time. JULIA: This was an -- how did you get involved with this? INTERVIEWER: I'll call you all out when it's all right because… JULIA: Are we going to meet again? INTERVIEWER: I don't think so, unless you… when I leave, feel the need to talk about something else. JULIA: Are you -- do you need -- I would like to, if possible, because I had -- now, I have four appointments this afternoon, and I would like -- I was trying to figure out how I could get copies of these tapes. INTERVIEWER: I could have that done for you at Fitchburg State College. So I'll call you… JULIA: And you have more than one? INTERVIEWER: Probably. I'll call you next week…23 JULIA: All right. INTERVIEWER: Okay? Okay. So what does it mean to be Italian to you? JULIA: It doesn't, it doesn't mean that I have been all my life aware of the great contributions that the Italians have made. But I became more aware of them as I grew older, and it made a strong attachment to family. And as I said, I still have -- my close friends are still the kids that grew up, that I grew up with, they're still the people that I grew up with, even though we all live in different places. It means certain types of food. It means, especially to me, it means this age of almost 80, I am determined foreigner, and I have -- it means that whenever I meet anybody that is Italian, that speaks Italian -- to me there's quite a big difference between the northern and southern Italian. I've always been made of… INTERVIEWER: Tell me what you just said, always been aware of… JULIA: I've always been aware of the vast differences among the people from this one peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean, that there is such a difference in everything about them—the food and the way they speak—and it's made me very, very aware of the differences that a language can develop into, almost different languages within a cohesive place, you know. We have this boot that goes down into the ocean split down the middle by this range of mountains, and yet every section you go to, because it was at one time a collection of city states—and somebody brought that up the other day in class, it was a collection of city states—and yet my mother's experiences and the way she spoke and lived was so different from everyone else's on my street. So being an Italian, to me, meant that I had to adjust to -- when I went to school I felt very out of it, because I started school in Lexington. My father bought a house in Lexington for a few years, and I had -- I just felt a complete foreigner because I spoke hardly any English myself since we were isolated in Lexington.24 But I -- after I came back to Boston, then I had to adjust and get used to all of the different -- the girls who came from different Italian families, all of them, were. They spoke differently, their parents spoke differently; they had all these different ways of doing things. And that adjustment was a wonderful experience for me. And it means -- now, I don't think so much of modern Italy. I feel that in some ways they've grown excessively. I've heard other people made this comment, too. I've read a couple of books that said the same thing, that they've become excessively materialistic. Certainly, you know, religion -- we were not, I will say another thing, we were not a religious community. The women -- the praying that was done, the observation of religion was private. Everybody didn't lead the street and go to church on Sunday. The young kids that were making their first communion, they had to go to church. We went to church in a group, but mothers and fathers for the most part didn't go near the church. The church was run by Irish priests; nobody understood the Italians, and we hardly ever saw a priest. And so it's very different from this situation here in Fitchburg where the Italians set up their own church on top of an Irish community that moved out, you know, the Irish community and church was St. Bernard's. The Italians, back 75 years ago, decided that long ago, that they wanted their own church, and they set it up, they found an Italian priest. And we were not -- women prayed on Sunday morning, sometimes you could look up at certain windows and a woman would be sitting there with an open book which was, obviously, a [unintelligible - 00:52:54] in Italian, and she would be reading her prayers. This is [unintelligible - 00:52:59]. They observed some of the saints' days, but it was not a community that went to church. Ever. INTERVIEWER: Now, what about making first communion and confirmation? Would you go into the north end?25 JULIA: No. Some of them did. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm. JULIA: A couple of the families sent their daughters into the north end to make -- but most of us that were the same age, there were, you know, about two or three or four at that time, then they would go to the parish church, you know, in a group, and that was also beyond the industrial area. So it was maybe a 15-minute, 20-minute walk, and we went because the nuns, where they have were training the kids in the catechism, we went to Sunday school. Then, because they didn't want us walking to that neighborhood, as we grew older, we started going to the Jesuit church, the Immaculate Concepcion in the south end, which was an enormous church but not a parish church. But then I belonged to the choir there; some of us joined the choir. And that was an all-American experience; there was no Italians. INTERVIEWER: So Fitchburg in 1968? JULIA: I cried all the time. I didn't -- I never wanted to leave Boston. You know, I did spend a very good experience, first, the college community… INTERVIEWER: Say that again? The college community? JULIA: The college community is a wonderful place. I've always been a reader. In that respect, the kind of reading that I did was quite different from what other girls on my street did, and I am unable to explain that. I am unable to explain the direction in which my own, which you might call intellectual growth. Well, I went to an all-girls high school, and I don't know why I was attracted to classical music and literature. And I mean, I practically lived at the public library. As a matter of fact it was his branch, too. His branch of the public library, he lived on the other side of it, but you know, until my brother met him in New Guinea and he wrote to my mother, I had never a clue that he was around.26 INTERVIEWER: So when you came to Fitchburg did you make any connections with Italian people? JULIA: Not at first. Not at first, because I was still taking care of the family. Later, then, as my children grew up and they met -- because we went to St. Camillus, and that is not an ethnic church, you know. So later -- actually, in the last 10 years, I would say, I… I've met 10, 20 youths through my children. My daughter married into a Fitchburg Italian. For a little while we joined the Sons of Italy. I joined the Virginia Eleanor Lodge, and I didn't keep it up, but you know, I've met a lot… INTERVIEWER: [Unintelligible - 00:56:16] speaking, what did your parents and the parents down street, what did they want for their children? JULIA: All they wanted was for them to grow up and to go to work. The girls were not encouraged to go to school. My sister, who, as I said, who came along 13 years after I did, was first college graduate on the street. She went to, she got… INTERVIEWER: Pick it up. You said… JULIA: My sister, Mary Louise, was the first girl to go to college in our entire neighborhood. INTERVIEWER: Now, how did that happen? JULIA: She was fairly smart in school, and she was in the class of 1952 at the same high school I had gone to in a girls' high school in Boston, and she got a teacher's scholarship. And she decided she wanted to be a nurse, and how she was scared, oh, instead of going into a hospital program… INTERVIEWER: This was in… JULIA: Back… out! Instead of going in to a three-year hospital program, somebody put it into her mind to go to Boston College, a four-year degree course. Actually she went. INTERVIEWER: Wow.27 JULIA: She went out of her work at Boston City, quite a bit of it, so she could live at home and the hospital was five minutes away. She took part of her affiliation there. INTERVIEWER: Now, what did your parents think of that since they really wanted you to go to work? JULIA: Well, they felt that we should go to work. They didn't, you know -- but when Louise came along they had been sufficiently Americanized, but nobody, nobody encouraged. They expected the girls would grow up, get jobs in factories, or if they went to high school, find a job in an office and then get married. INTERVIEWER: What about the boys? JULIA: The boys, none of them went to college either, although some of them were quite smart. And one family, the boys went to college on their own. They were a little bit older than the rest. And then they -- some of them got jobs in technical areas, like different labs and in MIT, and they would stop taking courses along the job training. But almost -- one young man, which is a surprise to everyone, we knew one boy from that street that went to college; he became an officer in the Navy. No one else in his family did. There were five or six children in the family, neither girls nor boys went to college, and he was a little older than I was, and he actually went on to law school. Why? I have no idea, because his parents never spoke a word of English. And he was Sicilian, you know, and yet he went. So when I said "yet he went," it sounds like a put-down, it really isn't. It's just that none of us were encouraged to go to college, nobody. My mother couldn't understand why I was constantly reading, but it was because, you know, I worked. I mean, I helped my father in the house, peeling just because they would whitewash them. I haven't done anything like that since I got married. I refuse to do it, because that six-family house took it out of all our hides. People would move out, 28 you'd have a terrible mess, you know, you not only have the problem of trying to collect miserable rents, but every time a new family moved in, me and my father be washing and cleaning and my mother and I went after, cleaned up after all of them, and it was a -- it was really the -- it wasn't until many years afterwards, and it wasn't too long before they died, that some of the older families that had owned houses themselves sold them, and some of them came to live in my father's house. And that was a good experience. They paid their rent and very respectful, which was a surprise, because in the beginning they have a… INTERVIEWER: Is it important for the Italians to have a clean house? JULIA: Some of them. Some of them wasn't, you know. INTERVIEWER: Anything else that you'd like to add? I've been here a long time now. [Laughter] JULIA: No, I think that I -- they all -- I wanna add this: that the older that I have gotten, the more I appreciate where I grew up, dirt street and all, the more I realized the goodness and the cleverness, the ability of people from other regions of Italy, the more I appreciate the beauty of that language and what, what is world's known about the Italian culture in general. And I think that my mother and father provided me with, if nothing else, an openness about accepting people from everywhere, you know. That I got from them. Well, we're very gregarious. I appreciated all the different types of humor they had, different cooking. So then since I've left my neighborhood, I feel like I fit in everywhere. The college community? No problem. The Italian community? No problem. Where am I? I feel that I fit in, and it definitely came from this upbringing. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Could your children say the same thing? They've been brought up some way different?29 JULIA: There is one, a teacher, Maria is a schoolteacher. Kath has always done office work, she's the only one that [unintelligible - 01:02:38] go to college, but there wasn't because she couldn't -- you know, he's in the fire department, he's an electrical engineer in Boston working on the big date. [Unintelligible - 01:02:51] American, an Irish girl from Fitchburg. My son, Steven, was working for the Waste Water Treatment Plant in Burke and was attending Fitchburg State. He had gone three years to Texas -- I remember my Louis, feeling that we cooked very differently from anybody he knew, and he thought it was strange, you know, that -- I thought it was strange that other people didn't cook all this stuff then [laughter]. But my Julian, who's the youngest, is a technical writer for Lotus for Boston College. Julian went to UMass, Cathy went -- enjoyed our lives here, we've gotten used to the Georgia life here, the ones I have done. INTERVIEWER: Okay. JULIA: I learned Spanish on the job. That was the other thing that the Italian did for me. I was assigned to the Department of Public Welfare after I took that six-month refresher course. And gradually, by taking in-service examinations, I went from clerk stenographer to sort of an administrative job, and I was in the Child Support Enforcement Unit. We had a great many women coming in from Puerto Rico, all of whom spoke Spanish, and many of them brought in interpreters. Well, after I listened for a while, I suddenly realized I understood what they were saying and, if I had enough courage, I could begin to speak the Spanish language. And as a result I did. And I used to be able to conduct the interviews in Spanish. I didn't need the interpreter, you know. So that was another thing that I got out of learning Italian. Now, the proper Italian is a great surprise to me. I don't know how I started that. I'm sure I'm the only one that grew up where I grew 30 up that speaks it, and it's -- I compare it to people learning to play the piano by ear. I was so accustomed to all these different dialects that gradually the proper Italian, especially when I went to Italy, even for short periods of time, and I began to listen—and my aunt used to listen to the radio, Italian programs on the radio—and somehow the language has come. I'm fluent, but I'm not grammatical perfectly. I have to feel my way through the grammar. But I'm fluent, I can say most things that I want to say in ordinary -- and I don't know why. I feel now that I know things about myself like everyone as you grow older, that I have a gift for languages, although the grammar was difficult for me. We were only allowed to take French. In junior high school, French was the only language that was offered, and I had a bad time with the grammar. But as I've grown older, I find I can -- I've been able to master the language. I can speak, and everybody understands me. Why? I don't know. INTERVIEWER: It's a gift? JULIA: You know, even my -- when I meet the occasional person that came into the office, all the workers that came in, the Spanish-speaking workers, they all used to laugh because [laughter] there I was, I could say what I wanted to say in Spanish, and they'd all make, you know, little conversation, and I'd always talk to them. Well it isn't everyone that gets to have an audience like that. [Laughter] INTERVIEWER: [Laughter] I enjoyed it. Thank you. JULIA: I'm gonna call my friends and tell them that I will be there. I'm working…/AT/jf/jc/es