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"Civil Effects Test Group"--Cover. ; "Nevada Test Site May-October 1957"--Cover. ; "ITR-1447 ; AEC Category: Health and Safety ; Military Categories: 5-21 and 5-60."--Cover. ; "Issuance Date: November 22, 1957"--Cover. ; "Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research ; September 1957." ; "Operation PLUMBBOB Preliminary report ; Project 33.5." ; Includes bibliographical references (pages 66-67). ; Mode of access: Internet. ; This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The University of Florida Libraries, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

Dr. Sherman P. Vinograd fulfilled the roles of Chief of Medical Science and Technology and Director of Biomedical Research at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from the fall of 1961 until the spring of 1979. In this role he shaped, organized, and directed NASA's program of medical research as a funded program of studies, which was carried out in not only NASA Center laboratories, but also in university, industry, and other government laboratories and hospitals all over the country. It produced a large substrate of information through its bed rest studies, vestibular, bone, neuromuscular, hematology, and cardiovascular researches. It also produced valuable fall-out, such as an accurate bone density measurement technique which is now in common clinical use. ; His major activities during this career were conceptualizing, establishing, and chairing the Space Medicine Advisory Group (SPAMAG) charged with defining the earth-based and space-based research and life-support requirements for a manned orbiting research laboratory. This group designed a carefully planned study utilizing highly qualified, specialized members of the scientific community. They postulated a non-existent orbiting laboratory to be designed according to the needs of future human flight crews and requirements for human spaceflight information. This would result in the creation of Skylab. ; He was also responsible for establishing the In-flight Medical Experiments Program in preparation for the Apollo series of manned space flights. This program was a series of carefully designed flight crew studies derived from proposals by qualified scientists both from within and outside NASA to evaluate human responses to spaceflight. ; In addition, Dr. Vinograd developed a supportive Research and Development Program necessary to provide pertinent ground-based data and to advance state-of-the-art medical measurement technology, a major development of which was the Integrated Medical and Behavioral Laboratory Measurement System (IMBLMS). This consisted of medical experiments and accompanying equipment necessary to perform them that was used from the Gemini through the Skylab manned space flight programs. Carried aboard virtually any post-Apollo space vehicle by virtue of its rack and module design, these designs were used well into the future. He also fostered the continuing ground-based medical research program sponsored and/or conducted by NASA. ; The Dr. Sherman P. Vinograd Aerospace Exploration collection consists of artifacts, books, correspondence, financial materials, newspapers, photographs, plaques, printed materials, and reports relating to Dr. Vinograd's early life, his career as an M. D. prior to joining NASA, his years as a physician and researcher at NASA, and the other professional organizations and projects in which he was involved both during and after these periods. ; Box 10, Folder 32

This study gleans from related areas of education criteria that may be useful in constructing a chemistry laboratory manual. Its survey begins with the broad aims of general education and passes through ever-narrowing fields: secondary education, science education, chemistry education, to laboratory instruction in chemistry. The basic aim of education in the western nations is training for participation in a democratic society. This training takes the form of a modification of individual growth, both from the social and egoistic viewpoint. Historical evidence suggests that the social viewpoint has been neglected. Involved are factual knowledge, skills, habits, attitudes, and ideals. At the secondary school level, the emphasis is on attitudes. Science education including chemistry, contributes by its emphasis on the scientific attitude. Chemistry makes its unique contribution by presenting sub-surface phenomena of sufficiently subtle a nature to permit the development of discriminating enquiry. Discriminating enquiry requires abstract thinking. In order to emphasize this, the aims of chemistry education have been stated at three increasingly abstract intellectual levels: (a) An understanding of the composition of matter and the changes it undergoes, and the manner in which this knowledge aids man in the control of his environment. b) A revelation of the organization in chemical change. (c) An appreciation of the elusive nature of truth, and original cause, and an appreciation of the power of directed imagination. Laboratory education in chemistry serves to provide concrete raw data which to manipulate according to the scientific method; it also serves to broaden the sensory impact of a learning situation. It should employ the simplest situations and skills in order not to confuse its main functions. This study surveys several current chemstry laboratory manuals to discover what is common practice. From such common practice a number of criteria pertaining to format and content arise. Among the more significant are ...

Work assignment disputes, known as jurisdictional disputes are common in the construction industry. They are not only costly but annoying as well, The construction industry has always been plagued with this type of dispute because each of its many craft unions regards certain types of work as a proprietary right. They jealously guard against any encroachment of their area of activity by other unions. Sometimes lines of demarcation between the various jurisdictions are not clear. Also, the development of new products and methods often brings with it clashes between unions each of whom claim exclusive right to the work assignment. This thesis presents the problem of determining the causes of jurisdictional disputes and strikes within the industry, together with an effective method of accommodation. Conclusions reached are that jurisdictional conflicts are the product of economic, psychological and political forces operative within the employment environment of the construction industry. Although the National Joint Board for Settlement of Jurisdictional Disputes meets the necessary criteria for a method of accommodation, it lacks the means of enforcing its awards. The most effective method of accommodation is to combine the injunctive and enforcement powers of the National Labor Relations Board with the arbitration and mediation process of the National Joint Board for Settlement of Jurisdictional Disputes.

Issue 21.2 of the Review for Religious, 1962. ; FRANCIS J. WEBER The Relics of Christ The spiritual value of a relic is directly proportional to the devotion it inspires in those who venerate it. Apart from this spiritual significance, the relic is merely a his-torical curiosity. It may or may not be of archaeological value to the museums of the world. The official attitude of the Church regarding individual relics is one of extreme reserve. In most cases, the Church prudently withholds definitive judgment on even the most demonstrably ancient relics. In fact, while reluctant to proclaim the authenticity of a particular reli.c, the Church has not infrequently withdrawn from public Veneration relics whose claims were found to be dubious or spurious. In recent memory, this has happened in the case of "St. Philomena," center of a devoted cult for more than a cen-tury, though she had never been formally canonized and nothing actually was known of her life. Despite the many miracles attributed to the relics of this supposed second century martyr, unearthed from a catacomb in 1802, mod-ern research shed doubt on the authenticity of the re-mains. It should be noted that the decree of the Sacred Congre-gation of Rites in 1961 dropping the feast of St. Philomena from the liturgical calendar did not touch on the validity of the miracles attributed to her intercession. They may well have been genuine miracles performed by God be-cause of the faith and devotion of those who prayed for them. The oldest and most cherished of Christian. relics nat-urally are those reputed to have been connected with the holy person of Jesus Christ Himself. Those few that are still extant, for the most part, have sufficient historical documentation to merit scholarly attention. It must be borne in mind that the honor and veneration given to these objects is directed primarily to Christ. Hence, in, some cases where documentation establishes only doubtful authenticity, the Church is certainly jus-tified in remaining silent, if it is understood that in so doing the Church is not giving positive approval and if 4, 4. Francis J. Weber, a dPiorcieesste o of ft hLeo As rAchn-- geles, is presently assigned to Catholic University, Wash-ington 17, D.C. VOLUME 21, 1962 79 4. 4. Francis ~. Weber REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 80 greater honor and glory are thereby rendered to Almighty God. Our approach to this obscure and sometimes contro-versial subject is that of the historian, who presents only the facts, leaving conclusions to the reader, The True Cross The Cross on which our Savior died has been tradi-tionally the most precious of all Christian relics. Tiny splinters of the True Cross have been so widely distributed that, in the words of St. Cyril, "the whole inhabited earth is full of relics from the wood of the Cross." St. Helena is credited with discovery of the True Cro:;s in 327 A.D.1 Early testimony of the fathers, among them Ambrose, Jerome, Sozomen, and Theodoret, recounts this marvelous event in copious detail. The Cross was found in an abandoned cistern near Mount Calvary. Identifica-tion as the True Cross, according to St. Ambrose, was easy enough since the titulus was still affixed. To commemo-rate this great occasion, St. Helena orderd a magnificent basilica to be erected over the H61y Sepulchre. She gave it the name of St. Constantius in honor of her son, the Roman emperor. When Helena returned to Rome, the relics were placed in the Sessorian Basilica, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. A substantial segment, of the. Cross-was left in Jerusalem where it annually attracted thousands of devout pilgrims. It was captured in the seventh century by Khosru II, the Persian conqueror. When the holy relic was returned by Heraclius in 628, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was instituted. The Jerusalem relic was divided many times. When certain of these fragments fell into the hands of the Mohammedans, the Crusades were inspired to restore them. An extensive and intensive study of the True Cross was made and published in 1870 by Rohault de Fleury. After examination of all extant fragments claimed to be from the True Cross, he drew up a minute catalogue of them, with precise weights and measurements. His findings proved that if all known pieces of the True Cross were put together, they would consitute less than one-third of the original Cross. This effectively silenced skeptics who had scoffed that the total of supposed fragments was bigger than the Cross itself. De Fleury's calculations2 were based on a cross of pine wood weighing an estimated 75 kilograms. The volume of 1 Louis de Combres, The Finding of the True Cross (London: Trubner, 1907). = Charles Rohault de Fleury, Mdraoire sur les instruments de la Passion (Paris: Lesort, 1870), pp. 97-179. this. cross would have been approximately 178 million cubic millimeters. Known volume of the existing relics does not exceed ,t0 million cubic millimeters. 0 Crux ave, spes unica! The Title of the Cross There are many fanciful legen~ls associated with the dis-covery of the True Cross by St. Helena. The manner of distinguishing the True Cross of Christ .from those of the two thieves is usually related with colorful if not his-torically accurate circumstances. However, St. Ambrose testifies there was no problem in identifying the True Cross as the titulus or title-piece was still intact. Other writers corroborate this account, notably Sts. Cyrils and Jerome. As has been the case with so many holy relics, the titulus was divided into seveial pieces. The Diary of Etheria lo-cates a piece of the titulus in Jerusalem in 380 A.D, Helena undoubtedly brought a part of the title back to Rome with her. Regrettably, there is no further documentation avail-able on the fate of the Jerusalem relic, For some reason, very likely to protect it from invaders, the Roman relic seems to.have been walled up in an arch of Santa Croce by Placidus Valentinian III in the fifth century. In the twelfth century it was accidentally un-earthed by Gherardo Caccianemici, titular cardinal and later Pope Lucius II. The future pontiff placed his seal on the reliquary and replaced it in its hiding place. In 1492 Cardinal Mendoza of Toledo rediscovered the relic which he immediately presented to the then Holy Father, Innocent VIII. A papal bull, Admirabile Sacra-mentum, was issued, after which the titulus was exposed for public veneration in Santa Croce. The title-piece is of wood, about nine by five inches in size, and comprises two-and-one-half lines of faded in-scription. Hebrew, Greek and Latin characters are dis-cernible, all of which axe printed in reverse, a practice common with the Romans of the time of Christ. The Shroud of Turin It is recorded in Chapter 27 of St. Matthew how Joseph. of Arimathea wrapped the body of Jesus in a "dean linen cloth." No further mention of this funeral shroud appears in Christian literature until the time of St. Nino4 (d. ~38), who relates how Peter removed the shroud from the tomb shortly after the Resurrection. The fourteenth century Byzantine historian, Nicephorus Callista, tells how this 8Philip Gonnet, De Sancti Cyrilli Hiersolymitani Catechismt~ (Paris: 1876). ¯ Edward Wuenschel, C.Ss.R.0 Sell-Portrait oI Christ (Esopus, New York: Holy Shroud Guild, 1954). ÷ ÷ ÷ Relics ot Christ VOLUME 21, 1962 81 4. Francis $. Weber REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Holy Shroud, soaked with the blood of Christ and bearing an image of His holy face, found its way to Constantino-. pie: "Pulcheria, Empress of the East, having built a basil-ica. at Blachernes in 436, piously deposited there the fu. neral linens of Our Savior, which had just been rediscov-. ered and which the Empress Eudoxia had sent to her." Eyewitnesses to the presence of the Holy Shroud at Con-stantinople are recorded in the Annals of 631, 640, 749, 1157 and 1171 A.D. During the Fourth Crusade, the Holy Shroud was sur. rendered in recompense to Otho de la Roche, Duke of Athens and Sparta. The Duke in 1204 sent the prized relic to his father in France. Soon after, it came into possession of the Bishop of Besan~on. A fire caused minor damage to the shroud in 1349. Later that same year, it was stolen from its case in Besan~on Cathedral and given to King Philip IV who in turn gave it to Geoffrey, Count of Char., ney and Lord of Lirey. There is documentary evidence ¯ that it was at Lirey in 1360. During the Hundred Years War, the Holy Shroud wa:; handed over by Geoffrey's granddaughter to the House of Savoy for safekeeping. In 1454, Pope Sixtus IV directed the Duke of Savoy, Louis I, to build a shrine for the shroud at his Chambery residence. During the troubled war years of the sixteenth century, the Holy Shroud was moved from town to town in France. It narrowly missed being destroyed a second time by fire in 1532, and in fact its corners were noticeably singed. At the request of the aged Charles Borromeo, the shroud in 1578 was brought to Turin where it has re-mained for the past four hundred years. It is presently preserved in the black marble chapel specially built for it behind the city's beautiful fifteenth century cathedral. Several pronouncements by the Holy See leave litth: doubt regarding the Church's official attitude toward the Turin Shroud. An Office and a Mass were formally ap-proved by Pope Julius II in the bull Romanus Ponti[ex issued in 1506. Sixtus IV had previously stated that in thbl Holy Shroud "men may look upon the true blood and portrait of Jesus Christ Himself." A remarkable discovery was made in .1898, when a pho-tograph of the Turin Shroud revealed the faint, blurred image on the ancient linen to be an actual "negative" produced by vapors from a human body covered witll spices. The negative of the modern photo~a negative of a negative, thus producing a positive--offered a far more pronounced picture of a human face than was previously recognizable. ChemiCally, this "vapograph" was caused by the am-moniacal emanations from the surface of the body after an unusually violent death. It has been proved experimen-tally that these vapors are capable of producing a deep reddish brown stain which would vary in intensity with the distance from a cloth soaked with oil and aloes. Hence the image of Christ's face on the shroud is a natural nega-tive. This modern evidence, together with the identification of human bloodstains, prompted Dr. Paul Vignon to read a brilliant paper before the Acaddmie des Sciences, in which he suggested that any explanation denying the authenticity of the Turin Shroud would be scientifically inaccurate. It might also be mentioned that, the impression on the shroud of the Grown of Thorns is in perfect conformity with the "helmet type" of crown displayed at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Further, the nail wounds are not in the palms of the hands but in the wrists. It has been re-alized only in our own times that this was a physical neces-sity, for nails in the palms .of the hands would not have been able to sustain the weight of a human body. One of the major opponents and critics of the Turin Shroud was the anti-pope Clement VII, first of the Avig-non Pretenders. His opposition apparently stemmed from a vague charge made by the Bishop of Troyes that the shroud was the work of a local craftsman skilled in the subtle art of simulating antique handiwork. Other shrouds, thirty in all, each purporting to be the genuine article, have turned up through the centuries. Most notable are thosestill preserved at Besan~on, Ca-douin, and Champiegne. These shrouds likewise bear im-pressions alleged to be those of Christ's face and body. However, the preponderance of ,historical evidence seems to leave no doubt that among all the claimants, only the Shroud of Turin has a valid pretension to au-thenticity. The Pillar of the Scourging The column of the Praetorium to which Christ was bound during His scourging was discovered in the For-tress of Antonia in 373 A.D., according to a chronicle penned by St. Ephrem. St. Paulinus of Nola,5 writing after 409, refers to several relics of the Passion, among them "the pillar at which He was scourged." Philip of Brosserius saw the pillar in the Church of the Holy Se-pulchre in 1285. Some time before the end of the four-teenth century it was broken and one part was sent to Constantinople. An interesting Christian" tradition, dating back to .the See Letter 310f Paulinus. ÷ ÷ ÷ Relics o] Christ VOLUME 21, 1962 83 ÷ ÷ ÷ F~ancis $. Webe~ REVIEW I:OR REI.I~IOUS 84 fourth century, holds that Christ was actually scourged twice. St. John Chrysostom tells us this second flagellation took place at the house of Caiaphas after the mock trial. This tradition finds prominent mention in early chroni-cles. The pillar used for the second scourging was reserved in the Church of Mount Sion, the Cenacle, where St. Jerome reported he saw it. During the Persian invasion, it too seems to have been broken into several pieces. The portion left at the Cenacle was lost in 1537. The other part was returned to a church subsequently erected on the sit~ of the house of Caiaphas. Here it was venerated until the fourteenth century, when it completely disappeared. In 1222 A.D., Giovanni Cardinal Colonna, papal envoy to the Orient, returned to Rome with a fragment of the Pillar of the Scourging, apparently given him by the Sara-cens. He enshrined it in his titular church of St. Praxedes, where it may be seen today. The Roman pillar is of mar-ble, about two feet four inches high. It is.probably one of the parts of the Praetorian column. Its counterpart in Jerusalem is of a different material and may have formed the lower part of the pillar. The Holy Stairs Among the many treasures brought back from the Holy Land by St. Helena was the marble staircase from the palace of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. It is still extant,e The stone steps number twenty-eight and are said. to have been sanctified by the feet of Christ himself when He as-cended this stairway at the Praetorium. The stairway, reconstructed in Rome, originally formed part of the old Lateran Palace, leading into a chapel dedi-cated to St. Sylvester. When the Lateran Palace was torn down by Pope Sixtus V in 1589, the stairs were moved to their present location. Today the Scala Sancta constitutes the entranceway to the Holy of Holies~ an old private papal chapelY In its present site, the Scala Sancta is flanked by additional stair-wells on either side. Traditionally the Holy Stairs are ascended only on one's knees. The last pope to ascend the stairway in this fashion was Plus IX on the eve of his exile from Rome in 1870. Pope St. Pius X decreed a plenary indulgence for those who devoutly ascend the Scala Sancta on their knees as testimony of their love for Christ. Replicas of the Scala Sancta have been erected at Lourdes and other centers of pilgrimage. e Herbert Thursfon, The Holy Year o] Jubilee (Westminster: New-man, 1949). ~ Philippe Lauer, Le trdsor de Sancta Sanctorum (Paris: Leroux, t~o~). The Soldier's Lance Mention is made of the soldier's lance in Chapter 19 of St. John. In his account of the Savior's death, St. John re-lates that "one of the soldiers opened His side with a spear . " The first extra-Biblical.~mention of~,this relic seems to be by Anthony of P~efiZ~, who wrot~'~a~;he saw the Crown of Thorns and "the lance with which He was struck in the side," in the Basilica of Mount Sion.s A miniature of the renowned Syriac manuscript, illu-minated by Rabulas.in 586, assigns the name Longinus to the soldier whose lance pierced the crucified Christ. Gas-siodorus and Gregory of Tours speak of a spear venerated at Jerusalem, which was thought to be identical with that mentioned in Scripture. After the fall of Jerusalem in 615 A.D., several of the major relics of the Passion fell into the hands of the Per-sians. The Chronicon Paschale relates that a piece of the soldier's lance came into the possession of Nicetas, who enclosed it in an icon and presented it to Santa Sophia in Constantinople. In 1241 the Holy Lance was given to King St. Louis for Sainte Chapelle in Paris. No trace of this part of the lance has been found since it was lost during the French Revolu-tion, some time after its removal to the Bibliothkque Na-tionale. The second and larger part of the shaft of the soldier's iance was reported seen by Arculpus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem about 670 A.D. Later it was taken to Constantinople, where Sir John Mandeville writes about it. It was sent to Pope Innocent VIII in 1492 in return for favors shown to the captured Zizin, brother of Sultan Bajazet. At request of the French hierarchy, during the pontifi-cate of Benedict XIV an investigation was conducted to ascertain the .relation, if any, between the two relics, one at Paris, the other at Rome. A papal brief, issued after the inquiry, concluded that both relics were originally parts of the same shaft. Several other supposedly genuine Ho!y Lances are pre-served in various treasuries of Europe, but none of the others offers a valid claim to authenticity. Even the story told by William of Malmesbury about the Holy Lance given to King Athelstan of England is historically in-accurate. Since the tragic loss of ihe Paris relic, only the Roman lance remains. It is exposed each year for veneration dur-ing Holy Week by the Archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica. 8 Francois Martin, Reliques de la Passion (Paris: Lethielleux, 1897). 4- 4- 4- Relics of Christ VOLUME 21, 1962 85 + + + F~ancis ~. Webe~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 86 Veronica's Veil According to the historian Eusebius in his commentary on the Legend of Abgar and according to remarks con-tained in the apocryphal work Mors Pilati, several au-thentic portraits of Jesus Christ were made at various times during His lifetime. The oldest and most authenticated of these images has been known to Romans for centuries as the Vera Icon or Veil of Veronica. So highly has this image been held in Roman esteem, that a Mass celebrating it was composed and inserted into at least one of the early Augsburg Missals.9 There is no reference in Scripture to a woman offering her veil to Christ during His Sacred Passion. But it is highly plausible that there was such a compassionate soul among those who followed Christ on His way to Mount Calvary. The incident itself is undoubtedly worthy of some credibility, since it has found its expression since very early times in the Christian devotion of the Stations of the Cross. Apparently the holy woman in question, known in pious legend only as Veronica, found her way to Rome, where she presented her Vera Icon---True Picture--to Pope Clement I. The veil, ostensibly bearing the image of the suffering Jesus miraculously pressed into it, was vener-ated in several places until the pontificate of John VII who had it enclosed in an ornate reliquary. During the ensuing centuries, the Holy See has exhibited particular solicitude for this precious relic. It had been reserved to the Pope's own chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, where it is ex, posed briefly during Holy Week for veneration by the faithful. The Holy Grail A whole cycle of romantic legends has been woven about the theme of the Holy Grail,1° but the legendary quests, inspiring though they may be, add nothing to the few slim historical facts available. Of the two notable "pretenders" to genuine Grailship, one alone merits se-rious consideration. And while tl~e chalice displayed at Valencia is not generally accepted as genuine by histo-rians, its proponents present a tolerable case in its behalf. An account by Bishop Siuri of Cordoba relates that the chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper was brought to~ Rome by St. Peter soon after the death of Mary. It was used frequently at Papal Masses until the pontificate of Sixtus II. During the persecutions of Valerian, St. Lawrence sent the chalice to his native Huesca in the northern part of o Sainte Veronique, apostre de l'Aquitaine (Toulouse: 1877). a0 Nutt, Studies o[ the Holy Grail (London: 1888). the Spanish peninsula where the Holy Grail remained until 713 when it was removed to San Juan de la Pena for protective custody during the Moslem invasion. A deed of exchange, dated September 26, 1399, testifies that King Martin acquired the Holy Grail for his private chapel in the Palace of the Aljaferia. About 1424 .the chalice was moved to Valencia by King Alfonso V. The chalice has remained at Valencia since the fifteenth cen-tury except for a brief period during the Spanish Civil War when part of the cathedral was burned by the Com-munists. It was restored to its chapel in the Metropolitan Cathedral at Valencia by the Franco government in 1937. Artistically, the Holy Grail is Corinthian in styling,ix made of agate or Oriental carnelian. The handles on ei-ther side are common appurtenances for drinking vessels of its period. The costly pearls, rubies, and emeralds were added much later. The Crown of Thorns St. Paulinus of Nola, writing early in the fifth century, is the first of the chroniclers to mention specifically "the thorns with which Our Lord was crowned." Other early writers allude apparently to this relic of the Passion, but their comments are vague and inconclusive. Writing about 570, Cassiodorus speaks of "the thorny crown, which was set upon the head of our Redeemer in order that all the thorns of the world might be gathered together and broken." The pilgrimage of the monk Ber-nard establishes that the Crown Of Thorns was still at Mount Sion in 870. According to fairly recent studies, the whole crown was transferred to Byzantium about 1063, although many ot the thorns must have been removed at an earlier date. The Latin Emperor of Constantinople, Baldwin II, offered the Crown of Thorns to St. Louis in 1238. After lengthy ne-gotiations with the Venetians, the r(lic was taken to Paris and placed in the newly built Sainte Chapelle where it remained an object of national devotion until the French Revolution. For security, the crown was placed in the BibliothOque Nationale during the bloody days of the upheaval. In 1806, it was restored to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was en-shrined in its present rock crystal reliquary in 1896. All that is left to be seen today is the circlet of rushes, devoid of any thorns. What remained of the original sixty or seventy thorns were apparently removed by St. Louis and deposited in separate reliquaries. The king and his successors distributed the thorns until nothing remained at Paris but the circlet. The Holy Chalice o/the Last Supper (Valencia: 1958). 4. 4. + Relics o] Christ VOLUME 21, 1962 Francis J. Weber REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 88 Reportedly there are more than 700 "holy thorns" scat-tered around the world. But only those traceable to St. Louis, to one of the emperors, or to St. Helena are genu-ine. Such authentic thorns aCe at Cluny, St. Praxedes in Rome, Santa Croce, and at Aachen, to mention but a few. The Nails There seems to be little agreement among Biblical scholars on the number of nails used to fasten our Blessed Lord to His Cross. Religious art of the early Middle Ages almost unanimously depicts the crucified Savior with four nails~ In the thirteenth century, however, it became in-creasingly common to represent the feet of Christ as placed one over the other and pierced with a single nail. Either of these methods is compatible with the informa-tion we have about the punishment of crucifixion as practiced by the Romans. The earliest authors, among them St. Ambrose, speak only of two nails.12 And it is a point of interest that the two oldest known representations of the Crucifixion, the carved door of Santa Sabina in Rome and the Ivory Panel in the British Museum, show no signs of nails in the feet. The most commonly accepted opinion is that there were three nails that actually touched the body of Christ. This is borne out by the evidence of the Shroud of Turin. In addition, there were probably another three nails used for the titulus, the seat block, and the foot rest. St. Ambrose and St. Jerome speak of the discovery of the nails in Jerusalem by Constantine's mother, St. Hel-ena, in the third century. Sozomen notes in passing that St. Helena had no trouble identifying the nails. One of the nails was fashioned into an imperial diadem for the emperor. This Iron Crown of Lombardy is now at Manza. Another nail was made into a bit for the imperial horse. This relic is believed to be the same as the one at Carpentas. A third nail was venerated for many years in Jerusalem before being moved to Rome's Santa Croce by Pope Gregory the Great. Several European treasuries claim to possess one or more of the true nails, but their, authenticity is clouded with the passage of time. Most of the confusion regarding the thirty or more known spurious nails can be traced to the well-intentioned Charles Borromeo who had reproduc-tions made of the nails and gave them out as memorials of the Passion. Conclusion These, then, are the more commonly accepted relics as-sociated with the holy person of Jesus Christ, our Savior. u De Combres, op. cir. If they have served to increase devotion to Almighty God, they have fulfilled their noble purpose. A saintly priest was once heard to exclaim: "Our Savior's greatest bequest to His children was not a treasury filled with mere material relics, but a golden tabernacle in which He Himself resides to be our fo6d~f6r all ~tei'nit~.!: 4. Relics ot Christ VOLIJME 21, ~962 89 EDWARD J. STOKES, S.J. Examination of Conscience for Local Superiors ÷ Edward J. Stokes, S.J., is Professor o[ Canon Law at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Munde-lein, Illinois. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 90 In the summer of 1961 Father Edward J. Stokes, s.J.0 was asked to conduct the annual retreat for a group of local superiors. One of the projects he asked them to do during the retreat was to compose on the basis of their own experience an examination of conscience to be used by local superiors at the time of the monthly recollection, the annual retreat, or at any other suitable time. The ques-tions submitted by this group of local superiors were syn-thethized by Father Stokes who then submitted them to the REvmw. The questions were further revised by Father John E. Becket, S.J., of the editorial staff of the REw~w; the final version of them is given in the following pages. Readers, whether superiors or subjects, who have ideas for the improvement of this examination of conscience either by way of addition, deletion, or emendation are urged to submit their views to the Rzwvw. If enough of such improvements are received, a newly revised version of the examination of conscience for local superiors will be published in a later issue of the R~viEw. Personal Religious Li[e 1. Do I strive to come closer to Christ by leading the life of union and interior peace with Him? Do I do everything in, with, and for Christ? 2. Am I afraid of sanctity because of the demands that it will make on me? 3. Have I forgotten that if I live better, I will pray bet-ter, and that if I pray better, I will live better? 4. Am I firmly convinced of our Lord's words: If you love me, my Father will love you and we will come to you and make our abode with you? 5. Am I convinced that this office of superior, when ful-filled to the best of my ability, is a source of sanctification for me? 6. To be a superior means to carry a cross. How often do I thank our Lord for the privilege of suffering with Him? 7. Am I a superior truly aware of my ownnothingness? 8. When I suffer discouragement, is it because I have not succeeded in doing God's will or because I have not succeeded in pleasing men? ~-,, . ~ °~' ~ 9. Am I deeply convinced that if I have done my best to fulfill God's will, I have succeeded? 10. Do I accept as personal any recognition, privilege, or service accorded me by reason of my office as superior? 11. How often do I make a Holy Hour in petition for the solution of a problem or to obtain a special grace for my fellow religious or myself? Ever a Holy Hour of thanks-giving? 12. Do I make the Sacred Heart of Jesus the King and Center of our religious house and Mary its Queen? 13. Do I take St. Joseph as the advocate and the pro-tector of the interior life of each one dwelling in our house? Personal Recollection and Prayer 14. Am I convinced that recollection is an absolute ne-cessity for any progress in the life of prayer? 15. Is my spirit of recollection such that it provides an atmosphere conducive to prayer? 16. How do I prepare the points of meditation in the evening? 17. What special meditation has drawn me closer to Christ?_ 18. Do I sometimes excuse myself from my prayers by telling myself that this or that duty must take first place? 19. Have I given full time. to my prayers or have I hur-ried through them in order to get to my other work? 20. Does the demand for great activity cause distractions in my prayers or perhaps lead me to neglect prayer; or does it rather make me realize my dependence on God? 21. Have I said common vocal prayers reverently and not annoyed others by my haste? 22. Am I observant of recollection immediately after breakfast? 23. Do I make a special effort to keep recollected on the days when it seems especially impossible? 24. Do I ever revert to God's presence in me throughout the day, to adore Him, thank Him, love Him, speak to Him about the needs of soul and body, my own, and those of my fellow religious? Confession 25. Do I make it a point to confess my added responsi-bility by reason of my office when I confess criticism of su-periors or priests? ÷ ÷ ÷ local Superiors VOLUME 21, 1962 91 4, 4, E. ]. Stokes, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 92 26. Do I make it a point to confess my added respons.i-bility as a superior when I confess failure to exercise ju:~- tice or charity in dealing with my.fell0w religioug? 27. Do I take advantage of my weekly confessions to re-ceive spiritdal direction? 28. Have my confessions been hurried due to an in-efficient planning of my time? Particular Examen 29. Is my particular examen specific? 30. Do I make a tie-in of retreat resolutions, the particu-lar examen, and weekly confession? 31. Do I make a daily examination of the motives that govern my external life? 32. Do I make my particular examen a vital part of my day as a religious? Mortification 33. Do I realize that my chief mortification is to tie found in the justice and the charity of my dealings with others? 34. Am I willing to perform one interior and one exte-rior act of mortification each day in order to obtain the blessing of our Lord on my community? Charity 35. Is love for others the outstanding virtue in my life? 36. Have I deliberately practised acting towards Christ in each person I meet? 37. Do I appreciate the importance of my personal charity to this community as a cell of the Mystical Body? Faith 38. Are the mysteries of Christianity the basis of my re-ligious life? 39. Have I made the connection between these mys-teries and the Rule, or have I let concern with the Rule obscure my reliance on broader Christian principles? Hope 40. Am I aware of the need for Christ's help in sanctify-ing myself by governing others? 41. Do I realize that Christ is able to utilize my faults in sanctifying others? Principles of Government 42. Do I realize that the most exalted duty of a su-perior is care for the spiritual life of his subjects? 43. Do I seek to serve God by serving my fellow re-ligious always and everywhere? 44. Do I pray regularly for the spiritual well-being and growth of those in my house? 45. Do I try to help each religious to develop a deep inferior life by my words and by my example? 46. Do I give my fellow religious an example of the love of regularity? . 47. Do I try to help my fellow religious develop a ready and loving acceptance of God's holy will by the example of my own acceptance of it in all my difficulties, trials, and failures as well as in my joys and success? 48. Do I realize and am I firmly convinced that seeing, accepting, and willing all that God wills for me in every circumstance of my life is the essence of sanctity; and do I teach my fellow religious this? 49. Am I trying to establish in my fellow 'religious a sense of the Mystical Body so that they are able to com-municate spiritually one with another? 50. Do I look for Christ in the problem religious? in the impudent child in the classroom? Do I see Him looking at me through the eyes of all my charges, seeking my love and devotion? 51. How often have I passed a fellow religious in the hall without noticing and greeting him? 52. In making use of the aspiration, "Praise be to Jesus Christ" during the periods of recollection, do I really try to see Christ present in that person?' 53. Did I personally visit at least one sick person of the parish or community, or delegate a religious to do so? 54. Have I in any way, by actions or words, shown a mere toleration for lay persons associated with our work? Or have I accepted them as allies in our work? Community Exercises 55. Do I faithfully observe the daily order? 56. Do I realize that as superior I set the tone and the spirit of the house, in recollection, cheerfulness, peace, hospitality? 57. Do I let human respect interfere with the duty I have as superior to insist on charity and the observance of the rules in my community? 58. Do I miss or am I late for spiritual exercises unless for a grave reason? 59. What community exercises have I missed in the past month? My reasons? Did I make them up at another time, or did I let them go through neglect or carelessness? 60. What can be done to make the chapter of faults more effective? 61. Do I create a family spirit? 62. Is my recreation self-centered? Do I do what I want and not talk or .do too much of the talking? Local Superiors VOLUME 21, 1962 95 ]. Stokes, FOR R~:LIGIOUS 94 63. Do I endeavor to make community recreation an exercise of wholesome family spirit? 64. Is my house truly a religious house or does it have the impersonality of a modern railroad station? Personal Qualities 65. Am I even-tempered? 66. Do I show true joy in my work? 67. Have I betrayed immaturity and lack of courage by disproportionate manifestations of disappointment and discouragement? 68. Do I allow my feelings to regulate my actions? 69. Do I have a good sense of humor? 70. How much self-pity does my countenance mirror when things go wrong? 71. Am I approachable? 72. Do I try, as far as possible, to treat all my fellow re-ligious in the same way--not showing any partiality or favoritism? Have I excluded any or passed them over iu the sharing of responsibility or favors? Are the same few always near me? 73. Do I treat as sacred anything that a fellow religious tells me in confidence? 74. How many times in the past month have I been im-patient with my fellow religious? 75. How do I act or react when I know that one of my fellow religious has offended me? Do I~take it in a Christ:- like way or do I hold-a grudge? Do I consider violations of rule as offenses against me? 76. Do I as superior always show exterior peace, calm, and happiness? I must do this if I am going to be the un-derstanding, religious superior that I should be. 77. In the presence of outsiders do I always show great loyalty to each and every member of my community? 78, Am I as reserved as I should be while visiting in the parlor? 79. Am I kind to all lay people, regardless of how much they can, orhave helped financially or otherwise--look-ing to the good of their souls first and foremost? Government 80. Do I run a disorganized house so that my subjects tend to say: "We never know what we are going to do next"? 81. Do I get all the facts before I make a decision? 82. Do I hesitate in making the decisions that I must as superior? Do I harm my fellow religious by my habit of procrastination? 83. Am I under someone's influence in the decisions that I make, an older religious or a former superior? 84. Do I contradict my orders, thus making it difficult to know what is my will? 85. Am I available to my fellow religious? 86. Am I open to suggestions? 87. Do I delegate responsibility and do I trust those to whom I have delegated it? If a duty is not being done as I would, do I give it to someone else or take over myself rather than try to help? Do I show interest without in-terfering? 88. Do I give authority as well as responsibility to re-ligious when I give them a job? 89. Am I a politician in dealing with my fellow religious instead of a Christlike superior? 90. Am I unnecessarily secretive in trivial matters, keep-ing the community guessing? Do I not see that this will cause bad feelings? 91. Do I talk uncharitably or show displeasure to one of my subjects about another subject in the house? 92. Should I not close my eyes to many insignificant petty things? Should I not use tact and by my example bring it about that these failings and imperfections will vanish--al'though perhaps not totally? 93. How have I controlled the conversation at table? Was I alert always to see to it that it never became un-charitable or critical, especially regarding students? 94. Do I initiate conversation regarding worthwhile reading? 95. Do I give the required instruction time to the young religious? Do I conscientiously prepare these instructions? 96. Do I complain about fnoney? Am I overly anxious regarding finances? 97. What is my attitude toward the suggestions, deci-sions, or orders of extern superiors in the institution in which our community works? Fellow Religious 98. Do I as superior treat my subjedts as mature, dedi-cated persons? 99. Do I trust my fellow religious and have confidence in them and show them that I do by the way I treat them? 100. Do I correct all when only one needs the correc-tion? Do I not see that this causes much criticism and irritated discussion? 101. Do all the members of the community feel that they belong and are an important part of the whole? 102. Do I give my fellow religious encouragement and show them gratitude for the good work that they are doing? A pat on the back does not cost much but it means a great deal especially to those inclined to get discouraged at times. 103. Have I within the last month made it a point to 4. Local Superiors VOLUME 21, 1962 95 .÷ ÷ ÷ E. ]. Stokes, .S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 96 compliment or praise or show attention, at least in some small way, to each religious in my charge? 104. Has each of my subjects received some word of praise (not flattery) from me recently? 105. Do I encourage group discussions so that all the community can express themselves? Do I see that such discussions are well-prepared and stimulating? 106. Do I see to it that the rest of the community share,,i in the rich contributions that some of its members can give, those, for example, who have had special oppor-tunities for studies? 107. Do I seek to serve God by serving my fellow re-ligious always and everywhere? 108. Do I show concern for the trials and crosses of my fellow religious? 109. How often do I check and consider the welfare of ¯ each of my subjects--spiritual and physical? 110. Is understanding the essence of my charity? Do I try to put myself in the subject's place and realize his emotions, attitudes, and difficulties--or is my charity based solely on my own attitude and outlook on life? He might not always want done to him what I would want done to me. I must try to understand his viewpoint. 111. Is each religious an individual to me? 112. Do my fellow religious.feel wanted and valued by me? 113. Do my fellow religious find the quality of thought-fulness in me? 114. Do I make it a habit to direct my attention to each religious individually at least once during the day? 115. Have I tried to satisfy each one's basic need to be accepted, the need for belonging? 116. Have I made use of each one's talents (all of them), or do I level them down to an equal share from each? Do I, then, expect only three talents from one who has and can give ten talents? 117. Do I take too much ~or granted the conscientious and well-balanced religious who does not demand my at-tention? 118. Do I give each individual religious my undivided attention regardless of who he is and how often he may come to me in a given day? 119. Do I make a sincere effort to speak to each re-ligious some time each day? 120. Do I give a sufficient amount of time to those who need to talk over with me the question of students who may be a problem to them? This could be a problem of behavior or some method that would help teaching. If a teacher is weak in discipline, this is a good means of gently getting across the fact that the child is not always at fault. 121. How well uo I "listen" when religious come for permissions, advice, and such? With preoccupation? With patience? With haste or annoyance? And this especially at difficult times? Or am I gracious, patient, helpful, Christlike? Have I shown impatience with those who come to me with trifles? Which of them? Do I r~ally listen when a religious is telling me something---or am I finish-ing up this job or starting another? 122. Have I treated each religious the same behind his back as I have to his face? 123. Do I control my hurt when one of the religious tells lies about me to religious of our own house? 124. Can my subjects sway my will by flattery? 125. Do I afford my subjects the opportunity of sug-gesting spiritual reading books? 126. What have I done to encourage professional read-ing on the part of my subjects? Do I give them an ex-ample in this regard? Do I ever check,up on them on this point? 127. Do I seek to prepare my fellow religious for fu-ture responsible positions in the community? ÷ Local Superiors VOLUME 21, 1962 97 KATIE ROCK Restoration, with a Difference 4. + 4. Katie Rock lives at 200 Oak Street, Falls Church. Vir-ginia. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 98 Washington, D.C. is a city of contrasts. There are beau-tiful green expanses and there are dark, depressing alleys. There are massive monuments and tremendous buildingsl and there are rows and rows of shabby, run-down homes. Happily, there is city-wide slum-clearance consciousness; and already in some parts of town the monotonous rows are being converted into magnificent Town Houses with every modern feature. Restoration is taking place for many reasons, but unfortunately the power and profit motives seem the big reason. It is therefore refreshing to know that some are bringing their talents and inspiration to the restoration simply because they want to have part in "restoring all things to Christ." An assignment enhanced by my own curiosity took me to Foggy Bottom, the latest dilapidated section to be-come the site of intensive re-making. Situated only one.~ half mile from the White House, it is bounded roughly by Georgetown, George Washington University, the new State Department Building, and the Potomac River. This was my first visit to Foggy Bottom since it became "fash-ionable," and I was so fascinated as I walked down the narrow streets that I stopped to browse a bit. Gradually tiny broken-down row houses are being transformed into confortable city homes. Interesting colors, small but per.; fect gardens, unique combinations of contemporary and forsaken styling are attractive and appealing. Among the private homes there are apartment hotels arising. ¯ It was fun to speculate about the insides of these color., ful homes as I walked along the old brick sidewalks. Oc.; casionally a brass plate revealed an M.D. was occupant, or a navy captain, or a professor. A baby carriage in a tiny yard indicated there is new life in Foggy Bottom, too; When I arrived at my destination, the corner of H and 25th Streets, I stopped in wonder and admiration. Be-fore me was a turreted three-story structure of brick, painted a soft yellow with black trim which offsets awe-somely the octagon-shaped tower, dormer, and windows. There is a terrace in front, a landscaped yard, and I peeped onto a sheltered patio. A lacy black iron fence surrounds the property and a brass plate announces that this is the home of Melita god~ck,~A.I.A, g: Associates. I was welcomed inside by Melita, who introduced me to her assistant, Bernice, and after' being made to feel at home, I settled down to hear the story of a wonderful new venture into the new frontiers of our faith. Who is Melita? The decor and art work and religious atmosphere of this first floor indicate an unusual life. Melita was born in Milan, Italy, and educated at Vienna Polytechnic. She is a convert to Catholicism. Although she is an artist and sculptress, her professional experience and livelihood have mainly been centered On architec-ture. Twelve years were spent with other firms. Included in her work with those firms were high schools in Arling-ton, Virginia, and Rockville, Maryland, commercial buildings and a shopping center, a drive-in restaurant, hospitals.and the huge Medical Center of the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and many government buildings ranging from a missile base to renovations of Post Offices. Since establishing her private firm about three years ago, Melita has designed the Queen Anne's Lane Town Houses in Foggy Bottom valued at :~1,000,000 (and which won for her a Goid Medallion award), many residences, the Consolata Missions Semi-nary in Buffalo, New York, the Ayles~ord Retreat Center in Chicago, and remodeling of churches in southern Mary-land. For the Government, among other projects, she modified a hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. There is another facet to Melita's background. Dur-ing the 1940's she worked for four years in the Harlem Friendship House, engaged in interracial work, apolo-getics, and the practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. During this time she had rich experi-ences. She undertook a formal course in philosophy un-der Jacques Maritain. She learned the principles of social justice from the best of its exponents, Father John La- Farge, S.J., Baroness Catherine de Hueck Doherty, the Sheeds, and others. During these years, she developed a great love for liturgical music through the influence of other wonderful visitors to Friendship House, one of whom was Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand. More and more, as years went by, Melita!s ability in. architecture and her various artistic talents became an integrated venture. And the motivating force in her life was her religion. Her love of designing, composing, creat-ing, on the one hand, and her love of God and her fellow-man on the other were beginning to congeal into one idea. + + + Restoration VOLUME 21, 1962 99 ÷ ÷ Katie Rock REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I00 In 1956, Melita took several months off from work to take a trip around the world, studying and observing the architecture of many lands and plans of other countries to meet the changes of modern life. Her first stop was Australia where she visited her brother, an engineer there. Then she visited the Philippines, Thailand, and India, observing certain unique and desirable aspects of Far Eastern architecture. From India she proceeded to the Holy Land, and this part of her journey provided a re-treat, as she put the world out of mind and became ab-sorbed in the life of our Lord. Her travels continued in Turkey, on to Italy where she lingered in Rome, then to Spain and France. In Germany she studied problems in-volved in regional planning for mining. Because of a serious interest in necessity for inter-diocesan planning, Melita was deeply interested in the episcopal planning bureau in Belgium, by which city churches and rural churches and schools are planned according to needs of city, suburban, or rural life. Here in Belgium, Melita observed the tremendous effect of "Young Christian Workers" in Catholic activity. The last stop was England, then home to sift and appraise the ideas and inspiration from her round-the-world journey. In 1958, Melita began her own firm, specializing in providing for her clients complete architectural, engi-neering, and planning service combined with interior decorating. The firm has the services of excellent consul-tants in engineering and financing. When the firm was first Organized, .Melita and Bernice lived and worked in the Potomac Plaza Apartments. One day a For Sale sign went up on a deserted, dilapidated dwelling across the street from the apartment. Curiosity and vision sent Me-lita on an inspection tour. The unusual lines and the lovely view of the Potomac from the third floor tower captured Melita's heart. And the creaky stairs, plaster-bare walls and cobwebs provided a challenge to Melita's pro-fessional ability. The house today seems to say it was joy as well as work that restored it to its immense liveability and unusual beauty. So much for Melita, the architect, for she is more than an artist and an architect. Melita has vision and percep-tion and appreciation for beauty not touched by human hands. Designing is not only a business with her but a God-given talent in which she expresses the love of God in her soul. Creative art, Melita told me, is the remedy man needs in this age of technology, assembly lines, and automation. These things, cold and impersonal, produce ragged nerves and tensions and strike at man's very soul, leaving him unmindful of the purpose for which his Crea-tor put him on earth. Into all forms of art--painting, poetry, music, and so forth---goes one's own personality, reflecting a personal relationship with the Heavenly Father. The closer to God man is, ~the truer his work, and the more he will choose a good and proper use of ma-terials. In the arts a man may find peace and contentment for he may use his.creativ.e ability' to transform his inner energy in a satisfying manner,~, ~, Happily, Melita sees her obligation to use her creative ability to promote a Christian society, a Christian com-munity life. Melita is taking the giant step of using her profession solely for the glory of God and for love of her neighbor with no profit except the profit of peace in her own heart. Others have done this; for example, Dr. Albert Schweitzer and Dr. Tom Dooley and Geo.rge Washington Carver. Her heart and will having been entrusted to God some time ago, Melita began sifting ideas about putting her philosophy into practice. Then ideas had to be translated into blueprints, and these blueprints needed and received approval from her auxiliary Bishop, Most Reverend Philip M. Hannan, chancellor of the archdiocese. Then came discussions with many wise and prudent friends: spiritual directors, teachers, fellow artists, other archi-tects, and even mothers of children who are awakening to the needs of our frustrated society. Far from relying solely on her own ideas, Melita sought and listened to ~he counsel of all. The result was a plan to begin a secular institute of the design professions to be called Regina Institute. A secular institute is an association of lay people living in the world but bound by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, performing duties suitable for their talents for the love of God. Though popular and plentiful in Europe, secular institutes are just emerging in our coun-try. Their specific purposes vary widely. In Madonna House, for instance, workers live among the poor, teach-ing crafts and catechism, nursing the sick and feeding the hungry. In the Company of St. 'Paul, members teach, work in the Government, and so forth. This is a quiet life~ there is nothing in their dress to indicate they are an organization dedicated to Christ. Members simply strive to live as "Christs" among those needy in goods or in spirit. Regina Institute is taking another direction. First of all, Melita is concerned with the arts in the service of the Church's liturgy. She would like to assist in setting stand-ards for the quality of sacred art just as Benedictines have set a standard for sacred music. Second, she is endeavor-ing to bring the Incarnation into society by bringing Christian attitudes into the building professions and in-dustry and into city planning. The Christian philosophy of man and the social teachings of the Church are being Restoration VOLUME 21, 1962 ]0! Katie Ro~k REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 102 applied, thus supporting such contemporary projects as open occupancy, adequate housing, and so forth. Third, Melita and associates try to teach all of us the visual arts and their spiritual and cultural values. My visit showed me a great deal about the practice of these ideals and the life of this infant group. Melita and Bernice filled in a picture of a day in Regina House, tak-ing me on a tour of the house as they talked about their Rule. Recently Gwen moved in with Melita and Bernice. For the present they are living according to the Rule of the Third Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Melita has served as novice mistress of the St. Therese Chapter in Washington for eleven years. The Rule seeks to instill in its followers the spirit of constant prayer and love. Early each morning the group leaves for St. Stephen's Church nearby for a halfihour.of.meditation before 7:30 Mass. Breakfast follows, then they recite in ~ommon Prime, Terce and Sext from the Little 01~ce. (On.nice days they do so on the patio which they call their "clois-ter.") At 9:00 work begins. Lunch is at 12:30, followed by None and Vespers, then free time. At 2:00 they go back to work until dinner. At 7:30 comes Compline, Matins, and Lauds, and after that there is recreation-- long walks in nice weather, singing or reading at other times. One day of each.month is spent in retreat. There are three floors in l~egina House. The first con-tains the dining area and kitchen opening onto the patio, Bernice's office, and a music area. Melita plays the piano, and there is also a stereo arid many fine records, including Gregorian chant and classical music. On the second floor, we entered a work and study spa.ce. I was fascinated with the dozens of books and their range of subjects, from the culture of the Far East to the philosophy of Frank Lloyd Wright. There are books in German and French and Spanish, books on philosophy, Catholic Action, and the liturgy, books on ancient architecture and books on mod-ern design. Attractive chairs and a lovely view are invit-ing. Melita's bedroom, also on this floor, shows all her separate interests united in her one endeavor. There are beautiful religious objects, side by side with a drawing board (she is currently working on a dental laboratory) and there were several sketches in process, both water colors and oils. On the third floor are more drawing boards. This floor also serves as a workshop for other projects. Bernice finds time to make beautiful cards by a linoleum process fea-turing Melita's impressionistic designs. Bernice has a talent for dress designing and sewing; also she does lovely ceramic tile work. I noticed several clay models of build-ings as well as wooden models; Melita explained these help her visualize her ideas. Certainly the first purpose'of this institute is sanctifi-cation of its members. Theystrive for a four-fold contact with Christ: Christ the Life, through prayer.and the sacra-ments; Christ the Truth, through study and meditation; Christ the Way, through i~bedience; and Christ the Worker, through creative human effort for love of God. Melita invites young people inclined towards the design arts, who would like to dedicate their service to God, to talk to her. Regina House is large enough to house several women. If men apply, perhaps a home close by will be found for them, while work and prayer will be centered in Regina House. The necessity for meals and housekeep-ing means the Institute must attract also "artists" of the kitchen and "masters" of the broom. In fact, Melita is ready to consider anyone who is willing to share her ideals and approach, and invites those interested to con-tact her at 801 25th St. N.W., Washington 7, D.C. So sold was I by my visit that I was ready to apply-- but Melita just won't take a mother of eight growing children. Reluctantly I said "good-bye" and went out the big black door and the lacy iron gate. I looked back with new appreciation at Regina House which today so sur-passes in beauty and liveability its original design. From the ordinary it has become majestic. I left, believing that Melita's plan for it also far surpasses the ordinary Chris-tian way of living and that its tower truly points to Heaven and its eternal history is just beginning. ÷ ÷ ÷ Restoration VOLUME 21, 1962 103 WALTER DE BONT, O.P. Identity Crisis and the Male Novice Walter de Bont, O.P., is a member of the faculty o! the Catholic University in Nijmegen, Hol-land. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 104 Beginners' Failings Father Lacordaire,1 the day after his entry into the novitiate, confided to the master of novices: "Father, I can't stay here; these young men are childish and quite silly. They think everything is funny," "It would be a shame," the priest answered, "if the former preacher of Notre Dame of Paris should, by a hasty departure, give the world the impression that his entrance into religion had not been thoroughly consid-ered. Wait a while, then." Three weeks later the master of novices asked him, "When are you leaving?" "But I do not wish to go, so long as you are willing to keep me." "But what of your young companions who are so silly?" "Father," said Lacordaire, a little embarrassed, "I am the silliest of them all." In all the novitiates of the world since the beginning of monasticism there h~tve been young men, and some not so young, who were "a little silly." No matter how more or less normal they were a few weeks.previously, before they had left "the world," here they become affected by a whole series of strange phenomena which spiritual authors call "beginners' failings" (see especially St. John of the Cross, Dark Night, 1, 1-7). Using the material furnished by the experiment described below, the following section will give a rapid and pseudonymous portrait of certain "types" who betray the curious behavior encountered among be-ginners. *This article is translated with permission from the original article, "La crise d'identit~ du novice," which appeared in Suppld-ment de la Vie Spirituelle, 1961, pp. 295-325. The translation is by the Reverend John E. Becket, S.J. Passing Vagaries Brother Clement suddenly develops a phobia for drafts; underground currents beneath his bed keep him from sleeping; he wonders whether the spinach from the garden has enough iron to supply his needs; the light bulb on his work table endangers his eyes; and so on. No one has de-scribed more humorously than St. Teresa of Avila this kind of hypochondriac novice who seems "to have entered the cloister solely to labor at staving off death." She her-self, for that matter, knew this temptation of seeking "not to lose one's repose here below and still to enjoy God in heaven." John is a real gourmet--in search of spiritual delicacies. All his efforts are aimed at getting the satisfaction of a very sensible devotion from' prayer; In his :better moments he feels inundated with grace and spends hours in the chapel. When consolation no longer comes to him, he is desolate and lamentsin the blackest sorrow. At such times he passes the time of meditation breaking in books. Guy fears to embark on the road to perfection, excusing himself as one who was not meant to accomplish great things. He even thanks God for not making him too in-telligent. Comparing himseff with others, he has already lost all courage. Some suffer from quite peculiar sexual problems. At the very moment of prayer, confession, or communion, sexual feelings and reactions surge up. Cassian has already spoken of a brother "who enjoyed constant purity of heart and body, having merited it by reason of his circumspection and humility, and who was never afflicted with nocturnal emissions. But whenever he prepared for communion, he was sullied by an impure flow in his sleep. For a long time fear kept him from participating in the sacred mys-teries" (ConIerences, 22, 6). And then there are the pilgrims of ,the absolute with pure and perfect ideals. They are so punctual in their ex-ercises that you can set your watch by them; but they easily forget that the rule is merely a means to love God and their neighbor better. Burning with enthusiasm, they seem to have sanctity within their grasp. Lacking patience, they try to force the ascent toward God with Draconian measures. The novitiate is the decisive year in which holi-ness must be achieved. For them profession is a final set-tlement and not a decisive beginning. Or else there are the grim ascetics. In his enthusiasm for purity, Henry Suso did not scratch, nor even touch, any part of his body. Throughout the day he abstained from all drink. In the evening at the sprinkling with holy water, he opened his dry lips and gaped toward the 'sprinkler, hoping that a tiny drop of water would fall on his arid 4. + + Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 ]05 4. W. de Bont, OJL REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 106 tongue. At the age of forty, luckily, when "his whole na-ture was so devastated that nothing was left for him but to die or leave off his austerities," he opted for life and threw his whole arsenal of instruments of penance into the lake. For most of these novitiate "follies" are only temporary. Sooner or later good sense reasserts its rights, and the spiritual life of the subject becomes more balanced. St. Teresa had already clearly sensed that this bizarre conduct of the novice-beginner was somewhat forced and not genuine: Anything which gets the better of us to such an extent that we think our reason is not free must be considered suspicious, for in that way we shall never gain freedom of spirit, one of the marks of which is that we can find God in all things even while we are thinking of them. Anything other than this is spiritual bondage, and, apart from the harm which it does to the body, it constrains the soul and retards its growth (Book of the Foun-dations, Chapter 6, from The Complete Works ot Saint Teresa oI Jesus, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, Volume III, p. 32 [London and New York: Sheed and Ward, 1946]). If "our reason is not [completely] free," then we are not fully on the plane of moral defects, but partially on that of psychic determinisms. And it is precisely the psychic aspect of these, phenomena that we propose to study in this article which has no other aim than to throw some light by the help of modern depth psychology on this strange being whom the masters of the spiritual life have been ob-serving for centuries, the beginner par excellence, the novice, and on his imperfections. The perspective of this article must, then, be clearly emphasized. This is not a work of spiritual theology. The theologian contemplates the events of the novitiate with the eyes of faith; he sees there the hand of God and the conflict between grace and sin. The perspective of this article is much more modest; it is, to put it simply, psychological. Without in any way denying the workings of grace, we shall systematically ab-stract from them; for the designs of God and the ways of grace are not apprehended by the purely human ways of kno~ving which alone are at the disposal of the psychol-ogist. While leaving aside the supernatural aspect of the growth of the novice, we are bound to point out that this aspect tias been amply clarified by the masters of spiritual theology from Cassian and St. Benedict to St. John of the Cross and contemporary authors. Working Hypothesis and Methodology To initiate the psychological study of the novice and of his "imperfections," we took as "subjects" twenty-eight male novices belonging to two quite different communi-ties. We asked for volunteers only, but in each novitiate everyone volunteered. The age of our subjects varied from eighteen to twenty-two years. The level of their previous instruction was for the most part uniform, and they were about equally divided between those, from rural and those from urban backgrounds. The experiment was made dur-ing the fourth month of the/novitiate. i~ A double series of tools was used, since our aim was to clarify certain problems of the spiritual life. of the sub-jects by a study of their personality in the course of evolu-tion. a) For the study of personality, projection tests were used, especially the Rorschach and the Thematic Apper-ception Test (T.A.T.), since these two tests are universally recognized as highly useful for this purpose. The admin-istration of the Rorschach was preceded by the drawing of a human figure, so that the subject might implicitly per-ceive that a creative effort was expected of him. b) For the study of their spiritual life, the novices were asked to write a four-page essay entitled "The Ideal and the Difficulties of My Spiritual Life." c) To complete our information from the character-ological as well as the spiritual side, we conducted inter-views of about an hour with each subject, his master of novices, and the assistant to the master of novices. It was striking, especially in going over the Rorschach protocols, to see the number of signs of anxiety, of ten-sion, and of disintegration. Equally striking, however, were the efforts at synthesis. Given the age. and the situa-tion of our subjects, this called to mind the psychological situation described by Erik Erikson under the name of "identity crisis" (see Erik Erikson, "The Problem of Ego Identity" in Identity and the Lqe Cycle, volume one of "Psychological Issues" [New York: International Univer-sities Press, 1959]). As a matter of fact, the novice is a young adult, around eighteen to twenty years of age. As others become doctors, engineers, and fathers of families, he, at the end of his adolescence, chose in a more or less definitive way the role he wanted to play in adult society: that of religious or priest. This role is the result and syn-thesis of his entire previous development. In this connec-tion, Erikson uses the word "identity" because in this role the young man ought to be able to accomplish the best he is capable of while at the same time promoting the aims of society. The novitiate is his first serious testing of this role; he is vested in the religious habit and he follows the rules of his community as they are adapted for re-cruits. What does this identity of pries.t-religious become in the novitiate? Is the young man able to realize it here in the way in which he dreamed of doing? Does the com-munity he has chosen respect this identity? If these ques-tions receive a more or less negative answer, .a crisis oc- VOLUME 21, 1962 curs, an identity crisis because it is the novice's identity that is brought into question. As with every crisis it is manifested by certain symptoms; and one may assume that the imperfections of beginners are precisely the signs of this crisis on the religious plane. Our hypothesis then is this: The novitiate induces in the young religious a crisis about his identity, about the role he wishes to play in life, a role which is the end prod-uct of all his previous development; this crisis comes from the fact that this role is threatened by the novitiate; and the imperfections of beginners are the symptoms of this crisis. In order to understand this hypothesis better, a more ample presentation must be made of Erikson's notion of identity. This will be done in several of the following sec~ tions. ÷ ÷ ÷ W. de Bwnt, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 108 Identity, Synthesis of the Personality During adolescence all the impulses of earlier life re-appear accompanied by a strong genital drive. It is the characteristic work of the male adolescent to subordinate this chaos of impulses under genitality and find them their proper object, a girl. But this adjustment of one's infan-tile heritage to one's new acquisitions does not confine itself solely to the level of impulsive life; it equally con-cerns the other functions of the personality, the ego and the superego and their identifications. For the young man. must subordinate his previous identifications to a new kind of identification, an ultimate identity learned in so-cial contacts and competitive apprenticeship with his equals. These new identifications no longer have the ca-priciousness of infancy or the experimental fervor o youth; with extreme urgency they impel the young indio. vidual toward choices and decisions which progressively conduct him to a final definition of himself, to an irrev-ocable configuration of rol~s, and then to lifelong com-mitments. The normal adolescent performs this reintegration him. self, using spontaneously chosen adults and older adbles-cents as his models. But the age at which this synthesis is completed varies considerably. The more complicated a civilization is, the longer it takes its members to integrate their personality and find their place in society. At the bee ginning of our era people were married at Sixteen, a thing that rarely happens today. Suso entered the novitiate ar thirteen, whereas nowadays even canon law considers thi.~ too early. Moreover it would seem that workers or farm people come to adulthood before members of the profes. sional classes who have more to integrate and spend a longer time in training. Finally, the presence of acute conflicts can make this integration even more difficult and slow. At the worst, they may even render such integration impossible and the subject becomes neurotic or psychotic. Identity, a Psychosocial Reality This ultimate identity of which we have been speaking is unique for each individual because no two ,develop in identically the same way. '~Id~e'~,er, it is fa~'~O~ being individualistic. A person becomes himself only in a given society and in order to live in that society according to that identity. Ideally, identity implies that one is most oneself when one is most in relation with others and that our personal values and ideals coincide for the most part with those of the environment which is accepted by the person and in which he feels himself accepted. It is of ex-treme importance for the formation of the identity of the young man that society respond to him and that he receive a function and a status which integrates him into the community. In order to take his place in society the young man must acquire the skillful use of his principal ability and fulfill it in some activity. He should enjoy the exercise of this activity, .the companionship which it furnishes, and its traditions. Finally he must receive a setof teachings which allow him to see the meaning of life: religion, philosophy, or some ideology. Speaking psychosocially, the'h, identity is the role, integrated into the character, which the indi-vidual wishes to play in society and for which he expects the approbation of society in order to give meaning to his life. After the psychosexual delay of the period of latency there must, in consequence, be another delay, adolescence, so that the already sexually adult young man may, by freely experiencing different roles, find himself a place in some section of society, a place which in its definiteness seems made uniquely for him. The Genesis o[ Identity Identity must not be confused with identification. The simple addition of infantile identifications (the child act-ing like his parents, his brothers, his uncles, his teachers, his friends.) never results in a functioning personality. These identifications are too disparate and too contra-dictory; they are, moreover, often far from being socially acceptable or realistic, since the child's imagination dis-torts the image of his. parents or other models to suit his own needs. The final identity which emerges in the course of adolescence and which at the end of its development is largely fixed, is rather a new configuration which includes all previous usable identifications while transcending them all. They are transformed to make a whole which is unique and reasonably coherent. This new configuration ought to be achieved in such a way that in it the physical 4. VOLUME 21, 1962 ]~9 ÷ ÷ W. d~ Bont, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS constitution of the young man, his affective needs, his best liked capacities, his effective defense mechanisms, and his successful sublimations find their rightful use. The formation of personal identity, then, has its roots in the most distant past of the individual, a past often lost in the clouds of the unconscious. It begins with the first introjections and projections of the baby whose relative integration depends on a mutually satisfying relationship between the child and his mother. For it is she who must give him that basic trust in himself and in others which is at the foundation of any process of becoming social. Then follow the different identifications of childhood which will be the more successful according as.their proto-types show themselves to be both loving and firm. The last step of the formation of the ultimate identity begins when the usefulness of identifications is over. It consists of the repudiation of some infantile identifications and an absorptive assimilation of others of them into a new configuration, which in its turn depends on the proc-ess by which a society (or the subgroups of a society) "identify" the young man by recognizing him as someone who ought to have turned out as he did and who is ac-cepted as he is. Society in its turn feels "recognized" by the individual who demands to be accepted, or profoundly and aggressively rejected by the individual who seems un-interested in any social integration. Identity manifests itself, then, in the role which the young man is going to play in society. Identity Crisis When the young man, emerging from.adolescence with his newly acquired identity, does not find in society the place he needs in order to continue to be what he has been and to develop still more, he runs the risk of a crisis. His ambitions may be too vast, society too different from his ideal; certain aspects of his identity may be poorly de-veloped in relation to what is demanded by the customs of his milieu from the viewpoint of sex, occupation, or in the area of academic or athletic competition. This constitutes a failure, at least a partial and provisional one. The at-tempt to enter into a relationship with society will piti-lessly reveal any weakness up to now latent in his identity. There results a state of confusion with the following symp-toms: a feeling of isolation, a breakdown of the feeling of personal continuity, shame, inability to enjoy any ac-tivity, a sense of enduring life rather than of actively living it, a distorted perspective of time, and finally, an extreme mistrust of others as if society were in opposition to what the subject wants to be. But no matter how many neurotic or psychotic symp-toms may be discovered, an identity crisis is not a sickness. Rather, it is a normal crisis, that is, a normal phase of sharp conflict characterized by an apparent wavering in the strength of the ego, but also by great possibilities for growth. Neurotic and psychotic crises are characterized by a tendency to perpetuate themselves because o~ a loss of defensive energy and ~i deep social isolation.~ A'grOWth crisis, on the contrary, is relatively more easy to overcome and is characterized by an abundance of utilizab!e energy. This energy, doubtless, causes the reawakening of dormant anxieties and engenders new conflicts; but it supports the ego in the functions it has newly acqtiired or developed during the search for new opportunities or for, new rela-tions which society is more than ever ready to offer. What appeared as the .onset of a neurosis is often only a quite acute crisis which dissipates itself and helps more than it harms the formation of the subject's identity. Some cases, however, reach a less fortunate outcome: derangement, suicide, or a confirmed case of nerves. We have already briefly mentioned the characteristic symptoms of the identity crisis, now it will be worthwhile to give a more ample description of them by contrasting them with the dimensions of an ultimate identity success-fully achieved. The Dimensions of Identity and Its Crisis At each stage of man's psychosocial, development cer-tain criteria allow us to see whether the individual has passed through this phase successfully or whether he has failed. So it is with the baby's crisis of trust (in the oral stage of development); with the crisis of autonomy at the age of two (during the anal phase); with the crisis of in-itiative around the age of five years (the age of the Oedipus complex); with the assimilation of work during the time of schooling; the crises brought about by marriage and the birth of children; and the problems posed by maturity and old age. What interests us here are the criteria which let us evaluate the identity crisis in the passage from puberty to adulthood. Erikson gives eight criteria which show whether the young man has succeeded in building up for himself in accordance with his possibilities an ultimate identity which is both balanced and accepted by his environment, or whether he remains at grips with an outgrown identity which is deficient and replete with conflicts. As has just been said, each growth crisis reawakens sleeping anxieties, the relics of old battles in former crises which were buried but not done away with. In the identity crisis certain con-flicts of preceding stages of psychosocial development are reawakened. This reawakening evidently does not bring these conflicts forward under the shape which they had when the subject was still a baby or a small child, but in a Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 ÷ ÷ W. d~ Bont, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS way that is colored by his current development. The first four dimensions of the identity crisis mentioned by Erik. son are reawakenings of former crises which, as we have mentioned, have to do with trust in o~hers and in oneself, personal autonomy from others, the ability to take the ini.~ tiatives by which one becomes "someone," and the ability to do one's work well. But the young man is not formed by his past alone; he is also stretching towards the future; The last three dimensions of the identity crisis are then foretastes of the problems which he will have to resolve later on in his life when he marries, when he becomes a fafher, or when he .reckons up the balance of his whoh: life. ¯ Here then are the eight criteria or dimensions of the identity crisis: a) Presence. or absence of a perspective in life. The young man in the grips of an identity crisis manifests a confused attitude toward time which may be more or less grave according to the case. He sees no prospects for him-self in life. Since his identity is not well defined and he is fully confused with regard to his place in society, his con-fidence in the future is completely overturned. He is in despair, even if this shows up as a headlong precipitancy with which he tries to reach his goal, like the student who, for an elementary examination in biology, studies only the most advanced articles. This is a derivative revival of the impatience found in the child who has not yet realized that all human activity realizes itself only gradually in obedience to the progressive nature of time rather than all at once as if by magic. When the young man resolves his crisis and begins 'to become himself, when he synthesizes the different aspects of his character and finds his place in society, this co:a-fused attitude toward the temporal element of his life is changed into a rich diversity of prospects; at the same time he becomes open to the temporal dimension as indispen-sable for every building up of his personality. Moreover, through the temporal dimension of the ideology which it offers him, society can help the young man to rediscover the feeling that his past and his future have a meaning. Most religions, philosophies, or political doctrines teach that there is a meaning and a direction to life. Even though such an ideology may not be altogether realistic and may represent a certain simplification of the order of things, still, in such a situation its pedagogical usefulness is real. b) Self-certainty or self-consciousness. The young man going through an identity crisis is characterized next by insecurity, by a doubting of himself accompanied by shame at what he is or has been. What reappear are the social characteristics of the anal stage. Once he has regained at a higher level the balance which he had achieved before, the new sense of his own meaning gives him the necessary assurance to face life and to assume his chosen role in society. Here again, in the recovery of assurance, social surroundings can be a powerful aid by the uniformity of conduct, arid ,sometimes of~:clbthing, which they impose, often without even demanding them by an explicit code. With the help of this uniformity, the young man, though in a state of confusion, may tempo-rarily hide his shame and his doubts until his identity is sufficiently reestablished. c) Free experimentation with roles or its absence. The healthy young man's entrance into adult society is char-acterized by the provisional adoption of a great variety of roles and initiatives, each of which is tested by a process of trial and error in order to .decide which is better for him so that he may make a final choice which will determine the principal content of his adult life. This is a prolonga-tion of the child play of the Oedipal age in which the child sought to overcome anxiety by his identifications; the child of four who plays at driving a bus attains, in this way, at least in his imagination, equality with the adults he fears, especially his parents (the castration complex of classical psychoanalysis). But in certain cases, especially if adoles-cence is unduly prolonged, the opposite of this free ex-pe. rimentation with roles is found. To characterize this other extreme, Erikson speaks of negative identity, that is, "an identity perversely based on all those identifications and roles which, at critical stages of development, had been presented to the individual as most undesirable or dangerous, and yet also as most real" ("The Problem of Ego Identity," op. cit., p. 131). The 'young man whose mother is always saying, "If you act that wa~ you will turn out like your uncle [a drunkard]" can end up precisely that; he identifies himself with what is forbidden because it is more real for him than the positive ideal which' his mother never spoke of with such eloquence. According to some recent research (that of Adelaide Johnson and her staff) juvenile delinquency (in the area of aggressivity)and perversion (in the sexual area) are frequently the result of such largely negative education. But there are still other ways to renounce a free experimentation with roles; for example, the renouncement of personal identity in an ex-treme conformism which tries to root out everything which goes against even the excessive demands of the en-vironment. Here again the different segments of society offer the young man initiations or confirmations which are apt to encourage the spirit o[ initiative while channeling it and allaying the reawakening of Oedipal guilt. "They strive, within an atmosphere of mythical timelessness, to com- . 4- 4- 4- VOLUME 21, 1962 113 ÷ ÷ ÷ W. ~e Bo~t, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS bine some. form of sacrifice or submission with an energetic guidance toward sanctioned and circumscribed ways of action--a combination which assures the development in the novice of an optimum of compliance with a maximum sense of fellowship and free choice" ("The Problem of Ego Identity," op. cit., p. 144). d) Anticipation of achievement or work paralysis. The next characteristic of the adolescent who is initiating him-self into society is the anticipation of success. He feels able to accomplish something, to fulfill his function in the. community in such a way that the other members will re-pay him by their esteem. This is a prolongation of the ap-plication to school work during the period of latency. When things go poorly, the subject, instead of feeling him-self able to assume his role, is paralysed in the work he is doing either because his ambitions are too vast or because his environment has no place for his special capacities or does not give him the recognition he hopes for. Or he risks everything to gain everything and throws himself." prematurely into an intellectual or social activity which is extravagant and rigid and which may in the end com. pletely destroy his personal happiness, if not his physical existence: At the root of ~ill these forms of work pathology we find, according to Erikson, a reawakening of Oedipal competition and of the rivalry with his brothers or sisters. The different segments of society help those who are the process of learning and of trying out their social role by offering them .a certain provisional status, that of ap-prentice or student--with all that these imply of duties, competition, freedom, and also of potential integration into the hierarchy of jobs and of classes, as in associations for young adults (for example, political parties have their sections for youth which act ~s an initiation into adult life). e) Identity or confusion. The most general character-istic of the young man who has not yet achieved interior and social balance is confusion. This is the global result of all the imbalances set up by the reawakening of old conflicts and of all the confused attitudes which come from the fact that the ~oung man is still unable to take his place in the community of adults. A multiplicity of contradic-tory roles results. Two souls come to exist in one body, as the hermit and the power mad man did in Francisco Jimfinez de Cisneros (Le Cardinal d'Espagne), or ~2z~chiely and Tenebroso-Cavernoso in Father Joseph, the grey emi-nence, "combining in his own person the oddly assorted characters of Metternich and Savonarola" (Aldous Huxley, Grey Eminence [New York and London: Harper, 1941], p. 128). Nevertheless, when the conflict has been crystal-lized, that is, become irreversible, we no longer speak of an identity crisis or of confusion, but of neurosis (sympto- matic or characterological) and of psychosis in which the 'T' has become someone else in the complete collapse of the sense of oneself, as in the case of the novice who, having divested himself in choir, appeared on the altar before the community piously assembled for a ho.ly hour and said, "I am the Immaculate C6nceptiofi."'~ The opposite of this confusion, which emerges in a more or less definitive way at the end of a successful ado-lescente, is identity. It is the feeling of having integrated into one's person all the valuable elements of one's child-hood heritage in order to give oneself with all one's forces .to love, to work, and to the social commitments, of adult life. We need not develop this sinc~ it has already been treated in previous sections of this article. f) Sexual identity or bisexual.conIusion. We come now to the ch~aracteristics of the identity crisis which are not derived from old, preadolescent' conflicts reawakened by physical maturation, but which are rather the precursors of conflicts which will find their climax and their.resolu-tion later in the ages of preadulthood, adulthood, or ma-turity, The proper task of the preadult period is intimacy, es-pecially sexual intimacy, with a partner. According to Erikson the "utopia of genitality" ought to include: mu-tual orgasm with a loved partner of the opposite sex with whom one is willing and able to share mutual responsibil-ity and with whom one is willing and able to adjust the cycles of work, procreation, and recreation in such a way as to assure their offspring a similar satisfactory develop-ment. As for the celibate, "a human being should be po-tentially able to accomplish mutuality of genital orgasm, but he should also be so constituted as to bear frustration in the matter without undue regression wherever consider-ations of reality and loyalty call for it" (Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society [New York: Norton, 1950], p. 230). Whoever fails at this stage becomes an isolated personality. In the identity crisis the precursors of these extremes are seen. The one who will later succeed in entering into a true intimacy with another is the one who succeeds in integrating into his personality the true characteristics of his sex, who sees himself both consciously and uncon-sciously as pertaining to his sex, and not more or less to the other sex. In those periods when the personality is less structured, and especially in irreversible pathological cases, there is a clear incapacity to assume the role proper to one's sex, a confusion of masculine and feminine traits which exceeds the relative confusion which' is normal at the beginning of adolescence. Intimacy presupposes, therefore, a sense of one's iden-tity, a capacity to be oneself on the sexual level as on other levels: "The condition of a true twoness is that one must ÷ ÷ VOLUME 21, 1962 115' 4. 4. 4. W. de Bont, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS first become onself" (Erik Erikson, "Growth and Crises of ~he 'Healthy Personality' " in Personality in Nature, So-ciety, and Cultizre, C. Kluckhohn and H. Murray, eds. [New York: Knopf, 1956], p. 222). Anyone who has .not achieved his own identity can not have intimate relations with another. He will take refuge in a sterile isolation for fear of losing himself completely; or else he will turn him-self over to another body and soul borrowing the identity of the other to fill up his own void, in this way vainly seeking to resolve an identification which was not success- [ul in childhood. Different societies have very different means of helping through these difficulties the young man who is already physiologically, though not socially, adult: by demanding complete sexual continence; or by permitting sexual ac-tivities which do not lead to definitive social engagements; or by stimulating sexual play without intercourse (pet-ting). The purpose of this prop is to stimulate and to strengthen the ego and its identity. g) Authority: orientation or conIusion. The adulthood of a truly healthy man ought to be characterized by pro-. creativeness; this means assuming responsibility for' the. next generation by parenthood or by other forms of al-truism and creativity. A failure along this line means that' one is absorbed in his own problems instead of placing his energy at the service of others. This is a victory for narcissism: "Individuals who do not develop generativity often begin to indulge themselves as if they were their own one and only child" (Erikson, "Growth and Crisis of the 'H~althy Personality,' " op. cir., p. 223). What forecasts this approaching procreativeness in the young man is the ability to be either a leader or a follower according to circumstances. The attitude of the subject {n everything that conc(rns authority (exercising it or obey., ing it) is realistic. Any future failure of procreativity be-trays itself in the inability to lead or to follow when one of these two relationships is required. It is especially in sub-groups of his.companionsthat society gives the adolescent the opportunity to try out this strength in the area of aw thority. h) Ideological orientation or conIusion o] ideals. When he has arrived at maturity, the normal man has the sense of having completed his task as far as possible. He accepts responsibility for what he has made of his life and of his personal abilities. Having helped others to become them-selves, he can now pass on this responsibility to the next generation and withdraw from the scene. The man, on the contrary, who has not realized his potentialities for the service of others will experience despair and disgust with himself. He would like to begin his life over but realises that it is too late. His life is a failure whether he admits it to himself or hides it by projecting the blame onto others. This was the case with Father Joseph, that "grey emi-nence" whose double identity was mentioned above. At the end of his life, he felt the bitterness and frustration of a man who has seen God, but who, through his own fault, has lost Him in the attempt t6i'ser~ two mastersJ~loser to us, we have the story of, Sister Luke' and of all those who leave their communities around the age of forty. These two possible attitudes which can emerge at the crisis of maturity are foreshadowed with the'young man by an ideological orientation, "a choice among many val-ues of those which demand our allegiance"; or on the con-trary, by a chaos of ideals without connection or sy.nthe-sis. Society helps the young man here by proposing a variety of ideologies each of which may be useful to him in proportion to its internal consistency. The above paragraphs are a brief presentation of the eight criteria which, according to Erikson, show whether and how the young man succeeds in constructing an iden-tity of his own. If in one or other of the eight areas listed he does not succeed in extricating himself from the confu-sion engendered by this indispensable maturation of his personal identity, he risks becoming the victim of a more or less profound psychic derangement, which may assume the shape of one of the classical forms so thoroughly stud-ied by clinical psychology: symptomatic neurosis, charac-ter neurosis, delinquency, psychosis, and so on. In spite of the interest there might be in studying these personality troubles as functions of the eight dimensions enunciated by Erikson, it is more to our purpose to apply the light of what has been said about the identity crisis of the young man to a study of the problem of the novice, of his quest for identity, and of the crises which this quest may involve. Identity Crisis in the Novitiate The young man who arrives at the door of the novitiate already possesses a certain identity which is more or less well-founded. It shows itself in the choice he has made: to become a celibate instead of marrying; instead of becom-ing a doctor, engineer, or grocer, he aspires to a function in the Church. Moreover, he has chosen this particular community rather than some other. All these factors (cel-ibacy, priesthood, community) are so many aspects of the role which he wishes to play in life. Vaguely he sees him-self in the future as such and such a person, with a more or less specific function, whether it be that of preacher, pro-fessor, pastor, or diplomat attached to a nunciature. This role is the end product of the candidate's total past life, the synthesis of his previous psychic development, But after four months of ttie novitiate (the stage at which the novices who were the subject of our experiment had arrived), the ÷ ÷ ÷ Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 W. d~ Bont~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS great majority o[ novices are plunged into a more or less pronounced Crisis o[ identity. Signs oI the Crisis In the tests a considerable number of confusion symp-toms were.found, many more than in a group of students of the same age and background who were beginning their studies at a university. We cannot enter here into the more minute d~tails of these symptoms because of their too tech-nical nature; nevertheless, the following should at least be mentioned: a) The universal presence of a considerable anxiety. Anxiety is always an experience of the disintegration of the sell when old conflicts renew their attack. b) Equally striking was the great number of poor in-terpretations in the Rorschach, although they ought not to appear in a normal protocol. Even by using the Ameri-can scoring system of.Klopfer who tends to diminish their number, twenty-two out of twenty-eight novices gave them. This indicates a certain loss of contact with reality which is experienced as too hard, a retreat into phantasy which accompanies the identity crisis. c) Almost all the novices suffered from bisexual con-fusion with a reemergence of feminine traits. This was not manifested in overt sexual responses (except in two cases),, for the novitiate for the most part suppresses overt manifestations of sexuality. But it was visible, for example, in the defective sexual identifications given to the human figures on the Rorschach.cards and those of the T.A.T. (sixteen novices out of twenty-eight). d) Besides, seventeen out of twenty-eight subjects had a deficient image of their own body, according to their drawing of a human figure. This should not be surprising, for the image (more or less unconscious) we have of our own body is a visualisation of our identity. It is very sen-sitive to the influences of the environment; for example, to the interpretative power of clothing. The substitution of the religious garb, a skirt, for lay dress (masculine) has, from this point of view, a profound effect on one's sense of one's identity. "We identify ourselves with others by means of clothes. We become like them. By imitating their clothes we change our postural image of the body by taking over the postural image of others. Clothes can thu:; become a means of changing our body-image completely" (Paul Schilder, The Image and Appearance ol the Human Body [New York: International Universities Press, 1950], p. 204). The great number of deficient images of the body means that our subjects were in a siate of transition between their former identity (the "old man") and their new one. At the level of conscious behavior the crisis betrays it- self in all kinds of sentimental, per~ectionistic, depressive or even mildly paranoid traits. Brother Claude feels sad-dened by the November weather; another is not at ease working with the lay brothers in the garden; Robert thinks that his companions have something~against him when his prayer is not going well; Josephofeels depressed because he may not go out; and the imagination of John-Paul takes refuge in the past. As' for authority, almost all had a poorly balanced attitude, falling either into an exaggerated sub-missiveness or into revolt, or ifito indiscreet exercise of their own authority. Examples of these will be given later. The majority of the novices, then, manifested the two dimensions of the identity crisis which are at the heart of the religious life, for they relate to the vows of chastity and obedience: bisexual confusion and confusion with re-gard to authority. Catalysts of the Crisis The causes of the identity crisis can be summarized in this way: There is crisis, confusion, and disintegration be-cause the novitiate calls into question the initial identity with which the young man came to the novitiate. a) The young man already had a certain role in life before his entrance into the novitiate; he was president of his class, a member of Catholic Action, a well-known foot-ball player. He had a status in his environment, and be-cause of it he enjoyed the esteem of others. Entrance into the novitiate puts an end to all this. He changes his envir-onment and he must remake his reputation. Former modes of satisfaction no longer exist. A whole network of rela-tionships is broken; and it was precisely within this net-work that he found his own place, that he had realized, provisionally but really, his identity. All this he has to do over again. The impossibility of living out his identity in the old way almost inevitably causes a disintegration. The aspirations of the subject and almost their entire psychic substructure remain in suspension until they can be replaced by others or be reaffirmed. Before his novitiate Claude was in love with a some-what maternal girl who was a great help to him in his dif-ficulties. She forced him to become open, although in his own words he had tried to kill his sensitivity. She made an opening in his armor; he could communicate his ideal instead of pursuing it all alone. Separation from her at his entrance into the novitiate was difficult for him. His mem-ories of tenderness keep him alternating between melan-choly and aggressiveness. Arthur, the son of a farmer, is a young man whose strong ambition was enough to assure his success in stud-ies at the rural high school he attended, though from time to time he got on the nerves of his companions. In the ÷ ÷ VOLUME 21, 1962 ll9 novitiate he is more or less forgotten, for the smarter city boys leave him in the shadows. They take in with ease and naturalness everything that he had to fight hard for with an unremitting labor which had in turn cut him off from his modest origins. He can no longer play the role into which he had thrown all his energy. He has lost his place in society. He becomes depressed, grows still more ambi-tious in doing the Work of the novitiate, and becomes over sensitive to the least remarks of others. As for John-Paul, the role he wishes to play in life can be adequately summed up as that of an important priest, very esteemed by his people. Already at college he had to be first in the class to get admiration; and later, feeling himself crowded too closely by the other students, he plunged himself into extracurricular activities for the same reason. But the novitiate, the first step toward the realization of his identity as a priest, becomes a place of frustration and crisis. There he is far from college where he played a role of the highest rank and equally far from a friend whose affection gave him a sense of personal value. Here no one knows him. Hence his homesickness. During meditation he thinks of his friend, of past times, especially of those scenes in which he played an eminent role; or else he thinks of the future, he sees himself in the pulpit as a preacher. Evidently John-Paul is hypersensitive to the impression which he makes on the other novices; for example, in his reading at table. He takes great care with his hair, gives it a real coiffure, and contemplates himself in the mirror. b) Entry into the novitiate not only deprives the sub-ject of a part of his previous identity, but the community also wishes to change the candidate who comes to it in order to make him into a man who bears the community'.~ image and likeness; in other words, a religious with the spirit of his order. It is far from accepting the candidate as he is. The community has quite fixed ideas about what its members ought to become. Certain aspects of the nov-ice's previous identity, therefore, are necessarily destined for elimination while others must be developed to a more considerable degree. This is a changing of habits with its intellectual accompaniment--indoctrination. The conditions necessary for all indoctrination are (see Erikson, Young Man Luther [New York: Norton, 1958], p. 134): Isolation from the exterior world: family, friends, the old environment. Restriction of the sources of sensory stimulation and an immense value-increase in the power of words. The elimination of all private life, emphasis being placed on common life. Common devotion to the leaders who constitute and represent the community. The novitiate is a closed society; no influence is toler-ated there which would compromise the work of reforma-tion and indoctrination. Consequently no girls, no going out, no radio and television,.rio~,p6cket moridy~V~i~y~ ~ew visits. As for papers and magazines, only the more pious and serious ones will be allowed, In order to occupy the mind of the novice now emptied of worldly concerns, it is filled with spiritual teaching. So that he may be put on. the right road, the candidate is submitted to a daily pro-gram that is rigorous and unchanging and thateventually forms his mind as drops of water wear away stone. He is required to judge his own failings in the twice-daily ex-aminations of conscience. He may have no other company than that of the people who embody or partake of the desired ideal: the master of novices, his assistant, the other novices; there is no other model with whom he may iden-tify. The novitiate is, then, a dosed society in which the voice of indoctrination reverberates like an echo in an empty cave. For a change so profound must be brought about in the young man that once he has set out into the world upon his apostolic mission his' new identity must be the one which prevails over all previous attachments. He must himself become a representative and an incarnation of the spirit of his institute. That the "old man" feels uneasy in this hothouse should not be surprising. For example: Brother Yves states that: the isolation from people causes me some trouble, for I feel the need to be fully accepted as I am and also to be understood . My greatest fear about religious life and particularly about common life is that I may cease to be myself in order to fall into line. I fear a conformity in which all would be superficial and artificial, in which nothing would be assimilated, made per-sonal. I do not desire conformity, uniformity, stoic equanimity in my life. Here we discover an interesting difference between the two novitiates we have studied. In one, spiritual forma-tion is much more intense than in the other. The novices give reports of their spiritual progress to the master of novices, who follows and directs them very closely. The other master of novices, on the contrary, is a proponent of less exacting methods. In the "tight" novitiate, certain of the young men regressed to a point that was not reached by comparable novices in the more relaxed novitiate. Their crisis was more violent, for inevitably the less ac-ceptable aspects of their old identity were attacked with greater force. c) A third cause of the identity crisis in the novitiate ¯ comes from the fact that the previous ideas of the young man about the community of his choice are rarely real- 4. 4. 4. Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 121 ÷ ÷ ÷ 1¥. 4~ Bo~t, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 17.2 istic. Most often they are based on an idealized image of certain members of the community whom he knew before he entered either personally or through reading. He may imagine that every Franciscan is a Poverello, every Jesuit a Teilhard da Chardin, and every Dominican a Sertil-langes. He wishes to become like them. But he finds out very quickly that most of the members of the religious community are far from being the incarnation of this ideal, and then the novice frequently wonders whether his place is in the institute he has chosen, since it is of so little help to growth in his present identity. When Brother Irenaeus triumphantly ascertains that certain of the old fatheks do not practice what is demanded of the novices, his pride and his mistrust are the means by which he pro-tects his own high ideal. Francis, on the other hand, criti-cizes his fellow novices: they should be more perfect. He can't understand why they should be looking out the win-dow, why they should quarrel, or why they slip apples into their pockets after dinner to eat them in .their rooms. All this is personally disgusting to him. "If they entered religion to act like that . " And he is sorry that "medi-ocrity is not only found in the world, but also in the cloister." His excessive criticism is a means of defending himself against the temptation to do what they are doing, a temp-tation which is inadmissible because of a too rigid con-science. d) Finally, most communities have a great number of ministries to perform. It is often the decision of superiors which determines what role will later be assigned to the novice; whether he will be a missionary, a professor of apologetics, a parish priest, a teacher of the young, or the treasurer of the house. For one who has set his heart on the role of missionary, for example, obedience may create from the novitiate on a climate of uncertainty, a doubt about the possibility of realizing his role in life, his iden-tity. For we must not forget that one's identity is a synthe-sis of all one's previous development and hence it is not changed as one changes clothes. The novice ought, never-theless, to leave himself open to the possibility that the vow of obedience may make altogether a different thing of his life than what he thought. So it is that John-Paul wonders whether his superiors will let him go to the mis-sion where "the pagans, once converted to the faith of the gospel, will know better than the people of this coun-try the value of a priest." For he seeks everywhere the love and security he has up till now not found, and it was this quest which impelled him toward the priesthood. These four inevitable factors provoke an identity crisis in the novice which can go just "short of psychotic dis-sociation" (Erikson, Young Man Luther, op. cit., p. 134). This is a kind of fragmentation of the ego, a breakdown of the personality synthesis in a clash with the new en-vironment. The breach which the impact of this environ-ment makes in the synthesis is always located at its weakest point; that is, in certain conflicts Of the past Which Were poorly dealt with. In this serise,, the novitiate,brlngg .OUt the worst in oneself; the combined pressure of competition, adaptation to the level of the environment and the very rigid mode of life causes even the smallest weakness in the identity of the novice to burst fortl~. Beginners' Faults as Dimensions of the Crisis We can now parallel" the faults of beginners with Erik-son's eight dimensions of the identity crisis; for, according to our thesis, these faults are their equivalents in the re-ligious domain. As a matter of fact, it is not only the sogial life of the candidate which is troubled, but his spiritual life; all the more so since this constitutes the principal content of the life of the group and its members. We re-peat, we are studying the spiritual life here only under its psychological aspect and not at all under its theological aspect. a) Loss of perspective, the first of the dimensions of the identity crisis, betrays itself on the spiritual plane by a lack of patience, by a failure to apprehend that religious development has both its heights and its depths as does any other human evolution. This quest for the immediate is evident in spiritual gluttony and in its counterpart, dis-taste for spiritual realities when they do not procure a sensible satisfaction. It is equally to be found in those who wish. to push precipitously ahead. In his spiritual life Brother Mark seeks the love and consolation he did not receive enough of when he was little. In high school he created an environment for him-self which answered more or less adequately to his needs. But the change of environment deprives him of this sup-port and obliges him.to seek it elsewhere, in God. He seeks "the divine presence, a mysterious presence which I try to locate in myself without success. Each of my members dis-covers new sensations at this moment.". But when the quest does not succeed, "I feel a kind of di~sgust without reason or apparent motive. At such times Jesus does not seem to satisfy me; I thirst for something else too vague to be men-tioned or clearly defined." For Andrew, the need to rush ahead and a false apostolic zeal arose when common life and the demands of the no-vitiate for a change in his habits simultaneously reinforced a precocious superego and the unacceptable impulseg he was trying to harness] The unrealistic demands proper to these last two "imperfections" cause this novice not to feel at home with his less demanding comrades and his father ÷ ÷ ÷ Identity Crisis VOLUME 21~ 1962 ÷ W. de Bont, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS master who are themselves far from accepting with benev-olence this excess of zeal. To novices who have such difficulties the religious com-munity provides a helpful balancing factor in the per-spective of the future it opens to them. They are told of the various stages of the spiritual life; in the religious life there is a step-by-step education over several years (no-vitiate, philosophical and theological studies, ordina-tion.). There is a daily program set up in detail and firmly enforced. Finally, the candidate is promised cer-tain success in this world or in the next if he perseveres. b) Lack of assurance manifests itself in all those im-perfections which seek to hide certain defects by an im-moderate reaction: excessive shame for faults, a too literal adherence to the rules, indiscrete mortifications. Two ex-amples have already been given (B~'others Irenaeus and Francis). The novitiate offers the novices a provisional protection against their initial clumsiness in the unifor-mity it imposes in observances, clothing, spirituality. With this protection the novice is able to regain little by little the confidence in himself which was upset by the causes listed above. c) Pusillanimity in the spiritual life can be considered a failure to experiment with various roles; and certain forms of jealousy (of the progress of others) and of hypo-chondria (in connection with fasting, for example) can be considered as derivatives of Oedipal conduct. So it was that Henry, who was not able to identify with his dead father in order to attain, at least in his imagination, a superiority over his brothers which would give him a spe-cial title to the love of fiis mother, wished to carry on his apostolate in such a way that "after my departure people will forget completely that I was ever around, and that it was I who handled mattersY Fearing competition he does not dare to push himself forward. By always doing exacdy as the others, by effacing himself, he denies that he is dif-ferent, jealous, guilty of favoritism. In this case, the novitiate tries above all to encourage him to attempt one role, that of the apprentice religious. The novitiate is nothing else but an initiation into this role, begun with the taking of the habit as an exterior sign of the status which will be had henceforth in the com-munity and continued every day in the life of the novice. d) Paralysis about work clearly reveals itself in the dif-ficulties which the novice has from time to time in his spirit.ual exercises, meditation, examination of conscience, recitation of the Breviary. For Henry, for example, exami-nations of conscience remain at the surface of his person-ality. He fears lest his jealousy and anxiety come to the surface. Religious educators do everything in the noviti- ate to allow positive fulfillment, by teaching the novice suitable methods for achieving success in this domain. e) Lack of identity or confusion of roles manifests itself in a vague feeling of not b.eing at home in the novitiate, by nostalgia for the past, by the impo.ssibility of finding a place and a role in the communi~y: Examples Were" given above. The novitiate seeks to remedy this by encouraging the recruit to identify with his community by proposing to him in an exclusive way the spirit of the congregation or the order. f) Bisexual confusion manifests itself by all sorts of dif-ficulties with sex: the sexualization of religious life, for example, in sexual impulses at the moment of communion or confession; in particular friendships unddr the cloak of a spiritual relationship; in scruples about ~bad thoughts." Brother Guy, for example, transfers to Christ and St. John his tender feelings about a friend whom he has left in the world: You must have embraced very tenderly, as gently as do two beloved people spontaneously when one has acquired the other's special admiration; when one wishes to protest more deeply his profound joy in and friendly respect for the other. I would have liked to spend with the two of you those long evenings beneath the stars, as I had the happiness to spend them with James, speaking no doubt of Your ambitions, become those of Jol~n s~nce You loved him so tenderly, and he loved You. This transfer is meant to fill the void left by the impos-sibility of continuing an earthly friendship. What the novice should learn here, with the help of his spiritual director, is to renounce the exercise of his sex-ual faculty while at the same time .developing his manli-ness. This is impossible unless this renunciation is in-spired by valid and for the most part conscious motives ("for the kingdom.of God'i)and as little as possible af-fected by fear, shame, distaste, or guilt. g) The lack of reasonable attitudes with respect to au-thority is expressed by a crowd of symptoms: an extrava-gant docility, revolt against authority, a kind of freezing up in relations with superiors; too great a zeal to convert others where the aim is much more to resolve one's own problems than to help one's neighbor. 'Michael, for ex-ample, is so docile as to worry the master of novices some-what. He wants to be told what to do; he never resists; he has the spirit of. sacrifice; anything may be asked of him. If he is nettled, he gives a start and then merely smiles. His spiritual ideal is~ complete abandonment to God. He wishes to forget himself in order to be concerned only for God and His interests. Michael is a young man Whose mother thwarted him in his desire :for masculine inde-pendence. At the conscious level he submitted but uncon-sciously he rebelled against her. In the novitiate obedience 4. 4. Identity Crisis 1~5 4- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is a most important matter and there are very few possi-bilities for aggressivity (for example, sports) left open to him. His problem, then, is accentuated. It may be under-stood, then, that for him God and the master of novices are conceived after the image of his mother. Peter's sense of his priestly mission still has "some end other than a supernatural one." The reason for this is that by a slightly megalomaniac identification with pater-nal authority, of which he makes himself the prophet, he is protecting himself against a feeling of persecution. The image he has of his father is split into two, and his feelings are equally divided. Everything good about his father is projected into God, everything bad into the devil. Accord-ingly, to save the world by his apostolate means in fact to preserve the connection with the good parent (God) and to eliminate the bad (the devil). Since the novitiate is a completely masculine society and at the 'same time by it.~ nature demands obedience, it further accentuates the con. flicts about sexuality and authority which underlie thi:~ apostolic identity (according to psychoan.alytic theory, the paranoid personality is rooted in homosexualized relation-ships with the father, the representative of authority in the family); but at the same time it makes the experience o[ the apostolate impossible for the time being. One may not go out during .the novitiate, and so the balance of forces in Peter is upset. The master of novices will have the difficult task of teaching the novices the just mean between the docility of a sheep and revolt at the barricades, as in the case of the novice who barricaded his door when the superior knocked to get him to rise (he always got up late). To give the novices certain opportunities for leadership frora the novitiate on may contribute to the development of the orientation which is desirable in this domain. h) Finally, a confusion of ideals is the most obvious thing about the novices who do not yet know whether they want to stay or leave the novitiate to return to the world or who hesitate to choose among several communities, Brother Mark has grave doubts about his perseverance because he is torn between a "worldly" past made entic-ing by the admiration he commanded at school and tile frustrations of his present conventual life caused by the lack of tenderness and esteem received from others. Spir-itual training here seeks to take away all ambivalence by presenting the novice with the ideology of his order and excluding all other ideologies (newspapers are ban-ishedl). A certain simplification results from this which sometimes becomes a caricature; one novice will think he is living the "pure gospel" because he walks .around in sandals as the apostles did; another will think he has found the perfect balance between contemplation and action because in his community Compline is sung in common before sleep. When the new identity of the nov-ice is sufficiently established, this simplification will no longer be necessary. Psychologically speaking, the faults of beginners are merely attempts to maintain'. Or to reestablish 15rovision-ally the psychic equilibrium which has been upset by the impact of the environment, an impact which has struck the novice at the weakest points of his former identity. As Father Mailloux has said, they are not "typically pathological reactions per se, but rather.irrational modes of expression, upon which the psychic apparatus will normally fall back whenever an individual is unable to cope with a stressful situation in some rational man-ner" (Rev. Noel Mailloux, O.P., "Sanctity and the Prob-lem of Neurosis," Pastoral Psychology, 10 [February, 1959], 40). For in successful cases the novice readjusts; he incorporates the identity elements offered him by the religious environment into the best which his identity al-ready has and gets rid of the less acceptable elements. Having provoked the crisis, a well-directed novitiate helps also to heal it. And once the adaptation is made and the novice has regained his place, this time in the community of his choice, his beginner's faults disappear like hay fever when the season has passed. In less successful cases, there is a failure. Concord be-tween' the identity of the novice and the demands or the support of the environment remains impossible: The reasons may come from two quarters: a lack of flexibility in the subject consequent upon an identity too charged with conflict as with the brother of the barricades cited above who left his community a little later,, or on the part of the community which is unable to Offer the novice the place which he seeks for his gifts and his particular abilities as in that sufficiently large novitiaite where .eighty percent of the novices left because of a master of novices still living spiritually in the nineteenth' century. The shock was the greater for them as their previous educa-tion was the more liberal. Conclusion We have studied in this article the psychological side of this night of the senses which the novitiate arouses by its very nature. By uprooting the candidate from his for-mer environment, it deprives him of the support which his identity enjoyed before in order to invite him to a higher spiritual balance. Our perspective, it is true, has been a restricted one; we have described only what the novitiate may have in common with any identity crisis studied by the psychologist. On this plane, the crisis of the novice resembles that of a young man who prepares 4. ÷ Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 W. de Bo~t, 0~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]28 himself for army service at West Point, or who leaves hi.q small-town home to go to a large, university--although course the crisis has a different content according as concerns military formation, the situation of a student, or religious training---celibacy and examinations of con-science do not figure largely in a military perspective. For methodological reasons we have left aside that which con~ .stitutes the very essence of the life of the novitiate: the introduction to the life of consecration to God to which by His grace He has invited the novice. It is this properly spiritual aspect which masters of novices are best ac-quainted with, and they can guide themselves in this by a solidly established spiritual theology. Our only inten-tion has been to draw their attention to the psychological side of this introduction to sanctity, a side which it 'is better not to be totally ignorant of. The "follies" of nov-ices should not be seen as faults which are exclusively in the moral order, as pride, for example, considered as the capita) sin. There is question rather of provisional, and unsuccessful efforts to adapt oneself to a new situation; hence they are normal phenomena which always arise under one form or another when a man must remake the synthesis of his personality. Nevertheless, they are real difficulties and not imaginary, often very painful for the subject who undergoes them and annoying for those around him. The wisdom of an alert master of novices will assuage much of this human pain, and this the more so as he knows better the identity of the novice in ques. tion, with its strong points and its weak. This present article is limited to describing the iden-tity crisis of the novice. It does not pretend to furnish the elements of a possible prognostication. If almost all nov, ices undergo this crisis in some degree or other, how, among so many of the "imperfect," can those who will persevere be singled out from those who will leave or merely mark time for the rest of their lives? This is an important question, for the novitiate terminates with a profession which, even though it be temporary, repre-sents a real and very profound commitment. Certain re-marks of St. John of the Cross (Dark Night, 1, 9) coukl provide us with a point of departure for such a consid- ¯ eration; but this task must be reserved to a later article. PAUL W. O'BRIEN, S.J. Introducing the Young Sister to Prayer One of the problems facing the young sister is learning to pray. She h~is probably been pra

Issue 21.4 of the Review for Religious, 1962. ; ALOYSIUS J. MEHR, O.S.C. Community Exercises in Religious Life Introduction: The Religious Community in Perspec-tive The religious communityx exists within two wider communities from which it draws its own unique vitality and significance. These two communities--forming one kingdom of God--are the Church and the total human world. Both are immeasurably deep and charged with dynamism; and we cannot arrive at an adequate grasp of the significance of community exercises in religious life unless we see the posture of our own particular commu-nity within these two great communities which are great covenants, the covenant of creation and the cove-nant of Christ. The religious community, however, is not related to the Church and the world only extrinsically as though these formed some kind of background or framework out-side of the community. Kather, the religious community exists at the point of encounter between two great lines of force and destiny which are the Church and the world. Its being calls out to the total human Community from which it arises and in whose service it acts; and its being is a response, deep and creative, to the call of the Word of God. The religious community sums up, symbolizes, and is an eikon of the human community and of the Church. The religious community, therefore, arises from the depths of creation, from the depths of life, lost in the eons of the life's growth itself.2 We carry on the work of crea- 2 This paper was written for and delivered at the international convention on Crosier spirituality held at Maaseik, Belgium, July 24-26, 1961. It has been revised so as to make it applicable to re-ligious communities in genera!. 2 Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, translated by. Bernard Wall (New york: Harper, 1959); The Divine Milieu, trans-lated by Bernard Wall (New York: Harper, 1960). Hans Urs yon 4. 4. Aloysius J. Mehr, O.S.C., is on the faculty of Crosier House of Studies, Route 1, Wallen Road, Fort Wayne 8, Indiana. VOLUME 21, 1962 30! 4" Aloysius Mehr, O.~.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS tion, converging, as Teilhard sees it, to a kind of world unity in which all things are synthesized into community,a The direction of the history of life has moved through phases of biology ("biogenesis") into the world of incar-nate spirits ("noogenesis"); and in the New Covenant this force is caught up in the moment of the Resurrection, present among us as a pledge of the final entry into the glory of the Lord (kabod Yahweh). Our community-being, our being-together (Mitsein in Heidegger's termi-nology) is thus wrapped up in the forces and destinies of life, surging on in space-time towards its fullness, the seed of which it carries in itself at the present. Moreover, our community-being is also wrapped up in the fulfillment of creation, the new creation in Christ who draws all to the parousial and paschal destiny of all creation--a destiny that is already sacramentally present in a community called together in the Eucharistic sacrificial meal. These are undoubtedly far-reaching and difficult themes the full significance of which will always remain inaccessible to us, lost behind the veil of the future and the inscrutable destinies of man in the divine plan. We must expect, then, that any discussion of the religious community must, in its ultimate significance, shadow off into mystery. We shall not be able to lay out the forces in us as problems which can be solved, here and now, once and for all times. Community-being is essentially dynamic: we, as men and as religious, are homines vi-atores. Our fellowship in God is an eikon--an image, a sign, a symbol--of the Church localized in our areas of concern, but the Church which is the people of God on the march (in via), creating (in/ieri) what we most deeply are unto fullness in Christ who fulfills all in all (Eph 1:23; Jas 1:18). From this viewpoint we are able to see, or rather to begin to see, the profound significance of community exercises. Community exercises are the historical and temporal incarnations of our being-together (Mitsein). There is a deep and vast need, truly an ontological need, a need arising from our being-together, for authentic community activity that emanates from the inexhaust-ible fullness of our being.4 What we are demands suc-cessive real-ization; our being overflows into our life. Activity, operatio, exercise--these are not on some pe-riphery of the real, bu~ rather incarnations in the fabric of the real world. Man is embodied soul and besouled body. His existence is incarnate existence, caught up in Balthasar, Science, Religion, and Christianity, translated by Hilda Graef (London: Bums and Oates0 1958). s Teilhard develops this theme in The Phenomenon of Man: ~ Gabriel Marcel, Homo Fiator, translated by Emma Crawford (Chicago: Regnery0 1955), p. 26. solidarity with the corporeal universe but transcending it as spirit.5 Human being demands expression; as in-carnate, it is essentially temporal, basically historical, realizing itself further and more fully in successive and authentic encounters with the real--in the mysteries of birth, death, conversion, sickness, and above all, love.~ This paper is, first of all, a re-investigation of certain societal universals--relationships of persons which are the anthropological, sociological, and theological binding forces which help to produce a healthy and fruitful com-munity. The term "relationship" will be used more fre-quently than "community exercises" or "community ac-tivities." This, however, should not confuse the reader. An activity has social implications and social value if it is a relationship to others. The fact, therefore, that we will not group our material under the usual headings like "prayer life" or "recreations" or "the apostolate" should not tempt the reader to conclude that we are not speaking of things usually thought of as "community ex-ercises." We will speak primarily about the unifying forces, the community-building potential of community exercises, whether these be a simple conversation, a rec-reation, the Mass, superior-subject relationships, pro-fessional relationships of instructors with students, or even the exercise of talent in a "private" way within the community. It would be wrong to see as binding forces only those activities in which all of us perform the same movements or say the same words. On the other hand, community and society can hardly exist where there is no mutual a.ctivity, no common involvement of all the members in some fruitful, meaningful task. Finally, this analysis of communal activities precisely in their unifying value views the religious community in its objective, intersubjective, and Christian dimension. Part I: Community in Social Patterns To an anthropologist7 a very significant characteristic of the monastic community is that it is a celibate, reli-giously oriented institution'. This is without precedent or parallel in primitive or preliterate culture. In general, as the society becomes progressively complex,, certain indi-a Von Balthasar .develops this theme in his book Science, Religion, and Christianity. e Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy O] Existence, translated by 4. Manya Harari (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949)', p. 6. 7The Reverend Alphonse Sowada, OiS.C., received his master's degree in anthropology from the Catholic University of America, Community Washington, D.C., in the spring o[ 1961. In an interview with the Exercises Reverend Ronald Kidd, O.S.C., he initiated in outline form the following analysis of the monastic community based, on anthropo-logical procedure. Father Sowada is'presently working in the New Guinea Mission, VOLUME 21, 1962 3O3 ÷ ÷ ÷ Aloysius Mehr, O$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 3O4 viduals are set aside solely for religious activity. Hence the phenomenon even of the Israelitic priestly office, given to the tribe of Levi, suggests a somewhat highly developed social complexus. Furthermore, sexual prac-tices become restricted for religious specialists only in civilized, cultured society. The religious community, com-bining both factors, arises only late in the development of a people. This unique development suggests various problems: a separation from the elemental and primitive social binding forces, perhaps a tendency towards over-com-plexity and hyper-specialization, in general, a danger of an ever greater artificiality. Man-to-Nature Relationships The ecological system comprises the sum total of the man-to-nature relationships in a given social organiza-tion. It comprises all the activities by which these people make a living--how they satisfy their elemental needs from nature. Thus, the supplying of food, the manufac-ture of clothing, the realm of technology, and attendant organizations and belief are .elements in an ecological system. In primitive societies, these are the concern of everyone; social organizations and belief patterns (treated in the following sections of this paper) arise from this common involvement in wresting an existence from na-ture. The ecological system forms the foundation for the actual social forms of the people. In the religious community, participation in this basic, elemental social activity is often frustrated. The general pattern is the specialization of ecological functions; they are more often than not entrusted to a few--the prior,,;, procurators, and other superiors. As a result, the remain-ing members of the community lack this elemental bind-ing force with one another and with the community as a whole. This can easily lead to frustration, complacency, and eventually create parasites within the community, In this connection it should be noted that the work of those religious who are engaged in manual labor almost exclusively is much more in line with the needs expressed in an ecological system, provided that they are truly a part of the community in which and for which they work. In order to utilize this natural, social binding force, these religious must feel themselves solidly within the whole community. They should experience the same satisfaction that the son or daughter enjoys when they begin to co-operate with their parents in providing a livelihood for the family. The social bindings formed by the ecological system are intense and deep. For the clerical and teaching members of a community, there is also a need for an acceptable way either to fulfill this function or to find an adequate substitute. The apostolate might seem like a perfect substitute. But in the apostolate the results are apt to be too far distant for the immediate kind of satisfaction caused by common involvement in providing the basic necessities of life. In fact, where superiors or subjects try to make' apostolic work an "acceptable" sublimation, the very 'remoteness of results can tend precisely to create further frustration and complacency. '~ In general, any project in which personal initiative is called into play within and for the community and in which a sense of fulfillment can be forthcoming ~can be used as a substitute. Such projects are of great value in binding together the religious,community. Stress should be placed°especially on the matter of results; for example, graduation, profession, and ordination days should be planned wisely to be days of community joy in accom-plishment rather than of relief in being through with tedious work. Although effective substitutes depend on both subjects and superiors, it is the superiors, above all, who must see the absolute need for them. Individual ~religious may have the initiative to make valuable .suggestions, but :the only person who can integrate these suggested projects into the community and give them their full social force is ,the superior. Without due attention, the community moves towards increasingly artificial social forms, lacking and attempting to substitute for, the basic level of social solidarity. In order to have a healthy community, we must find effective and meaningful substitutes. Man-to-Man Relationships Next, we deal with interpersonal relationships, en-compassing social ability and practice, questions of status and hierarchy in the communal organization, questions of law regulating interpersonal behavior, family orienta-tion, pressure groups, informal and formal groupings. This is the area of personal response and personal: activ-ity~ phenomena that vary with,each individual. Consid-eration of the interpersonal relationships are of 'utmost importance in analyzing the social structure of a com-munity; they form the operative and dynamic structure of society. Perhaps the most evident charact~eristic of interpersonal relations within the religious community is its thorough structure ot control. First of all, everyone knows every-one else and every individual can control his response thereby. Moreover, the social control within our unique form of community is almost familial or patriarchal. This is a good basis for developed social organization. In a healthy community a person is a part of things, 4. + + Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 305 ÷ Aloysim OM.e~h.Cr., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS he knows what is expected of him, he is not bewildered or lost within the crowd. He is at home, he knows how to approach everyone else, he knows how to regulate topics of conversation, to account for individual differ-ences, to accept the particular interests of the other mem-bers of the religious society. He enjoys that ecce quam bonum feeling which is a natural result of being [ul_ly ac-cepted by the group. He belongs to them, uncondition-ally; they are happy to have him and would be distressed at losing him. As. a further consequence, he feels shel-tered, contented, and can gradually abandon all his poor little defensive mechhnisms as well as the defects of. char-acter which necessitate them. All his potential gifts can flower, he can. give himself up confidently to his most generous aspirations. Such. :are the blessings which accrue to an individual who lives in a healthy group definitely ready to accept him.s There are, however, definite dangers in our communal make-up. The first and perhaps most serious danger is that of artificiality--artificially controlled responses. To the extent that responses become too automatic, too pat, too set, too taken-for-granted, the very situation which ought to promote solidarity could conceivably destroy it. Responses must be genuine; meaningless responses are detrimental to community. The artificiality of community llfe can be much re-lieved by warm parental and fraternal relationships be-tween superiors and subjects, instructors and students, and, above all, between equals. This fosters the character formation that ordinarily occurs within the family. Con-sequently, everyone must take his role in community seriously; he must be open, understanding, sympathetic, and avoid meaningless responses and inflexibility policy in the name of functional efficiency. Professors ought to be aware of the fact that attitudes built up by personal relationships with students are as important as the material being taught. On the other hand, students must realize that they have much to learn and that their attitude towards their instructors is extremely important. Entering. into dialogue is always a two way street. Within the community deep and authentic friendships should be fostered, for personality grows in proportion as it is opened to others. Fear of friendship shatters munity and leaves only a group of isolated introverts living in the same building. Mistaken notions of partic, ular friendship have forced many a religious to lead an unnecessarily lonely life. Authentic friendship means that I am genuinely con-e Communal Lile, translated by a Religious of the Sacred Heart (Westminster: Newman, 1957), p. 267. cerned with my neighbor as a person. When interest is only pretended, people instinctively feel that they are be-ing treated, not as human beings, but as a case, an object, an It. Make-believe interest, pharisaical interest does more harm than good. Every Christian, and certainly every religious, should be conscious of the manyreasons why he should be deeply and genuinely interested in his neighbor in all places and at all times. Another danger in our communal make-up presents it-self where subjects refuse to cooperate with their supe-rior, or where incapable men are invested with status-power. In primitive tribes, subjects who refuse to work with their superior are simply eliminated. Moreover, a leader who blunders in personal relations or in tribal projects, for example, failing to bring off a hunting raid successfully, loses prestige ipso facto. But in our com-munity, the social status of the members is not easily changed. This has its advantages and disadvantages. More permanent social relationships can be formed so as to .give the individuals a greater security and to give the social order a basic stability. On the other hand, where poor relat!onships are formed, this situation too tends to perpetuate itself. Overspecialization is another factor which endangers solidarity in a community. Anthropologists distinguish between diversification, which can lead to mutual de-pendence and promote solidarity, and specialization, in which a member withdraws himself from the community in order to devote his time and energies to some partlc-ular field. In primitive societies, specialists share perforce a vast number of tribal interests: the medicine man is interested in the buffalo hunt and thereby enjoys a social binding to the hunters; he is involved in wars and raids since his status to some extent depends on a perpetuation of the present social organization. In general, in primitive cul-tures, bindings between religious functions and the re-mainder of tribal functions are very strong. But when society develops, it tends to free itself more and more from nature (the ecological system); and it does so only to become more and more dependent upon man and man-to-man relations. This dependence must serve as a constructive and not a destructive force. In order to prevent diversification--which is absolutely necessary in a complex society--from becoming special-ization, we must manifest and recognize on a community level our mutual dependence; for example, the very real dependence of one teacher upon all the others. Here we see the importance of faculty meetings in which the par-ticular field of competence of one person is seen as com-plementing that of another. There are many ways of Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 196Z ÷ ÷ ÷ Aloysius Mehr~ O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS keeping different interests and fields of competence from becoming divisive. Perhaps greater stress should be placed on the apostolate as a community apostolate, a common effort, accomplished in different ways by each individual, but without thereby becoming any less communal in in-spiration, motivation, and reality. An awareness of our mutual dependence is absolutely necessary for the proper integration of personal activity towards our social goals. Interpersonal relationships in the religious community include not only individual-to-individual relations but also those of groups.-A formal grouping is one which is established de [acto and is recognized by the society as exercising a certain control of the whole. Chapters, councils, a faculty, special committees for accreditation, and so forth are all formal groupings. Informal groupings are not officially set up or estab-lished. We see examples of informal groupings during common recreation periods or when some religious work together informally as a group. Informal groupings can at times exercise more influence than the formal group-ings; that is especially true if the formal groupings are inoperative or if the i.nterrelationships between formal groupings is neglected. It is in the informal groupings that public opinion is formed and in many cases social innovation begins. The informal groupings should pro-vide much of the initiative and dynamism necessary for any society to be alive, to grow and develop, and to keep in touch with the members and their real needs and as-pirations. While informal groupings are very important, formal groupings are even more important in a religious com-munity; ours is by its nature a hierarchical society, and one strongly so. Therefore the effective functioning of our formal groupings is especially important for the vi-tality of the entire community. Inoperative formal group-ings, or artificiality in formal ,groupings, invites seg-mentation of the society, then disintegration, and finally demoralization. The history of the American Indian is an extreme case of precisely this. Factors leading to inoperative formal groupings are many. Among them are age differences, lack of precise definitions of ideals, and immaturity. For a well-function-ing community, superiors-,must be willing to present straightforward proposals to their councils or others' whose advice they are to seek. This means the full pres-entation of real cases that involve discussion and choice, not simply decisions for'ratification.9 In short, he must seek to collaborate. Also, he must have the humility and wisdom to consider minority positions; seeking support Ibid., pp. 270-273. only in numbers infallibly excites mistrust, resentment, opposition, or utter indit~erence. "The prudent and most efficient thing for the superior to do is to make the group share, from the beginning, in the common task.''1° Cooperation between formal and informal groupings is of the essence in achieving a healthy, vital c0mmufiity. This means that we must understand the roles which these groups are to play within, the community. More-over, since the religious community is so strongly hier-archical and the superior tO a large extent controls the interrelationships between formal and informal group-ings, he should be doubly alert, astute, and comprehend-ing in regard to the ideas generated in the informal groupings.Suspicion on the part of a superior is harmful to the vitality of the community, kills personal initiative, and tends again to artificial substitutions and the seg-mentation of the community fabric. But beyond this a superior must have the ability to select appropriate ideas from the informal groupingsmthose ideas which will prove beneficial to the community. It is difficult to re-spect a superior who accepts every suggestion that is of-fered to him or proves that he does not have the ability to choose well. In a primitive society he would in that eventuality lose status. Man-to-Ideals Relationships Under this heading we find community purpose and sense of purpose. In primitive society religion ferments the whole society. And certainly community goals, re-ligious ideals, can and should be important unifying fac-tors in a religious community. It is worthy of note here that in primitive ~ociety where the satisfying of the basic needs has such a prominent role, the upper echelons tend to have the same ideals as those of lower status, the .young as the old, the specialists as those engaged in community projects. When the eco-logical needs become less urgent and the man=to-man relationships more important, it becomes more difficult for all to have the same ideals. But the religious commun-ity should be able to realize this unity of ideals in a way that other communities in contemporary life cannot. In a religious community we-ness will tend to be established by living according to a unique set of ideals--provided the ideals are well defined. Our fellowship, as we will see later, is a unique fellowship in Godl For social vitality and solidarity, it is better to define ideals clearly and energetically and then, as the need arises, to modify them than not to define them at all or to define .them haphazardly or casually. Searching for Ibid., p. 270. 4" 4" CEoxm~misuensity VOLUME 21, 1962 309 4. 4. dloysius OM.Se.hCr,., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ideals has little social result. Without well-defined, known, and accepted objectives, ideals will be fashioned individually and in groups; this leads directly to com-munity segmentation. In this situation, the very factors which in a healthy social organization cause solidarity and vitality have the el~ect instead of segmenting the community. Ideals must and will be formed. If the proper formal grouping will not define them, it is inevitable that informal groupings will attempt to fill this lack. Community goals and ideals, however, cannot be al-lowed to stagnate. Once they have been defined, they must be re-defined as social changes and new needs make themselves felt. In this sense, it is only by innovation that society can maintain its health and well-being. For these reasons, our ideals require constant modification and elaboration to insure their continued adequacy for the very real and growing society which they both reflect and form. Furthermore, wise inter-group relationships constitutd community dynamisms and insure that the social structures of the community are truly alive and' changing--that the incarnations of the community ideals are true responses to the appeals of the era and the per~ sons, that the community continues to be constituted through history in its response to the Word, that its voca-tion continues to be authentic. It is in this context that tradition possesses real meaning. One group, which is n.aturally the most capable of really fruitful effort in this direction, is the meetings oE the various spiritual directors on a regional or inter-national basis. Undoubtedly much good could be ac-complished by regular and well-prepared meetings of these spiritual leaders in each order or congregation. Each meeting should consist oE a series of scholarly papers followed by serious discussion. Here again, we should point out the grave responsibit-ity of superiors. Upon their shoulders must rest a good portion of the burden of keeping goals alive and develop-ing with the community itself. But this responsibility can-not be placed solely upon the superiors. For a society to develop, all should participate in the re-discovery of old ideals and the formation of new. Community is a "we"; its responsibilities are no less communal than the end which they serve. If a religious suffers from abnormal loneliness, an anthropologist would immediately look for some need which is neither being fulfilled nor et~ectively substituted for. Where such a condition exists, the man is not livit~g a whole life; and attempting to live a half life tends to-wards increasing frustration. The only effective remedy in such a case, according to anthropologists, is the real-istic integration of our activities by directing them mean- ingfully towards the specific and ,well-defined goals of our community. Any notable incidence of real loneliness will probably reveal upon careful .investigation some rupture in the social structure of the whole community-- whether ecological, man-to-man, or man-to-ideals, More-, over, from the fact that our society is in 'itself artificial to a certain extent (lacking almost necessarily the deep and elemental bindings of an ecological involvement), we must be doubly aware of the other unifying forces within our community. Part H: Community and Personal Creativity ~ Patterns of social organization are vital, without the slightest doubt. Much. of our actual failure to realize deeply and meaningfully fellowship with one another in a brother-to-brother relationship stems from the neglect or mismanagement of the social structure of our com-munity. Yet the religious community---even considered only as a deep community of men--is not simply cre-ated by experts. The expert manipulates, controls, studies problems, and finds solutions; but his union with his tools and the particular determined purposes of his craft is extrinsic. We can think in" this connection of the over-organiza-tion of working communes as they sprang upsince the last world war. Here, everything is functionalized--all the activities are planned out, with time alloted on the schedule for religion, recreation, and so forth, which are considered as necessary means for overhauling the ma-chine periodically. When people begin to see their lives coincide with the routines planned for them, when they see themselves and their own importance diminish to the level of cogs in a machine, their spirits harden, atrophy, and wither. Life becomes less than free in the sense that activities are not flowing from the deepest levels of being. They become re.ore and more a number in a filing system. This is no doubt an extreme case. But we must reso-lutely resist the temptation to reduce man simply to an aggregate of psychic functions and forget that he is a living soul. In my relations with the men in my com-munity, I am involved. My actions should not tend to build a wall of separation between the me I know myself to be and others. Given the thorough system of social con-trols characteristic of religious life, given too a life that is frequently arranged by my superiors, the most common temptation is to avoid reaching out in true personal ap-peal to the other in all his unique personality, but to see both him and myself as [unctions--a teacher, student, cook, carpenter, Mass-sayer (a cog in a machi'ne can never pray), a procurator, or sflperior. The conclusion we have been working towards is this: ÷ ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 dloysius Meh~, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS community is not established by merely legislating laws, setting up a hierarchy of superiors.and subjects, or giving a dozen human beings a common residence. Nor can it be produced by a system' of techniques. Community must grow out of its members, for it is a highly personal gift of oneself to the other person in all the richness of his individuality. While techniques cannot produce community, they are nevertheless valuable in eliminating those things which could prevent community from happening; for example, enclosure within myself, being trapped, as it were, in a system of concentric circles which stand between me and my life. Furthermore, techniques are undoubtedly neces-sary for the effective accomplishment of particular, goals; for example, organizing a sports program requires some manipulating of people. But teamwork still remains a union based on something outside of the being of the other person;, while it may be a true degree of community, it is still not the fullness of human community, let alone: of fellowship in the word and love of God. "Community," Martin Buber .writes, '"is where com-munity happens.TM There is something in genuine meet-ing which extends beyond calculations, plans, and proj-ects. Just as my being is not definitely exhausted in any one particulai'ity of my life but overflows into promise and possibility,12 rooted in my existence and its destiny, so also the community is never definitely established, en-tirely a "given" factor, a.status; Community, the genuine union of beings, is created out of the depths of promise of my bei~ng. It is not pro-duced. Community is meeting; and that meeting which calls to the other from all that I am is essentially creative: something new happens, I become something that I was only potentially before, and in this connection I must think in terms of gilt or grace. I can remain open to re-ceive this gift of the other as long as I am not artificially isolated from my own being in a world of function; but somehow we are here in a realm in which the notions of cause and effect no longer apply with their full import--. I do not cause dialogue. Even more, in a very real sense, I am given to myself fully only in dialogue, in the gift of another self calling out to me, joining our lives in com-mon destiny and hope. "All real life :is meeting.''13 The energies of life become fully real only in community: [ am the possibility, even more, the promise of community in my most elemental reality as incarnate spirit. r~Between Man and Man, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith (Boston: Beacon, 1955), p. 31. '~ Marcel, Homo Viator, p. 26. ~ Martin Bub~r, I and Thou, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Scribner's, 1958), p. 11. Hence community--and in a unique way, the religious community--fulfills a basic demand (exigence in French) of human being. The ability to say We, the possibility of genuine encounter presupposes beings who can love and give themselves to others, beings who are incarnati.ons of the spirit which man i~, a spirit embodied iia'spake.and time, in solidarity with the cosmos and the covenant of creation. The human spirit can be stifled for just so long--a time and a time and half a time of the Scrip-tures-- within the abstractions and reductions of a func-tionalized world which, we repeat, is a real danger in a religious community due to the artificiality and conven-tionalisms so easily developed in such a life. But in the well-chosen words of Gabriel Marcel, it seems, at least as far as man is concerned, tha~ even if life is weakened and in a way degraded, it must still retain a certain character of sacredness . We must accordingly realize, I think, that here we are faced with a~ certain absolute, and that this absolute must be assisted, however strong the temptation to resist it?' Man's spirit seeks the fullness of being, the fulfillment of its destiny.15 Even in the midst of degradation or open rebellion, the voice of his spirit calls out for authentic living. Rebellion is a call to another to answer my appeal, to respond, knowing that even if I fail, at least my call will go on being heard. Although many unfavorable things can be said about rebellion, yet we must admit that it is still authentic living. As Camus has written, "I rebel--therefore we are,''x~ In modern religious life, the danger is not primarily open rebellion. With us, frustration more frequently takes the place of rebellion. We begin with high ideals, but, after encountering many difficulties and meeting with many failures, it is easy for us to lose courage, to be-come despondent and frustrated. The principal cause of this frustration is the lack of understanding one's own abilities, strength, and weakness, Being frustrated, religious enclose themsdves within a shell of their own creation; they try to circumvent the full meaning of their vocation. Frustration is a flight from authentic living, and that is the reason why frus-trated religious try to escape and lose themselves in rou-tine or a ceaseless merry-go-round of activities. Here we see, or begin to see, the ontological.significance of frus-tration, despondency, and defense mechanisms--the psy- ~ The Mystery ol Being, translated by G. S. Fraser (Chicago: Regnery, 1950), v. 2, pp. 182-188. x~ Marcel, The Philosophy ol Existence, p. 4 a0Albert Camus, The Rebel, translated by Anthony Bower (New York: Vintage Books, 1959), p. 22. ÷ ÷ ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 Aloydm 0M.$eh.~r., REV~EWFOR RELIG;OUS chological and sociological ruptures which prevent com-munity from happening. It is in this context that we propose to re-investigate the three relationships already viewed on the anthro-pological level: my relationship to things, to other peo-ple, and to ideals. Creative Community and Things 1. Art. In our mechanized world, things are considered more and' more as means, even pure means (bona utilia), apart from myself, only accidentally and, ontologically speaking, haphazz'rdly coming into contact with me. Their own values are, for me, simply utilitarian. I fail to see in them the mystery of creation in which I also am essentially involved. Art, beauty--these are simply esoteric tinsel, luxuries for the functional man. In a way this man is only half a man, and hence only half himself, begrudging those energies of life with which his created and corporeal being is essentially in communion.,x7 It would be almost meaningless to tell such a man that his activities are incarnations of his being, for he has denied any essential involvement in this universe of space and time.xs When I live out of harmony with myself and the deep community of creation in which I am, which 'is my world, my environment, my ontological context, how can I truly give myself to another? Furthermore, how can a com-munity that is out of harmony with creation be worthy of being presented to Yahweh in the Eucharistic assembly as the sign of His pleroma? The famous American painter, Ben Shahn, writes: I have always believed that the character of a society is largely shaped and unified by its great creative works, that a society is molded upon its epics, and that it imagines in terms of its cre-' ated things--its cathedrals, its works of art, its musical treas-ures, its literary and philosophic works. One might say that a public may be so unified because the highly personal experi-ence (of the artist) is held in common by the many individual members of the public. The great moment at which Oedipus in his remorse tears out his eyes is a private moment--one of deepest inward emotion. And yet that emotion, produced by art, and many other such private and profound emotions, ex-periences, and images bound together the Greek people into a great civilization, and bound others all .over the earth to them for all time to come.1D Art brings into play the unifying forces of creation but' at a deeper, more subjective, and thoroughly personal~ a~ Von Balthasar, Science, Religion, and Christianity, p. 45. a~Bernard Haring, C.SS.R., The Law o] Christ, translated by Edwin G. Kaiser, C.PP.S, (Westminster: Newman, 1961), v. 1, p. 87. ag Ben Shahn, Shape o] Content (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), pp. 45-46. level. Lacking a developed and fully shared ecological sys-tem, the religious-community unity depends on other re-lations to our world, activities of creativeness, ingenuity, activities which produce "results," or better, activities in which my being sees fruition in the corporeal world in which I am. The point is that we should not i~eglect the unifying force of art, the union of persons in the beauti-ful, in the shared experience of meaningful incarnation. But the attitude of encounter with the beautiful is not limited to what we call the fine arts. If I pick up a chisel, it is simply a tool which I use to perform some task. Con-sider, however, the difference when a highly skilled artist or carpenter picks up a chisel. His work expresses him-self, gives himself to the community. Here we return to the general theme of these 'pages: df community is to happ.en, I must give mysel[, and not simply offer the other some service which I perform. In art--from garden-ing to the liturgical setting--I give myself, I entrust to the community that deep and personal experience of creativ-ity. In accepting another's art, we "welcome" him. To welcome is active, personal, embracing. I go out of my-self to meet the other, to invite him to feel at home with me. We cannot merely accept the other's art, whatever it may be, as we accept the result of an assembly line. To accept his art, I must reach out and take his work into my own life; and by doing so I take him, too, into my life. And here again we glimpse a moment when com-munity happens. If a community does not accept the beautiful, it neglects an important binding force--a neglect which will tend to re-appear in personal encounters. Without the proper at-titude toward art, even the deep significance of liturgical symbolism and expression will lose some of the vitality which it was meant to have. The community chapel, above all, should be a masterpiece of art, expressing community, proclaiming the fellowship in God which we are. 2. Play. Finally, we should consider more deeply the meaning of play. Perhaps play is not the deepest of the arts, but it is a true creative expression of man.2° Play is of its nature public. "Through play we find ourselves no longer imprisoned and isolated in our own individual-ity.'' 21 Play "is act in its spontaneity, acting in its very activity, the living impulse.''~ As a vital phenomenon or manifestation of human being, play--to be genuine-- demands a man in contact with reality; "only the vital Eugene Fink, "The Ontology of Pla}'," Philosophy Today, v. 4 (1960), pp. 95-109. Ibid., p. 96. Ibid., p. 97. ÷ + ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 315 4. 4" 4- A~oysius Meh~, 0.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS being., can die, work, struggle, love, and play. Only such a being is in touch With surrounding reality and the total environment--the world.''u3 Humanplay . is a creation through the medium of pleasure of a world of imaginary acuv~ty . Play ~s always character, ized by an element of representation (something like the real world and its rules, but never degrading into routine). This element determines its meaning. It then effects a transfigura-tion: life becomes peaceful.~' In our own world, play is apt to be a highly organized, commercial project; and here again its mea'ning tends to become more and more functionalized---I play, not for delight, but in order to preserve physical and psychic health. If we would look for a moment at the primitive world, we would find far more significant contours: In the primitive times, play was not practiced so much as an act in its pleasure-giving aspect as is the case for those isolated individuals or groups who periodically detach themselves from the social group to inhabit their own little isle of passing hap-piness. Originally, play was the strongest unifying force. It founded a community quite different, it is true, from that of the living and the dead, the governing and the governed, and even from that based on the family. The community of play of primitive man included all the forms and structures of com-mon life., and it called forth a reliving of all the elements of life. This reached its high point in the community festival. The ancient feast., was a liturgical spectacle where man ex-perienced the proximity of the gods, heroes, the dead, and where he found himself in the presence of all the beneficent and dreadful powers of the universe . What was represented was nothing less than the whole universe.= Genuine play is extremely important in a religiou:; community. We will develop this point further in Part III where we will see that community recreation should serve as a catechesis of the proper celeb'ration of the~ Eucharistic festival--the Mass. Inter-personal Creativity: Intersub]ectivity Community exercises are significant only in as far as they involve an encounier with the Thou. This is the point, above all others, which we must remember. This is the heart of the matter. Divorced from all genuine en-counter with the Thou, community exercises are mean-ingless. In our very proximity, it is easy for me--because of routine, fatigue, and so forth---to consider my confrere less and less as a person (a Thou) and more and more ;ts an object (an It). An object is contained within itself, something which I can possess and manipulate. A person Ibid. Ibid., pp. 104-105. Ibid., pp. 105-106. is a being to whom I can call out, whom I can invoke, who is able to return my call, and in our response to each other create community. I can say "We." But to approach the other in his own unique being and destiny, in all that makes him himself, I myself must be a presence to him. Self-consciousness atrophies,, encloses me in .myself; we may be with one another physically and temporarily, but we have not yet realized Mitsein, that full union in love and welcome where deep calls out to deep. Without doubt, our lives and our encounters with one another tend to form stereotyped patterns. In accordance with our rule and constitutions,~l meet others at certain determined places and at set times. We are joined to-gether for specific purposes: prayer, recreation, work, in short, every conceivable type of community exercise. In a way there is constant community. I am very little in real solitude whether before God or before men. The students whom I teach in the classroom, the community for whom I cook or for whom I build cabinets, the confreres with whom I watch television--these are certainly beings with whom I exist; and even though I cannot speak of the re-ligious life as being entirely or ~even properly speaking functionalized, yet frequently there is something in the other which I am neglecting. P~r~haps 1 am polite and courteous: I smile at the other and laugh at his jokes; I try to understand his problems and offer him sympathy-- and still; perhaps, we stand more in juxtaposition than in community. But there are moments when this half-face to the 'world breaks down, hours of.grace (kairos.in St. John) in which the possibility of far deeper community is suddenly revealed. It is then that we see individuals in an entirely new perspective and their presence becomes more mean-ingful to us. A time of community crisis can draw us to-gether in this way, and we learn to depend on a confrere as he is, and not just in what he does---or better, what he does incarnates what he is. The world from which our candidates come has been well described as a broken world.20 This factor must be kept in mind while considering, the present-day prob-lems of religigus life. Older forms of unity have been gradually breaking down--the family, for instance, has been to a great extent replaced by the peer group, the gang, the more casual associations. Political and techno-logical unions have become strong~ r, suggesting a growth 'in world unity. But frequently, ~he new unions which have sprung up are on the impersonal plane; technol-ogy, for. example, unites the worlO" because cultural dif- ~ Marcel, The Mystery o! Being, v. 1; pp. 22-47. The title used for this chapter is "A Broken World." ~ 4. 4. 4. Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 317 + Aloysius Mehr, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 318 ferences do not prevent a person from working a machine; in principle any one at all can learn this operation. But "any one at all," l'on,.das Man, does not exist. What exists are real people, individual, free beings, irreplace-able in the solitude of their liberty. In those moments of human existence in which I some-how transcend the world of mechanisms, I sense another dimension which I know to be more basic, and more real. I sense that there is something in myself and in the self of the other which is immanently private and which does not lend itself to concepts or superficial unifying or binding forces; this is unique subjectivity, the deepest level of per-sonal existence, that which constitutes me as I, the irreduc-ible core of personality, the shrine of what is most serious and authentic in me, the theatre of my eternal commit-ments. It is this dimension of mystery which constitutes the great distinction between persons themselves. Regardless of how close two persons may unite with one another, something of the other's.subjectivity will always evade the other: he may become a Thou for me, we may even speak with full force and meaning the word "We," but the other is always profoundly other than me. The We is precisely for this reason a miracle or the grace that it is. We can never be like two drops of water coming together to form a single drop. I may give myself deeply in love and hope to another, but he will always remain absent from me in some way and this hbsen~e is what makes him uniquely himself. But it is of the essence to note that the other is dis-closed to me in his full contingency only in those situ-ations in which we are genuinely open to one another. I can hardly speak of the mystery of subjectivity--the revelation of the other--without speaking of the mystery of intersubjectivity--the mutual revelation of both ofu~, which includes the gift of the other person to me. Here; we can speak more justly and fully of presence: presencel reveals a human dimension beyond that of proximity or even of sharing an experience, and this is the dimension of full encounter, coesse, of co-presence.~7 Presence is in its deepest reality co-presence. The structure of this situation is one of appeal and response. To meet another', I must call out to him, or welcome his appeal to myself by responding with my whole being, and not simply with a stereotyped, pre-determined response. When I speak to another, the area of mutual concern may be a purely business proposition; but if I welcome him into my life, if there springs up deep sympathy in the basic meaning of that word, we Roger Troisfontaines, S.J., De L'Existence a l'Elre (Louvain: E. Nauwelaerts, 1953), v. 2, p. 21. are to another something more than a billboard which announces the time of a community exercise or an IBM machine that reels off information. The question he asks me implies his faith in my ability to answer--my ability to stand, as it were, in his place and understand his question "from the inside.''2s" ~'The question, anyway, operates as an appeal, a signal that may or may not be received.''29 The appeal reaches me in my freedom. I may respond by being, for all practical purposes, some sort of information machine; yet in t~he course of our conver-sation, he becomes something more than a "somebody." "That is, he participates more a~d more in the absolute which is unrelatedness and we cease more and more to be 'somebody' and 'somebody e!se.' We become simply 'US.' "30 This is not merely a psychol~gical interpretation of emotional experience, for realistically speaking, "I cannot really invoke 'anybody'; I can only 'pretend~ to do so. In other words, it appears as if inv'ocation can only be ef-ficacious where there is communiiy.''al Truly, I can speak the word Thou to another only Where community is re-vealed, and we speak the word We.m This deep dimension of human reality reveals me to m~self; in my.deepest and freest being, I find the mystery Of intersubjectivity, the mystery of our solidarity in the destinies of the human phenomenon and the covenant of'creation. Although the sharpest mani[esthtion of this ontological community of men tends to be the somewhat dramatic events--birth, death, love, and go forth--which break in on our course of existence?3 still intersubjectivity runs in a scale from, for example, the chance smile of a stranger from whom I happened to ask directions in a city I am not familiar with to the union with one another in Ghrist in the Eucharistic assembly. Thi(. is important for com-munity life; by holding myself open to the other, by mak-ing myself available, by my. willingness to welcome him, entirely mechanical situations like asking a routine per-mission from my superior can be illuminated with a bit of the radiance of the truly significant. The deepest moments of intersubjectivity can act perhaps as beacons, reflecting that, unit most clearly and fully. As I enter the religious liie and make my pro-fession, the community kiss of peace manifests beautifully the community which has been created in me. This mo- ~ Gabriel Marcel, Metaphysical Journal, translated by Bernard Wall (London: Rockliff, 1952), p. 21. "Ibid., p. 143. ~ ~a I bIbidid.,, pp. 114761. ~ Ibid., p. 303. a Marcel, The Philosophy o] Existence, pp. 3-4. ÷ ÷ ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 319 4. Aioysius Mehr, 0.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ment, though past, can be kept alive, can remain a presence to me--a moment of deep community to which I bear witness in the day-to-day encounters. I know, deeply within myself, that these encounters, for all their routine, flow forth from the community which we are, the com-munity which must be ever renewed through the passing years in creative fidelity to the situations in which. I am given to myself as one whose life, in the religious com-munity, is a being-with. From this point of view, we can look more closely at the full meaning of the opportunities of our religious com-munity: The closeness in which we live with one another is dangerous if reduced to the level of the functional, but it can just as truly point out to us the heights and depths of intersubjectivity. Social bindings open out into onto-logical community. Religious community life is rooted in social organizations and patterns, but it exists on the level of the human person in his freedom. In conclusion, the activities of our religious life must reflect the deep fact of our community-being, of our being-with one another, sharing a common destiny, united in the bonds of true love in Christ, For the structure of intersubjectivity is in its fullness, the structure of love. But we must be willing to see the levels and the manifestatiom of this love dim from time to time, just as in marriage the union in love has its ups and downs. Nevertheless, I must be aware of my deep responsibility to make my-self what Louis Lavelle calls "accessible" and Gabriel Marcel "disponible" or "availabie" to the other. Marcel equates this accessibility with charity, and quite rightly so.34 This is the fundamental posture or attitude for any fruitful communication between men, a communication which means opening myself to the presence and in-fluence of the other, desiring this presence, and being will-ing to go out into something that is quite different from myself. The self-centered egoist finds it impossible to be accessible and available. He is incapable of sympathiz~ ing with other people or imagining their situation. "He remains shut up in himself, in the petty circle of his private experience, which forms a kind of hard shell round him that he is incapable of breaking through.''3G Handy rules for making encounter possible, while help-ful, cannot be used without the danger of taking up a position outside the encounter itself in order to manipulate both the other and myself.3e I can perhaps ~' Ibid., p. 15. ~ Marcel, The Mystery o/Being, v. 10 p. 201. a Dale Carnegie gives.many of these handy rules in his famous book How to Win Friends and Influence.People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1936). The value of some of these rules is questionable because of their pharisaical tendencies. be more aware of what I cannot do--in summary, tO treat him as an object, as a somebody, as anyone at all, as a function (whether teacher., farpenter, or any o[ the categories that can substitute for the person). In dis-agreements, I must respect the gift, for the other gives himself to me in his ideas and intdrpretations; in com- ¯ munity we can seek not a Procru~stean compromise but a kind of common expectation so that together we can go on seeking the light of truth. Th~ very things which tear us apart from one another~differences in age, in taste, in talent, in personal history-~zan unite us, not in a collectivity where differences are ignored or frowned upon, but in a community of mu[ual understanding. Creativity and Community Ideals High ideals attract men; the. higher the ideals the greater the attraction. Ideals fire, men with enthusiasm. But ideals cannot be handed physically to me as, for in-stance, a book or the constitutions.' Ideals can be described on paper, but they cannot exist oh paper. They are real-ized only in free creativity at the ~ery depths of being. More particularly, the ideals of. a gommunity must be ideaIs for particular men. They must be possible of fulfill-ment in their unique life and in the unique situation which invites their loyalty andS,, faithfulness to them. Every religious must create, again and again, the tra, di-tions and ideals of his order or congregation .by incarnat-ing them anew in his own life. The passage of ideals to incarnate human life, to act and incarnation in space and time is truly creative, for it ~nvolves a full and personal gift of myself creating meaning. Bu~t this does not happen in a void, but rather in an encounter, or 'a revelation of what I am (in the community that we are) that calls forth my witness and fidelity. An e, ncounter means a call and a response; a gift and a pre~ence of another who confronts me in my uniqueness; a re'alization of the destiny which lies at the heart o[ myselL "In action," writes Teilhard, "I cleave to the creatlve~ power of God; I co-incide with it; I become not only its instrument but its living prolongation.''~7 In the words of Gabriel Marcel: We have to realize that there are modes o[ creation which do not belong to the aesthetic order, and which are within the reach of everybody and it is in so far as he is a creator, at how-ever humble a level, that any man at all can recognize his own freedom.~ In our context, this means that in my freedom I must ~ Teilhard de Chardm, The D:vtne Md~eu, pp. 26-27. m Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, translated by G. Fraser (Chicago: Regnery, 1952), p. 16. 4. 4. 4. Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 4. 4. 4. Alo~$ius OM~e.Ch~r., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS respond to the unique religious vocation, which I have received from God, and that response is the truly creative assumption of the ideals, traditions, customs, and rules of my community. If I am to be a religious, and not merely act like one, I must enter into the living tradition of my community, see clearly the deep relationship be-tween law and reality (law in its deepest meaning in Christianity is the living out of our incorporation in Christ), and sense within myself the dynamism within the community, the promise of the future held in the hands of the present moment, the hour of trlal and grace. By translating the traditional ideals of my particular community into my life, I reach back into the very an. rials of history and, at the same time, proclaim that which is yet to come. I enter into living communion with the past and the future, with all who have professed, or will in the future profess, these ideals. Ideals seen in their' existent,_'al fullness are moments of consecration, joininl~ us with the ever-continuing history of our community. As Hiiring points out, History is to be viewed from the standpoint of the "now" in relation to beginning and end. The historic present reaches out into past and future. The past has its heritage which may be compared to the warp and woof of a rich fabric constantly redesigned into marvelously new and alluring shapes and formsi The treasure.is a summons or invitation, and a challenge as well, to the free will of man in the historic moment of the present.~ My response to this challenge wiaps up the rich her-itage of my order in the dynamism of my unique, per-sonal life, and.hands it as a sacred trust to the community, enriched, for future generations. By thus entering deeply into the We, and sharing together, feeling together in our deepest being the subtle movements and aspirations which translate possibility into act and thus tradition into life, and being into incarnations, I realize existentially arid not only notionally or rationally both the being which I am called to be and the significance of the union of men who have joined their own destinies together in respond-ing to the same ~hallenge. But just as we cannot understand man until we see his marvelous destiny, so we cannot begin to see the beauty and mystery of our community until we view it in its promise, in its dynamic growth and activity towards fullness. The religious community, as we pointed out in the introductory pages of this paper, exists within two wider communities--the community of life and t'J~e community of grace--from which it draws its own vital- The Law o] Christ, v. 1, p. 87. ity and life-thrust. In either Community, our destiny is not encompassed by the immediate projects, particular ends, or temporary goals. Our being plunges back into the dynamisms of created being itself; and in us the world achieves a certain completion of its own dest!ny. We are then a kind of particular and contingent, though nonetheless real, summation or symbol or eikon, image, of the community of all being. But the deepest values of our activity do not only capitulate in us the mystery of creation and the dy-namisms of life. As Teilhard would phrase it, ontogenesis has passed on into Christogenesis. Creation has been caught up, in its deepest dynamisms, into the new cre-ation, which is fulfillment, not destruction (Eph 2:15). As a community within the Church, and indeed its true eihon, its incarnation, we continue the forces of creation through the Incarnation and the New Adam into the promise and pledge of the Parousia (1 Cor 15:24). In this perspective, or better in this divine milieu, lies the true significance of our activities; we are bound together under a common cause which is as wide and deep as the community of men and as transcendent in its promise as the parousial presence in which life and temporality shall be consummated in the supreme en-counter of love. Seen in this light, we must modify our earlier thesi~ about the artificiality of the religious community. Adapt-ing Teilhard's terminology and the vision of St. Paul, we can rightly say that the religious community is an anticipation of a later and final stage of evolution, the unity of all men in Christ, the Omega point of historical being. This higher unity of mankind, which we an-ticipate, involves a center of gravity, a focal point, an axis above and beyond the ecological and physical. And what is this axis of religious community life? It is charity. The religious community must be founded on love of God and neighbor. This new level of mankind, as any leap in evolution, involves a definitive departure, a break from the lower stages even though it is their continuation, ful-fillment, and transformation.4° And yet, as an anticipation we are beginning to create the new within the old; this combination of the old and the new must involve sacrifice and tension--the death of the type as we pass into the era of the antitype, the dis-sipation of shadow as we strive to realize the light. There is tension and strain. Creation groans and is "in the pangs of childbirth" (Rom 8:22). Life is born through death. In our very community, creation is being re-capitulated in Christ. Christ is being born! The Divine Milieu, p. 86. ÷ ÷ ÷ Community Exegcises VOLUME 21, 1962 323 dloysius Mehr, 0~.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Part HI: Community in the Word The deepest significance of religious community exer-cises is not found in mere human encou.nter, but in the encounter with men in God. Religious life .is a charism, a localized outpouring of the Spirit of God, who fills the whole .Church, in such an intense and concentrated way as to bear witness to a particular reality which in varying degrees permeates the whole Church. Keligious life is not radically different from Christian life; rather it is the living image, the eikon, the type and inauguration of perfect Christian life. The perfection to which all Christians are called and in which all shall share when the Day of the Lord dawns is incarnately realized in the Church today by the religious life, which can be called the "sacrament" of Christian perfection. The flourishing of religious life in the Church stands an apocalyptical pledge that the things to come will truly come because they have already been realized living type; religious life bears encouraging witness to each generation of Christians that the life of the Gospel can truly be lived to the full now, into the fullness that is to come. Such a witness can only be the fruit of the Spirit outpoured in charismatic plenitude. Once the religious life is seen as charismatic, its sacra-mental and ecclesiological dimensions become apparent and important. Since the religious life is the image of perfect Christian life, the basic structure of religious life must be seen in relation to the strhctural pattern of the Church's life. The possible points of reference here are numerous; we will limit the discussion to two features of Christian life which seem to be most fundamental. First, the Church is a community formed by the word of God. Secondly, the Church is a community of sacramental worship. Community in Covenant The Church of the New Testament, seen in the con-tinuity of sacred history as recorded in the. Scriptures, is the fulfillment of that people of God which was in continual formation down through Old Testament times by the gradually unfolding revelation of the Word of God. After the fall, God's Word appears on the human scene as a call; God called Abraham to leave his people and his father's house for a land of promise in which his descendants would multiply until they became as numer-ous as the sands of the sea (Gen 12:1). When Abraham responded to the initial promptings of God's Word, God spoke again to Abraham to make a covenant with him for a mutual sharing of destiny down through Abraham's posterity, which would come into being as a result of God's Covenant-Word. Abraham's family came into being as the family of God (Gen 15). As the history of the family of God folds back upon it-self, the same pattern emerges in the formation of the Israelite people from the family of Abraham. The Israel-ites were called out of Egypt to hear the Word of God proclaimed on Mount Sinai'(Ex 3:16--17). Another cov-enant resulted from this new proclamation, a covenant which was again creative of the community with whom it was made (Ex 24:8). The Israelites became a spiritual community in becoming the people of God in the Mosaic covefiant. The pattern recurs again as each successive wave of revelation leaves in its wake a fuller, more spiritualized community to whom God's Word is addressed as a call and a covenant. There can be no doubt from the annals of sacred history that when God speaks to man He speaks to man in community. In the dialogue between God and man, God is the I who speaks the creative Thou to the community. In the light of the fall of Adam, this dialogue appears as a healing dialogue. The community of the'human race disintegrated in sin. It appears to be God's plan to build it back up again meticulously in time, .through the gradual revelation of his creative Word in a gradually more perfect community, until these last times in which He speaks to us by a Son (Heb 1:2). He is the perfect Word uttered in the community which in the new Adam already exists but which is still being perfegted. (created) and realized (actualized) in all the members of the new human race by the continued call and proclamation of the new covenant in every life and time. In the realm of salvation, man does not walk alone and he is not free to do whatever he chooses. He is saved in community by the healing Word of God which is spoken to and in the community which it itself creates. The inner structure and dynamism of the Church is to be and to become this community of the Word of God. Let us now look more closely into the religious life in terms of what has already been said. If the religious life is to be the type and the eschatalogical pledge of the life of the Church, it ought to be the flesh-and-blood realiza-tion par excellence of the community of the Word of God. It is here that the progress of sacred history toward the fulfillment of God's plan of perfect community ought to be moving forward to the last day when the perfect community of the cosmos will be reheaded in Christ and God will be all in all (I Cor 15:28). The implications of this reach deeply into the basic attitudes incarnate in the concrete circumstances of re- Eoxme~mc~uen$lty VOLUME 21, 1962 325 Alo~situ Mehr, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ligious life. If the religious community is to be at all, the breath--the spirit-~of. God's Word must be free to move through and in us. Through baptism and confirmation we received the Spirit unto the building up of the com-munity to the full stature of Christ.4x The religious com-munity must be the community of the Word of God, true to the pattern of sacred history outlined above: call, proclamation of the Word, covenant. 1. (Tall. We are accustomed to the idea of a vocation to the religious life. We must draw this out to its concrete conclusions. First, when God calls man He calls him to community. A vocation to the religious life .is a call to community. Secondly, when God calls man to a religious community, He calls him to be initiated into a particular religious community. This means that the candidate must undergo a true initiation into the concrete life of that community and that he must successfully complete the initiation: he has to prove himself ready and able to renounce anything and everything which stands between him and the ideals of his vocation, to accept deeply in his incarnate being the two-edged sword of the Spirit. The religious pre-novitiate and novitiate training ought to be for the religious community what the catechu-menate was for the primitive Church. It ought to test the authenticity of the call. The community, but also the candidate, must ask the question: Is the Word of God truly at work here? God speaks toman in human language, not in weight-less abstractions. Hence the family background of the candidate must be looked into to see if God's Word came to him through parents genuinely in touch with God by their lives of faith. I[ the indications here are strongly negative, the.stronger influence of less natural channels of God's Word must be evident. Because of the psychology involved in such a situation, the candidate's response to this call must be tested for its supernatural authenticity by a convergence of other factors indicating the working and direction of Providence with adverse circumstances. The following questions must be answered: first, hits the candidate attained at least the minimum strength of character, mental health, and social ability required for successful community life; for the monastery or convent cannot function as a rehabilitation center without in-justice to its other members. Secondly, does the candidate at least show promising signs of being able to respond to maturing influences that will be able to help him to ~ Eph 4:13; see La Saihte Bible de Jerusalem (Paris: Cerf, 1956), p. 1546, note n: "Non pas simplement le chrfitien arriv~ h l'~tat de 'parfait,' mais l'Homme parfait en un sens collectif: soit le Christ lui-m~me., soit mieux encore le Christ total, T~.te. et mere- grow to a greater measure of personal authenticity? If the latter is the case, one must investigate whether or not these maturing influences so much needed are actually present in the community which the candidate wishes to join and whether they will be accessible to him. ~This is only another way of asking whether this person,~who does seem to be called by God, is being called to thig particular community. 2. Proclamation. This has led us to our next point. The community has been called together to hear the Word of God; hence that Word must be. authentically proclaimed in the community. In the Church there are official proclaimers, messengers (kerukes), for this task: the priestly hierarchy. In the religious community, this responsibility rests primarily with the superiors. They must be men of God's Word. The Bible must be familiar ground to them. They ought to be able to breathe the Scriptures. God's Word cannot be spoken with authority except by men who themselves hear the Word of God and keep it. St. Paul's timely words to Timothy, the head of the Ephesus community, point out this obligation: Attend to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching., to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was g~ven you by prbphetic utterance when the elders laid their hands upon you. Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Take heed to yourself and your teaching; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both your-self and your hearers (1 Tim 4:15--16; see also Col 3:16). The central time and place for the proclamation of God's Word to the community is the liturgy. Everything within the range of possibility should be done to make this proclamation authentic. The laws of liturgical psy-chology must be understood and incorporated into actual liturgical practice. Also it should be understood that proclaiming God's Word in the liturgy is not confined to the scriptural readings but extends to the homily or sermon delivered in the assembly. It is a mistake to think that because religious do a great deal of spiritual reading they do not need to hear sermons. Faith comes from hearing (Rom 10:17). The Scriptures must be au-thoritatively interpreted in relation to concrete con-temporary events. Here the jurisdictional power of su-periors can be seen to be more than a matter of legality. Theirs is the charism to preach authoritatively and to recognize the authentic prophetic spirit in those whom they delegate to preach. In general, there ought to be within the community a real atmosphere of reverence to the Bible. This is mani-fested, for instance, in the handling of the sacred books. Dilapidated Missals ought not be found on the altar. Out-side of the liturgical assembly, the Missal should not be ÷ ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 AIoysi~s Mehr, O&C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS carelessly thrown in the corner of the sacristry but re-served in a place of honor, like the Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Oils. The same can be said for the Bible used for community reading during the meal, and to a lesser extent for the copy of the Bible kept by individuals in their rooms. Private Bible reading ought to be en. couraged within the spiritual reading program; but this entails some instruction in how to read the Bible, es-pecially for those who do not have the benefit of an in-tensive Scripture course. All these things are only ex. amples, but they indicate a direction .of attitude which must be fostered if the seed of God's Word is to find good ground to grow into a community. 3. Covenant. The proclamation of the Word of God in the community climaxes in covenant, an intimate I. Thou relationship of God with the community. Itshall be a continual burnt offering throughout your genera-tions at the door of the tent of meeting before the Lord; where I will meet with you, to speak there with you . And I will dwell among the people of Israeli and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them lorth out o] the land oI Egypt that I might dwell among them: I am the Lord their God (Ex 29:42-46). The intimacy of the covenant is best expressed in the Scriptures by the idea of a sacred meal with God at the time of the covenant. "Then Moses and Aaron and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up and they saw the God of Israel . they beheld God and ate and drank" (Ex 24:9-11). The sacred meal will be discussed later. What is of moment here is that God addresses the community as Thou. He covenants with the community. He shares the destiny of the community, and in this way alone does the community become God's people, heir to the promises. "I will be your God and you will be my people" (Jet 32:38)~ The community has in fact been established by the progressive call of God through both Testaments. Or, to put it more critically, the concrete possibility has been established for the authentically Christian community to become to be, to grow in creative fidelity into being fully what it already is in the reality of infallible promise. Nor is the creative, call merely the point of origin; the call is repeated through and in the community of the Church to each generation for the divinization of every era. We are in fact inserted into this order of the Spirit; and by this very reality bear the serious responsibility of. hastening the Parousia (2 Pet 3:12) by a total effort to build community, to respond to the creative call ad- dressed to us, to assure that there will be in us a Thou for the moment when God speaks his "I." There must be real communion of persons who have an authentic, conscious, un-egocentric participation in the human nature and creatureliness they share in their com-mon flesh from the loins of Adam. There must be com-munity in which Christ is progressively becoming in-carnated and given being-in-the-world, caught up, as it were, by the Spirit and created time and time again in authentic response (possible only in community) to the liturgical Word. proclaimed now, as in times past, in liturgical community. Then the great Passover of Jesus from the Cross into the glory of His Resurrection~ Ascen-sion, and Enthronement can take root- in the world and create from our community authentic and supernatural Christian community, the Body of the Lord. For a man to enter the We :of the community, certain things must happen to him. For one thing~ he must have experienced encounter with other persons in the com-munity. This occurs on various interpenetrating levels. On the sacramental level, the encounter begins with his initiation into the Church through baptism and confirma-tion which are an encounter with the concrete Church community. In the religious life a further sacramental encounter is the act of religious profession. Think of the handclasp, the Amen of the community, and the kiss of peace. , Through baptism, confirmation, and profession, the religious has already met the members ofthe community on the sacramental level, the. authenticity of which meet-ing will depend on the authenticity of the ritual. This also means that he is ontologically structured for and pledged to this encounter in all its dimensions. Other levels of encounter which are basic to the we experience are the father-son relationship between su-perior and subject, the brother relationship between con-freres, the teacher-student relationship, and the more in-timate encounter of true religious friendship. A parish community is as strong as the basic I-Thou relationship between the husband and wife in the families of the pa.rish, since marriage is the effective sign of the Church. similarly a promotion of genuine I-Thou relationships within the community builds up the great We of the I. Thou relationship with God, as the.se experiences open the personalities of the religious to that common human nature and creatureliness which would otherwise be hoarded up individualistically by each selbcenter. The human nature and creatureliness which we share is a concrete human nature and creatureliness incarnate in the human beings around us, and it is there where it must ÷ Community VOLUME 21, 1962 32g ÷ ÷ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS be met. Here we have the sensible, real basis, the sign, of the Body of Christ which is realized in sacrament. Another experience which conditions for and builds up the great We is the common sharing of a rich ex-perience, a going through something together, a com-mon passover. God made his covenant with Israel after the Exodus experience, after the people had passed through the Red Sea together. This experience involves the elements of crisis, judgment, and victorious issue. Once again, on the sacramental level, this is accomplished through the catechumenate and initiation sacraments of baptism and confirmation in which the candidate shares the Christian community's experience of the Exodus, of the Passover from the Egypt of sin through the Red Sea of baptism to the new life of the people of God. In the religious life a further sacramental or ritual sharing of crisis-victory is embodied in profession, the passover into the state of perfection. But this sacramental ontology of community on the basis of shared experience becomes incarnate in and is the fulfillment of numerous experiences undergone on other levels of life. Religious life can provide many ex-cellent experiences of solidarity through crises and vic-tories. As examples can be mentioned: working out phil-osophical and theological problems; a difficult community project such as the continued and successful support of a mission; a common experience of joy such as might be expected at ordinations and professions; the death of a member of the community; in short, any event which deeply affects the community. This solidarity in experience is not limited to events. What may be more important is the common experience of the presence of great persons. Just as the Israelite community was somehow bound up in the persons of Moses, Josue, and Aaron, and just as the Church is bound up in the persons of Christ, the Apostles, and the Virgin Mary, so the religious community is bound up in the per-sons of its superiors and leading figures. The superior must be a deep, spiritually mature person who is in personal contact with his community so that the members of the community actually have a chance to experience him and feel a solidarity in this experience. As fdr the other leading figures in the community, the more deep personalities God has given to a community, so much richer will that community life be as the solidarity in this experience broadens the horizons of the com-munlty. It is a corruption of a precious gift for a com-munity to consider its outstanding members as divisive forces or to make them feel like isolated individualists. Sharing the experience of encounter with a great man is one of the strongest bonds of unity there is between man and man. We have discussed some factors in the formation of the community We which becomes the Thou whom God addresses in his covenant dialogue. There is one other element of covenant that should be mentioned, and it is the sharing of destiny. God becomes involved in the community's destiny and the community is caught up into God's great mystery of salvation, the secret hidden from the ages and revealed fully in his Son, the movement of salvation history (Col 1:26-27). There is a movement toward fulfillment, toward Pleroma. Christ has already been established as the Head of new order in heaven, but his Body is still undergoing construction upon earth. The completion of Christ's Body is being realized little by little. It is a steady growth until the full measure of the perfect Man is attained. This fullness, Pleroma, means that in Christ harmony has been established among all things, that the universe is "filled b~ the creative presence of God."42 When this day shall arrive, the Church will contain Christ in his fullness. The Church will reach the stature of the perfect man (Eph 1:23), The movement .of salvation history, however, is not inevitable. God is faithful and will accomplish His pur-pose, but His people do not always respond with like fidelity, and He will not use force. If the Day of the Lord is to come, it is the Christian community, we, who must hasten it (2 Pet 3:12), we who must move ahead; and we are free to contribute to this forward movement or to hold it it check. If we should choose the latter, we would become like the Thessalonians who sat around and waited for the Parousia and who were upbraided for their pre-sumption (2 Th). The religious community ought to be an advance guard unit in this forward march, for it is by definition a place of perfection and fulfillment. This again points up the necessity for the proclamation of the Word of God in the community. The history of salvation is contained in the Scriptures. God's plan is there, and only those who are familiar with its patterns are capable of reliable frontier work on the boundaries of sacred history. Ful-fillment does not mean reckless lunging out in any direc-tion. Yet neither i~ it all mapped out in detail. Here the living tradition of the Scriptures assumes its rightful im-portance. The leaders of the community must be men who walk in the way of the Lord and meditate on His law. If we may say so, they must have a scriptural instinct, a Pierre Benoit, O.P., "Corps, t~te et pl~r6me darts les Rpitres de lacaptivit~," Revue Biblique, v. 63 (1956), pp. 5-44. ÷ ÷ ÷ Community VOLUME 21, 1962 .331 ÷ Aloysius OM.Se.hCr., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS a feel for the way God does things, and a contact with the currents of life in the Church. They must be attentive to the voice of higher authority and at the same time be aware of the prophetic movements within their own com-munity. They literally have to know which way the Wind --the Holy Spirit--is blowing. Community in Worship At this point lines of thought begin to converge: the Word of God, community, covenant, sacred history; and their point of convergence is worship. We may say that the community called into being by the Word of God in the context of sacred history through the intimacy of the covenant is primarily a worshiping community. What happens in Christian sacramental rituals? The Word of God, spoken once definitively in Jesus Christ, is spoken now in the Church community which is the Body of Christ, the real, glorified soma tou Christou, which is building up to completion. Ritual makes possible.through its pneumatic bodiliness, its symbolic or sacramental na-ture, the entrance by the commUnity here and now into the great sacramental moment, the primordial time, Christ's great Resurrection Passover, which stands at a particular moment of history yet transcends it, catches up within itself the vitality of all history, its direction and its completion. Here the Christian community whose task it is to move sacred history ahead, to build up the Body of Christ, is in contact with the vital source of the upward thrust of sacred history: the leap of the crucified Jesus up into the life of the Christos-pneuma. Covenant intimacy with God becomes possible in ritual: the I-Thou rela-tionship between the Father and the community comes into being in the spoken word and the meal ritual (or other symbolic act), in both of which, taken together, the risen Christ in whom we meet the Father is present through the working of the Spirit. By hearing the ef-fective Word together and eating the sacred meal to-gether (or doing the ritual action of the other sacraments), the members of the community pass together through the greatest of all experiences: the Passover of Christ, the primordial passage of non-being into being, of what is away from God to what is in God, of what is dead: sarx, to what is alive: pneuma. 1. Mass. In this context, the Mass, as the supreme Passover ritual, becomes for the Church and the religious community the supreme moment of covenant communion with the Father and with one another. The place of meet-ing with God is the place of.assembly and formation of the people of God. The people of God were formed to the Qehal Yahweh by communication with God himself. The community entered a covenant with God, and the effec- tive token of this covenant was the paschal meal. This reaches its fulfillment in the Eucharist where we become one people of God by sitting at table with God. For the community, the Mass is not just one of the de-votional exercises of the day, nor merely one of the "means" used by a group 0f3ndividuals for accumulating personal merits. It is first of all a gathering, an assembly of Christians, those who are of Christ. Secondly, it is not an hour of community meditation, but an hour of com-munity action, an event, a celebration. The act of cele-bration is important, for the event is Christ's event (here we have the true meaning of ex opere operato), and the community enters into the mystery of Christ by their ritual transposition of the action of Christ. The event is the Resurrection Passover of Christ which He Himself rit-ually transposed in the sacramental moment of the Last Supper and ordered to be clone in commemoration of Him. Let us examine these two interrelat'ed realities: com-munity and event. The worshiping community is not a priori, not an automatically given thing with which to work out the problem of celebrating Mass. Nor can the community be improvised haphazardly. It must be .built up by active and intelligent effort; it demand~ active con-cern and reverence for the laws of human acting. In fact, if the sacramental reality is to be accomplished, if com-munity is to be created on the supernatural level, the sacramental signs must be authentic. As St. Thomas has told us: the sacraments signify what they cause and cause only insofar as they signify,aa This highlights the necessity for catechesis: instruction, explanation, acclimatization--initiation into the reality of the community and the event. Catechesis is a psy-chological necessity because words and actions must be significant. The Bible and the ritual must be understood by the community. Cathechesis is accomplished both by systematic instruc-tion and by the actual celebration authentically done. We have already spoken of some things that can be done out-side the celebration regarding the catechesis of the Bible. A suggestion or two concerning the cathechesis of the ritual outside the celebration may slip into what fol-lows by an occasional convenient parenthesis, but what we are primarily interested in here is .the ca-thechesis that occurs within the celebration of Mass itself. No matter how much formal instruction we have about the Mass, we can come to learn the Mass only by doing the Mass. Actions must be learned from within, by doing. No matter how many books we read about how Summa Theologiae, 3, q. 62, a. 1, ad I. + + + ommunit~ Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 ÷ ÷ ÷ Aloysius Meh¢, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ,334 to study or how to play tennis, we will never really have learned these activities until we have entered into them. Catechesis must adapt the celebration of the Mass to the psychological climate of the assembly. This, of course, must be done within the limit of the laws of the Church. We do not, for instafice, simply "adapt" our celebration into the vernacular, despite the fact that this might be an excellent cathechetical move, one to be hoped, prayed and worked for through legitimate channels. But there is much to be done within the limits of the present rubrical framework. Let us begin with the community itseff. We can talk the idea of community to people until the Parousia, and it will not create community. A Christian community has to be built up by the celebration of Mass itself. The daily conventual Mass is a summons to enter deeply into com-munity. The community must experience community. Community is indeed where community happens. In the primitive Church there were at first no Catholic schools to teach the idea of community. Community was built up through worship, a worship that took into account the concrete conditions of the lives of the faithful. One of these basic concrete conditions is the bodiliness of men. Body is intrinsic to human personality. Man not only has a body, but also is a body. As we have already seen, man is a spirit incarnate in a body which is its epiphany, its revelation, its sign. And to come to the point here, it is through his body that man is part of the community of the race of Adam 'and through his body that he enters into conscious contact with the community. It is the role of good catechesis to create a sensible at-mosphere of community. It is especially when brethren gather around the altar that they ought to get that ecce quara bonum feeling. What can be done toward this? First of all, there have to be people there. And they ought to be there for the Mass. If I sit down to eat a meal with someone and he insists on reading the paper, I do not feel that he is really with me. Likewise, if the man next to me at Mass is "getting his meditation in" or "getting through his Office," the sense of community i~ being broken down. This does not mean that everyone at Mass has to be doing the same thing, for there are many liturgies or works to be done at the one great liturgy: the celebrant, the choir, the schola, the altar ministers, the organist, the choir director--all have their own work to contribute to th~ whole. But there must be that sense of the whole to which all are contributing. All present must feel that "we came here to do the Mass." The importance of this, I think, is felt instinctively even by those who close themselves up in a meditation book at Mass: they stand, sit, and kneel with the community. This at least is better than nothing, but it is for from the ideal. Akin to this is the practice of having "a Mass going on" in church when the community has come there to do something else. One picks up the habit of not becoming distracted by the Mass. Not only does this dull ofie's abil-ity to participate at other times when he is supposed to, but such a psychologically unsound practice of not doing what you are doing, on the basic religious level, has a disintegrating effect on the total personality and shows up in other activities. The desire to "get in an extra Mass" may proceed from sincere devotion, but it some-what misses the point. Whenever the Mass is used as a background or as something that is secondary, its signifi-cance (which is of prime importance in the sacramental realm) is greatly lessened (I do not say completely ab-sent); this lessening of significance breaks down the au-then. ticity of the ritual, hence its effectiveness. But in the Mass-and-something-else situation, it is not only the Mass that suffers. When two community exercises which de-mand full attention are combined, neither is able to have any depth. The sense of community at Mass is also built up by the alertness and freshness of the presence of the participants. This means that those who plan to attend Mass in the morning ought io feel it their responsibility to get enough sleep the night before to enable them to be attentive to one another and to the sacred actions. It also means that Mass should not be scheduled to be done after a marathon of spiritual exercises has just about exhausted the normal capabilities of a man to do the intensive work which good praying demands. Another important contribution to the sense of com-munity is the very structure of the church building. People at Mass ought to be able to see the altar and to see each other. They must be able to feel close to one another and not to feel oppressed by one another. Their place in church ought to be related to their role at the Mass. They ought to be able to feel together in the pres-ence of God. These problems have to be worked out on the architectural level by those competent in the field. The furnishings of a church must be such as not to distract from the main purpose of the building. The com-munity ought not to be pulled in all directions by a penny arcade of devotional concession stands. This does not mean elimination of statues from the church, but it does mean an integration of all furnishings into the main-stream of attention. This must be done by the planning of skillful designers, not by a mere process of accumula-tion. ÷ ÷ ommunlty Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 335 4. ÷ 4. Aloy~ius Mehr, 0.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 336 The celebrant, too, has his role to play in creating a sense of community. He must realize his role as the leader of the community, as one who acts in their name, and must by his very actions sweep up the community .into participation with him. Hemust understandthat not all parts of thd Mass are equally important, and he must learn how to emphasize the important parts with the proper gestures and tone of voice, and not to monopolize the attention of the community when what he is doing is not the main thing going on, especially when the choir is singing. His gestures must be authentic. When he greets the people, there should be contact, and he should wait for their response. When he proclaims the Word of God, he should do so loudly, clearly, and expressively. During the great presidential, prayer, the anaphora, from the pre-face to the doxology, he should invite the silent attention of the community to what he is doing by his own sense of presence, by his poise and serenity. His whole bodily attitude must be expressive of praise and thanksgiving, His priestly vestments ought to mark him as a man of dis-tinction. In short, he must look and sound like a leader, and to do this he has to feel like one. He is not to be esoteric or insert idiosyncracies into the celebration, yet his action must be personal action flowing expressively from his total personality which on the deepest level is priestly. Finally, the two .very important factors in building up the sense of community are music and movement. People experience real togetherness by mutual singing and mu-tual movement. Every conventual Mass should be a com-munity sing. But again this does not mean that everyone has to sing everything. Some of the prescribed chants are too difficult to be enjoyable for those who are not trained to sing them. The obvious answer is to let the trained schola sing those parts, while the rest of the community listens attentively--at that moment their liturgy is med-itative listening together. Beyond this, there is need for the composition of good music which is singable by the real communities that actuall~ exist. °The ability to sing must be built up, but we have to start where people are and help them experience their own way into better things. The most familiar mutual movements at Mass are the changes of posture: standing, sitting, kneeling, and bow-ing. These movements ought to be expressive and forma-tive of community. This means that all should rise, bow, and so forth, together because community actions are not fully authentic unless every member makes his contribn-tion to the communal movement. These movements, as well as all the ceremonies during any liturgical function, should be expressive of two things: first, the gravity of what is being done, and secondly, the anirna una et cor unum of the community. Beyond the familiar change~ of posture, there are three great movements of the .people of God at Mass--the En-trance Procession, the Offertory Procession, and the Com-munion Procession~during which the community is sing-ing together. There are practical difficulties in restoring the movement features of the first two processions which have been reduced to the singing of the Introit and Of-fertory Antiphons. The difficulties are not insurmount-able, but they are more formidable than the difficulty it would entail to reintroduce the singing feature of the Commun, ion Procession. There are few experiences of community which can match walking in a group of your confreres in joyful song on the way to and fron~ the table of the Lord where you share the .one Bread. Let Us now make a few observations about the cat-echesis of the Mass as an event. The Mass is not an ordi-nary dialogue, nor an ordinary meal. It is a festive speak-ing of God and a festive eating with God. It involves a longing for happiness and salvation, for every feast" has the atmosphere of expectation and liberation from rou-tine. This is the eschatological dimension of the Mass. The early Christian found it easier to feel the festivity of the Mass because he found it easier to see the Mass as a cel-ebration of the coming of the risen Lord, a pledge of His final coming. For the early Christian Christ was present in the Church, especially in the actual liturgical assembly gathered together in His name: as the community cam~ together, Christ came among them. When those who love come together the tone is one of festivity. The Mass must, then, become a real celebration, as its interpenetrating rhythm of dialogue and meal indicate it is meant to be. At a celebration people talk and sing and move around. There is real, free communication. Mass is a dialogue between God and His people through the mediatorship of the priest. The priest talks to God in the name of the people and to the people in the name of God. When people really come together in a festival setting to talk with one another, they bring their interests, their work, their experiences, and their whole personality which transcends these experiences. Here one can see the role that community recreation and community meals can play as a catechesis of the proper celebration of Mass. It is not stretching a point to see community recreation as the extension and fruit of the festive dialogue of the Mass; in itself it has something of the nature of a ritual and might indeed be considered a sacramental for community. Play is sacred. When the Bible says the people rose up ÷ ÷ + Community Exercises VOLUME 21o 1962 337 ÷ ÷ Aloysius Mehr, O.~.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 338 to play while Moses was conversing with God on Mount Sinai, it speaks condemningly of the event, including its sexual misbehavior, precisely because it was an act of false worship (Ex 32:1-6). Later in Israelite history we know that David leapt and danced before the Ark of the Covenant (2 S 6:14). Play is an expression of joy and freedom--like the Sabbath day of rest. The idea of worship and the free-dom from the drudgery of work belong together. The need to break routine is rooted in man's desire for the freedom of salvation. Play is free dialogue, whether it be in the form of relaxed conversation, or a contest in which make-believe competition is manufactured, or the sharing of some unroutinized activity just "for the fun of it." Play keeps a man from b~ecoming a slave to his work; it keeps him from confining himself to the world of I-It. We take a game seriously to a point. We must take it that far, for playing is literally "making fun" of work. The religious significance of this is deep. One can take his life's work seriously only to a point; from there he must "make fun" of it in the sight of God and man as David made fun before the Ark and the people. Other-wise he will become proud and self-sufficient. The world of I-It is not to be despised, but it must lead up to the world of I-Thou, of dialogue between man and man and between man and God. Community recreation ought to be fun, but it must never be dissipation or aesthetically squalid, or the whole meaning of it is destroyed. It is the bringing of the real necessity of one's work to the level of free personal dialogue with God and man. A person-alized celebration of community recreation is a great help to a personalized celebration of Mass. The festivities of" the Mass reach their climax in the meal celebration. Food and drink are an essential part of a celebration. The Mass is a holy eating together, a sacred banquet in which we are filled with the bread of life and drink of the cup of gladness. The symbolism of wine especially provides the atmosphere of festivity. The feeling tone of the Mass is that of a celebration of people who are spiritually well fed and well drunk, who feel the spiritual fullness from the rich bread and the spiritual freedom from the intoxicating wine. Here we might note that the regular community meals can be a real catechesis of the Mass, since they are in fact a sacramental extension of the meal aspect of the Mass through the ritual prayers surrounding them. Human eating is of its nature a sacred and communal act. It is not a mere refueling for another round of work. God is present at every meal in his gifts of food and drink and in the fellowship around the table. The prayers before and after meals set the tone of the meal. They are mos~tly i, excerpts from the Psalms, breathing the spirit of the anawim, the spirit of joy, thanksgiving, appreciation, de-pendence on God, praise, awareness of God's presence, simplicity. The meals themselves should reflect all this. The food should be simple fare, b,ut good. It ought, t.o be eaten in an atmosphere of calm enjoyment, not of frantic dumping from platter to plate to palate. There ought to be a real spirit of fellowship at the table. But besides fellowship at table, we should also be aware of how community meals tie in with the Mass. Father Godfrey Van Lit, O.S.C., describes the intimate relation-ship between the refectory and the ~ chapel, community meals and the Mass.4. The Christian dining room table is a symbol of the Eucharistic table, the altar, and hence the refectory used to be decorated with a large, artistic painting of the Last Supper. As we have silence of place in the chapel, so we also observe silence of place in the refectory, And as in the community Mass the leader pro-claims to us the Good News, so also during our commu-nity meals a lector acquaints us with the consequences of the Gospel narrative. Both at Mass and at table, we are reminded that "not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from. the mouth of God" (Mr 4:4). Both the Mass and the community meals ought to par-take of the spirit of the Passover and Chaburah meals of the Old Testament. The pervading tone here is that of a family meal. The community superior presides in the place of honor at the table as the father of the family who provides the good gifts. In so doing he is the epiphany of our heavenly Father who provides us with all good things, and the assurance of His presence among us. "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). The hebclomadarius who leads the community both at Mass and at the meal prayers must be seen as the delegate of the father of the community, just as every priest stands at the altar as the delegate of the bishop. So simple a thing as the custom of not starting the prayers until the superior "knocks of[" in chapel or rings the bell in the refectory helps to keep this family awareness. At the com-munity table one ought not to feel that he is just one nameless stop along the long line of the gravy train, but that he is among the little group of his brothers with whom he is at home. We are one "b~cause the bread is one" (1 Cor 10:17). The event aspect of the Mass also demands that the ritual transposition of the sacramental moment should be ~ Lucerna Splendens super Candelabrum Sanctum, Id Est, Solida ac Dilucida Explanatio Constitutionum Sairi ac Canoni¢i Ordinis Fratium Sanctae Crucis (Coloniae Agrippinae: apud Antonii Boet-zeri Heredes, 1632), pp. 45-58; 87. ÷ ÷ ÷ ECxo~mrmcisuensity VOLUME 21, transparent; the celebration must be a revelation of the event itself. The main event is the Easter Passover, but there are other sacramental moments in sacred history which unfold in the course of the Church year as incip-ient or concluding stages of the Passover, from the In-carnation to the Mission of the Spirit. The sacramental moments are themselves revelations, openings into the Passover mystery, which pervades the whole Church in her sacramental ritual. A final note on the Mass concerns the apostolate. Cult is formative of missionaries. Worship is the school of the very Christian experience which the apostle seeks to com-municate to others. Here we must remember that there is no. effective activity without sanctity; there is no sanc-tity which does not radiate in the Church; there is no grace which does not come from the Head, and there is none which does not flow from the member back over the entire Body.~ + + lloysim Mehr, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 34O A religious who neglects his personal sanctity in order to intensify his activity, paralyzes it. The gift of the Spirit is the sacramental basis for com-munity in work. When a man works to bring forth the fruits of the earth as a Christian, he brings these temporal things into the sphere of the Spirit by doing the very best job he can to make his farming or his teaching, and so forth, as perfect as possible within the total context of human life, of community. He is working with the crea-tive force of the Spirit who hovered over the waters and brought order, harmony, and completion out of chao:; and who is now at work in the community. He brings; creation into his Passover experience. He is using the totality of his mind and energies and spirit, which totality exists only within the community, 'to bring creatures to perfection, to fill up the glory ofGod which will come in its fullness at the Parousia. 2. Penance. We are not accustomed to thinking of the sacrament of penance in terms of the community, and in this we have missed much of its meaning. The weekly confession of devotion can easily become for religious a routinized ticking off of peccadillos which one "gets rid' of" by inserting his penitential coins in the laundromat at the back of Church. The sacrament of penance is a re-penetration of our ex-istence into Christ's healing death and Resurrection. Re-penetration implies that something preceded. Through baptism man is ontologically structured into the commu-nity of the holy--holy persons and holy things which they share. Sin 'is something abnormal for man in Christ Jesus '~Jules Lebreton, S.J., The Spiritual Teaching o! the New Testament (Westminster: Newman, 1960), p. 375. (Rom 6:2). By sin man withdraws from the Body of Christ and sides with the world. The sacrament of penance is reconciliation with the Church. It is the Church that listens to his confession, prays for him, and gives him absolution. Here we see the Body of Christ, wounded by'sih, festoring itself t~0 health. For us, a return to God is always, first of all, a return to the Church. Forgiveness is not so much something which the Church brings us, but rather a belonging to the Church outside of which there is no salvation. The importance of the local Church community must be emphasized here. When a sinner is forgiven, he is for-given through the forgiveness of the local community. This was more evident in the earlier forms of the sacra-ment of penance when the sinner was received publicly back into the assembly. He was assured of God's forgive-ness by the concrete forgiving spirit manifested to' him by the community. The power to absolve is vested in those with hierarchical authority, but they absolve in the name of the community of the faithful; hence the?e is a more fruitful and creative spiritual power at work in the con-fessional of a community'where there is a strong spiri't of mutual forbearancb and forgiveness, where the '~'as we forgive those who trespass against us" is prayed with awareness and sincerity, where the offensive person is ac-cepted in patience, understanding, and ultimate trust in what in him lies beyond his offences: his Christian per-sonality. The sacrament of penance can also be made more fruit-ful if the sacramentals of penance in the community life are appreciated. Two important ones. come to mind: Compline confession of sins and the chapter of faults. Let it be remembered that by the institution of the Church these rites are sacramentals, and if approached in a spirit of contrition they accomplish forgiveness of sin. The Compline confession of sin is the best catechesis for the sacrament of penance for it clearly embodies .its essential elements: contrition, confession of sin in the community and to the community, including the whole community of saints in heaven as well as those present; absolution is given by the presiding priest; and everybody prays together for the effectiveness of the forgiveness. The chapter of faults is also well constructed to pro-mote the communal atmosphere of penance, but it needs to be approached in a genuine spirit of sorrow. The pub-lic confession of our faults in the presence of the com-munity helps to make us realize that by our transgres-sions, by our indifference, lack of interest, fulfillment of purely personal inclinations, and non-participation in the community as such, we cut ourselves off, in fact we deny, the ontological status or nature of our very calling. ÷ ÷ ÷ F~oxmermcisuens ity 4. .4. Aloysius Mehr, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Worse yet, we hold back the community, we retard its growth. This seems to be the point of the chapter of faults: we confess that we have not been completely faith-ful to the ideals to which we vowed creative fidelity. 3. Holy Orders. In clerical religious communities, the whole idea of community life is intimately bound up in the sacrament of holy orders. Some observations on the place of the priesthood in the Church are necessary to clear the ground. It has often been said recently that the Church is not the clergy, despite the impression that has long been given to the contrary. The community is the first inten-tion. The priesthood exists for and in and fromthe com-munity through the apostolic succession. The priesthood is a charism, a mode of being in the Church, for the com-munity, not for itself. It expresses and makes possible and matures the general priesthood of the faithful in its three-fold dimension of worship, kingship, and prophethood. These are the Messianic goods, and they have been placed within the community in the gift of the Holy Spirit. In this context the Church itself is the Ur-Sat~rament con-taining the fullness of the Spirit, which is worked out through many diverse gifts. The priesthood is a charism for the building up of the Church (Eph 4:11-14). Ordination is the,gift of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands in the Church for the community. The priest is filled personally by the Holy Spirit to be his minister. No man takes the office to him-self-- or for himself. The fullness of the priesthood is only in the bishop. He is the sign of the full presence of Christ on earth, the organ of unity within the local Church community. He is one with Christ and one with his people. His faith is the norm for the faith of his flock. St. Cyprian defines the . Church as the people united to its priest, the flock stick-ing with its shepherd. The 'bishop is the nucleus of the community because he is the link with Christ through the imposition of hands through which the continuum of the soma tou Christou is maintained. The presbyterate is only a share in the bishop's priest-hood, a subsidiary priesthood under the bishop. As the ordination rite explicitly states, the presbyter is a "sec-ond- rate" priest: secundi meriti. In this light, every priest is a diocesan priest, and, exempt or not, when he works as a priest in a diocese, he works there as the helper of the bishop. By his ordination he is ontologically struc-tured for this work. He is called from the depths of his being to be a helper to the bishop of the diocese in which he lives. Here one can see what a deordination it is for religious priests not to be on good terms with the local ordinary. These good relations should also exist with the rest of the local clergy since the presbyterate is not merely an in-dividualistic but a collegiate institution. The architecture of early churches and the episcopal liturgy indicate this by placing the corona presbyterorum on the bema round the bishop. We still put the clergy together in the sanc-tuary. When a presbyter is ordained he joins the ordo foresbyterovum. This is eloquently obvious in the ordina-tion rite when the "college of presbyters" encircles the ordinands and joins the bishop in the imposition of hands. Priestly fellowship is rooted in the sacramental re-ality, and this sacramental reality is also what makes com-munity life a natural thing for priests. The unity in an order of canons draws its essential vitality from the sacra-ment of holy orders. In this context, the naturally prominent position of the Divine Office and liturgical exercises in many of the cler-ica. I religious communities becomes evident. The Divine Office is, as defined by Pope Pius XII, ~he perennial prayer of the Church, offered to God in the name and on behalf of all Christians, by those who have been deputed for this. It is the hymn of the Divine Word who has united to Him-self the entire human race, and the hymn which He sings is the hymn of praise which is sung in heaven continu-ously. St. Augustine is correct in saying that in the Divine Office "Christ prays for us. as our Priest; he prays in us as our Head; we pray to him as our God . We recognize Our voice in him and his voice in us.''4~ It is the Church praying. But we should go one step further. When a community of canons regular is called into existence by the Holy Spirit and officially approved by the Church, it is by its very nature entrusted with the solemn and communal celebration of the sacred liturgy, especially the Divine Office and the conventual Mass. If any religious body has the right to say that the liturgical life is its ideal, it is the canons regular.47 They above all should lead the way in the liturgical revival of Christian life. The proper chanting of the Divine Office in common is formative of community. But, in order to be formative of community, it presupposes first of all that the community understands the dignity of the Church's prayer, secondly, that the choir members are able to read the text of the prayer intelligently, and, finally, that they adopt as their own the sentiments expressed in these prayers. ,e Mediator Dei, nn. 142-144. ,TDom Germain Morin, O.S.B., The Ideal o] the Monastic Life Found in the Apostolic Age (Westminster: Newman, 1950), p. 105: "If any Order has the right to boast of this it is the Canons Regular, rather than ourselves." See also the article "Canons Regular and the Breviary" by Roger Capel, Orate Frates, v. 23 (1948-49), pp. 246-251. ÷ ÷ + ECxoemrdmsuesnity VOLUME 21. 1962 343 ÷ ÷ ÷ Aloysius Mehr, O$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS It is not merely a question of recitatk;n or of singing which, however perfect according to the norms of music and sacred rites, onl)t reaches the ear, but it is especially a question of the ascent ot the mind and heart to God' so that, united with Christ, we may completely dedicate ourselves and all our ac-tions to him.'s Whenever the Divine Office is chanted "worthily, with attention and devotion," it is prayer in the fullest sense of the term, and every genuine prayer cements together the members of a community. "Our deepest contacts with one another can be made only through God.''49 It is only in the depths of prayer that, in the fullest sense of the term, deep calls out to deep, and the soul gives itself to God. In this sense, every genuine prayer is a renewal of religious profession, the leaving of all things and following He-who- is. If the religious community is to blossom forth into a true community of worship and love, it must be able, at all times, to call upon this interior gift to God.5° The central portion of the Divine Office is the Psalter: the Word of God. The best way for men to pray together is to speak with God in God's own words, for the Word of God is formative and expressive of the community. The common chanting of the Psalter is, by and large, a meditar tive re-experiencing together of the great events of sacred history--again a community-forming factor.5x The Psalter is redolent with man's proper responses to God and his works: the spirit of the anawira, the poor in spirit, God's lowly ones through whom sacred history is accomplished. By a continual singing of these prayers day after day for many .years, these attitudes of heart sink into those who give themselves to this prayer with their minds and hearts and bodies. Through the ritual action, the attitudes and events are effectively experienced by the total personality in community; by all the rules of psychology such prayer is extremely capable of transforming one's life as an aLt-thentic individual in the community. A final note on the Divine Office concerns the non-choir members and every other member of the community who has been assigned work incompatible with regular attend-ance at choir. Here it is important to remember that the choir is a community obligation'. In a living community there are many members "just as in one body we have many members, yet all the members have not the same function" (Rom 12:4). Some are sent out as missionaries, others do the cooking, others are engaged in social work--- ~s Mediator Dei, n. 145. ~9 R. W. Gleason, S.J., To Live is Christ (New York: Sheed anti Ward, 1961), p. 11. ~ T. de Ruiter, O.F.M., Her Mysterie van de Kloostergemeenschap (Mechelen: St. Franciskusdrukkerij, 1958), p. 131. ~ Mediator Dei, n. 148. each according to the grace that has been given to him (Rom 12:6). And then there are also those who are not excused and who have the responsibility to be in choir. In each case it is the community at work or at prayer. Whether we are in the choir or legitimately excused, we are all working together in the name of the omhaunity, fulfilling our role in the completion of the cosmic task. 4. Extreme Unction. The communal dimension of ex-treme unction must be viewed from the Christian stand-point on death. The creation of Adam in flesh is the man-ifestation of the mystery of contingency which attends the existence of all things outside of God. Only God is in Himself and by Himself. All other beings tend to fuller being, which implies nonbeing. Death is the natural con-sequence of man's fleshy nature. Since the human race is a community in flesh it is also a community in death. Adam, however, did not accept his contingency. He failed to project beyond the dissolution of flesh to fuller life. He revolted against being the creature who dies, and death became a punishment for this sin. since the human race is a community in sin, it is a community in the pun-ishment of death (Rom 5:12). Christ, the New Adam, humbled himself: took on con-tingency. He submitted, as the suffering Servant, to be the creature who dies, and death became a redemption, a passage into the eternal life for which Adam revolted in vain (Rom 5:15-19; 1 Cot 15:21). Since the Church is a community in redemption, it is a community in triumph over death. Through the Church's sacraments of death and disso-lution, Viaticum and extreme unction, all human suffer-ing. and death is taken into the redemptive sufferings of Christ. The falling apart involved in suffering and death becomes the creative mustering of forces for the upward thrust to a higher level of life. The death of the Christian is his final experience of the Passover of Christ. Without Christ, death is complete loneliness. One leaves the community of his loved ones to go alone into nothing-ness. Christian death conquers this ultimate loneliness. The highpoint of the ritual for the dying is the admin-istration of Holy Viaticum. The Christian does not go alone into death: the Lord comes to take his faithful serv-ant up into his triumphant Passover. The Lord is able to come in Viaticum because the community has celebrated the Eucharistic Passover. Much of the loneliness of death comes from the effect of sin, by which man cuts himself off from the community. In the prayers and anointing for sickness unto death, the healing Lord approaches in the person of the priest to cure the wounds of severance from the community, to re-store the peace of mind that can come only from c6mplete + + + Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 345 4. 4. 4. Aloysius Mehr, O$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 346 reconciliation with the Church. Again, the priest is acting in the name of the community. The death of a Christian is a deep experience for the community in which it occurs. When at all possible, the religious community should be present at the administra-tion of the last sacraments to the dying members of the community, and they should pa.rticipate in the expressive prayers of the ritual. Such a death is a witness to the reality of the triumph of Christ, a real martyrdom. The joyful and peaceful suffering and death of one with whom we live in intimacy is a striking pledge of the reality of Christ's Resurrection and the certainty of the Parousia. Here we have the reason for a quite joyful celebration of a funeral. What is said of death extends also to the sufferings of illness, disease, and serious injury, as well as of old age. Here there is the same factor of dissolution and contin-gency which is at work in death. Illness and death are times of crisis that naturally draw the community together to struggle against the loneliness which has set into our flesh as a result of sin. The serious sufferings of a member of the community are a community experience and ought to be entered into by the community. This involves a patient care and con-cern for the aged and the sick and keeping the community informed of their condition. It means visiting the sick. It would also be good to make use of the magnificent ritual for the visitation of the sick: let the community gather occasionally in the sick room to join in these moving and consoling prayers led by the superior. In the communal carrying out of this sacramental, the healing Lord will be present, and the patient endurance of suffering in the true Christian spirit will again be a witness to the community of the reality of Christ's presence and the certainty of his coming. Epilogue: The Dynamism of the Sacramental Com-munity There is an inherent tension in the very being of a sac-ramental dispensation or system: the tension, inherent in the nature of a sign, toward the fullness of that reality which is less than fully present in the sign. This underlies the call, covenant, and passover aspect of the sacraments and gives them their "obligatory" dimension, their ex-istential imperative. In Christian life this tension is the cosmic covenant: the Christian community's responsibil-ity for the entire cosmos which needs redemption and building up. This means authentic community work. Religious life is Christian response lived to the full in the working out of salvation history. It is charged with the building up of the Church unto the Pleroma, with the hastening of the day of the coming of the Lord (Ac 3:20; 2 Pt 3:11-12

Issue 7.2 of the Review for Religious, 1948. ; A. M~ D. G. Review for Religious MARCH 15, 1948 Devotion . - . o Matthew Germ;ng Mor~,Abouf Maturity . Gerald Kelly Thank~glvlng after Holy Communion ¯ ¯ Clarence McAuliffe Gifts to Relicjious-qll . Adam C. Ellis Thou'cjhts on Obed;ence. ~ edwerd J. g,rney ~ Purity of Intention . C.A. Herbst Invitation to Praise . Richerd L. Rooney ,Books Reviewed Ouesti~ns Answered VOLU~E VII, RI::::VIi W FOR RI::LIGIOUS ¯ VOLUME VII MARCH, 1948 NUMBER 2 CONTENTS DEVOTION--~Matthew Germing, S.J . 57 CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS . 62 ~MORE ABOUT MATURITY-~Gerald Kelly, S.J. .¯. . .63 THE CHRISTIAN ADULT . THANKSGIVING AFTER HOLY COMMUNION-- " Clarence McAuliffe, S.J . 73 ~. GIFTS',~Tb RELIGIOUS III. PERSONAL VEI~SU8 COMMUNITY PROPERTY--Adam C, Ellis. S.J. 79 THOUGHTS ON OBEDIENCE--Edward J. Carney. O.S.F.S .8.7 'BOOKS AND BOOKLETS . ~. ¯ ¯ ¯ 90 PUI~ITY OF INTENTION--C. A. Herbst, S.J . 91 INVITATIQN TO PRAISE--Richard L. Rooney, S.J .95 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . " . 97 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 7. Second Year Novices Doing Work of Professed . 98 8. Postulancy not Interrupted by A'bsence . : ¯ . ¯ '98 9. Novices Perform Penance in Refectory . 99 10. Indulgences for Sign of Cross with Holy Water . 99 I 1. Informing Bishop before Renewal of Vows . 99 12. Passive Voice in Provincial Chapter . 100 13. Plenary Indulgence on Each Bead of R~.osary . I00 14. Instruments of Penance . 100 15. Absence from Novitiate. during~Sumraer . . . " . I01 16. Retreat betore Final Vows . ~. ¯ 101 ~BOOK REVIEWS-- The Way of Perfection: For Thee Alone; The Christ of Catholicism; From Holy Communion to the Blessed Trinity; The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus; Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Schoolof the Lord's Service: Maryknoll Spiritual Directory .102 " BOOK NOTICES . '107 FOR YOUR INFORMATION-- Vacations for Sisters; Flour ~or Altar Breads; For Vacation Schools; Summer Sessions . 111 REVIEW FOR RELIGIO~JS, March, 1948. Vol. ,VII, No. 2. Published bi-monthly: January,March, May,July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topel~a. Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St.'Marys, Ka~nsas, with.ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter ~January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis. S.3., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly; S.2. Editorial Secretary: Alfred F. Schneider, S.3. Copyright, 1948, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. , Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A, Before writ;rig to us, please consult not;co on Inside back cover. - .) -Devotion ¯ . Matthew Germing, S.J. ACAREFUL READER of The ~lmitation of Christ ~vill "ret~em-bet the saying of its author, '.'I would rather feel cgmpunction similart shtaatne mkennotw in ictosn dneecfitinointi "owni.t"h ,Ith me sauyb jbeect p~ethramt iftotremds ttoh e".m tiitklee a of. this paper-: I would rather have devotion than be able to explain its meaning or kno~.its definition. I will qubte.adefinition from Father. T. Lincoln .Bouscaren~s book, Principles of the I~eligious Life (p. 36), which reads as follows: ".Devotion is nothing else th~'n the readiness.of the will to s~et to work at whatever is-for the honor and service of God." This is the theological definition and, allowing for some verbal differences, may be r~garded as .~tandard among modern theologians. It harmonizes well, ~to~o, with the etymology of. the word devotion. F~r de~'otion means being devoted, and devotednesi to God means about the same thing as readiness of ~vill to do what-ever is for-the honor and service of God. D~votion therefore in the service of God is readiness to do what God requires of us and what we know. is pleasing to Him. It is not enthusiasm, nor pious sentiments, nor a. showy manner of prayer or piety in or out of church. Rather, it is promptness and fidelity' and alacrity and generosity and hearty good will in serving God. It is an evey-ready disposition to observe God's commandments and pre-cepts, to embrace and do whatever we know will~be pleasing ~o our Father in heaven, whether He encourages us with the sweetness of His grace or leaves us.in aridity. This is substantial QL essential devotion. It resides~ essentially in the will, not in the affections merely. When it comes to be the pre'~ailing° state of mind of a per_- son, it is called ~:ervor of spiriItt-. s"p r~in "g s" from charity, ai~d in turn nourishes chamy. Ammated by this spirit, the soul bught to remain permanently devoted to God, consekrated to Hi~ honor and inte~ests, ever on the alert to take'up and carry out what her state of life or her superior tec~uires. Devotion springs from the love of God. In the words of St. Francis de Sales, a great authority on this subject: True living devotion stipposes the love o~ God: nay rathei it is nothing else than a true love ofGod, yei not any kind 0f love; for in so far as divine love 57 MATTHEW GERMING beautifies our soul and makes us pldasing toHis divine Majesty, it is called grace; in so far as it gives us strength to do good,, it is called charity: but when it reaches such a degree of perfection that it enables us not only to do good~, but to do it careffilly, frequently, and readily, then it is called devotion . Since" devotibn consists in an excelling degree of charity, it not only makes us ready and active add diligent in observing all commandments of God, but it also prompts us to do readily and heartily as many good works as we can, though they be not commanded but only counseled or inspired,z Under normal circumstances substantial devotion is often accom-panied by some measure of peace and joy and alacri_ty, even sensible pleasure and sweetness. This sensible sweetness has been given the name of accidental devotion; accidental, because it is no necessary par/ of substantial devotion, though it may and often does serve a very useful purpose. When the joy and pleasure affect the will only, they are purely spiritu.al and are styled accidental spiritual devotion, the affections having no part in them. But when the pleasure is sen-sibly felt in the affections of our sensitive nature, then we have what is properly called sensible devotion. The genuineness of sensible devotion must be judged by its fruits, not by feelings. Substantial devotion, as was said above, consists in" an ever-ready disposition °to observe God's commandments and precepts under all circumstances. If your sensible devotion strengthens you in this disposition, if it makes you more devoted to God, to duty, to rule, more humble and obedient, more considerate, and patient, more kind and helpful and forgiving, more ready to make sacrifices, and in all things more unselfish, then the probability is that your sensible devotion is genuine and from God. It would be a big mistake, however, to imagine that therefore you have attained a notable degree of virtue; it is possible that God wishes to encourage the good will you mani-fest in what is in reality a feeble beginning. What is needed on our part in such circumstances is gratitude and a keen sense of our unworthiness and" helplessness.2 It is a commendable thing to pray for devotion, substantial devotion most of.all. The founder of-at least one religious order wrote into the constitutions of his order the following rule: "All must apply themselves earnestly to the attainment of devotion according to tile measure of God's grace imparted to the'm)' And 1St. Francis de Sales. Introduction to the Devout Life, Chap. 1. $St. Ignatius' "Rules for the Discernment of Spirits" may furnish useful reading in connection with sensible devotion. Father Rickaby gives the text with a few notes in The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Spanish and English, with Commentary, p. 143: 58 Maccho 1948 " DEVOTION the Church ha~. officially condemned the opinion that it is wrong .to desire and strive after sensible devotion. AS a matter of fact, sensible devotion is a gift of God and sometimes a help that we need in order to keep us from. falling into sin by reason of our natural weakness. Hence one may. well pray for it and, ,by the practi~ce of mortification and purity of conscience, dispose oneself to deserve it. Father de Ravignan, the celebrated preache~ of Notre Dame, Paris, wrote: _ We often complain that we have no attraction for prayer and spiritual¯ things. Certainly, if one thing is needful, it is this attraction, this taste, this unction in holy things. For if that is wanting, many other things will be wanting besides:, for what one does unwillingly, against the grain, one does badly, or at any rate, the task is a painful one. and codrage often fails for its accomplishment . If there is o~ie thing necessary, for our existence [ou~ supernatural life is meant], one treasure which we are bound to desire and to use every effort to attain, that thing is devo-tion . Without a doubt we must not serve God solely for our own consolation and for our own personal satisfaction. That wbuld be egoism. We must put the accomplishment of God's will. His glory, and His kingdom in the first place: but also. by reason of our infirmities and our weakness and in'order the.better to esfab-lish His kingdom in our hearts, we, must be filled,, not now and then. but always and forever with the love and sweetness and unction of a holy devotion.a This love and relish of spiritual thi.ngs, this sweetness and unction of a h01y devotion form an element that is beyond .the attainment of our unaided¯efforts. It must come from the Holy Ghost and His gifts, especially the gifts of wisdom, and kriowledge,_a~nd godliness (also called piety). We must implore Him in the ipirit of humilit.y and with a contrite heart, conscious of out.unworthiness and helpess, ness, but at the same time fully- confident tha,t our peti.- tion will be granted. Our Lord Himself has assured us of this in a very formal and emphatic way in a well-known passage of the Gos-pel of St. Luke about the importdnate bat successful beggar (Luke 11:8-13).It is supposed that the things we ask for will be for our spiritual good. Should God. foresee that they will prove harmful, He will refuse our specific request and answer our prayer by giving us something better instead. The Church bids us pray. "Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of Thy love." Yes. each of us ought to pray in all simplicity and sincerity :, Come, Holy Spirit. ' fill my heart and mind and my will with holy thoughts and desires, with" thoughts of God and how to serve Him with more care and exactness and fidelity, with deep-felt reverence and holy fear. Teach me. O Holy Ghost, how to pray, how best to-please God by my tho.ughts, my words, my actions: enlighten me with Thy grace., showing me how to become truly humble, 8Conferences on the Spiritual Life, pp. 32, 34. 59 MXTTHEW GERMING Reoiew for Religious ufiselfish and charitable i m~a_ke me see and. recognize what is worldly in me and grant me the strength to cast it from me 'and despise it, , " 'Send forth Thy Spirit,' 0 Godma twofold spirit, the love of - God and the holy fear;of God:" In one 6f his spiritual works Father Rickaby writes: "Never since the first preaching of Christianity have the judgments of God been less thought of and less dreaded .than they are at this .day/'4 He assigns'two possible reasons: (a) increased sensitiveness to suffering, which causes men to resenL se.ve~re .punish- .ments; (b) naturalistic views of life, which have robbed multitudes of their faith or at least blunted their sense 6fthe supernatural. ~ Ai a consequence they have come to regard thet~ri~ths:of" religidn with a giddy lightheartedness, the cure for which is fear~.0f God and dread -of His anger. We would prescribe the same r~medy.--fear of God~ind dread of His anger for those Catholics who aie infected with the naturahsm and secularism that have been flooding the earth since the late war. Again, we pray, saying, " 'Se~nd foith Thy Spirit,' O God, andleave us not to our natural desires, to the promptings Of the natural man within us." ~he natural man is seldom entirely and thoroughly supernaturalized even in the cloister and the sanctuary, much less so in the world at large; and gradually he comes to be the source of e~ery kind of worldliness. Now worldliness is a great enemy of devotion. For devotion implies dedication of oneself to God and the cause of God; dedication to God in ti~rn implies determination, it implies taking life seriously, it implies earnestness and perseverance in.serving "the person and the cause that "are the object of our devotion and con-secration. Worldliness, .on the contrary, gets a man interested -, and soon inordinately interested--in the attractions, the gains and lo~sses, the 1~leashres and efijoYmdnts of'~ the" visible World. Of this ~visible scefie the beloved, disciple said: "Do not bestow your 10re on the world and what the world has to bffer. What does the ¯ world offe~? Only gratification of corrupt fiature, gratification of the eye, the empty pomp of livin~ . . The world and its gratifica-tions pass away; the man who does God's will outlives them for-ever." (I 2ohn 2:15-17.) Such"is worldliness and the worldly spirit, "gratification of cor-rupt nature," the antithesis of devotion. Devotion draws men God-ward; worldlines_s draws them down to earth and keeps them there. This is the reason why it is responsible for not a few defections from ~p. dr., p. 230. March, 1948 DEVOTION r~ligion and from the faith. St. Paul,had experience of a typical case. Writing to Timothy, he says: "Demas has deserted me, lpving this w6rld" (2 Tim. 4:9). In his letter to Philemon (vs. 24) the Apostle had referred to Demas as one of his fellow workers: here h~ records his defection from the apostolic vocation, possibly also frbm the faith. How terse, how precise the statement! "Demas has deserted me, loving this world." It is. the story of many another defection from the religious life of persons with whom the drawing power of this world proves stronger than devotion to Christ. For-tunately ihere is also a more encouraging side. If.there is any class of peopleto which devotion is-of particular interest, it is religious. Why-so? Beacuse it was devotion to God or to Christ our Lord--they come to the same ~--that prompted them to become religious. There was a time when all who at,present are ~eligious became gradually convinced that our Savior was inviting them to leave home and father and mother, to part with all they posses~sed, to renounce all merely human love, and to bestow their whole love on Jesus Christ. It was devotion that made them accept His invitation. And again, it was devotion that urged them on to make their religious profession, an act which, next to martyrdom, is the highest expression of devotion possible to man. The thousands upon thousands of/eligious in this country, both men and womeh, are each and all so many living examples of what devotion is actually accomplishing, first, for the eternal salvation and holinessof these chosen souls themselves, and then for the spiritual and tempot?al welfare of millions of people for whom they are spending them-selves. Religious are on a footing of equality with pegple who.°are not religious in regard to ,the observance of the commandments of God and the laws of the Church. They ought to be, and I believe they are, exemplary in their observance. Besides, they are bound to observe their vows and the rules of the order of which they are.mem-be, rs. By fidelity to these several obligations they fulfill, the duty that rests upon al! religious of striving for Christian perfection: " The matter of striving after perfection is some,thing that-cannot be acomplished in a week, or a month, or even a year. It is a life that demands close attention for years; and the religious must realize that it is part of human weakness to grow remiss in spiritual exet-rises that are "of daily occurrence. Frequent repetition may beget negligence; repeated negligences are apt to beget a hasty and purely 61 k CONCERNING CO)MMUNICATIONS me~hanical'way of doing ,thing,~. "Haste is th~ ruin of devotion," is the expression of St. Francis de Sales, who evidently uses devotion here in the sense of reverence and iecollection in prayer. This usage i,,: not so rare. " The Bishop of Geneva said this over 300 years ago, but ~he ~ruth 6f his saying is confirmed for our streamlined fige by no 'less an authority than Bishop Hedley, O.S.B., who adds on his own acount: "This (hast~) if persisted in, is certainly nothing less th~in mockery of God" (A Retreat, p. 270): Again St. Francis,de Sal~s says, "Believe me, only one Our Father, said with feeling and affection, is of infinitely more Worth and value than ever so great a number run o~er in haste" (Introduction to tl~e Deuout Life, Part II, Chap. I). "Show me how you say your Hail Mary," said a great Saint, "'and I will tell you how you love God." In some of the above q~o~ tations there is question of pri~ying with devotion. Devotion can be truly said to hold one to reverence and carefulness in prayer and. also, to perseverance in,one's lifelong striving for perfection. CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS Some letters on the Subject of vacations for Sisters reached us too late for pub-lication. They will be published later. We encourage communications on this and other ~opics. New subscribers who wish to familiarize themselves with the dis-cussion on vhcatigns will find it helpful to read page 11 1 of the present number, as well as the back numbers of the REVIEW there referred to. 'To facilitate our work and to avoid confusion, we request that orrespondents observe thi~ following suggestions: 1. If you w~int your letter published, address the envelope to: . Cornmunicat;ons Department Revlew for Rel;glous St. Mary's College Sf. Marys, Kansas 2. If at allpossible, type th'e letter, double-spaced. 3. Make the letter as brief as you reasonably can, Without however sacrificing ideas for the sake of brevity. '~. sign your name and address at the end of'the letter. If, however, you do not wish your name and addres~ published, add a postscript to that effect. In the past we hard published some letters that were not signed, and we may do so again in the future. However, we cannot guarantee that unsigned letters will receive the~ same consideration as those that are signed.raTHE EDITORS. 62.' More Abou!: Ma!:urlty 'Gerald Kelly, S.3. A PREVIOUS ARTICLE contained a general description of ~'emotional maturity and a somewhat detailed discussion of one of its characteristics,x The present article will briefly sketch the other characteristics with special emphasis on points that .seem of most value to religio.us. Unselfishness Ascetical writers say much about the need and b~auty of unselfish-ness in theirtreatises about the supernatural 'virtue of charity. Psy-chologists lay anequal "emphasis on the need of unselfishness for, leading an adult life. By unselfishndss the. psychologists mean thoughtfulness of others, the ability to gioe in contradist.inction to .the childish tendency to receioe. They show how men fail in busi-ness, in professional life, in social life,, and ~bove all iri marriage because they think only of themselves andJseek only their own'gain withoUt regard for the feelings and desires of:others. They demand as a minimum for succdssful.adult life what may be called in com-mon parlance a "fifty-fifty" spirit, a.willingness to go halfway and to give. as much as one takes. The mention o'f this "fifty-fifty" spirit reminds me of a very impressi~;~ remark made by a young Catholic layman at a discussion on marriage. Most of the participants in the discussion were unmarried collegians. They had almost concluded that for a suc-cessful marriage the husband and wife should both be willing to go halfway and to share burdens equally, when this young man, who had been blessedly married for several years, startled them with these. words: I have heard and read a lot about this "fifty,fifty" recipe for a happy marriage: but my wife and I ate convinced that this isn't en6ugh. [f each is willing to go only halfway, you simply come to a dead stop. .We have found that each must be willing to go more than h.alfway. Let's call it a "seventy-five-seventy-five" basis: that gives fifty percent extra to run the house on. The ideal constantly proposed to religious certainly goes beyond the psychologist's minimum standard for maturity; yet even this minimum standard is,not infrequently higher than our actual prac- ~See Volume VII, pp. 3-9. 63 GERALD KELLY Reoieto /or Religious tice, Selfishness is a form of childishness that is not easily lald aside. It can-:'d~sgmse ~tself~m.om~ny ,f6rms and actually appear as various ~irt~ues.? for examPle, as the necessary care of health, as the protection Of o n 'e s rlghts, as kindness to a friend, "and so forth. ¯ It can change .colors like the chameleon; it can wedge into the holiest of exercises. : Even__p.sych0~logists who know little of the: ideals of the-rehg~.o.us life could pr0b~bly gi~e us a very searching and illuminating ~xamination on our unselfishness or the lack of it. They'have the distressing f~tculty of avoiding generalities and' getting down tO" pertinent particulars. For instance, if a psychologist were allowed to. invade the privacy of our examination of conscience and to question us, he would very likely include such details as these: - Do you take.the best food at table or do you leave it for others? Do you try to get the newspaper first. (if there is a newspaper) or give others this chance? Do you' monopolize, conversation or show an interest in what others have to say?_ Do you make it a point to note what pleases others, and are you willing to do .that even at the expense of your own'whims? .- Those are .samples'of~the little things that show who is'and who is not selfish. It is interesting to note that our rules or customs usually include ~ such points: and for this~reason we have probably come to think of them only in terms of religious perfection. It is enlightening, ~and perhaps humiliating, to learn that even a material-istic psychologist would examine us on those very points, not to determine whether we~are saintly religious, but merely to discover if we are" really grown up. In Testing the Spirit,~ Father Felix Duffey, C.S.C'., rightly" insists on the need of a wholehearted spirit of self;sacrifice in the religious life." The life begins with self-obla~ion,'and its true ,peace i~ had only.by those who continue.in this spirit. In my first article on the subject of emotional maturity, I referred to religious who show a marked indecision about their vocation b~cause they seem never to have actually made their decision on the one sound principle,, namely, the will of God. Perhaps one reason for this indecision is that such p~ople are not really seeking God but self. . While I was teaching a group of Sisters ,in summer school, we ~Published by- Herder, St. Louis, 1947. See p. 31 for Father Duffey's remarks on self-sacrifice. The-second part of this book (pp, 25-98) contains a number of questions designed to help a vocational counselor to judge the emotional qualifica-tions of a candidate for th~ religious life. 64 March, 19~8 MORE ABOUT MATURITY-discussed ~ome~of th~ characteristics of emotional,maturlty. The class agreed tlfi;it in° actual life some of, the marks of the truly unselfish persofi would be the ~following: a tolerant attitude, cburtesy~ tact, a ready spirit of c~o-operation, consideration for the feelings and moods of others . One'thing th]t all of us ~hould keep 'in .mind is~this: a religious gives up the normal don~olations of family life. Yet it is doubtful if anyone can entirely divest, himself of the fundamental craving for love"and attention. ~ Some people d,o this exteriorly; but usually they suffer mu~h"° i'nteri6rly '6ver' it~ or the repression does some damage to thei~ personality. Part of the supreme art of living the religious life is to show to others thd kindness and sympathy for which they naturally" crave without letting one'i chari~y degenerate into sensuous or particular friendships. ~Each religious cgmmunity, is a family, and the members should be bound .together by an affection i~hat~is familial." The unselfish person realizes this and is warm and ap~r6achable without being soft and sentimental. Commur~it~ Responsibilit~ In speaking of unselfishness, I was thinking primarily in terms of thoughtfulness of others as individuals. This is a beautiful char- ~acter trait, but it is not enough for maturity. .The mature person must also.be "group conscious," that is, alive to his responsibility to promote the common good. This subject offers religious a vast field° for personal examination: for our lives are of necessity cornrnunit~ lives, and t'he success or failure of the whole venture depends on the co-operation,0°f each individual. No one can do it all; anyone can spoil it all--at least~in some sense. ~How can we test ourselves with regard to this sense of personal responsibility in commgn enterprises? The psychologist, I believe, would examine us on all the community aspects of our lives. He would very likely ask aboht such small points as this: Do you turn off radiators and lights when they are not needed? And he would put questions of greater moment such as: Do you help to keep certain privileges like .the radio, movies, victrola, and so forth, by not abusing them?" And he would want to know especially about your pfiblic conduct, for example: Do you speak well of your commun-" ity? Do you act always in such a way that you give no one gro.unds for thinking ill of your community, your institute, the religious life,~ the whole Churcli? 65 GERALD KELLY Reoiew ~or Religious Tha~ would be a general formula for the psychologists' quds-tions: the little things, the things of greater moment, the things of tremendous.import. Into this general scheme he would insert many other questions besides those I mentioned--for instance: Do you observe library rules so that all have a chance to read the booksL Do y6u enter into .special community projects, lik~L helping the mis-sions? When you play games, are you content to work for the team or do you want the spotlight even at tl~e expense of the team? Very likely we could list pages of pertinent questions, but there. is no need of doing that here. Each one who" wishes to examine him-self. on this aspect of maturity can forniulate his own questions. The essential point behind all such questions is to determine if .the reli-gious realizes that he is a part of a community and that all the inter-ests of that community are his interests. He work~ with the com-munity at home; he represents the community to outsiders. His lack of co-operation at home can spoil the harmony of common life and dull the effectiveness' of the community as an apostolic instrument: his disloyalty or bad example before outsiders can literally bring about a spiritual catastrophe. While I am on this subject I may as well refer to another article previously published in the REVIEW. Writing about the "'Qualities of a Good Moral Guide" (V, pp. 287-88), I described a sort of professional loyalty that should characterize all counselors. The example cited was that of,a priest who might have to correct the erroneous conscience of a child. The priest might find that the error arose from wrong advice by the child's rfibther or teacher: but in correcting the error he should try as.much as possible not to under-mine the child's confidence in his mother or teacher.It is a delicate. problem, but it can be solved by one who is conscious of the fact that all the child's counselors must work togethe~r: Many such deli-cate problems occur in our lives. For example, a teacher may make a mistal~e, and the case m~y be referred td the principal. The prin-cipal must do justice to the. students; but if at all possible both principal and teacher should act in such*a way that the proper rela- .tionship between teacher and class is not. harmed. This is not merely to save the personal feelings of the tea_cher~ but principally for the good of ihe class and of the entire school. Superiors can do much to foster the sense of community respon-sibility in their subjects, especially by keeping them well-informed about community affairs and projects. Some superiors seem to think 66 March, 1948 MORE ABOUT MATURITY that they are the "official worriers" for the, community: and they tell their communities little or nothing about business plans and such things. Everything is a solemn secret, even the name of the next retreat director. It is true, of course, that some things must be kept secret;-but exaggerated secretiveness is hardly calculated to foster a personal community interest in the. individual memberWs.hen treated as children, they are quite apt to react as children. Temperate Emotional Reactions Emotions are a part of human life. Granted an appropriate stimulus, there ought to be some spontaneous emotional reaction: for instance, the sight of sorrow should provoke sympathy, the' per-ception of kindness should prompt gratitude, the perception of imminent danger should stimulate fear, and so forth. Such reactions_ are normal. Some men seem to have such dominating control over tl~eir emotions that they either do not react to normal stimuli or they repress the reaction so swiftly that it is perceptible to none save them-selves. This is not necessarily virtue, not necessarily true maturity: on the" contrary, it may be quite inhuman. The "poker face" is neither a psychological nor an ascetical ideal. Our Lord certainly showed emotional reactions fear, pity, joy, .and so forth--although ~ He was capable, if He so wished, of repressing even the slightest reaction. True maturity, therefore, consists in responding properly and temperately to emotional stimuli. To show no emotion is ii~human: to react with u'ndue vehemence is immature. Calm anger may be justified both morally and psychologically: a wild outburst is never the proper reaction. Hearty laughter may be the adult, reaction to a humorous situation or anecdote, but hysterical giggling and ,wild guffaws are signs of immaturity. Both adult and child may feel fear: and both may and should run away from danger when there is no reason for facing it. But ,when duty calls, the true adult will control his fear and face the danger, Psychologically, the specific difference b,et, ween adult and chi, ldish emotional reactions lies in control. The adult reaction is held to moderation: the childish res.ponse is an explosive outburst. The ¯ ,_ problem 'of maturity is to acquire such control of the emotions that undesirable ones are eliminated or calmly repressed as much as pos-sible and desirable ones are used with moderation. For .example, although the kind of love that leads to marriage is good in itself, it is 67 GERALD KELLY Reoieto /. or Religious undesirable for religious; hence situations that would fost.er., it should be quietly avoided. On the other h~nd, a tender love of God, pro-vided" it has real spiritual substance, is desirable and is to" be culti.; rated. And so it is,with many other emotions: sorrow for sin,, sympathy with Our Eord, affection for our friends all such things can help greatly in the religious life; and the mature attitude towards them should be ofie of reasonable use. ~ "¯ As I suggested in the previous article, it would be easyto.cull the. psychological literature for questions to bring Out the negative side; and this is particularly true of emotional control. F0.r example., here are so~e offthe negatives: Do you easily b~come fretful?. Are you impatient to carry out your impulses? Do you expl6"de over a tiny offence? Are you~ a victim of moods~--up today and down tomor~ row? Do you nurse injured feelings for a 10ng time?" Are you i:lis"2 turbed frequent.ly by haunting fears? Do you indulge, in terrific w~eping spells?_ Do, you "sulk in your tent"? Do you .look u~6n yourself as a-martyr; or'th~ victim of misunderstanding and injfis~ rice? Do you easily" gro~r hilarious? ' ' ° The purpose of thes~ ~and similar'questions is clear. If reactions such as those just mentioned are characteristic of a person, he is immature. Or/ the other hand, if he.usiaally manifests poise, if he readily adjusts himself interiorly to emotionally stimulating situa-tions he.is an adult. ¯ We can conclude this section ;by quoting the description-of adult e~notioiaal control given by Father P, aphael McCarthy, S.J., in Sat:eguarding Mental Health: The management of one's emotions demands various kinds of repressions. ~It means that a man responds with the emotion that is justified bythe circumstances: he does not allow himself to become passionate over minor provocations and he ceases to be excited when the cause of his emotion is passed. Self-government implies, aiso, that a man can moderate his affective reactions; be'can make partial responses, so that he can feel fear without being thrown into panic, he 'is not swept into a towering rage by trifling oppositions, nor does he bellow when his hat is blown off by the wind. He can, moreover, check the physical expression of l~is emotion so that he does not strike out like an imbecile whetl he is angered,¯ or dash ¯ away like a terrified child when he is frightened,s "~ Attitude on Sex There is, at least in many instances, a rather close connection between one's generhl emotional control ' and one's attitude on sex. aPublished by Bruce, Milwaukee, 1937. See p. 287 for the text quoted here. ~he book gives a.clea.r pbrtrait of the ordinary emotional difficulties and helpful sug-gestions for controlling emotions. 68 March, 1948 MORE ABOUT MATURIT'/ Thi~, will be clear, I think, if.we consider briefly what shoulci be the mature attitude on sex. The adult" should be well-informed abbut the purpose of sex and the meatiirig of chastity. Not that he needs to kno~v everything about'sex; for 'there are some aspects of sex that are definitely patho-logical ahd~ that need be known only by exper~ts. But an adult sh6uld know the-normal phenomena pertaining to the psychology and physiology of sex, and. the moral and ascetical principles that apply to the sexual sphere. Without such correct knowledge he is apt to experience the adolescent's embarrassment in the presence of others, as well as a curiosity that easily becomes°morbid. Moreover, ~with-out such knowledge, he is unable to make ;i correct estimate of his own reactions to persons and situations, and this may lead to regret-table imprudences, to extreme sensitivity, and to scrupulosity. He comes to fear sin everywhere because he really does not know what-sin is; and he. cannot cope quietly ~with temptation because he does not know clearly, what is expected of him. Ignorance and anxiety, in a matter so fundamental and important as sex are aln~ost certain.to have an unwholesome effect on one's personality and to hinder the full development of the other characteristics of maturity. Protiting bg Criticism "Are you sincerely grateful to those who point out your faults to you?" I was more than a little startled when I read that ques-tion in a maturity test drawn up by a man who. I feel sure, has little br no .appreciation of Catholic asceticism. He was thinking 0nly in terms of sound psychology; yet he included in his test a equality which we are apt to look for only in the saints. Let us consider this in terms of our own experience in the reli-gious life. Spiritual directors often, tell religious that they should be patient when others point out theii faults: in fact, it is.generally said that religious should be willin'g to have their faults pointed out by others. And at times the directors do speak of gratitude; .but my. impression is that, when there is question of religious of only ordi-nary virtue, the directors tell them to be grateful to. God. They scarcely dare to counsel gratitude to the critic; rather, they seem con-tent with hoping that criticism will not be the occasion of angry out~ ~bursts or of long-continued grudges. But the psychologist unhesb tatingly demands gratitude to the critic; the psychologist dares to enter where the spiritual director fears to tread. 69 GERALD KELLY Review for Religioffs Perhaps I have underestimated the v, irtue of religious and have made the picture too black. Yet, if superiors, spiritual directors, and critics could all pool their experiences and thus determine the ave.rage reaction of religious'when corrected, I wonder what the result would be.Would it be that correction is the cause of an angry outburst? or of sullen silence? or of tears over the "evident injustice"? or of a defiant mind-your-own-business attitude? Would.it be that cor-zection is generally answered with a "Why-don't-you-say-something-to- the-other-fellow?"' Or wouM it be that correction is usually ~eceived with quiet resignation? or with depressed spirits but an hofiest attempt to be grateful' to God "for the humiliation"? 0r.with a certain eagerness to know the truth and. with gratitude towards the one who had the courage to point it out? Some moral theologians use an expression that is in remarkable agreement with the question put by the psychologist~ They refer to fraternal correction as a "spiritual almsgiving." The implication, of course, is that the critic is doing one a favor and is' deserving of thanks. And obviously, anyone who realizes that it is-'really good ,~or hi}n to know his faults, should ~0e grateful to the person who helps him in this regard. Hence, it seems that what the psychologists call maturity in this matter, is actually the ability to appreciate true values; one realizes the utility of knowing one's own faults and the - difficulty usually experienced by.those-who have to point them out. Are we therefore childish when we resent criticism? It seems that usu~illy we are; yet there are some special factors that may make ~i difference: For instance, osome offer criticism in an offensive man-net; others offer it through spite and without sincerity. And of -course there are those people who hgve so cultivated the art of fault-finding that they" see faults where there are none. Even in cases like these' the adult should receive criticism With composure; but there seems to be little need for~g.ratitude. While I am on the subject of profiting by criticism, I might men-tion that an adul.t, even when grateful.to his critic, should receive the criticism intelligently. Whether it be a criticism of one's character, of one's writings, or of anything else, it should be weighed carefully before.it is followed. Facin~t Reality] Reality is life, the whole of life; but wtien psychologists speak of facing reality they seem to think particularly in terms of one's 70 MORE ABOUT MATURITY capacity for attempting what is difficult and for adjusting oneself to painful situations. Speaking of men who shrink from realit~ or are broken by reality, they give such examples" as these: patients who love the hospital because it affords them loving attention and dependence and shelters them from the burdens of work and respon-sibility: men who go along ,nicely in a subordinate position but break when they receive a promotion: men who can live a quiet life but break when they must be active: men who thrive on activity but cannot stand the monotony of a quiet life: men who overindulge in recreation; men who avoid the realities of life by taking to alcohol: the wife who runs to her mother at the first sign of trouble "or responsibility in marriage. Little test questions sometimes used to determine whether one has the adult ability to face reality might run somewhat like this: When you are given a job that you are afraid of or dislike, do you try to get out of it either openly or by excuses that you know are not valid? Do you get upset or go to pieces when faced with a new situa-tion that will force you out of a rut? Are you given to day- . dreaming? When you fail, do you justify yourself by.a lame excuse or do you admit the failure and try again? DQ you find that you are. wasting more and more time, finding many useless things to do, before you settle down to the real work of the day? Do you dread responsibility and try to evade it? Do you neglect the present by thinking and talking in terms of your glorious past or by boasting of your glorious future? For us religious, reality is to a great extent the duty of the moment. Disagreeable or not, that duty is God's will--and that is the supreme test of reality. Yet we do have an amazing power of dodging, consciously or unconsciously, the disagreeable tasks.- One religious neglects his studies to engage, as he says, in "works of the apostolate." Another accomplishes the same result with equal ingenuity by deciding that "he has no head for books," but he can fit himself for his future work by playing games, making gadge~ts, and so forth. And grill another shirks the mondtony of prayer and study with the consoling observation that he was "cut out for the active life." Failur~'and disappointment are among the hard realities of life. The adult is expected to face them with composure when they threaten hnd to adjust himself quietly to them when their occur. Yet is it not true that all too many religious have been broken and soured 71 MORE ABOUT MATURITY by shch things? Do we not see, at least occasionally, a rdligious still-. .~comparatively young, yet useless for further work in the cause~of Christ because he has been denied the fulfillment of some ambition? Here ]s'a problem that I believe is not uncommon among us. As we move on fhrough our years of training we note a great de~ire for accomplistiment, yet on the other hand a great fear to undertake the very things we so much desire. We feel a dread of responsibility, which~, if fostered, can ruin our whole lives. I know of one sound defense against th~is: namely, to make up one's mind to try anything that is assigned by superiors and, never to try to avoid it unless there is some really good, reason for asking the superior to reconsider the matter. A religious who begins .to yield to such fears may soon find that his self-c6nfide~ce is utterly destroyed. We can conclude this point by refe~rring for a moment to_the life of Out'Lord. From the first moment of His life He was conscious of t.wo tremendous future events: "the.Cross and the Resurrection; and the actual HYing of His life--as far as the records show-- pre~ents a simil~r pattern: failure and success, pain and~joy, the bittei and the sweet. In His life too were the security of obeying andthe responsibility' of commanding, the doing bf~little things and the 9complishing of great things, the quiet hidden life and the bustling active life. It i~ a complex pattern; yet through.it all runs a won-drously simplifying'theme it was all His Father's will. The~ .same pattern runs through our lives, and the best tonic for fear and dis-appointment is the abiding .consciousness of God's loving provi-dence. One who has this consciousness, who is able to see the hand of God and the plan of God in all the events of his life, is scarcely in danger of becoming emotionally unstable; he is admirably mature. THE CHRISTIAN ADULT Hence the t~ue Christian, product of Christian education, is the supernatural man who thinks; judges and acts constantly and .consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ: in other words, to use the current term, the true and finished man of character. ---PIUS XI, Christian Educat{on of Y~uth 72 Thanksgiving Afi: .r Holy Communion Clarence McAuliffe,: S.J. THE decree, Sacra tridentina synodus, issued by'the Congregation ofthe Council on December 20; 1905, and approved by Plus X, promulgated frequent and even daily Communion. Among the c6nditions for daily Communion the decree includes a "careful preparation" (sedula pr'aeparado) for the Sacrament and a "fitting thanksgiving" (congrua gratiarura actio). Nothing more specific can be found in this decree. No definite time for the con-tinuance of thanksgiving is mentioned. No precise manner of " making thanksgiving is recommended. The decree simply, states that thanksgiving should be "fitting" or "suitable" or "appropriate."_ ~ -~With regard to tim(-extension, .however~ we know that a thanks-giving is "fitting" when it continues as'long as Christ remains present within us. I6deed, thanksgiving may be aptly'described as a reverent attention paid to Our Lord during ~heTtime that He abides within a person after the reception of Holy Communion. In other words, thanksgiving shouId continue until the sacred species are corrupted, for with their corruption the Savior ceases to be present. Since this time ~nn0t be determined with mathcmatlcal precision and will vary with different persons according to their health and other conditions, catechisms and theologians have laid it down as a practical norm that thanksgiving should be made for about a quarter of an hour.In practice, therefore, one who devotes about fifteen mihutes to thanks= giving is carrying out the spirit of the papal decree. It is an objective fact that priests and religious in general do make a quarter of an hour of thanksgiving after ,Holy Communion. It is possible, however, ~hat all may not be aware of certain dogmatic reasons why thanksgiving shofild continue for this .length of time. Once informe.d of these reasons they may be prompted to make their thanksgiving with greater devotion. T.hey will also be able to trans-mit these theological principles to others and thus to counteract the widespread neglect of adequate thanksgiving so noticeable among lay Catholics today. The first reason for making a thanksgiving of about fifteen min- 73 CLARENCE McAULIFFE Review for,Religious utes springs from our faith in the Real Presence and may be calle~l a reason of courtesy or propriety. If a bishop visits a convent, he receives not only a warm welcome, but also assiduous attention as long as he chooses to remain. All the Sisters meet him. As many as possible remain in his presence. He is'the focal point of the eyes and ears of all He may not have any favor to bestow, but he receives the same marks of respect anyhow. His dignity as a successor of the twelve"apostles demands courteous consideration and his visit to the convent is itself a benefit. Politeness, attention, Utmost hospitality are marks of appreciation for this benefit. Their omission would be a discourtesy. The application of this example to Holy Communion is obvious. In Holy Communion we receive Christ Himself. He comes to visit us. He is present in His entirety with His divine nature and His human nature, both beady and soul. He is identically the same Christ as He is at this very moment in heaven. He remains within Us until the sacred species are corrupted. He merits the same attention that we would infallibly bestow upon Him were He to knock upon our door with the sacramental veils removed and His own lineaments manifested to us. Hence mere civility should urge the recipient of Holy Communion to make a suitable thanksgiving. To fail in this is thoughtlessly to ignore Christ. ' But other dogmatic reasons should prompt communicants to make the recommended thanksgiving. All the sacraments confer sanctifying grace automatically, but it is quite probable that Holy Communion has in Itself the power to impart more sanctifying grace than any other sacrament. Let us suppose, for instance, that one person is about to receive confirmation: another, Holy Communion. ~Both persons have exactly the same amount of sanctifying grace and both have the same proximate preparation. In this case, it is quite probal~le that the communicant receives more sanctifying grace automatically than the person confirmed. - This is the more remark-able. when we reflect that confirmation can never be received again during an entire lifetime: whereas Holy Communion may be received every.day. The same is frue even of the sacrahaent of orders as com-ps/ red with Holy Communion. Ineffable, indeed, are the powers to consecrate, to offer the Mass, and to forgive sins, powers that are conferred upon the priest by the sacrament of orders. Nevertheless, it is quite likely that even this sacram'ent, despite the exalted dignity it bestows'and despite the fact that it, too, can never be received a 74 Marcl~, 1948 THANi

Issue 20.3 of the Review for Religious, 1961. ; CONGREGATION OF SEMINARIES Ecclesiasti .al Formation Prot. ,N., 2121:60 LETTER TO THE EPISCOPATE IN THE THIRD CENTI~NARY YEAR OF THE'DEATH OF ST. VIN, CENT DE PAUL ON CERTAIN PROBLEMS OF EC-CLESIASTICAL FORMATION. Your 'Excellency, On June 5th of last y.ear, the Sacred Congregation of Studies, prompted by the wonderful example of the priestly life as typified in the holy Curd of Ars, addressed a letter to the episcopate. [For the text of this letter, see REview Fort R~I.~ctous, 18 (1959), 321-27.] The,.purpose of this letter was to recall to mind some fundamental princi-ples 'of ecclesiastical formation, the lack of which might irrevocably affect the sound preparation of the candidate foi" the priesthood and thus his success in the sacred minis-try. The radiant figure of St. Vincent de Paul, whose name in the third centenary 6f his death has resounded in every corner of the world, induces us to continue and complete our thoughts on this matter. The occasion presents to us anew the life of a saint who/it can be said, was a perfect pattern of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Priest. It offers an ex-ample which merits the earnest consideration of all those who are engaged in preparing students for the priesthood, preparing those who have answered the call to fashion themselves according to the model of the Master. Do not think that w~ are presenting an anachronism; if the spir-itual conditions of the clergy and of ecclesiastical training are happily" very different from, those under which the saint carried out his ~igorous reform, nevertheless the guiding principles which were the leaven of his multiple activity ever remain valid. His activity was impir(d by the eternal value of the Gospel message. The heroic charity which permeated his whole life ca~ not be explained or understood in its full significance un-less we realize that it had its origin in his great concept of the priest and the duties of a priest. ÷ ÷ ÷ Ecclesiastical Formation VOLUME 20, 1961 I6! ÷ ÷ $ac~ed Congregation o] Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS In a time of dire calamity which he felt deeply in his heart, he knew how to confront miseries with comfort and to help all those in need. Through his w~ork of refor.m he had already enkindled in the clergy that zeal which fosters in the faithful the.well-springs of charity. It car/be safely affirmed that there are few ~who l~ave felt to the same extent as St. Vincent de Paul the shpernatural value of the priesthood and its essential importance the Church as the source of Christian life. He had in com-mon with his great contemporaries of the French school a most tender devotion to the mystery of the Incarnation and to the Priesthood of Christ; nevertheless, inspired by his own pastoral experience, he gradually develgp.ed spirituality of his own which was directed immediately towards the practical pastorate and was sustained by an ever.more earnest zeal for,the salvation of souls. His out-look ~ras determined by concrete cases and showed itself in various ways, but it was always based on this funda-mental principle that the priest is the man whom God has selected and called to participate in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ. His task is to continue the work of redemp-tion and, animated with the spirit of Christ, carry still fur-ther .the work which Christ has done and in the way He has done it. For St. Vincent de Paul, our Divine Lord is above all the Savior of mankind and the priest must be another savior who continues His mission of salvation. Therefore he clearly saw. tha_t, the firs5. qualit~ies a prie~st should possess are an ardent charity and apostolic zeal and that if the love of God be the soul of priestly activity, the object of that love must lie in the salvation o~ rfien. See how the saint emphasizes effective love of God: Let us love God, my brethren, but at the cost of our toil and the sweat of our brow. For it often happens that' the various affective acts of the love of God and the interior motions of tender heart, even if they are good and. desirable, are none the less suspect if ,t.hey do not result in effective love. Our Lord Himself says: 'In this is my Father glo~ifidd: that you bring forth very much fruit" (Jn 15:8). w~ must be on our guard be-cause there are many who think that when their exterior de-portment is correct and they are: filled with great sentiments tqwards God that they have fulfilled their duty; but.when they are confronted with the practical work of the apostolate their inadequacy is made manifest. They flatter tti~mselves with their lively imagination; they'are content to converse sweetly with God in pra~er; they even talk the language Of the~ angels; but outside of this when it is a. case of working for God, when.is a case of suffering, of mortification, of instructing the poor, of going in ~earch of lost sheep, of being content'under l~ri~,tions, of a~cepting illness and bther misfortunes, alasl they are not to be counted on, their codrage~fails. Nol Nol We must not deceive ourselves: our whole jqb consists in working.1 a St. Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents, 162 edited by P. Cost~ (Paris: 1919--25), 11, 40-1. .We c~n say, then, that St. Vincent de Paul sees the priest in- the light of his ministry for souls, souls who are buried in.ignorance of the truths of the faith, souls who are in a state of sin. Or better still, he sees the priest in the light of his service of Christ Himself~' th~it Christ whom the saint kriew how to perceive clearly in the suffering members of the Mystical Body, .even though immersed in the most ab-ject spiritual and bodily misery.- His intense activity consisted in the continual oblation of himself for love of the.God whom he saw and loved in his brethren. Was this activity separated from prayer and from union with God? Such a thought would be the great-est affront to the saint bf charity, since the fire he en-kindled. in others, he had first drawn from the heart of God Himself. We can not do better than to continue the above quotation where We see how graciously the saint treats of the point in'question: ~ There is nothing more conformable to the Gospel than for us to accumu_lafe light and strength for our own souls in prayer, spiritual reading, and solitude, and then to bestow on men this spiritual food. In doing so, we are following the example of our Lord andHis Apostles; we are uniting the task of Martha to that of Mary; we are imitating the dove which itself takes a part of the food.it has gathered for its own nourishment and gives the.rest to feed its young. This is what we must do. This is how we must prove to Gbd that wd love HirfiNthrough the mh.dium"of~ our good works? The aspect'under which he loved to think of the Savior is that foretold, by the Prophet and used by Christ at the beginning of His public lifein reference to Himself: "The spirit~of the Lord is upon me. Wherefore he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the cap-tives, and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of reward" (Lk 4:18-19). The poor, those in tribula-tion and distress, were indeed the special care of Vincent de Paul even if he did not exclude any social class from his apostolic work, seeing it to be his duty as a priest to work for the salvation of all. But to the poor and humble he cer-tainly showed his preference. For them his love was bound-less; it was a love which has given us the most glorious pages, in the annals of Christian charity. They were his principal concern in his reform of the priesthood. "Make good priests" a favorite expression of his meaning "Make holy priests"--signified for him a bringing back of the clergy particularly to their mission of preaching by which th, ey would rescue the people from their ignorance of the truths of the faith and lead them away from sin. By means of this he established an indissoluble link between the See the preceding note. ÷ ÷ ÷ Ecclcslasticai Formatio~ VOLUME 2~ 1961 163 ÷ Sacred Congregation ot Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 164 priesthood' and the laity: good priests mean a good laity; ignorant or sinful priests are their ruin. From this unify: ing principle, "As the priest, so the people," were derived all St. Vincent's projects for the formation and sanctifica-tion of the clergy: the Congregation of the Mission, for ordinands, the Tuesday conferences, clergy re-treats, and especially the establishment of seminaries. his innovations bore the stamp of God's approval, for hav-ing first given himself up to humble and unceasing prayer he then went forward with his plans slowly and carefully so as not to jeopardize, as he used often say, the work of God. That was in fact characteristic of the man: to ensure that in every undertaking, big or small, he followed will of God, avoiding all forms of impatience which is detrimental but especially so in the carrying out the designs of God. This accounts for the qualities of en-durance which characterized his work. He sought God's will in all things, straining with the single-mindedness a saint towards the perfection which was his ideal for priests. Selection and Evaluation of Candidat.es The reply of St. Vincent to those who were proposing one of his own nephews for sacred orders out of motives not altogether praiseworthy is well known. He s~tid: "F~my part had I known at the time when I haft the rashness to enter the ecclesiastical state what I subsequently learned, I would have preferred to work in the fields than to go forward to such an awe-inspiring state." If we can see here evidence of the saint's constant and profound hu-mility, we can also see an indication of his very great reverence for the priestly vocation. In those unfortunate days when men entered the priest-' hood for motives, other than the wish to serve God and save souls,. St. Vincent's only preoccupation was to prevent from such an unworthy course those "who make the just weep tears of blood." Clearly the reason for his care was that "God gives the graces needful for this hgly state only to those whom, in His goodness, He calls,''3 "Those who enter there without His call would seem to be lost.''4 In these and similar quotations there is obviously evidence of Jansenistic pessimism; we know well St, Vin'-' cent's undying hatred for the harm caused by this teaching and the part he played in its condemnation. Of course, th~ fact is that he saw the priestly vocation through the eyes a saint--in other words, in its true supernatural light. Each priest is individually chosen by God who gives St. Vincent de Paul, op. cir., 6, 155-56. St. Vincent de Paul, op. cit., 5, 569. qualities necessary for his state and the graces to live up to its obligations. It was, therefore, with the express inten-tion of testing the genuineness of vocations and making them effective for leading souls in the path of justice and salvation, that the saint applied 'himself with:unflagging zeal to the establishment of seminaries formed on the Zri-dentine decrees. His first difficulties and reverses in no way daunted him. ., The seminary is of necessity a place of selection and for-mation where~the Church lays on superiors the onus of picking out those really chosen by God in, order that these may be'brought to the height of perfection demanded of them fbr the profitable exercise of their ministry in the world. Selection and formation, therefore, are two essen-tial factors of a seminary which can not be changed. The Church d~mands that this be recognized at all times and under all circumstances. She is guided by Divine Wisdom in the adoption of new methods and their adaptation, de-ciding with loving care how to meet changing conditions. She can never afford to compromise, her fundamental at-titude when dealing with seminaries; according to their state, she flourishes or declines. 'The priesthood is such a high calling, it demands so fine a character, it confers such great powers that it must be the result of a special choice, a special vocation from God. This special vocation is essential to those who are to receive the dignity and exercise the prerogatives of the priesthood. It follows that both the student and the Church should make it their business to find out what the will of God is in each individual case: the student that he may not lightly intrude himself into a state of life so exalted and to which he can lay no claim, the Church that she may not take the risk Of conferring orders on one who has not the necessary requirements. The Church has the strict obligation to seek the signs of a true vocation in all who feel themselves called to the sanctuary. She must make sure, at the same time, that they have the quali-ties which will enable them worthily and efficiently to ful-fill their office. We know that whenever God lays on men such exalted duties and responsibilities, He gives to those so chosen sufficient graces to enable them to carry them out worthily. The candidate puts himself, forward for the judgment of. superiors. It is for the superiors to judge and act accordingly. This scrutiny begins from the time a student first enters the seminary. It ends either with his ordination or with his dismissal as soon as it becomes apparent that he is un-suitable. Each superior in a seminary has his own particu, lar sphere but each, by reason of his sacred trust, has a twofold office. He is to be an educator in the daily task of making a new man out of each of those entrusted to his ÷ + + Ecclesiastical Formation VOLUME 20~ 1961 165 + 4. 4. Sacred Congrega6on oy Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS charge; and he is to be a judge as to whether they are corresponding to the graces they have received, as to their progress or otherwise, as to the evidence of further physi-cal and spiritual develolSment, and. as to their resistance to or inability to profit by the work of formation, it task which can not be shirked. The superiors, in their ac-tions, must be guided by the light of God to whom hearts are open and whom all hearts obey. To evaluate a vocation properly, it is indispensable know the student's whole personality. Taking qualities and abilities singly, considering weak points and defects in isolation, it is possible to be seriously mistaken. These elements must be considered under the aspect of a per-son's whole character-only thus can~ they be viewed their proper light. If we are to reach a-correct judgment on the vocation of candidates for the priesthood, we must not base that jtidgment on first impressions of a particular facet of their character. Rather, we must strive to see the whole person and thus we can reach a balanced estimate of the particular elements which form the,total character. There is a fundamental element in every person from which all the facets of his character spring.It follows, therefore, that the. superior's energy must be directed a profound study of each individual student, maximum importance to,the resourceful energy of the mind which is called will power. For example, some brilliant personalities at first make ¯ very favorable but often they are inconsistent characters who lack the necessary stability and will be unable to face tomorrow's temptations and the great trials of life ahead. They will fall victims to fatal weaknesses altogether much for their defective will power. At other times a. close scrutiny can reveal as' unjustified'the esteem held up then for .the piety or at least the devotional piety of youth who~ otherwise showed no great strength of:'charac-ter. We speak of that apparent piety which is the uncon: scious refuge of the intellectual and spiritual pauper who, once his environment is changed, will stand revealed in his weaknegs, We would insist that superiors watch closely over un-stable natures to see whether this weakness springs only from the youth of the students concerned. This will especially apparent in adolescents. On the other hand, may be a permanent defect of character, as in a youth who will apply himself to a hundred tasks without seeing through to its completion. He may be a pefson of nervous temperament, always vacillating and undecided, who puts one in mind of the: basic neurosis underlying these symptoms. Such characters as ~these, the products of, a world in ferment almost to the point of frenzy, can be blamed for their condition, but they are certainly the most suitable candidates for the ranks of the priest-hood. This requires a strong and even temperament, one ready to endure any sufferings and to take any risks for the advancement of God's kingdom. Therefore, both the who!e.personality and the. many individual traits must be thoroughly.examined, with par-ticular attention being paid to psychological and emo-tional stability. The superior is dealing with the realms of the spirit where the meeting.~of God with man is the inti-mate personal; responsibility of each individual; he must tread warily, making constant use of humble prayer, ap-proaching God with reverence, waiting and listening and sensitive to the-manifestations of His will. Supernatural means must always take the first place, but the aid which the sciences of the educationalist and the psychologist af-ford should not be forgotten. When one's own experience does not suffice, a specialist should be called in. This, of course, must involve no compromise of the faith and nothing which is contrary to Catholic morality must be countenanced. We can never be too careful in such deli-cate matters; this is especially~true because, as competent psychologists tell us, the mental maturity of modern youth frequently lags behind his physical growth---a trap for the unwary who would content themselves by judging from appearances. . In this matter, the Code of Canon Law, c. 973, §3, clearly lays down that there must be "a moral certainty based on positive arguments" . of the candidate's suitability. That is the judgment to be formed before a superior can with a safe conscience advance his candidates to holy orders. If it is impossible :to arrive at this moral certainty, the other rule must be applied, the r_ule stated by Pope Plus XI with equal clarity in his encycIical,letter .4d Catholici sacer-dotii of December 90, 1935: ", . in this [the Pope is speak-ing of dismissal from seminaries] they should keep to the most secure opinion, which in this case is the one most in favor of the penitent, for it saves him from a step which could be for him eternally fatal.''~ The. reason for this clefir~and uncompromising attitude must be evident to all who have at heart the good of the Church whose well-being depends on the qualities of her ministers. In her age-long wisdom, the Church has satis-fied herseIf of the real worth of these qualities, all the more so in view of the heavy burdens she places upon her ministers. Daily, every priest has an enormous weight of pastoral responsibility to bear. The various urgent prob-lems which clamor for his attention create tension and fatigue. He is beset with dangers at every step he takes in a world which is losing its Christian values and submitting ~Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 28 (1936). 41. ÷ + ÷ Ecclesiastical Formation VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sacred Congregation ~o! Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 168 to a paganizing influence. In view of this, it is no wonder that the Church exercises the greatest caution in the choice of those who are to be her priests. For the sake of her good name in the world and for the common good of the faith-ful, she can not afford to advance to orders even a single one whom she deems less suitable, such is the damage she might suffer at his hands. The unsuitable student of today is the unworthy priest of tomorrow. The Church must train up young men of sound moral fiber, ready to re-spond to the highest ideals, men of deep-root.ed convic-tions, prepared for sacrifice arid self-oblation. Only then does she feel confident in presenting them to her divine Spouse for the seal of ordination. Canon law carries a warning for those who have not a true understanding of the "tutiorism" clearly set forth in both general and par-ticular terms in many papal documents. They can not escape the penalty for defaulters with regard to the canon mentioned above. In fact, they are running a grave risk of "sharing in the sins of others:" All laxism must avoided and no other method or moral system may be countenanced which departs.from the line laid down, es~ pecially when it is a matter of making a final decision on student's ability to observe clerical celibacy. Undoubtedly, some otherwise sound moralists hold opinions which can hardly be reconciled with the "tutiorism" of papal pro-nouncements and repeated above. Unfortunately, there is no escaping the fact that 'in spite of the strict instructions of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments (Quara ingens of December 27, 19~0, and Magna equidem of December 27, 1955) not a few candi-dates without a true vocation have been admitted to holy orders. It is not a question of mistakes due to human falli-bility, since on examination of the hist6ry of many ship-wrecks, one becomes perfectly aware that clear indications of a lack of vocation to the priesthood could have easily been noticed during the period of training in the semi-nary. Besides, the Sacred Congregation itself has been able, through periodic apostolic visitations ordered in the vari-ous countries under its jurisdiction, to verify the.fact that not infrequently the fault lies in an inadequate sifting of candidates and the retaining in seminaries of students of little promise either from the human or from the supernatural point of view. It would seem that the policy of many superiors is guided by ~the sad state of dioceses which are hampered by a serious lack of priests. How can one act differently, one hears it asked, when we have not the necessary organization for pastoral work---even for the bare. administration of the sacraments? Is it'not per-haps better to have priests, even if they are not the best type of priests, as long as they provide ior the basic spiritual needs of the faithful? Such a utilitarian concept of the priesthood constitutes a denial of the very essence of the priestly vocation and the priestly ministry. Even if it is true that the efficacyof the sacraments does not de-rive from the goodness of the~minister, yet it is no less a fact that the building up of Christian life is closely bound up with the holiness of God's priests. Their mission, as seen from the Gospels, consists precisely in enlightening their flock and protecting them from corruption, not only iby means of grace, but also by the personal example of 'their lives (see Mt 5:13-14). We must not reduce the priest to the level of a mere bureaucrat of the things of God by ignoring his personal qualities and depriving him of the glory of his intimate union with Christ, a union which consists not only in sharing in His powers but also in copy-ing His virtues. This would be to deny in practice the in-escapable demands of the Catholic priesthood and its transcendent dignity. Preoccupation with numbers regardless of quality is clearly seen to be a mistaken policy. The admission to the sacred ministry of men who are only mediocre is a corrupting influence not only on the zeal of their fellow priests whose apostolic effort is thereby lessened but above all on thd intensity of the religious life of the laity. This last, of course, is a necessary condition for the birth of good and numerous vocations. It is' well to remember that in the ordinary course of events the appearance and develop-ment of priestly vocations d~rive from the personal action and example of the priest as from their instrumental cause. It is an undeniable fact that vocations flourish where there are real men of God~' SuCh men who believe in and love the sublime things they handle show forth in all its pure beauty the ideal which they preach. Acting as poles of attraction, they enkindle the spark of the divine call in generous souls who respond to living example rather than to mere words. Let it therefore be quite clear that preoccupation with numbers, whenever it tends to compromise quality, is self-destructive, slowly but surely drying up the sources of vo-cations and paralyzing the work of divine grace. It shows a weak faith, as we see from the vigorous words of Pope Plus XI, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas: Bishops and religious superiors should not be deterred from this needful severity by fear of diminishing the number of priests for the diocese or institute. The Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas, long.ago proposed this difficulty and answered it with his usual lucidity and wisdom: "God never abandons His Church; and so the number of priests will be always sufficient for the needs of the faithful, provided the worthy are advanced and the un-worthy sent away." . We reaffirm that one well-trained priest is worth more than many trained badly or scarcely at all. For ÷ ÷ Ecclesiastical Formation VOLUME 20, 1961 169 4, 4, Sacred Congregation o~ Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 170 such would not be merely unreliable but a likely souxce of sor-row to the Church,° This Sacred Congregation, therefore, demands with all the force that accrues from its high mandate of watchful-ness, that the most exact and scrupulous care be taken in the choice of candidates. We exhort all those responsible for the task of selection not to minimize in the slightest degree, the wise rules laid down in this matter by Holy Church. Are we to allow ourselves to be overtaken in this respect also by'the children of darkness? We are well aware of the great care these latter exercise in the selection and training of those of their disciples who show the greatest natural gifts and display an ability to influence others; their intention is to use such men to permeate the masses and gain them for their own ends. It is a principle both human and divine that the fate of institutions depends on quality and not on numbers. "Gidedn, with an im-mense host at his command, a host seemingly ready to face any danger or difficulty, hears it said to him by the Lord that in great enterprises, one must count on few, not on many. Selection is the rule of existence, of progress, and of perfection.''7 Let us, therefore, rest our hopes on those alone who are chosen by the Lord. Filled with the spirit of Christ, these men will be the vigorous band who by the integrity of their lives and their burning zeal for souls, will,lead the people of God back to the pure.sources of Christian life, thus ensuring the growth of a vigorous generation of priests. The Training of .Seminarians "To devote oneself to making good priests and~ to co-operate to this end as the secondary, efficient, and instru-mental cause, is to fulfill the very task of Jesus Christ. Our Divine Lord during His life on earth seems to have taken it as His very special work to train twelve good priests, His Apostles; with this end in view, He deigned to stay with them some years to instruct and train them for this sacred ministry." Teachers in seminaries must, then, be intimately united to Christ and must give themselves com-pletely to Him, for their work is the priestly work par excellence, "the most difficult, the most sublime, the most important for the salvation of souls and the progress of Christianity.''s "To make'more perfect priestsl Who can understand' the sublimity of this work?"9 "To make good priests is the greatest achievement in the world; it is ira-e Ad Catholici sacerdotii, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 28 (1936), 44. ~ John XXIII, "Discourse ~to the Students of the Roman Colleges," January 28, 1960, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 52 (1960),272. sSt. Vincent de Paul, op. cir., 11, 7-8. * St. Vincent de Paul, op. cir., 11, 9. possible to conceive anything greater or more impor-tant." 10 For St. Vincent de Paul, therefore, those who have the task of educating candidates for the sanctuary can only be described as the perpetuation of Christ in th.eo~ighest realms of the priesthood. Such m~n carry on the teaching work of our Savior, instilling into the youths called to fol-low Him, those principles which He Himself taught to His Apostles before He sent them out tO procla.,im the message of salvation before men. It follows from this that in the mind of the saint, the seminary must be nothing other than a school in which the students, by means of a fitting preparation, learn those things both human and divine which they will need later if they are to bring forth the fruits of salvation. But they must learn these lessons from their superiors who, for them, stand in the place of Christ and who must be capable of instilling in them the spirit of Christ. The saint's spirituality is vigorous, Some have even con-sidered it hard, but such people have stopped at the mere letter of his vehement teaching without considering the thought behind it. It is true that he never tires of preach-ing reunciation, sacrifice, and detachment from family and from worldly goods; he demands the unconditional surrender of the will; he condemns in no uncertain terms indolence and laziness; he. brands pride as the chief ob-stacle to the triumph of grace in the soul of the priest. He insists on penance as the undoubted means of bearing fruit in the sacred ministry; he exalts the value of suffer-ing, renunciation, sacrifice, and detachment fromrfamily, the complete submission of one's own spirit in order to possess the spirit of Christ. Here we have the pure teach-ing of the Gospel, untainted by compromise or human considerations. It is from the Gospel that the Vincentian method of seminary training gains its strength and vigor. If the saint demands renunciation and sacrifice, he shows them in the light of the love of Christ and of souls. He preaches death too but only as the gateway to a richer life; he too takes the shears to the vine to prune it, to cut away all that is disordered and superfluous, but it is in order that the plant may have a more vigorous growth; he too preaches immolation in union with Christ, but it is as a way of coming to the triumph of the Resurrection at Easter and to the fullness of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Because he was intolerant of any form of self-love, including that kind which is more subtle and capable of cloaking itself ambiguously under the most plausible pretexts, he had a heart as vast as the ocean, a heart which was most t~nder, always ready to sympathize with every form of misery, ~°St. Vincent de Paul, up. cir., 12, 14. + + + Ecclesiastical Formation Sacred Congregation of Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 172 and to beat with a zeal which in him was a devouring flame. Worthy friend of St. 'Francis de Sales, he possessed the delicate virtues of meekness and forbearance; he could rise on the wings of the supernatural over the limitations of human nature and yet stoop with understanding to its weaknesses. He was the Good Samaritan who saw in hu-man nature the humanity of Christ. For this reason he looked upon it with serenity and kindness, seeing it as the necessary foundation on which the dignity of redeemed mankind had to be built. But being conscious of its weak-nesses, he would allow it no more than the role of a means, never that of an end: "For he that will save his life, shall lose it; and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it" (Mt 16:24-25). It is often repeated, and not without truth, that prior to making priests, the teachers in our seminaries should make it their first care to train upright men. The purpose of this assertion is to emphasize the importance of human qualities in the full priestly personality. This is the sincere mind of the Church. She demands precisely the presence of notable natural gifts in formulating a positive judg-ment on the worthiness of candidates, and these are the foundation, the starting point, of the ecclesiastical forma-tion. A vocation does not involve the rejection of the hu-man qualities of man. On the contrary, it places the high-est value on what he is by nature and by grace. The God who gives the divine call is the same God who has be-stowed the gifts and who waits for the day when these talents show their increase (see Lk 19:22 ft.). Grace does not destroy nature; but, according to a Thomistic princi-ple so very fertile in the field of theology, it restores, puri-fies, elevates, and transforms nature. Moreover, it can even be said that, in the ordinary course of events, nature con-ditions grace inasmuch as the action of grace is facilitated where human qualities abound, whereas it is stultified where human qualities are lacking. Consequently, any-thing which is contrary to nature has no part in Christian and priestly virtues; and any educational system which dis-dains natural virtues, even though it be presented under worthy pretexts, would be unreasonable and confusing and fraught with dire consequences. It could become the rock on which the frail barks of many vocations, guided by inexpert helmsmen, would founder. Much more en-couraging is the exhortation of the Apostle: "For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, what-soever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline: think on these things" (Ph 4:8). A wise teacher, then~ conscious of his responsibilities with regard to his students and in the eyes of the Church, will consider with religious care the individuality of each one and will know how to accept, stimulate, and develop the precious per-sonal gifts of each character. However; there has arisen today even in ecclesiastical circles an excessive tendency to ghrink from these duties as educators and to submit ~' ~l~e iiadividualism df oi]r mod-ern youth who seem intolerant of all discipline. There is much talk of how the child must be prepared for future responsibility by reducing restrictions in the field of edu-cation. In the community as a whole, self-government, the vital spirit of democracy, and group decisions are widely praised. This involves an ever decreasing guidance or so-called "interference" from superiors. They accept, that is, if not in theory, at least in practice, the conclusions of certain authorities whose theories, though much in vogue, are nonetheless reprehensible: We may rightly include under this category, those modern theories which, though presented under different names, agree in regarding it as fundamental in all forms of education that children should be allowed to mold their characters entirely at their own will and discretion, Advice from teachers, or elders is rejected and no account is taken of any law of assistance, human or divine. '. Unhappy illusionl Claiming.to emancipate the Child, they enslave'him; they make him a slave to arrogant pride and irregular desire, to a pride and passion which, if their system is true, are to be approved as the needs of an autonomous human nature?a Such theories owe their origin to an over-optimistic con-cept of human nature. They do not appreciate the frailty and inadequacy of man, nor, in his fallen state, his need to be ruled if he is to achieve self-control. This is above all the case with adolescents and young people who are natu-rally immature and often lured by merely transient en-thusiasms and torn by conflicting emotions. "The same thing is not possible for one who has a virtue and for one who does not have it; so too the same thing is not possible for a boy and for a perfect man".''~s If they lack singleness of purpose and perseverance, our students will never be able to control their impulses. In all kindness they must be made to accept subjection to rule and to realize the force of law. In this way, they will acquire deep-rooted habits which will neither stifle thei~ conscience nor restrict their liberty, but which are, on the contrary, the source of freedom and a guarantee of its ex-ercise. There is no doubt that the authority of the su-perior should control the liberty of the student but always in an atmosphere of mutual confidence, active collabora-tion, and charitable understanding. Thus[ the student's development will not stop short at mere p~assive submis-sion, bu.___~t will go to the very roots of his personality. n Pius XI, Divini illius Magistri in Acta Apos,tolicae Sedis, 22 (1950), 69-70. = St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1-2, 9.6, 2. + + + Ecclesiastical Formation VOLUME 20, 1961 173 Sacred Congregation of Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Therefore, we can not approve of the attitude adopted in some institutions where there is not the necessary in-sistence on the fundamental value of the rule in the for-mation of young men for the Church: Discipline is the rule .of life and the way of virtue. If a rule life is necessary for men in general, how much more necessary is it for those called to the priesthood. Therefore, the discipline of the seminary and the observance of rule, even on minor points, should be close to the heart of every student. Superiors are necessary just as Supervision is necessary, but clerics should behave and fulfill their duties without the need of a superior to watch over them.= ~'o ask young students still in the process of formation to carry out their many duties without the help of a full and'detailed rule, to refuse them the benefits of a well ordered discipline, is to leave them a prey to uncertainty and to deprive them 6f an atmosphere which would be most helpful to their own personal efforts. The daily "bearing and forebearing" of a rule observed in detail will bring much fruit. It will develop reserves of will power; will prepare characters of strength and perseverance; and it will foster balanced and methodical minds, minds which will be able to remain master of themselves and control the situations which inevitably arise from the clash with the difficulties of life. We repeat therefore: It is one thing take care that our students, while being obliged to carry out their duty even to the smallest detail, are imbued with right principles both human and divine such as will en-able them to assume responsibili'ty in the future; it is an-other to exclude or compromise the actual value of the obligation. If discipline is to be fully effective, individual teachers must not operate in isolation. On the contrary, one must work together with his colleagues, taking c~re, however, not to intrude unduly in the province of any other. With this collaboration and guided by like con-victions, all can work for the progress of the seminary as a whole. We do not intend to evolve these ideas fully here. But, unfortunately, we must take notice of the fact that natu-ralism seems to have penetrated even into some institu-tions for ecclesiastical training. This has been partly due to those who universally condemn the past as unsuited to the task of forming new generations of young priests and who eagerly search for "up-to-date" methods. Yet an-other cause is the rather fatalistic passivity of those who indeed regret in their heart of hearts this dangerous in-novation in the field of education but still accept it as the inevitable consequence of living in our times. In these instances, there is evidence of a gradual decline which ~ St. Plus X, "Discourse to the Seminaries of Milan," October 14, 174 1908, in Enchiridion Clericorum, n. 827. seems to be affecting every aspect of ecclesiastical educa-tion. The common factor in the whole process seems to be an apprecxable lessemng of the supernatural element. The true foundauons of genmne oecclestast.lca! education prayer, intimate union with Gbd, a spirit of mbrtifica-tion, humility, obedience, withdrawal, and. s.eparauon from the world are retreating ever more into the background to be.replaced by externahsm under the g~ ~se of chanty. The intention is to '~'understand" our' era and the new generation. In reality, it only means givi~ng way to its Shortcomings. One has the impressi6n that teachers, far from exercising restraint, have encouraged and even be-come. obsessed with what is novel and untried. They are concerned rather to grant what would most ~tplease the stu-dent than to insist.on what wouldbe most beneficial, and they have not the courage xo ask.for self-dehial and sacri-rice. ! ¯ But Christ asks for both ~self-~en~al and s crifice. "Deny yourself'.' (Mr 16:24) is at the root of all Hislteaching, and ~t contains the,key to the secret of Christiari vocation and above, all the priestly, calling. The priest is the man of sacrifice, chosen to fill up by his own suffering, sacrifices, and his daily self-immolation that which ~s wanting m the sufferings of Christ (see Col 1:1 2 ) . H . eI ~Socalled to,bear fruits of grace; but without the Cross therelcan be no re-demption (see Heb 9:22). He is called to be alshining'light, but this can only be if he is aflame,with the spirit of self-sacrifice. We need hardly say that this liker~ess to C~hrist, Priest and Victim, must begin in the semirlary.We well realize how long the road is and how strong the resistance of human nature, for many "follow Jesus to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice~of His Passion.TM It is essential, therefore, that ou} students be-gin their self-denial and sacrifices from the loutset. Thus they may come to understand the truth and joy contained in these, words: I But blessed is that man who fir thee, O Lord; abandons all things created; who offers violenc~ to nature and through fervor of spirit crucifies the concupiscence of. the flesl~, so that with serene conscience he.may offer to thee pure prayer and become worthy to be admitted among the choir of angels, having ex-cluded himself both exteriorly and interiorly[ from all the things of earth.~ ., Above all, we must insist on the conflict which Christ Himself emphasized, between His ~spirit andI the'spirit of the world, the world for which Christ did[not wish to pray since it was already permeated wit[i the[spirit of evil and hardened against grace. Therefore His o~n must not :: ~.hKOemma~S,~.'~e:sP.i~, Zmitation o, Christ, ~, 1,, 1. " " P'o , o ¯ I 4. + Ecclesiastical Formation . VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sacred Congregation oy Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS be of this world, just as He Himself was not of it (see Jn 17:9 and 14-16; 1 Jn 5:19). They must appreciate that they are consecrated ~o the things of heaven and that al-though taken from the world, they are no longer of it. Only as they detach themselves from the attractions of the world, from its principles, from its methods and from its facile compromises, will they become the salt of the earth and the light of the world. They must be made to realize that a priest does not cut himself off from his own times simply because he refuses to accept their fallacies. In a word, "the man dedicated to the Church, walks indeed this earth, but his mind and heart must look to heaven.''le Likewise in the delicate question of the students' as-cetical training, it is necessary to move slowly and with discretion and to maintaina gentle but firm hand: "ford-ter in re, suaviter in modo" or, to quote our saint, "firm-ness and constancy regarding the end, sweetness and hu-mility regarding the meansY This simply means that we must go back to the' life and teaching of our Savior which, if well presented, exert an irresistible attraction on the minds of the young. Nothing can equal these pure founts. Our students must be led to a spirit of intimacy with Christ, they must live according to that spirit which brings truth and freedom. They must believe in Christ with that strong faith urged by St. John (14:1), that faith which im-plies an unquestioning acceptance of His word, complete. confidence in His help, and a loyalty and correspondence with grace, even to forgetfulness of self. Through 'their daily contact with their Divine Master, they will be im-pelled to be more like Him (see 2 Cor $: 18), to assume His spirit, and thus gradually to achieve "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ" (Eph 4:13). This seems to us to be'the royal way, in fact, the only way, in which our students can be made into the apostles of the future, "perfect men, furnished to every good work" (2 Tim 3:17), who will contribute successfully towards "the edifying of the body of Christ" (Eph 4:12). In fact, zeal for souls has always been nourished by a deep spiritual life and by a mortification which is wholly directed to- Wards personal holiness. But there is always a danger of destroying in a short space of time what has taken much labor to prepare. We are referring especially to the impatience, so common these d~ys, whereby our young students are submitted too easily and without the necessary precautions to trials which are beyond their strength. The aim of this, it is said, is that they may become aware of the surroundings 1e John XXlII, "Discourse to. Roman Colleges," in ,4cta Apos- 176 tolicae Sedis, 52 (1960), 262-70. advocate this method deceive themselves inl thinking that I in this way they are securing students against the dangers they are bound to meet with and that at ~he same time they are arousing in them at an early stage, [ m action and by action," the spirit that must animate their future apostolate. Yet they flatter themseh, es th~,t the diocese will thus be supplied with better priests; priests who from the beglnmng of their pastoral work will b'~e able to pro-duce more results and better results; priests who are .in the public eye, leaders of men, who are inla position to bear faithful witness to the Gospel. This policy of haste is not only based on a!mistaken ner-spectlve, ~n so far as it gxves first place to what must neces- I sarily take second place both in importance and in se-quence; but m addmon ~t presupposes somethang whxch does not exist at all, namely, a sp~rxtual, ~nt~ellectual, and moral maturity that is essential if this exper~.ence of which we speak is to be of profit. What is more, it distorts the nature and aim of the seminary as conceived by the Church's legislation. The seminary is not a~ad never can be a place for testing theories and still le~ss a training ground for dangerous and compromising actxwues. It can be nothing other than a home for deep ~piritual and intellectual formation. O1: course, the futureI apostolate is and, must be a source of inspiration, but anyI practical ex-perience must come by degrees and only when the student has reached the requisite standard. Such is th~ mind of the Popes. They are so concerned with keeping the true aim of the seminary intact that they visualize a particular in-stitution with the specific task of initiating the young priests into the various fields of the apostolat6. In this way the transition from the quiet of the seminary is brought about naturally and, with a more adequateI preparation in theory and practice, the danger of eventual spiritual unbalance is precluded,x7 | TO destroy the whole balance of the life~of our semi-naries and their proved worth on the plea of a~n imaginary "apostolate of action" must of necessity do ~mmense harm~' Indeed, it is to be feared that, if priests of t~e future are trained by such a method based on activity, they will not be able to perform really fruitful apostolic ~lwork. They will not be able to surmount difficulties andl discourage-ment and will fall an easy prey to the moral ihstability of ttle restless and treacherous world in which ~ve live. Ex-perience teaches that the bridling of the passions is an interior achievement that must be accomplished in the secret depths of the soul. It takes place slowly ~nd only by a~ See Menti Nostrae (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 42 [1950] 691-92) and the motu proprio Quandoquidem (Acta Apostolicae S~,dis, 41 [1949], 1.65-67). 4. Ecclesiastical Formation VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sacred Congregation oJ Seminaries REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS means of reflection and recollection. If we allow our stu-dents to throw themselves into external activity, if we leave them free to indulge in that kind of enthusiasm which could easily lead them away from their strict but necessary life of piety and study--even if it is to gain experience of the apostolate---does it not mean, perhaps, that we are drawing them away from their day to day formation which is nourished on prayer, study, and sacri-fice? And at length when their training in the seminary is at an end and they have to face the serious reality of life without sufficient preparation, is it not to be feared that passions suppressed but'not truly subjugated will return? The results of such an education can be observed while still in the seminary. A weakening of piety, a lack of in-clination for all forms of study and especially for specu-lative thought, a discipline that is undermined at its very foundations, and, above all, the appalling superficiality that is found in various branches of education--surely these things are incapable of producing true apostles for the Church. Here we can appropriately quote a saying of St. Vincent de Paul. It can serve as a general rule of- be-havior but it has a special value :when applied to educa~ tion. "Good works fail because people act in too great haste, because they act on their own impulses. This haste has the effect of obscuring the mind and reason and pre-sents the object as possible and opportune. It is not so, and subsequent failure makes it evident.''is Accordingly, rather than use doubtful methods to train a priest just for the present, we must make every effort to form one who will be a priest forever. Conclusion I Your Excellency, before concluding this present letter' in which we have sought to express our concern on cer-, tain matters, we can not but address a last word to the teachers in our seminaries. Whatever position they hold, they are well aware of the seriousness of their duties and of the great responsibility "they bear before God for their students, whom they are seeking to train for the high office that awaits them. In this .unremitting yet hidden toil, which often brings little human satisfaction though it earns much merit, they must never forget their great aim. We are all fully convinced of the importance of en-vironment. Therefore the good will of the students must be encouraged and they must be helped at every stage, of their path towards priestly perfection with all the a.ssist: ance they require. Above all, we would wish that the golden words of Pope Leo XIII be engraved in the hearts of all: 178 nSt. Vincent de Paul, op. cit., 4, 122. n their own field, a personal example of a full, priestly life. l'he example of those in authority, especially for the young, is he most eloquent and persuasive way of convificing them of heir own duties and of fostering a love of wrtue. It is good then that teachers in our semin~aries should se outstanding for their natural gifts, w.hich can win for hem the esteem and trust of their pUpils.°But~ at the same ime, they must realize that natural qualities hnd achieve-nents are of httle use ff they are not ammated by a deep plr~tual hfe. Only th~s can ensure that their work will be ,f real value and bear fruit. The Dlwne Maste.r who dwells n our hearts and speaks to us there "Christ is our ! eacher and He is within us"=0--will be ev, er ready to ,less, increase, .and perfect their work which, by the "rovidence of God, is destined to spread thd mystery of ~Iis Love. We are certain that Your Excellency will ~.ee that this etter be brought to the attention of the superiors of your emmary for their careful cons~deranon. At the same ume, -¢e gladly take this opportunity of express~,ng tO Your ;xcellency our feelings of highest esteem. Rome, Sep-ember 27, 1960.] Yours devotedly in our Lord, JOSEPH Cardinal PIZZARDO, Suburbican Bishop of Albano, Prefect. DINO STAFFA, Titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Palestine, Secretary. Leo XIII, Fin dal principio in Acta Leonis XIII, 22, 254-55. St. Augustine, In lo, 5, 19 (PL 35, 1557). ÷ ÷ ÷ Ecclesiastical Formation VOLUME 20, 1961 179, JAMES I. O'CONNOR, S.J. Some Aspects Religious Authori9 ÷ ÷ ÷ James I. O'Connor, S.J. is professor of canon law at West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana. REVIEW FOR'RELIGIOUS In the Church there are different kinds of authority, One form of authority is called jurisdiction and is the pub lic power of ruling or governing others. It is called publit because it is a power belonging to a perfect society for tht direction of its subjects to the end for which the saic society was constituted. Thus defined, it is a power which belongs both to the State and to the Church. If we narro~ our consideration to jurisdiction in the Church, we can de fine it more fully as the public power of a legitimate su perior, granted by Christ or by His Church through ~ canonical mission, of governing baptized persons to tht achievement of their eternal salvation. This power, native to the Church by reason of its con stitution as set up by Christ, can be and is shared by tht immediate or constitutive parts of the Church by reasor of a canonical mission for the attainment of the purpose o~ the Church. Immediate parts of the Church are diocese: and the clerical exempt religious institutes, As a result! local ordinaries and superiors in clerical exempt religiou: institutes possess true jurisdiction, although the bases art different in each case: in the first case, it is territorial; ir the second, personal. Other moral persons in the Church do not possess juris diction because they are not immediate divisions of tht Church; that is, they are subject to the authority of ar immediate section; "examples of such are parishes, none exempt religious institutes, and so forth. Consequently~ such divisions are sometimes called mediate sections of tht Church. If such a division has jurisdiction, it is by specia~ grant, not by reason of its nature. Within the perfect society which is the Church, w~ find also other societies which are imperfect in the sens, that they are not self-sufficient and are not independen'li although they have a purpose of their own which, how. ever, is a means to obtain the purposes of the Church. Ex amples of such societies are religious institutes. Therefore, ander different aspects, clerical exempt re'ligious insti-tutes are both immediate and mediate sections of the Church whereas all other religious institutes, are mediate ~ections only. Just as the Church in itself and in its cons,ututive divi- ,ions has authority to govern its subjects (and such power I s called jurisdiction), so also the mediate secuons must have and do possess authority for their proper govern-ment. Since this latter authority ~s not jur~s~hct~on, It ~s :alled dominative power. Both types of powerlor authority are set down in canon 501, §1 of the Code of Canon La¯ w: 'The superiors and chapters, conformably to the consu-tutions and to the umversal law, have dominative or .z°vernin~'o~-r~°wer over their sublects,o and .in eve~ ~ exem p t :lerical institute, they have ecclesiastical jurisaiction in both the internal and external fora." ~i UP to the present century, by way of to juris-cfion as a 'public power to govern, dominhtive power as often called a private power. It was calledI dominative power because it was understood as the power or force .~xercised not only on the matter or content ~of the com-mand- theth "ing to be done or not to be done--but also ~n the will of the subject so that the will oflthe subject igree with that of the superior. Perfect s.u~bjection or ibedience brings the intellect of the subject xn,to harmony qith that of the superior insofar as such subjection may )e possible ~ in view o~ the evidence presented to the in-ellec~. By way o[ further distinction, a third kind 6f authority vas recognized by some writers. They called ~it domestic ~ower or authority. This is the power, for exar~ple, ~vhich ~ religious superior exercises over lay peopleI who work or the community; it is also the power of a ~resident of ~ commercial firm, or the supervisor of a hospital floor or . he head o[ a department has over the employees, It is the ~ower or force over the matter or content of the command ,nly--the thing to be done or not done; there ~ no power ,ver the will, much less over the intellect of th~ employee. While these were the usual distinctions of r~ligious au-hority, they did not cover all the authority of a religious uperior, even in a non-exempt institute. A r~,ligious su- ,erior has authority over many things which ,do not fall .nder dominative and domestic power as described above. 7h ose powers all deal w"~th phy"sical persons~, iwith in" d~- iduals. Some illustrations of a religious superior's au-orxty not exercised over lnd~v~duals as such, at least dl-ectly, are the following: admission to the no,~t~ate and ~ religious profession; limited power to dispense from n.pediments to such admission; administration, of the re- .g~ous community as such; administration of the tern- Religious Authority VOLUME 20, 1961 + 4. 4. James I. O'Connor, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 182 poralities of the entity over which one has authority, example, to contract loans, negotiate sales, lease property and so forth. What kind of authority is this in the case a superior in a non-exempt religious institute? For centuries it was very disputed among canonist., whether such authority was part of the dominative powel of religious superiors.1 Spearheaded by Father (now dinal) Larraona,~ the opinion that such authority was anc is part of the dominative power of a religious superiol gained ground in the present century. As a result, the olt description of dominative power as a purely private powel had begun to fall by the wayside and certainly seems belong there in view of a rather recent reply from tht Holy See. The power in a society has to correspond to it nature. That nature is public since religious institutes art set up by pontifical authority .as a public state of life More%ver, the Church through lawful representatives r ceives-the vows of such religious and these vows are publi both in themselves and in their effects (Canons 488, 1° 1308, §1). Canon 501, §1 acknowledges only two kinds o authority in religious life: jurisdiction and dominativt power. Since in a non-exempt institute the authority is no jurisdiction and since the power over such things as tern poral administration is not a private power, dominativt power must now be classified in two forms: public ant private. Relative to jurisdiction, many questions can arise; fo~ example, kinds of jurisdiction, delegation and subdelega tion of jurisdiction, conferral of jurisdiction in cases whert a doubt is had as to whether a person possesses or cat possess jurisdiction, conferral of jurisdiction on a persor who objectively does not have it but is commonly believec to have it. All these, as well as some other aspects of juri diction, are nicely provided for in canons 196 to 209. N such provision was made in canon law for correspondin' questions pertinent to dominative power. Nevertheless the same questions.and problems can and do arise fo non-exempt religious superiors. All the discussions which proposed solutions to suc] vexing questions were finally brought to an end by al affirmative reply of the Pontifical Commission for th Authentic Interpretation of the Canons of the Code c Canon Law. An affirmative answer was given on March 2~ 1952, to the question: "Whether the prescriptions c 1Those interested in this dispute and the development of th notion of dominative power are referred to a study by the preser writer, "Dominative Power of Religious Superiors," which was pul fished in The Jurist, 21 (1961), 1-26. ~ "De potestate dominativa publica in iure canonico," in Congressus luridici Internationalis, v. 4 (Rome: Pontificium Insl tutum Utriusque Iuris, 1937), 145-80. canons 197, 199, 206-09, concerning the power of jurisdic-tion, are to be applied, unless the nature of the text or context of the law prevent it, to the dominative power which superiors and chapters have in rehg~ous institutes and in societies of men and womenliving in 'common with-out public vows?''a Many religious superiors seem never to'.have heard of this reply, much less of the canons cited, their wording, and their interpretation. Therefore, we shall :first give an Enghsh translauon of those canons, substa, tuung dorm-native power for jurisdiction so that it will be easier to read, understand, and, later, comment upon them. Canon 197, § 1. Ordinary dominative powei: is that which the law itself attaches to an office; delegated]power is that which is committed to a person, §2. Ord:'.nary power can be neither proper or vicari-ous. Canon 199, §1. One who has ordinary dom,inative power can delegate it to another totally or partial,ly, unless the law expressly provides otherwise. §2, Moreover, dominative power which ,has been dele-gated by the Apostolic~ See can be subde~egated for a single act or habitually, unless the delegate was chosen be-cause of his personal qual,ficauons or subdele.gatmn is for, bidden. §3. Power delegated for a whole class of. cases by one who has ordinary power but is subordinate t0 the Roman Pontiff can be subdelegated in individual cases. §4. In other cases, delegated dominative power can be subdelegated only if subdelegation is expressly permitted. §5. No subdelegated power can ~n turn be subdele-gated unless the power to do so has been expressly granted. Canon 206. If several persons have been d~legated suc-cessively, that one must execute the busines~ whose com-mission was given first and has not been expressly re-voked by a later rescript. Canon 207, §1. Delegated power ceases to exist: by fulfillment of the commission; by lapse of time or by exhaustion of the nut Lber of cases for which it was granted; by cessation of the reason for the delegation; by revocation by the delegator together with lirect notice to the party delegated; or by renunciation on the part o[ the one d, elegated to-gether with direct notice to and acceptance ~by the dele-gator. However, delegated power does not cease with the expiration of the authority of the delegator ekcept in the tw~ cases mentioned in canon 61 . 8Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 44 (1952), 497; T. Lincoln Bouscaren, S.J., Canon Law Digest, v. 3 (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1953), 73. + 4. 4. Religious Authority VOLUME 20, 1961 183 4. 4. ]ames I. O'Connor, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 184 §3. When several persons have been delegated cor-porately, if one of them loses his power, the delegation of all the others also expires, unless the contrary appears from the tenor of the delegation. Canon 208. In accordance with the norm of canon 183, §2, oidinary power does not expire with the expiration of the authority of the person who conceded the office to which the power is attached. However, it does cease with the loss of the office and is suspended by appeal made ac-cording to law, unless the appeal happens to be made with-out suspensive effect, saving the provisions of canons 2264 and 2284. Canon 209. In common error or in positive and proba-ble doubt of law or of fact, the Church supplies dominative power for the external forum. We shall now give some commentary on each of these canons as well as illustrations of their application and non-application. Canon 197 The word ordinary here is a technical term and is not to be confused with our everyday usage of the word as meaning usual, regular, habitual, and so forth. For power to be ordinary two things must be verified: 1) the power must be given by the law itself, whether that law be the Code of Canon Law or the constitutions, which are the particular law of the religious institute; 2) the power con-ferred by this general or particular law must be attached to an office in the institute. An office, as canon 145, §1 tells us, is a function permanently established by divine or ecclesiastical ordinance, conferred conformably to the sa-cred canons, and carrying with it some participation in ecclesiastical power of orders or jurisdiction, or (now in virtue of the 1952 reply) dominative power. Thus, the power of a superior to govern the house or the province or the whole institute is ordinary dominative power be-cause the power is conferred in canon 501, §I of the code and is attached to the office of superior, no matter who may be the incumbent .in the office. The details of that power are partly spelled out in later canons of the code and partly in the constitutions. Some examples of ordinary power from the code are: government of the community over which one is superior; administration of the temporalities of the entity in which one holds office; admission to novitiate and to religious profession; limited prolongation of postulancy, novitiate, and temporal profession; anticipation of renewal of tem-porary profession; change of cession and disposition of one's property; admission of outsiders into cloister in certain instances; egress of religious from cloister under certain conditions; exclusion from renewal of temporary vows or admission to perpetual vows; in all communities, the conduct of the preparatory process fo~/ dismissal of perpetually professed members and, in diocesan law in-stitutes, also that for dismisSal of temporaiily professed members. Not every superior ~has all these powers: some be-long only to the superior general; others ark had also by provincials; still others are possessed by the 16cal superior. Just which superior, alone or conjointly with! another, has these powers must be learned: from reading ~he code and the constitutions. ~i. Some common examples of ordinary power from par-cular law, that is, the constitutions, are: reception of isitors; going out to visit; making trips; dispensation from disciplinary articles of the constitutions; and ]o forth. The details determining the exercise of such po.wers will, in each case, have to be gleaned from the constitutions. Delegated power is defined in the canon. It is any power ~or ta bueth iomriatyg iwnehdic, hw iist hnoout to crdoinnsairdye.r Dinegl etghaet ep~lr psoonw eorf cthane ~lelegate whereas ordinary power can be conceived even though nobody holds the office to which the law attaches ~1 e authority. Ordinary power ~s inherent ,to the office; ~elegated power must always be invested in aI person. r Delegation is conferred by word of mouth or in writing wh l"ch may be the written law itself or some other form of ocument or rescript. A rescript ~s s~mply a written reply to a question or petition. Delegated authority must always be given expressly. Express conferral may be explicit or implicit. Explicit :lelegation is had when the superior in so many words nforms another that he is hereby given suct~-and-such a ~ower or faculty or authority. Implicit delegauon is ~ower of authority or a faculty which ~s not conferred in o many words but which is contained witl~in another ~ower or faculty explicitly conferred which, m turn, can ~ot be exercised either at all or, at least, not ade-quately unless the other power or facul'ty is also ~ossessed. In such a case that other power or faculty s implicitly conferred. Thus, for example, a supe- "ior delegates a subject to investigate a t~oublesome ~tuauon and take care of it. This is explicit delega-ion. When the investigation is made, the delegate finds hat the effective way to correct it is to revoke ~ delegated aculty of the party concerned or to impose a penance. qowever, the superior did not tell the delegate he had he power to revoke in one instance or to punish in the ~ther. Nevertheless, since the superior delegated the per-on to take care of the situation, implicitly ~e thereby lso delegated to him all the power necessary to effect that vhich was explicitly delegated. Delegated authority is not to be confused with pre-÷ ÷ ÷ Religious Authority VOLUME 20, 1961 185 + lames I. O'Connor, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 186 sumed authority. In the case of presumed authority, the person making the presumption can not contact the party having the authority. Further, after weighing all the cir-cumstances and what is sincerely believed the superior or official would do if asked, he draws the conclusion that the authority would be granted if the superior or official could be contacted. Such action is very different from the express grant of authority made by the superior or official to a definite 'person or group of persons. What power can be delegated will be taken up under canon 199. Ordinary power is said to be proper when it is possessed and exercised in one's own name. Hence, the authority given by the code or constitutions to the superior general, the provincial, and the local superior is both ordinary and proper. Vicarious power is ordinary because the law, especially the constitutions, provides for the office of vicar and the authority of the vicar is determined and conferred by the law itself. However, vicarious power differs from proper power in that the former is not exercised in one's own name but in the name and according to the mind of the superior whose vicar this party is. As a result, when the superior can not discharge his office, for example, because absent from the community or because confined to his room by sickness, and so forth, the vicar becomes acting su-perior and has most, if not all, of the authority of the su-perior. But this authority must be exercised as the supe-rior himself would exercise it. Consequently, the vicar may not take advantage of his position to change the policies established by the superior, even though the change may be desirable. Likewise, he can not grant a re quest which has been already refused by the superior. Moreover, as soon as the superior is again able to discharge his office himself, the power of the vicar ceases because the function of the office of vicar ceases. Vicarious power and delegated power are alike in that in both cases the power is not proper and so is exercised in the name of another. These powers are unlike in tha! vicarious authority is annexed by and spelled out in the law whereas delegated authority depends totally on the will of the delegator as to what authority is possessed. Th~ two forms of power also have different norms as to when and how they are terminated as will be seen by comparin~ canons 207 and 208 as well as what was said above abou~ the cessation of vicarious power. In the light of these distinctions between delegated, Vi carious, and proper power, it seems worth while notin~ that in orders and congregations having a hierarchica form of government, the local superior in regard to hi own community is not a vicar or a delegate of the pro vincial or general superior. This point is explicitly se down in article 312 of the Normae drawn u~ by th Sacred Congregation for Religious. Some . superiors seem not to be aware of the position legally held by the local,superior. This Is especially, true when, the major su-perior drops in~ on the local community either merely for a stopove;,or for a canonical v, isitation. ThE local superior is and remains the true superior of the lo~al community and still possesses and has the right of exercise of all the authority cgnferred on a local superior byI the code and by the constitutibns; The Norma~ in article 265 e~plicitly state thav a provincial or general superior ,can not at the same time be a 19cal superior. A very immediate~and logi-cal ~onclusion follows from tha~t premise: Itherefore, the major suoerior can not take over the functions of a local superi~r.'O'ne,can not.lawfully discharge tl~e function of an office one'does not and ~n h~t ha~. , The only ~xception to this ge~aeral rule islthat in which the local c~mmunity is composed only of m~mbers of the provincial or general curia. Even ~n such cases, ff the com-mumty ~s large, as it ~s in some orders and congregauons, a special religious ~s appointed to be the local superior of the house since such work would notably interfere with the prlnc~paJ wo.rk 9f the major sqpenor m the admxms-tration of the province or institute. A word of caution o~ught to be injected here. There are some "active'-' communities which seem n_ot ~to be obhged by, the~above norms because their local superiors have on!y thg authority th,e top sup.eripr grants the~m. However, such communities do not have the government olan of the ordinary order or congregation. Theirs is [1~ monastic form of government inowhich there is only lone superior who is the equivalent of the abbot or abbess in a ~trictly monastic con~munity. What look like local-~ommunities are not such, canonically; they are not separate moral or jund~c.al~persons. As a result, the superiors" of such houses, are not true superiors in their own right but are vica~rs qr delegates of the one and only true superior. Their authori~ty, then, is only what th,,e one superiorl gives them. Canon !~9 . This canon sets down the rules governing tlie' delegation of authority. In the first place we are told that everybody who has ordinary dominative power can delegate any part of it or the whole of it to another person unless the law, namely the code or the constitutions, expressly declares otherwise. In the absence of a contrary reqmre, ment ~n the law, the delegator may delegate any person competent [or th e assi"gnment, whether the delegated party be a mem-ber of t e ~nst~tute or not. Hence, a qualified s~uperior can delegate the priest who comes to say the community Mass to receive the vows of one of.the commumty. ,Whale the canon does not put a time limit on the duration of the Religious Authority VOLUME 20~, 19bl 187 James 1. O'Connor, $.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS delegation, even when all the authority of a sup6rior or official is delegated to another, it is usually p~inted out'by moralists and canonists that such unlimited delegation of all authority is an abdication of one's own resppnsibility. Therefore, delegation of total authority should be granted for a fiXed time only and, ordinarily, for a comparatively short time. ' ~ Delegated power can be used in any legitimate way un-less the manner of use was also defined at the time of dele-gation. When delegation is made, the terms of delegation should be clear to both delegator and delegate so that all doubts and misunderstandings can be avoided. In this first paragraph of canon 199 the solution is of-fered to many problems of superiors. So very often supe-riors, and especially local superiors, complain that the), have no time to be a real superior, to be a mother or father, ~s the case may be, to the members of the community be-cause their time is largely taken up with granting routine permissions, distributing articles, for example, writing supplies, dentifrices, ~ind so forth, so that there is very lit-tle or no time left to help subjects with doubts, questions, and problems. One way of getting that necessary time is to delegate some one or more persons in the community to grant those routine permissions, to distribute articles to the members of the comm~unity, to handle the mail, and so forth. Heretofore some superiors doubted whether they could use such a means as delegation) Whatever grounds for doubt" existed earlier, there is certainly no basis' for such doubts since the 1952 reply of the Code Commission. In as much as the right to delegate is granted by law to all having ordinary power, this power to delegate is itself part of that ordinary power and the superior needs no approval of a higher superior if he chooses to delegate his authority. It may be that a superior in one institute can not delegate to the same extent as a superior in another in-stitute because of a limitation contained in the constitu, tions which is not found in the second set of constitu(ions. Such a limitation, however, has to be found in the law; otherwise there is no restriction except, as previously noted, in the case of delegation of total authority for an indefinite period of time. Occasionally a superior is afraid to delegate authority because he fears the delegated party may use poor judg-ment, abuse authority, and so forth. This simply means that the superior should be as careful as possible in" the selection of the person to be delegated. Sometimes this is the only real way to find out what a given person will do with authority. Secondly, if such faults occur and the dele-~ gate does not amend after advice and correction, since the authority belongs to the superior, just as that authority Could be delegated, so also it can be revoked at any time the delegator judges it should¯ Conseq.u1e tnht dyl, e e e-gator never has to feel that once authority is delegated, it is gone forever from his control. The second situation in which delegation is allowed by general law is that in which~:tileHdly See d~leg'a~t~s an in-fervor, who, ~n turn, may pass on delegation to a third party. Such delegation of delegated power is called sub-delegation. Subdelegation can be granted either for a soli-tary case or for all such cases unless the Holy See's con-ferral of delegauon exphcltly states that the delegate has been chosen because of his personal quahficat~ons or un-less the Holy See exphcltly forbids subdelegauon. To date, there is no general grant of delegation of dom~na-ttve power by the Holy See to all'religious superiors. An examrfle of such a general grant of delegatei:l ]urtsd~ctton ~s the brochure of qumquenmal faculties to local ordi-naries, some of which can not be subdelegatedA Another occasion in which subdelegationlcan be made is found in canon 199, §3. Here the original delegate re-ceives his authority from a person who posse.sses ordinary power 'but who is a. subordinate, of the Holy See. More-over, the delegate must have authority over a whole class of cases or business. In this situation, the del~egate has the authority from the code to subdelegate t~artt or all of his authority to a given individual for all cases! or only one case, or he can subdelegate many persons forI one case. There are or can be a number of instances in which this law can be applied. Perhaps the best exampl~ is that of a hospital administrator or a college or university president, The ultimate responsibility for the hospital br school be-longs to the superior. However, because ofI the load of work involved in functioning as a religious superior,' espe, clally of a large commumty, and also funcuomng as the I administrator of the hospital or the president of the col-lege or university, the work-load is split andlthat part of the superior's authority which pert~ains to thee operation of the hospital or school is delegated to another who serves as admtmstrator or president.5 Th~s ~s delegauon by a person hawng ordinary power but subject to the Roman Pontiff. It is conferred for a whole class of cases or busi-ness, namely, operating the hospital or schooi. If need or usefulness should dictate, the administrator ~r president | t T. Lincoln Bouscaren, S.J. and James I. O'Conn!r, S.J., Canon Law Digest, v. 4 (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1958), 69-82. I . ~ Such split authority can give rise to many problems. A suggested method for dividing the authority in the case of hospitals can be found in an article by the present author, "The Hosp.~tal ~n Canon Law;" in Hospital Progress, 41 (February, 1960), 361-87. Most of the suggested division of authority can be applied to col!ege and uni-versity presidents by simply substituting "president" for "adminis-trator ¯" I Religious Authority VOLUME 20, 1961 189 ]ames L O'~,o~nor, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 190 has the authority from the code to subdelegate part or all of his authority in~ an individual case. Another example, in a different line, is that in which the local superior is delegated by the superior general or, if competent, by the provincial, to receive the vows of all~ who make profession, temporary or perpetual, in the hduse of that superior: This, again, is delegation for a whole class of cases, namely, the reception of vows. Such a local superior, if impeded from receiving the vows him-self, could subdelegate another, for example, one of the community or the priest celebrating the vow Mass, to re-ceive the vows on this particular occasion. Apart from the two cases provided for in §§2-3 of canon 199, §4 prohibits subdelegation of delegated authority un-less Such delegation is expressly permitted by the original delegator. Subdelegated authority can never be again sub-delegated unless an express grant to that effect was .made when the first subdelegation was given (canon 199, §5). Canon 206 Canon 206 supposes a' situation where, for example, three sisters receive delegation for the same task: Sister Felicitas on January 2; Sister Mary on January 3; and Sis-ter Josephine on. January 5. While all three have delega-tion, which one has the right and obligation to exercise her delegation? Canon 206 replies that the person whose commission was first given has the right and duty; in: our case, that is Sister Felicitas, An exception to this rule is made if a later commission contains a revocation of the earlier grant; for example, if in Sister Josephine's appoint-ment there is also found an explicit revocation of the dele-gation previously extended to Sisters Felicitas and Mary~ Canon 207 ~ Canon 207 lists the ways in which delegated power ceases to exist. Only §1 and §3 are quoted above because §2 can not apply to purely dominative power. Only a brief commentary seems useful here. I) Fulfillment of commission: the delegated authority ceases as soon as the job for which it was given~has been completed. 2) Lapse of time: authority was delegated to December 31, 1960 inclusive. With the end of 1960 the delegated authority also ended. 3) Exhaustion of number of cases: delegation, was ex~ tended to receive vows on five occasions. After the fifth occasion the delegation is lost. 4) Cessation of the reason for delegation: Sister Felicitas is delegated to govern the convent of St. Helen, December 26-31 because the local superior is to be away to attend a series of special conferences. On December 24th word is ~ceived that the director o the con erence has taken eriously sick and the conferences have been ~alled :of[. As result, the superior does not go away Dece.mber 26-31. ince the reason for Sister Felicitas' delegation .has now eased, her delegation also ceaseS. .5) Revocation by the delegator roger er wxth direct no-ice to the delegate; of great imp ortance in~ this stpi ula-ion is the word direct. An example: Brother Hilary has ¯ een delegated by his provincial to negouate the, sale of a ,fece of community property. Before he has time to com- ,lete the transacuon, he hears from a fellow rehg~ous who appened to pass through the prownclal's re.s~dence 'that he provincial said he was writinga letter to Brother Hil-ry revoking his delegauon. The same day l~e hears this ews, Brother Hflary happens to have an appointment to lose the property deal. Does he still have~delegauon to do :~? He does, because he himself has not received dire~t otice from his provincial of the revocation ofldelegation; e merely heard of it from an unofficial sourc.e. If the fel- :~w religious was commissioned by the provincial to in, ~rm Brother Hflary of the revocauon, then Brother s elegat~on would cease as soon as he was informed by h~s eligious confrere. ~6) Rentinciation on the part of the delegate ~together ,ith direct notice to and acceptance by the:del~gator: Two ~ings are to be noticed in this instance: dire~t notice to nd acceptance by the delegator. Direct ha~ the same -~eaning as above regarding revocation. In addition to the irect notice, for instance, Brother Hllary reforms his pro-incial by letter or phone that he is renouncing the dele-auon g~ven him, there must be acceptance by lthe delega- ~r. Brother Hilary does not lose his delegation unless his rovincial accepts.,the renunciation. | . After listing all the ways a given individual@ay lose his elegation, the canon goes on to add a situation in which elegation is not lost, even though, at first glance, it might -em delegation is lost: An illustration will l~elp: Sister enigna, a local superior, has been delegated by her ,other general to receive all vows pronounced in her con-znt. Mother general went out of office Januu~ry 5th be-muse she died that evening. On the morning.+f January ,~h, Sister Benigna received the vows of some s~sters in her ~mmunity. Later that day she learns of mother" general!s eath. Now Sister Benigna wonders if she had ~lelegation ~ recexve the vows that morning. Sxnce no hm~tat~on was ut on her delegation, her authority continued on Janu-y 6th and still continues after that date unless the new ,other general revokes the delegation. The law on this point makes an exception in the two ~ses mentioned in canon 61 which reads: umess ~t should opear otherwise from appended clauses, or unless the re~ I ÷ ÷ ÷ P~ligious Authority ¯ VOLUME 20~ 1961 19l ÷ ÷ ÷ ]ames I. O'Connor, S.J. REVIEW FOR,RELIGIOUS script confers on some person the power to grant a favo to particular persons named in it and the matter is stil intact." Examples of "appended clauses" are: "As long as I a. superior general"; "As long as I wish." With her remova from the office of superior general, both appended clause cause a cessation of the delegated authority. The "As lon as I wish" can be had only if she is competent to grant th delegation. With removal from office she is no longer co petent to have such a wish effectively; therefore, the del gation ceases. The second exception supposes delegation, for exampl to permit Sisters Gervase and Protase to take a trip t Europe. For one or other reason, the delegate has not ye done anything about granting the permission to :the tw sisters named. Unexpectedly, the delegating superior die Since the matter of the delegation is still intact, that i has not been touched, has not had even a beginning o execution, the delegation ceases. Hence the erstwhile del gate is no longer competent to grant the favor and Sister Gervase and Protase are out of a European trip. Canon 207, §3 considers the case where two or more pe sons have been delegated as a single body to carry ou some commission. Brothers John, James, and Joseph hav all been delegated as a unit to transact some business fo the community. Brother Joseph renounces his delegatio by direct word to the delegator who, in turn, accepts th renunciation, Unless the contrary appears from the orig nal delegation, the delegation of Brothers John and Jame automatically ceases. Canon 208 In canon 208 the code turns to the question of cessatio~ of ordinary power. It repeats the norm already mentionec in canon 183, §2; namely, an ecclesiastical office is not los by the loss of authority in the party who conferred th~ office, Therefore, canon 208 draws the logical conclusio~ that authority attached to an office by the law, that i~ ordinary power, is not lost when the party who conferre, the office loses his own authority. This norm is similar t. that for delegated authority at the end of canon 207, ~§1. In the present instance, the case supposed is that, fc example, of a local superior who was appointed to offic by a competent higher superior. The term o~ the highe superior ends before that of the local superior appointe~ The local superior's power, derived from law through hi office, continues even though the party who put him int the office has now lost his authority. Ordinary power ceases when one loses the office t which such authority was attached. The power is su pended, that is, it is possessed but can not be used, if i! possessor lawfully appeals a decision to a higher superior, unless the nature of the appeal is such that it does not prevent immediate execution of ~the original deCision. Ap-peals in judicial processes usually produce suspension of the decision; otherwise, for example, in purely°fid~ainis, trative decisions, appeal or, more exactly, recourse does not suspend the decision (canon 1889). The norm set down above does not derogate from the provisions of canons 2264 and 2284. The first of these canons stipulates that an act of dominative power is il-licit if placed by an excommunicated person. Further, if the excommunication has been pronounced in either a condemnatory or a declaratory sentence of a judge, the act is also invalid. An exception to that law is contained in canon 2261, §2; but both it as well as canon 2284 can ap-ply only to priests, not to sisters and brothers. Canon 209 The last of the jurisdictional canons made applicable to dominative power is of .extreme importance, even though it is not usually of frequent'application. It solves situations which earlier caused very serious problems. Canon 209 supposes a situation where, in the objective order, a superior certainly lacks dominative power or has it only in a doubtful way, In the latter case, the doubt must be positive and probable, that is, there must be good arguments in favor of possession of the authority but there must also be good arguments against its possession. The source of the doubt may arise from a lack of clarity in the law itself or from the lack of certainty that a given fact or facts exist. An illustration of a doubt of law is found in canon 105, 1° concerning the necessity of having a consultive vote of councilors in order that the superior may act validly. As it stands, the canon says: "It is sufficient for valid action if the superior hears the councilors." It is disputed among canonists whether such a hearing is required for valid action because, contrary to its usual language, the canon does not say required. As a result, since the law itself is doubtful, even if the superior did not consult the council where consultation was prescribed in the general law or in the constitutions, the superior's exercise of dominative power is certainly valid since', in virtue of canon 209, de-fect of authority is supplied by the Church in such an in-stance. A doubt of fact means that with regard toa given event there are arguments for and against its existence. If the fact is required as a condition for possessing dominative power, the Church again supplies the authority needed. To illustrate: On May 15, 1960, Brother Joachim was ap-pointed provincial by competent authority. Some time + + + Religious Authority VOLUME 20, 1961 ~93 + ÷ ÷ James 1. O'Connor, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS later it comes out that at the time of his appointment Brother Joachim seems not to have completed his thirtieth year of age. If that is true, then, without a papal dis-pensation he is not a validly appointed provincial and, furthermore, lacks the dominative power of a provincial. An investigation of the matter shows some documents as well as testimony of relatives and friends indicating he was born August 16, 1929. However, other reliable sources give the year as 1930. Further investigation does nothing to solve the doubt regarding Brother's-birth date. If he was born in 1930, he did not possess one quality required by canon 504 to qualify'as a valid provincial. The doubt in this problem has nothi~g to do with the meaning of the law; it centers on whether or not a given fact occurred in one year or another. Hence, it is a doubt of fact, Since the doubt is both positive and probable, that is, capable of proof both ways, the Church supplies the dominative power brother needed for all his actions. As a result, they are all valid and licit. As for the future, brother should, of course, be reappointed by competent authority since it is not certain that the original appointment was valid. The third instance in which the Church supplies domi-native power is that in which there is no doubt either of law or of fact but because of some externally perceptible circumstance a person is commonly believed to be a valid superior when the real truth is that this person is not, Such a condition of affairs is called common error. From the evidence available and in accord with limited knowledge, the community forms the judgment that Sis-ter Lioba was duly elected superior general on February 11, 1958. She proceeds to exercise all the powers granted such a superior in the code and in the constitutions. One day in the summer of 1960 Sister Sophia, one of the gen-eral councilors, is attending a canon law lecture at the end of which she is very disturbed and consults-the lecturer. The consultation reveals the following facts as certain be-yond all doubt. Sister Lioba pronounced her temporary vows on August 17, 1937; she made her perpetual profes-sion on August 15, 1940. During the annual retreat of 1956 something the retreat master said raised the question whether Sister Lioba had valid perpetual vows. The above sets of dates of her professions, in virtue of canon 572, §2 in conjunctibn with canons 574, §1 and 34, §5 which re-quire a full three yea.rs of temporary vows, from date to date, in order to have a valid perpetual profession, clearly prove she was not validly professed of perpetual vows on August 15, 1940. Consequently, on August 15, 1956, with the full reali~zation of the invalidity of the 1940 profession, she pronounced her perpetual vows. At the general chap-ter on February 11, 1958, she was elected superior general. Because sister certainly had perpetual vows then; because it had been almost twenty-one years since sister pro-nounced her first vows; because the casting and counting 3f the ballots had been canonically performed; and be-cause the presiding local ordinary declared the elections met all the requirements of ciin6n law, all the sister's 6f the zommunity concluded that Sister Lioba was their new su-perior general. Sister Sophia's disturbance of mind was caused by a ;tatement of the lecturer that, among other qualifications, a :religious, in order to be a valid superior general, must have been validly professed a minimum of ten years, in-cluding the time of temporary vows (canon 504). Mother Lioba, although in the community since 1935, as of Feb-ruary 11, 1958 had valid vows for only just under four and a half years (August 17, 1937-August 17, 1940; August 15, 1956-February 11, 1958). Therefore, Mother Lioba is not really the superior general. Ignorance of the law on this point, even though it excused from all sin because nobody knew any better, does not prevent the canonical effect of the non-observance of the law, for the reason that canon 504 does not provide for ignorance as excusing from the effects of canon law (canon 16, §1). That is all bad enough. However, since a validly chosen superior is required for valid admission of candidates to the novitiate, to tempo-rary and per.petual' professions, to negotiate contracts of sale or loan, to appoint provincials and local superiors, and so forth, what about the validity of all those admis-fions, contracts, appointments, as well as all other actions whose validity depended on a validly chosen superior? Prior to the 1952 reply, cases like this with their chain reaction of multiple invalidities were something of a night-mare to canonists who in various ways sought to find a legal remedy to prevent' such awful consequences. The ;urest way to take care of such cases was to request from the Holy See what is called a radical sanation (sanatio in radice). Now in virtue of the 1952 reply, in such circum-stances, namely, where common error is had, the Church mpplies the dominative power necessary for the acts ~laced by such a "superior." Consequently, as regards the ictions of Mother Lioba, all those requiring dominative 3ower in order that they be valid, are all valid by supplied iuthority. As in the case of Brother Joachim, so also in :hat of Mother Lioba the status as superior should be vali- ]ated if possible. In the present instance the easiest way ~zould be to petition the Holy See for a radical sanation. These considerations should make for a better under- .tanding and appreciation of religious authority or dotal: ~ative power and especially of the application of certain urisdictional canons to that authority. + 4- + Religious Authority VOLUME 20~ 1961 195 FRANCIS N. KORTH, S.J. Total Dedicatio in the Worl ÷ ÷ ÷ Francis N. Korth, S.J., is professor o[ canon law at St. Mary's Col-lege, St. Marys, Kansas. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]96 The apostolic constitution, Provida Mater Ecclesia, o February 2, 1947, focused attention upon a new, otficiall~ approved type of totally dedicated life in the world namely, the life in secular institutes. Members of these institutes bind themselves to the practice of evangelica poverty, chastity, and obedience according to their con stitutions for the purposes of personal sanctification and of apostolic work. Secular institutes are the third corn ponent of the juridical state of perfection-to-be-acquired as that state exists at present in the Church; the othei two components are the various kinds of religious insti tutes and of societies of common life. Outside the juridical state of perfection-to-be-acquired, there exist other groups many of them in a stage of development or growth, whose members dedicate themselves totally to an apostolic life and personal sanctification. Religious institutes and societies of common life (ex amples of these latter are the Paulist Fathers, the Mary knoll Missionary Fathers, the Vincentian Fathers) are well established and known in this country. Not so seculaI institutes, since they are a more recent development. Secular Institutes in the United States In an effort to help the growth of this new form ol specially.dedicated life in this country, as well as to make these groups and other similar groups better known and understood, a small number of interestedpersons:met in the summer of 1949 to talk things over. A year later in July, 1950, the first general meeting of such groups with some seventy participants, was held in Washington D.G. From this developed an unofficial national cente, (operating with the knowledge.and approval of ecclesiasti. cal superiors) for the purpose of coordinating activity and~ of collecting and disseminating information. Until 1957 this center was located and serviced at Notre Dame Uni cersity under the able and generous leadership of Father Ioseph Haley, C.S.C. Two other persons who have played mportant roles from the beginning are Father Patrick ~lancy, O.P. and Father Stephen Hartdegen, O.F.M. In lanuary, 1952, a restricted' gathering (seventy-five 'per- .ons attended, however) met at Notre Dame University. Fhe proceedings of both the 1950 Washington meeting ~nd this 1952 meeting at Notre Dame were compiled. In August of that same year, 1952, the first National ,~ongress of Religious in the United States' was held at Notre Dame University; during this Congress two papers were given on secular institutes. About the same time ~ome published materials about secular institutes ap-peared, and some talks were given to various groups about the same subject. In February, 1954, a meeting 3f twenty-six interested priests took place in Chicago. Meanwhile, an informational bulletin was being issued from time to time by the national coordinating center. The interests of the coordinating center had now been extended to include, besides secular institutes, other groups devoted to a life of total dedication in the world. The bulletin received the expanded title of Bulletin on the Dedicated Life in the World and Secular Institutes. In 1955 a workshop for dedicated persons in the world was conducted at Chicago. That same year regional meet-ings were held in San Francisco and New Orleans, fol-lowed by one in Chicago the next year and one in Boston in 1957. The national center's bulletin was now appear-ing under the name of Bulletin of the Life of Total Dedication in the World. In 1957 there was published a ;ymposium, Apostolic Sanctity in the World, edited by Father Haley, C.S.C.; in August of the Same year a ,aational meeting of representatives of the four regional areas was held at Notre Dame University. The Sacred Congregation for Religious had been ac-quainted with these different activities and meetings. ~'or purposes of unifying the activity and of guiding the zfforts of all concerned along proper lines and in con- ~ormity with the Holy See's directives in this matter, the 3acred Congregation urged that all these related activities ,~e now placed under the direction and guidance of the .~onference of Major Superiors of Men's Institutes in :he United States. Father Joseph Haley, c.s.c, had been in charge of zoordinating efforts until 1957, at which date the national ,nformation and coordinating center was shifted to Wash- .ngton, D.C. with Father Stempen Hartdegen, O.F.M. of Holy Name College in that city as the national director tnd president of the newly proposed (but not yet fully tpproved) Conference of the Life of Total Dedication n the World. The plan for this Conference had to be 4- 4. Total Dedication VOLUME 20, 1961 19'/ Francis N. Korth, S.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 198 submitted to the Conference of Major Superiors for approval. This approval was obtained (September 29 1959) and 'preparations were then begun for the firs triennial general meeting of the new Conference (here after referred to as the C.L.T.D.W.), Though ~his meeting was projected .for St. Louis in November, 1960, an un foreseen delay caused it to .be held in Washington, D.in January of the following year. The Washington Meeting This first triennial general meeting represented an edu cational effort to make the life of total dedication in world, especially in secular institutes, better known and understood by clergy and laity alike. The program was signed to appeal both to those whose interest in this wa) of life was just beginning and to those whose interest wa~, of long standing. The opening session of the meeting, convened in auditorium of McMahon Hall at The Catholic University on Saturday, January 28, 1961. Chairman of this session was the president of the C.L.T.D.W., Father Hartdegen. O.F.M. More than one hundred and fifty persons (laymen and laywomen, a number of priests, and several brothers and sisters) had registered for the meeting; a fairly large number of visitors, including some clerical students, individual sessions. The first formal paper of the meeting was a review the activities' during the past eleven years in the United States leading up to and culminating in the formation and. official approval of the C.L.T.D.W. This talk, .en-titled "The Conference of the Life of Total Dedication in the World--A Decade of Growth, 1950-1960/' has fur-nished the facts given in the opening part of the present article. Next on the program was a paper with the title, "An Active Lay Apostolate: Condition of Growth of Secular Institutes in the United States." The paper emphasized that an active apostolate and a deep interior life are the conditions for the growth of secular institutes in this coun-try. Secular institutes, the paper continued, are peculiarly suited to the needs of the times; because they are different in their extrinsic elements, they can fulfill the contem-porary apostolate's need of easier access to atheists and sinners; the institutes, accordingly, answer the universal need for an organized secular apostolate and for a deepl interior life. The paper then went on to give a historical and statistical survey of secular institutes, the main point~! of which are summarized below. In 1938.representatives of twenty-five societies or group~" of total dedication in the world came from various part,~ o[ the world to a meeting in Switzerland. Events such these gradually led up to the official, juridical recognition of secular institutes by the Church in 1947. In the United States at the present time there are repre-sentatives of twenty-five known groups of persons spe-cially dedicated to the apostdlat~ in the world;~ fli~se are either secular institutes or other groups which might de-velop into secular institutes. (No figures are available for Canada.) Of these twenty-five groups, twelve are secular institutes (eight are pontifical and four diocesan), seven are canonically approved pious associations, and six are not yet canonically established, but are existing with the approval of the bishop. The eight pontifical secular institutes are divided into six with final approval (Company of .St, Paul, Daughters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mis-sionaries of the Kingship of Christ [women's branch], Opus Dei, Society of the Heart of Jesus, and Teresian In-stitute) and two not yet fully approved but having the de-cree of praise (Caritas Christi Union and the Society of Our Lady of the Way). The four diocesan secular insti-tutes are: Missionary Priests of the Kingship of Christ, Regnum Christi, Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary of the Catho-lic Apostolate, and the Secular Institute of St. Plus X. The seven canonically approved pious associations are.' Caritas; Domus Dominae and Domus Domini (Madonna House); Jesus-Caritas, Fraternity of Fr. de Foucauld; Ob-late Missionaries of the Immaculate; Oblates of St. Joseph; Pax Christi; and Rural Parish Workers of Christ the King. The six groups not yet canonically established are: Daughters of Our Lady of Fatima, Ecclesian Institute of Christian Life, Institute of Blessed Martin de Porres Work-ers, Institute of the Mystical Ghrist, Institute of the Word, and Pro Deo Workers. Not falling into the above categories of specially dedi-cated persons in secular institutes or in groups that might develop into such, but still worthy of mention here under a special listing because of total dedication or noteworthy apostolic work being done by their members are the fol-lowing four groups: International Catholic Auxiliaries; La Paix (Lafayette Associated Professional Apostolate of Individual Christians ); Lay Workers of the Sacred Heart; and the Society of the Daughters of St. Francis de Sales. [Some information about the above-mentioned secular institutes and other groups is available in a pamphlet en-titled Chan:~els, published by the national information center whose address is: C.L.T.D.W., Brookland P.O. Box 4522, Washington 17, D.C. The price of the pamphlet is twenty-five cents.] The above groups exist in. nearly thirty of the states, though the overall representation is small. While it is true that the secular institute movement has developed Total Dedfi:atlon VOLUME 2°0, 1961 199 4. Francis N. Korth, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 200 fairly rapidly, still ther~ is reason for concern about the slowness of growth in the United States. The principal cause of this is perhaps the lack of realization on the part of many of what the modern apostolate means and re-quires; namely, the Christianization of modern society. Life in Secular Institutes Following the two main talks of the morning, the audi-ence was then divided into fourteen smaller work groups. Each group had a leader and a secretary; items presented in the preceding talks were discussed more fully by each group; and prepared questions to aid discussion were dis-tributed. Any conclusions were noted by the secretaries; summaries of these conclusions were presented at the final general session on the last day. The first afternoon speaker treated the topic of "Secular-ity in the States of Perfection of Secular Institutes." He made the point that the secularity of these new institutes does not imply secularism but rather a stable way of totally dedicated life in the world. The member of a secular in-stitute has the obligation of the three evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience and is always subject to the will of God expressed by the constituti6ns and by superiors. Some difficulties encountered are loneliness, being misunderstood, and a lack of some of the things of the world while living and moving in it. The lack of com-munity life and of a common garb is hard for outsiders to understand. In addition, the member of a secular in-stitute is on his own to do the required thing: perhaps to give up a movie or a television program in order to be faithful to spiritual exercises, to do without new clothing because of the poverty professed, to stay away from an office party. There are no bells to direct one's day, no assistance from the example of others, as is had in com-munity life. Mentality, personality, and strength above average are needed to lead this life. A person must be an active, militant apostle, for part of a vocation to a life in secular institutes is to be the leaven in the masses. The second part of this first afternoon was devoted to a panel on "The Evangelical Counsels," the panelists being two priests and three lay persons. The first panelist pre-sented the canonical aspects of this topic, commenting on the nature of the vows or promises and their resultant ob-ligation or bond and on the fact that one binds himself according to his paiticular constitutions, that a member of a secular institute is not a religious, and that such a call-' ing is a special vocation which at times may require rather high intellectual qualifications. Prudence and good judgment are essential in any prospective candidate and, of course, a good moral life. Some inner impulse or desire is found, but not necessarily a liking; in other words, there should be some general appeal and an investigation of that appeal, The second panelist considered the moral aspects of a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. His remarks may be summed up in the followifi~ ~iy. Poverty~ tile ~dical ownership remains, while the useful ownership is re-stricted according to the constitutions. A very strict ac-count of income and expenditures is required, the account being rendered to the superior usually at the time of the annual retreat.Combined with generosity to the poor, frugality is practiced. Ckastily: all sins against' chastity must be avoided and, moreover, ~easonable means must be taken to preserve the full beauty of this virtue. Members in the strict sense of secular institutes are forbidden to marry. Obedience: superiors are to be obeyed within the limits of the rule and constitutions. A formal command would be given in writing or before two witnesses and with the use of a special formula; this power is not to be used beyond what is found in the rule or statutes or constitu-tions. ',The practical "aspects of living poverty, chastity, and obedience in a secular institute were briefly treated by the three remaining panelists, each of whom considered one of the three evangelical counsels. The first speaker discussed the practical living of poverty, At times, he noted, it is difficult to determine the detailed application of poverty, particularly in the case of persons engaged in individual work or careers~ One should live in the spirit of poverty and pray to understand what: living in that spirit means. In everyday living two methods of practicing poverty are followed: 1) the individual keeps his own budget and sup-plies his own needs, getting the necessary permissions from his superiors; 2) income obtained from work is pooled and the needs of individuals are supplied by Superio[s. from the common fund. At times there might also be some com-bination of both these methods. Practical ~tuestions, de-termined or settled by the Constitutions or the rule of life of each institute, inclUde the following: whether or not to keep a budget, how much may be spent without special permission, how much to give to charity on one's own ini-tiative, how much.to give to the institute. A definite record of revenues and expenses must be~ kept and reported to superiors at stated times, Permission is required to spend any amount; a general permission might cover expendi-tures for medicine, toilet articleS, and so forth; for cloth-ing, by way of example, specific or special permission might be required. The alignment of permissions varies with the occupations of the members. In emergencies one may act and later report the matter. A booby trap in 'prac-ticing poverty could be the accepting of gifts from relatives or friends (though in some groups it is permissible tO ao ÷ ÷ ÷ Total Dedication VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Francis N. Korth, $.1. REVtEW FOR R~t.tGIOUS 202 cept gifts even of money) or working extra hours to earn more money when the time should be given to the apos-tolate. A monthly financial report might be required. The rule of life of a particular group will flesh out its constitu-tions on these and similar points. It is important to note that the practical living or regulation of poverty varies considerably with different institutes. Though there is a great variety concerning poverty in the const.itutions, some restriction is essential for all. The speaker on the practical living of obedience noted that obedience presupposes a mature mentality which sees that it is from Calvary that. the meaning of obedience be-comes clear. Obedience gives one an assurance of fulfilling God's will and it frees from pride. Just as other things connected with secular institutes have secular character-istics, so too does this obedience. The member of a secular institute is neither alone nor completely dependent: There are no .schedules or other helps as in religious institutes. Secular institute obedience must be active; often the su-perior gives only general directives. For example, the hour of rising in the morning and the hour of retiring at night are indicated; but if some friend or guest is in the house, the member could probably bypass that directive for the sake of charity. The last of ~he five panelists discussed the practical living of chastity. This means no marriage and no sin against chastity; for God, marriage is renounced and per-fect chastity is undertaken. In regard to dances and shows, the me .mber of a secular institute does not make a habit of these diversions but "attendance is permissible if charity or the apostolate requires it, One must be selective in tele~ vision programs; similarly, books and movies, if there is time for them, must be chosen wisely. Women members should wear clothing that is modest and suitable for their apostblate. Jewelry should not be expensive; it should be used as part6f the costume and not for show. As a motive for faithfulness in preserving chastity, a deep love of Christ should be cultivated. A strong devotion to the Blessed Mother will also help, as.also will fidelity to the rule, which was given precisely to be of assistance in this matter. Formation of M'embers of Secular Institutes The evening session feat ~ured another panel whose topic was "Formation for the Life. of Total Dedication in the World." This time, there w~ere four panelists, two priests and two lay persons. The first panelist spoke about spirit~ ual instruction and remarked that the purpose of a pro-gram of spiritual instruction is to give glory to God, to further the work of the Church, and to form apostolic secu-lar ambassadors of God.: For this latter purpose, apostolic virtues, especially as detailed in the particular constitu- tions, are necessary. In general there is need of zeal for souls, prudence, fortitude, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In any consideration of method in spiritual instruction, it is important to remember that the spiritual life must be allowed to grow by degrees. 'It ~as,suggested by the~speaker that in the period of formation fundamentals be stressed; a knowledge of secular institutes in general and of the con-stitutions of a particular group must be imparted along with the spirit of that particular group. In the period of temporary incorporatibn, the above areas should be devel-oped more fully, the .person should be acquainted with the apostolate of the institute, and forbearance of the faults of others should be inculcated.In the period of final or definitive incorporation there is need for continued spiritual instruction, for growing simplicity in one's spirit-ual life with no overemphasis on either the active or prayer aspect of secular institute life. Spiritual guidance was discussed by the next speaker. The spiritual director of a secular institute, he said, must realize that he is working with specially dedicated souls. He must teach them the principles of the spiritual, life with emphasis on prayer and mortification. He must also teach them to think with the Church, to have zeal, tO lead a life of self-denial in order to live with Christ. For purposes of guidance, the panelist suggested the following three "p's" as useful: 1) a philosophy of life (= the faith); 2) a pro-gram (for which consult the constitutions, customs, and heritage of the particular group); and 3) "passion" (= en-thusiasm for living total dedication). The means at a di-rector's disposal are conferences, lectures, discussions, di-rected spiritual reading, and especially a mirroring of all he teaches. The two lay participants on this panel discussed "Teach-ing and Living the Rule and Constitutions in Secular Life." For teaching the rule and constitutions, the third panelist stressed the need of starting with humility, since one is to serve when one governs or teaches. Compassion, zeal, pity, and patience are necessary to teach or train young people. The teacher must teach by living and must himself be immersed in prayer. In actually teaching, the person to be instructed must be studied and the amount of training or instruction to be given here and now must be duly measured. If the person should at present be con-fused or somewhat emotionally disturbed, teaching of mental hygiene is indicated. The vocabulary of instruc-tion should be adapted to the capacity of the hearer. The questions that will be asked of a teacher of the way of life in a totally dedicated group will always tend to be the same; hence the teacher must learn to be patient with the questioners. The final speaker of the panel gave some thoughts on ÷ ÷ ÷ Total Dedication VOLUME 20, 1961 203 ÷ ÷ ÷ Francis N. Korth, S.$. REVIEW I:OR RELIGIOUS 204 living the rule and constitutions. To this end the personal touch and a greater initiative in the following of Christ are needed, especially for groups that do not have training of members in common. Perfection is to be sought from the rule which must be taught gradually without any great upheaval or change in the candidate's life. It must be stressed, however, that the life the candidate is contem-plating is a life of total dedication. He should be taught that in day-by-day living decisions must be made by the individual, but later he should check his decision with the superior's judgment. In the realm of poverty, one should have as if he had not; hence there should be a spirit of being ready to turn.over all one's money to the in-stitute. In order to live the rule and constitutions there must be a constant, conscientious, mature completeness in giving. On Sunday, January 29, the second day of the meeting, a low Mass was celebrated in the crypt chapel of the Na-tional Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The sermon at the Mass was entitled "The Catholic University and Secular Institutes." The hope was expressed that at some later date a planned series of general courses might be given at The Catholic University on basic knowledge about secular institutes and on training and spiritual in-struction fundamental for life in any groups devoted to total dedication. The Apostolate The general sessions were again held in the auditorium of McMahon Hall. The opening morning session pre-sented a panel of lay participants on the overall subject of "The Apostolate." Five speakers successively discussed lay missions (two speakers), social work, nursing, and teaching. The first speaker on lay missions gave some background information on the general idea of missionary work in the Church. The particular role of the lay apostle in mission areas, he said, is to develop an atmosphere of Christianity through the practice of Christian principles. To achieve this purpose, the natives must be educated in Christian principles, perhaps initially through the ministrations of those in some profession such as nursing. To prepare mod-ern young people for such lay missionary work on a life-time basis, spiritual preparation must first of all be stressed. Next, the prospective missionaries are to under. stand that there must be no forcing of American attitudes about government and life on the natives. The basic atti-tude of the missionary should be humility; he must be sympathetic to the customs and culture of the people among whom he is working. To this end a study should be made of the culture, philosophy, and literature of the par-ticular missionary country. The second speaker on lay missionary work pointed out that opportunities for laymen to spend their lives as per-manent missionaries are found in ~ay mission societies. A lay missionary should be imbued with the missiona~ry mys-tique: to give. He is "going~oht'' to help other p0~ential members of the Mystical Body. Emotional balance is neces-sary for a lay missionary. He should be able to accommo-date himself to the culture of. the country in which he works. "Missionary poverty" means giving up one's former way of living and even of thinking. Joy will be found in a sense of fulfillment, in the hope enkindled in men's eyes, in the happiness of the children one meets, and in the friendship of the natives. Hardships will include discour-agement, lack of assimilation by the natives, rigors of cli-mate, and the like. Teams of missionaries, as opposed to free lances, supply mental uplift, coordination of activity, spiritual assistance, and so forth. The third panelist spoke on the apostolate of social work, an apostolate that implies service and sacrifice. So-cial work implies climbing into the stream of human events and adversities to serve a fellow human being who is suffering. This demands a spirit of self-sacrifice and the conviction that no human being is trifling or insignificant. The fourth panelist discussed nursing as an apostolate. Nursing, it was said, is an art and science that deals with the patient in his entire environment. The nurse must be a mature person with a ministry of mercy based on the love of God. The nurse is to see Christ in the patients, for there is a need of "a restoration of nursing in Christ" to counter-act a secularistic and materialistic attitude. The average nurse today seems self-centered instead of Christ-centered. The nurse should try to help patients spiritually and should teach the Gospel message by action; thus, for ex-ample, the nurse should be ready "to go the other mile" whenever the opportunity arises. A nurse truly dedicated to Christ shares His sufferings and also His joys. The fifth panelist on the apostolate considered the area of teaching, pointing out that educational statistics in the United States show that many Catholic students on all levels of training are not in Catholic schools. Some sug-gestions have appeared in various publications to meet the situation; for example, to close the first four or five grades in parochial schools, to have fewer but more excellent Catholic schools, or to sacrifice tremendously to retain the entire system. Whatever be the solution to the prob-lem, it will always remain true that Catholic teachers must endeavor to be at least as professionally competent as non-Catholic teachers. The speaker suggested that a specialized apostolic group of lay teachers is needed in this country. Moreover, the influence and activity of the Cath-÷ ÷ ÷ Total Dedication VOLUME 201 I961 £05 Francis N. Eor~h, $.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 206 olic teacher could well be extended into the area of adult education. After the close of the Sunday morning session, a formal group luncheon was held, at which the Very Reverend Celsus Wheeler, O.F.M. of the Conference of Major Su: periors of Men's Institutes in the United States gave a word of encouragement to the work done at the meeting. He told those in attendance that secular institutes and other groups requiring a life of total dedication in the world are in a splendid position to establiSh contact with people for apostolic purposes in places and circumstances where priests and religious often could not make contact. The second speaker at the luncheon was a physician, a member of a professional men's sodality, who spoke on the topic,. "Dedication to t~he Lay Apostolate through the Professions." In his speech he stressed that though the lay apostolate can achieve a vfist amount of good, still consid-ering the number of Catholics in the United States, there is not the'desired impact or influence which might be ex-pected. Many young people today have no concept of how their future work as professional men might be utilized for the apostolate. One must learn to think with the Church and to carry that thinking into one's professional life. A deep interior life must be developed so that this can spill over into apostolic work. As an example of what one group of professional men is doing for the apostolate, a detailed description was given by the speaker of the sodality to which he helorigs, of its course of training, and of some of its apostolic activities; his presentation was both impressive and inspiring, A business meeeting was held in the auditoriu

Issue 20.4 of the Review for Religious, 1961. ; JOSEPH F.~ GALLEN, s.J. Femininity and Spirituality A female insight of Gertrud von le Fort~ is the theme of this article. She writes: "L~on Bloy's words, 'The holier a woman, the more she .is a woman,' are valid also in re-verse; for the truly feminine role in every situation is i(retrievably bound to her religious character.''1 There-fore, it is likewise true that the more she is a woman, the holier she is. This principle extends also to the i:eligious state, and our topic.is that the holiness of the "sister must be built on her feminine nature and thus be distinctively feminine. Woman in the Gospel The women close to our Lord ir~ the CO, spel were femi-nine women. This is evidently true of the Blessed Virgin. She was the mother of mothers. Divine motherhood ele-vated her above all other mothers not "only in grace and sanctity but also naturally. "We often fail to re-member to what extent Mary is the most perfectly developed of all creatures, not only on the supernatural but also on the human level. Yet, it is a fact. There has been no other human being whose personality was de-veloped to such a pitch, to such a fullness of harmony and strength. In her, every power was fully cultivated and brought to the highest degree of accomplisliment. In her heart, all the delicacy of a virgin and all the ardor of a bride's love are joined to all the tenderness and gentleness of a mother. Purity, fervor, kindness, the strength to persevere, merciful understanding, the, power to forgive, a source of continual renewal and of refound enthusiasm . the heart of our Lady draws this unique treasure from her participation in the mystery of the Re-demption. In the Redemption were revealed all the potentialities' of her being. God Himself allowed this de- 1 Gertrud von le Fort, The Eternal Woman (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954), 57. + 4- + Jose~ph F. Gallen, S.J. is pr0tessor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. VOLUME 20, 1961" 4" 4. 4.~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 238 sire for sacrifice and the gift of self, which is in the heart of every woman and mo.ther, and which was in Mary to a supreme degree, to be realized to the full.''2 M6ther-hood, physical or spiritu.al, is the full development of the female personality, and in Mary this development reached its perfection. She is not only the saint of saints; she is the woman of women and the supernatural and natural ideal of all women. A devoted band of women disciples, with feminine spontaneity and. generosity, followed our Lord from Gali-lee and ministered to Him.8 A sinful woman bathed His feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them.4 Martha and Mary had the faith of the heart in our Lord: "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died.''5 The femininity of Mary, who sat in such confidence at His feet,e in no way repelled ou~ Lord: "Now J~sus loved Martha and her sister Mary, and Lazarus.''7 Women com[ort'ed our Lord on the way to Calvary,8 stood at the foot of the cross,9 and would not depart from the cross.10 When the tomb was sealed, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph Could not leave it.11 They left fin.a, lly onl~ to think. of Him~and to prepare spices and ointments for His body~12 At the earliest moment after the Sabbath rest, at dawn on the third day, they returned to the tombA8 When the risen Christ appeared to them, they embraced His feet and worshipped Him.x4 Our faith is founded on the. Resurrection of our Lord. According to the Gospel story, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene; by His commigsion, this feminine ~oman became the hei'ald of the Resurred: tion to the ~pogtle~ a'nd, in the liturgy of the Church, the apostle to the apostles,x5 Woman in 'the Litu.rgy The same feminine tone is found throughout the liturgy ~and in the approved prayer of the Church. We have only to recall the titles in the Litany of Loretto: Mother most amiable, Virgin most merciful, Cause of ~ Paul-Marie de la Croix, O.C.D. ~hastity (Westminster: Newman; 1955), 145. tMt 27:55; Mk 15:.41; Lk 23:55. ~Lk 7:38. ~ Jn 11:21, 32. eLk 10:39. ~Jn 11:5. s Lk 23 : 27. OJn 19:25. ~o Mk 15= 40; Lk 23:49. ~a Mt 27 : 61 ; Mk 15 : 47; Lk 23 : 55. ~Mk 16:1; Lk 24:1. ~ Mt 28: 1; Mk 16: I-2; Lk 24: 1/ t' Mt 28:9. ~Mt 28:!0; Jn 20:17-18. our joy, Mystical rose, Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted. We know that in the liturgy the Christian virgin is the bride of Christ and the bridal theme is: found frequently in Masses of the Blessed Mother and :of virgins,. In one,of the prayers from the common office of a virgin, we ask the grace to learn loving devotion to God from the virgin. In the third responsoryo of the feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Mother, we read: "Thou art made :beautiful and gentle in thy delights, O holy mother of,God,, and in the same responsory of the feast of St. Agnes:. "When I love Him, I am chaste; when I touch Him, I am pure; when I possess Him, I am :a virginY The hymn of Vespers of the feast of St. Mary Magdalene reads: "Source .and giver of heavenly light, with a glance You lit a fire o[ love in Magdalene and thawed the icy coldness of ~her heart. Wounded by love of You, she ran to anoint Your sacred feet, wash them~,with her ~tears, wipe ~hem With her hair and kiss them with her lips. She was not afraid to stand by the cross; in anguish of'soul she, stayed near Your tomb with-out any fear of the cruel soldiers, for love casts out fear. Lord Christ; love most true, cleanse us from our sins, fill our heart with grace and grant uvthereward of heaven/'16 Finally, the woman, in the office for holy women is a motherly woman. Woman in the .Doctrine ol the Church Doctrinally, the Church proclaims the distinctively feminine temperament in declaring that the mutual as-sistance or complementing of the sexes is an end of marriage. A fundamental reason for the " Church's re-strictions on coeducation is the specific feminine psy-chology. Pius XI stated in the Encyclical on Catholic education: "There is not in nature itself, which fashions the two quite different in organism, in temperament, in abilities, anything to suggest that there,can be or ought. to be intermingling, much less equality in the training of the two sexes."17 Plus XII reaffirmed the same principle: "Education proper to the sex of the young girl, and not rarely also of'the grown woman, is therefore a necessary condition of her preparation and formation for a life worthy of her.''Is Nature and Grace Sanctity, and also apostolic sanctity, can be defined as God giving me His grace and my c6rrespondence with 1BTranslation of the Reverend Joseph Connelly, H~mns'ot the Roman Liturgy (London: Longmans, Green, !~957), 214. x~ Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 22 (1930), 72. ~S Allocution to the Women Delegates oI the Christian Societies o! Italy, October 21, 1945, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 37 (1945), 293-94. + + Femininity spirituality VOLUME 20, 1961 ~9 ÷ ÷ ÷ Jowph F. Ga//en, $4. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 240 that grace. In our present context, God gives the grace to a human being, but to a woman, not to an angel nor to a man. It is evidently true that grace builds on nature and on the whole nature of the individual. Grace does not destroy but elevates and helps nature. Christian spiritu-ality does not annihilate our natural tendencies but orientates them properly, directs them to their proper end, turns them to God. It follows that grace does not destroy the feminine nature, that the more fully de-veloped the feminine nature the more effective grace will ordinarily be, and that the saintly woman is not an un-sexed woman but a feminine woman dominated by grace. Bainvel says of the saints: "Grace extinguished nothing of the light of their-intelligence, did not deprive~.them of .any strength of will, nor of their tenderness of heart, norof the delicacy of their sentiments.''19 There can be an obstacle, and a serious obstacle, to the sanctity of sisters by a spiritual formation, direction, and a concept of spirituality that tend to defeminize them. An antecedent possibility of this error exists. In-stitutes of religious women are based, and some of them very directly and immediately, on those of men; men have been the founders or cofounders of many institutes of women; men write the spiritual books that sisters read; and they instruct and direct sisters. The general observa-tion of Fitzsimons can be applicable here: ". and I noted how often, both in the secular and religious sphere, in small matters as in great, women had to be content with an adaptation of something masculine.''a0 The re-ligious life has to be essentially the same for both men and women; but that of women should have a feminine soul, atmosphere, and tone. In this matter, man can be a sound observer; he can point out defects, show the gen-eral direction, but he cannot be a master. Only women can fully understand and create this feminine atmosphere. Gina Lombroso tells women: "If we suffer, it is not be-cause we are different from him but because man does not realize in what way we are different.''21 Priests are not exempt from this common male ignorance of the female temperament. We exhort them to be Christian soldiers despite the fact that their destiny is physical or spiritual motherhood and that "woman attains her fullness as a mother whenever she holds our her hands to the weak and abandoned, to those who have need of care and pro- ~j. v. Bainvel, Nature et surnaturel (Paris: Beauchesne, 1920), 160. ~" John Fitzsimons, Woman Today (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1952), vii. aa Gina Lombroso, The Soul oI Woman (New York: Dutton, 1923), 94-95. tection."~z Moralists have sound reasons for counseling brevity in hearing the confessions of women, but it can be that they and we other priests are unaware of the fact that woman often dislikes to speak of her interior and that her diffuseness can frequently be merely the'inability to express her interior. "Furthermore, the feminine in-stinct is to hide deep emotions, and as woman can divine other people's sentiments she cannot understand that man cannot divine hers but demands that she put her most sacred feelings into words.''z3 We can and often do instruct and guide women with no attention to their distinctive temperament and thereby fall at least 'partially into the error underscored by Leclercq: "Every system, every institution, every social practice, every 'legal meas-ure that ignores what is specifically feminine in woman's make-up denatures the personality of the woman under the false pretense of developing it.''~4 Differences Between Man and Woman A detailed study of this subject must begin from the basic fact, evident objectively but ignored too much in practice, of the differences between man and woman. Plus XII instructed us: "'it is true that man and woman are, with regard to their personality, of equal dignity, honor, merit, and esteem. But they do not~ compare equally in everything. Definite abilities, inclinations, and natural dispositions belong solely to the man or the woman.''2~ Alexis Carrel, whom all quote on this topic, emphasizes the same principle in greater detail: "The differences ex-isting between man and woman do not come from the particular form of the sexual organs, the presence of the uterus, from gestation, or from the mode of education. They are of a more fundamental nature. They are caused by the very structure of the tissues and by the impregna-tion of the entire organism with specific chemical sub-stances secreted by the ovary. Ignorance of these funda-mental facts has led promoters of feminism to believe that both sexes should have the same education, the same powers, and the same responsibilities. In reality, woman differs profoundly from man. Every one of the cells of her body bears the mark of her sex. The same is true of her organs and, above, all, of her nervous system. Physio-logical laws are as inexorable as those of the sidereal world. They cannot be replaced by human wishes. We ~Fitzsimons, op. cit., I00. ~Lombroso, op. cit., 89. ~'Eugene Duthoit, quoted by Jacques Leclercq, Marriage and the Fam:si lAy l(lNoecwut iYoonr kto: Pthuset eGt,i 1rl9s4 o9)!, C29a2th-9o3l.ic Action, April 24, 1945, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 35 (1943), 137. + + + Femininit~ and Spirituality VOLUME 20, 1961 241 4. + Joseph F. Gallen, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS are obliged to accept them just as they are. Women should develop their aptitudes in accordance with their own nature, without trying to imitate the males. Their part in the progress of civilization is higher than that of men. They should not abandon their specific functions.''26 Two other doctors, Strecker and Lathbury, are equally force-ful: "Will it never be learned that men and women can-not be reduced to a test-tube level? There are immense differences, including chemical ones and profound psy-~ chological differences which persist to the end of life.''27 These profound psychological differences evidently de-mand that the spiritual education, training, formation, direction, and government of religious women be dis-tinctively feminine. To ignore this principle is to re-tard and distort woman's spiritual growth.The sister is to develop herself, to sanctify herself, but in a dif-ferent and feminine way. "Like the man, the woman is.a human person, with all the dignity of a human being. But she is a human person in another manner than the man. She has, therefore, the same right as the man to unfold her personality, the same right to seek. after her perfection. Yet she is different, and as a consequence. her personality unfolds itself under other conditions. The rule of equality between man and woman is a rule of differentiated equality. The woman not only has an equal right with the man to the full development of her being; she has an equal right to develop herself in .a different way. To impose man's manner of life upon the woman, or to give her the same status, is to violate her right, which is to be different from him.''2s Man is Egocentric; Woman is "Alterocentric" Students of this question inform us that man is ego-centric, is centered on his own activities and pleasures, is interested in and devotes himself to things. But a very fundamental fact about woman is that she is "altero-centric"; she centers her attention, feelings, ambition, and enjoyment in other persons; she is not interested in things but in persons; her satisfaction is in other persons whom she can love and from whom she can receive love. A distinctive property of this attribute is that of great generosityl a woman has the capacity of giving and de-voting herself completely to other persons. "A woman is much more likely to become emotional about somebody: Her greater affectivity is towards persons; she is a more social person. She is interested in the living human being; ~eAlexis Carrel, Man the Unknown (New York: Halcyon House, 1938), 89-90. ~ Edward A. Strecker,. M.D., and Vincent T. Lathbury, M.D., Their Mother's Daughters (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1956), 26. ~ ts Leclercq, op. cit., 292. not in things, actions, accomplishments, theories, sta-tistics, or impersonal plans as such.'~29~:"~To be religiously alive needs precisely those qualities~with which woman is so richly endowed, the .gift of personal' relationship, instinct for vita]ovalues, and :the capacity for giving one-self completely to another, ,to The Other.''30 If this personal relation is'so~ deewin the nature of~ woman, why is it that God is not-more prominent in the spirituality of sisters? If woman is~not interested in things, why.are rule, regulatibn, custom, practice, and observance so characteristic ~of her spirituality? Why do~s she look on a thing~ the.Holy Rule, as,the ultimate norm of her conduct and not merely as a means to s6mething per-sonal, identification with Christ? Why does she consider herfoundress as a lawmaker, dot 'asa spiritual mother, a giver of spiritual life? .Why does she narrow her vision to the details of the rule of the foundress .and forget the rule as the~path to the distinctive virtues of~the fouhdress? Why does she place so much of her spirituality iri ex-ternals and not in the _Persons of the Trinity; Who dwell ~¢ithin her,° and in Jesus ,Christ? Doesn't the womanly-aatfire, of a sister, her spirituality, apostolic efficacy, and aappiness demand that we decrease the insistence on ex- :ernals and. emphasize much more the~interior life? Isn:v , theological training necessary.so,that she will have the- ;olid truth that nourishes such a li~e?~ Doesn't that same ;enerous nature require that we abandon the spirituality ff uiere morality, sin a;ad no sin, of the mere practice of ~irtue; and that we emphasize the personal truths of the firitual life, the fatherhood of God, the love ofGod° "or each one of us, the indwelling of the Trinity, the~ ~erson of Christ, the Mystical'Body, the life of grace, and he motherhood of Mary? The spirituality of the sister hould be distinctively a person-to-person relation to God. ~piritual Motherhood The great ~characteristic of wom~n is motherliness. P~us' (II affirmed.~ "Every woman is destined to be a m(~ther, notl~er in the physical s~n~e o~ 'the word, or in a rriore p.iritual and elevated but no less true sense.''31 On an- )ther occasion, he stated: "But with you We see around J~ today a gathering q~ religious ~omen, teachers and thers engaged in ihe work0f Christian education. They re. m~thers, too, not by.{aaiure nor by blood but by the ~Lucius F. Cervantes, S.J., And God" Made Man and Woman 2hicago:-Regnery, 1959), 88. ~Eva Firkel, Woman in the Modern W~'rl~l (Chicago: Fides0~1957), a~Allocution to the Women Delegates o! the Christian Societies Italy, October 21, 1945, Acta ~postolicae.$edis, $7 (19~5), 287: Femininity an~ Spirituality VoLuME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Joseph "F~. Gallen, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 244 love that they bear to the young.''32 Gertrud von le Fort expresses the same truth in womanly fashion: "Whereso-ever woman is most profoundly herself, she is not as her-self but as surrendered; and wherever she is surrendered, there she is also bride and mother. The nun dedicated to adoration, to works of mercy, to the mission field, carries the title of mother; she bears it as virgin mother.''a3 Eva Firkel asserts the same principle: "All feminine ac-tivity is shot through with protective motherly qualities, These emanate from every healthy woman, no matter whether she be married or single, whether she has children or not.''34 Here we touch the apostolic field more immediately. The sister teacher, nurse, social worker is not.a professional woman; for her these are a form and exercise of spiritual motherhood~3a If she does not under-take and perform them with the instinctive and spon-taneous devotion and.love of mother; if her relation to others in her work is not a complete motherly "other-ness," total and instinctive lack of self-interest and self-~ regard; if it is lacking in motherly generosity, tact, sensi-tivity ~to others and their 'sufferings and weaknesses, delicacy, sympathy, and compassion, she is not carrying out her apostolate according to the mind of the Church. The reason is that her.spirituality is not fused with a great endowment of her feminine nature. A mother is attractive and lovable. Even the very accurate and sharp-edged arrows against "Momism" have failed ,to lessen the truth that all the world loves a mother. It follows that the sister apostle should be attractive and lovable. As Mary, her own mother arid ideal, the sister should primarily attractoothers to God, not to herself nor for herself. The apostolic life also is a complete com-mitment and detachment; we are not in it for ourselves but only for God and souls. It is tobe remembered that' there is no imperfection in liking others and being liked by them when this is no obstacle to the greater sanctifica-tion of either, and much less if thereby we lead souls to God.' A sister can fail here. She can be unattractive in her. personality, conduct,, and manner to those for whom she is laboring, and especially to girls. The apostle sym bolizes the things of God; we cannot expect others be drawn to the things 'of God if they dislike the apostle. This apostolic loss is the primary.consideration. There is a secondary aspect but one that is Of great importanc.e. Isn't the attractive or unattractive Sister apostle a highly important, factor in the vocation problem with school ~Allocution to the Women o] Catholic Action of the Dioceses oJ Italy, ~October 21, 1941, Acta ApostolicaeSedis, 33 (1941), 457. =Von le Fort, op. cir., 7. ~Firkel, op. cir., 22. ==Von le Fort, op, cit., 87. girls and even more so with' nurses? I believe it is an incontrovertible fact that ~irls and young women will be drawn to a particular institute, generally speaking, in direct proportion to their liking for the sisters of that institute. There will be no profitand less sense in fight-ing this fact. We can state the present truth harshly but briefly: an unloved apostle very frequently at least means an unloved God; and we can add a second axiom: there is nothing in the love of God that ~should make us um loved by man. "Look at~Jesus, the :supernatural in-carnatedl Is he not,the ineffably beautiful and attractive ideal of human nature, isn't He, ag it~were, a living invitation to elevate ourselves to the supreme perfection of humanity?''s~'''Or Mary, is she not, after Jesus, the ideal of humanity,.and .should we not say, with due proportion, of her what we say of Him?''3~ If dislike, opposition, hos-tility, and enmity arise, the fault should not be in the apostle. The world hated Christ, our Lord, but the fault was not His. Woman is Made to Love and to be Loved A third characteristic of woman is that she is made to love and to be loved. Psychology and poetry emphasize this pervasive quality of the 'life of woman. "She is im-pelled by her very nature to share the joys and sorrows of others, she is made to love and to' be loved, and she can-not find her~ sufficiency in herself. That is' why a woman who is selfish in a self-centered kin~l of way is an anomal~, more distressing to encounter than a selfish man. She ha~ denied her nature f6r she :liag ceased to exist for 3thers, and in so doing she'has dried up at its source the possibility of those emotion~il experiences which ~are'vital _o her femininity.''as Man's spirituality may be founded :,n mere principle, supernatural truth, obligation, and _-luty; the spirituality of ~ womaff should be characterized ¯ y love of God. Man can work for others in an objectiye, letached, and impersonal manner; the apostolic woman nust work for others with love. Otherwise, she is Untrue o her feminine nature and is not utilizing that nature ully for God. As a woman, Janet Kalven, sums it up: 'Woman's essential mission in the world is to be for nankind a living example of the spirit of total dedication o God. To love God with her whole .heart, her whole hind, her whole strength, and to radiate that love to the ;,orldthis is the universal task ofwoman."s~ If woman's spirituality is to b'e dominated by love of ~ Bainvel, op. cir., 158. ¯ ~ Bainvel, op. cit., 159. ~s Fitzsimons, op. cir., 89. ~ ° ~Janet Kaiven, quoted b~ William B. Flaheity, S.J., The Destiny I Modern Woman (Westminster: Newman, 1950), 189-90. ÷ 4. Femininity and Spirituality VOLUME 20~ 1961 Joseph F. Gallen, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 246 God, if through her "otherness," generosity, motherliness, and loving nature, she. is more capable than man of un-selfish and disinterested love of 'God, why should the mental prayer of a sister be an abstract discursive prayer, not affective prayer? a prayer of the mind and not of the affections? a mere abstract study of virtue and examina tion of conscience? Why shouldn't her feminine nature, which dislikes the abstract and is endowed with a livelie imagination, her logic, which is more of the heart than o reason, lead her naturallyr to affective .prayer? If he thought and speech are infused and even permeate with emotion in ordinary life, why should they be coldl intellectual and lifeless with God? "Even at the highes levels of the spiritual life this distinction is clear. In th writings of St. John of the Cross and of St. Teresa of Avil one can sense the two approaches: St. John in his writing remains always ~he philosopher, having made a complet gift.of himself in the abyss of faith, whereas St. Teres loves God tenderly and has made her love of Him as he heavenly spouse into a second nature.''40 Why shoul the sister's examination of conscience be a mere countin of defects and reading of an act of contrition? Why ar rule and observance so marked a note of her spirituality not consecration to God and .generosity? How many re ligious women undeista_nd that there is nothing purel negative in the spiritual life, that abnegation, self-denial mortification, and purification are only means to some thing positive, to the love of God? "For in Christianit there is no place for a love of death; death occurs to liv more fully. From the spiritual point of view, asceticis is not unlike what the. wrong.side~ of. a material is to it right side. There is no right-side without a wrong side but the wrong side is inseparable from the right sid and only subsists through it."~, ~ It has been aptly ren~arked that all schools of spiritu ality are distinguished by the emphasis they place on th love of God or on mortification and detachment as lea i.ng to~ the love of God. In the former, the love of Go draws the soul away from affections that would imped this love; in the latter schools, the. affections are turne away from other things to attain and increase the love o God. Both approaches should be used throughout lif but it seems to me that the affective nature of woma should more frequently incline to and follow the fir approach. Mortification and detachment are an essenti part of both systems.In the first, the love of God dra the soul to mortification and detachment; in the secbn ~ Fitzsimons, op. cir., 115. "tFran~ois de Saint-Marie, O.C.D., Chastity (Westminster: Ne man, 1955), 239. mortification and detachment are the means of attaining and perfecting love of God. Woman is Emotional Doctors Strecker and Lathhury mfiintain: "L'ife ~is lived largely not by the intellect but by maturely motivated emotions.''42 Emotion can not only be immature; it can also be wholly unreasonable, even though the first law of a human being is~to be guided by reason. This ir-rational characteris'tic is particularly true of fear in woman, and there is a danger that the spiritual life of the religious woman will be tyrannized and weakened by countless unreasonable and persistent fears. She can fail to distinguish between a fearful thought and a fear that has foundation, can allow the mere presence or recur-rence of a fearful thought to endow it automatically with objective validity, omit all reflection on whether the fear-ful thought 1.s supported by any tea_son ,n fact, pray for release from fear but fail to advert to the obvious fact that God cannot ordinarily be expected to do for us what we can do for ourselves. God not only gives us grace; He has also given us a mind that can ascertain whether a tear is unreasonable and~ a will that enables us to ignore the unreasonable fear. When it exists, this paralysis of fear proves that woman has not built her spirituality on her feminine nature. Love drives out or attenuates fear, and the spiritual life of a woman should be preeminently love of God. An incomplete and misguided spiritual forma-tion is a serious cqntributory factor to the habit of fear. Fear will readily and forcefully fill up the vacuum of an interior life in the externalist and devotionalist. The emotional nature of woman tends also to senti-mentality and to a shallow and superficial spirituality~ This is the cause of the widespread externalism and de-votionalism, of the endless non-liturgic~il vocal prayer, the prevalence of "novena" spirituality, 'the scurrying ~bout for additional Masses, and the sufficiently excessive ,ddiction to articles of devotion. An interior soul is one a, hose growing love of God, living of the participation of .he divine nature, divine adoption, and of the indwelling )f the Trinity have led to identification with Christ in hought, will, desire, and affection. Such a soul has little :apacity and less desire for devotionalism. Devotionalism s a symptom and proof of the lack of a true interior life. Fhe cure is a~ solid education at the beginning of the eligious life, a solid spiritual formation, and theological raining. An emotional nature is also impressionable, unstable, ,ariable. A formation and direction that are aware of "~ Strecker-Lathbury. op. cir., 1 I. 4- 4- ÷ Femininity and Spirituality VOLIJME ~0~ 1961. ÷ ÷ Joseph F. Gallen, ~gVIEW I:OR RELIGIOUS 248 these facts will strive to give the sister the strength and constancy of will that are more proper to man. A solid education at the beginning of the .religious life will again be a most effective auxiliary. Woman is Compassionate The next characteristic of woman is her love of the afflicted. She loves the weak, the sick, the suffering, the wretched, the oppressed, the disgraced, the victims of ill fortune; and her love does not distinguish between the worthy and unworthy. In the thought of Gina Lombroso, to woman whatever causes suffering and is avoidable is unjust, whatever causes happiness is just,4a Gertrud von le Fort concurs: "As the motherly woman feeds the hungry, so also does she console the afflicted. The weak and the guilty, the neglected and the persecuted, even the justly punished, all those whom a judicial world no longer wishes to support and protect, find their ultimate rights vindicated in the consolation and the compassion that the maternal woman gives.''44 Eva Firkel repeats the same thought: "A mother knows how helpless creature., can be; she will support, give and care, without troubling too much whether the objects of her love are worthy of it She will not constantly rub up against the defects ot others, but hide and mitigate them. One might also say it the other way round: wherever there is need for help motherly women will be found.''4~ Certainly an intui tively compassionate religious woman is a most attractiv~ apostle of the good news of God. She is a born shepherd of souls, the natural comforter of the least of Christ'., brethren. Nature has endowed her with a fundamenta! trait of the apostle of Christ, to comfort the suffering and her intuition leads her to seek them out and discerr them instinctively. There should be no limit to the degre~ of learning that sisters are to seek and attain; but, if the] are to be true to their womanly nature and to use it f01 God and God's Church, the apostolate of their institute. should always be characterized by works for the poor, tht working class, the lowly, the unfortunate, the handi capped, suffering, and despised. The gift of compassior should also tend to facility in affective mental prayer. Woman Wishes to be Appreciated for Herself Fitzsimons states: ". men are more concerned to shin, and be noticed for their achievements, for the things the. have made, the result of their creative effort, wherea women wish to be appreciated for themselves, for thei a Lombroso, op. cit., 256. "Von le Fort, op. cir., 80. ~ Firkelo op. cit., 148. own personality.''46 Woman also needs support and di-rection and she is highly, even fiercely, individual. "Al-though one often hears the contrary and in spite of the fact that there is more apparent monotony in women's lives than in men's, woman is.much more individual than man.''4r We certainly should not satisfy mere vanity, childishness, nor make the sister an immature weakling, However, the attributes described above evidently de-mand a greater care in the formation and government of a sister as an individual, a greater attention to persons rather than things in government, and a manner of government that tends more to recognition, enc0iarage-ment, and praise than to criticism and correction. Gertrud yon le Fort says of the maternal woman and thus of the maternal superior: "It belongs to the ominous errors'of the world, to the fundamental reason of its lack of peace, to believe that it must always uncover and condemn all that is wrong. Every wise and kindly mother knows that sometimes it is right to do exactly the opposite.''4s Correction is necessary, and too many superiors of both men and women neglect this obligation; 'but I am con-vinced .that very many superiors of sisters are too quick in their corrections and entirely too prone~ to correct publicly. A delay will usually render the correction calmer and more effective, and relatively very few defects de, mand a public correction. No superior has to correct im-mediately and publicly every defect that she observes in the refectory or community room. A sister should always be conscious that she is an .in-dividual in the mind of the superior and of the com-munity. A male religious can be left in great part to himself and his work; one of the most fervent desires of many religious men is to be left alone. This is not true of women. A greater recognition and esteem of the religious as an individual person is one of the ,purposes of renova-tion and adaptation. The spirituality of the sister is to be built on her individualized feminine nature. All spir-itual authorities warn that it is dangerous ,to try to di-rect all souls by exactly the same path. Woman as. a per-son is highly individual, but woman in authority is more prone than man to regimentation. God mad~ us inde-structibly as individuals; let us build on His handiwork, not attempt to destroy it. Woman has a Capability [or Details All students of woman proclaim her great capability for details. Nature has endowed her with this talent to ,e Fitzsimons, op. cir., 92. '~ Lombroso, op. cir., 86. ~ Von le Fort, op; cir., 81. + + + Femininity and Spirituality VOLUME 20, 1961 249 4" 4" 4" Joseph F. Gailen~ S,]~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 250 enable her to take care of a family and home. All also affirm that woman gets lost in details, that she dislikes the abstract and cannot analyze and reduce details to their principles; she occupies herself with the details and does not perceive the essential, and consequently .has difficulty in orienting her life~ The preoccupation with details tends also to a narrowness of outlook and a lack of breadth in ideas. "The foundress of a congregation said one day: 'Sisters often attribute the greatest importance things that are silly and no importance to things that truly great.'-49 The talent for details is undoubtedly asset to the sister in her apostolate, especially in works such as those of hospitals and institutions. However, is~also the cause of the excessive details in the religious. life of women, the hundreds of customs, observances, and practices, the spiritual dusting, the ascetical fussing, religious "redding up." Here woman is to be comple-mented by man~s logiC. Those observances are to be re-tained and chosen that are most efficacious in producing interior virtue, especially the virtues more necessary the religious life; and such observances are not to be un-reasonable either in number or detail. Woman's proneness to imitation multiplies these details. The individual sister takes them unthinkingly from other sisters, and one stitute copies them from another. Once they are accepted, the natural conservatism of woman opposes and resents any change. Esther E. Brooke rightly admires the ef-ficiency of woman: "Woman is the only creature on earth able to multiply nothing by nothing and get something out of it. She is inherently a bookkeeper with an ac-countant's delight in the profit column and a determined broom oto sweep away the loss.''50 It is at least impolite to spoil a well.turned sentence, but woman is also the on!y creature on earth who can multiply something something and get nothing out of it. The multiplication of details is an unproductive approach to an interior life. The bookkeeper may be good at figures but this does not necessarily nor ordinarily imply the ability to enrich Allied to her talent for detail~ is the tendency of woman to be busy for the sake of being busy. Simone de Beauvoir aptly observes: "The worst of it all is that this labor does not even tend toward the creation of anything durable. Woman is tempted--and the more so the greater pains she takes--to regard her work as an end in itself. She sighs as she contemplates the perfect cake just out the oven: 'It's a shame to eat itl' It is really too bad ~A. Ehl, Direction spirituelle des religieuses (Brussels: L'edition universelle, 1948), 79. ~Esther E. Brooke in The Spiritual Woman, Trustee of the Future edited by Marion T. Sheehan (New York: Harper, 1955), 17. have husband and children tramping with their muddy feet all over her waxed hardwood floorslTM This ten-dency seems to explain the over-emphasis on domestic work in convents, the chronic fever of housecleaning, and the innumerable woman hours~wasted in polishing0and re-polishing floors and furniture. It is also the reason why sisters cannot perceive-the contradiction-of a religious habit that demands a disproportionate amount of time to launder and of the~excessive emplbyment of novices and postulants in domestic work. ' ~ A similar defect is the literalness-of,religious women. They interpret a minor observance as rigidly and ab-solutely as if it were the prohibition of hating, God; it admits of no excuse or exception. In h~r meditation, the sister.may observe every step of a'method~of prayer but be unmoved by the fact~ that she is not praying: All her life she may mechanically recite twice a day the'acts ~f thanksgiving.and contrition in' the examen book but never think of giving thanks to'God, of being sorry for her sins, imperfections, and r6jections,. 0f grace-bbcause of motives that appeal to her individually. She may. be fiercely individual but she is~also a passionate routinist. The same concentration onlittle things'can b~ true.~of the apostolate. Our own spirituality conditions our ap-proach to the apostolate; if our spirituality is dominated by trifles, we shall preach and insist on ~trifles: in the apostolate. The life of the religious apostle is ~obviously to be dominated by. God, Who is infinite, and 'the,eternal value,-of a human soul,-not by ,trifles. Woman has ~ids in overcoming this addiction to detail. She .is more objective than man, she sees reality more clearly,~and she .is mor~ practical. If something does not work, she g~ves itup, even though she does not see the reason why it does not work. It is amplifying the obvious to state~that~a re-ligious life or an ,apostolate dominated by. detail does not work. It is a proper e~phasis,of important and prac-tical truth to add that a petty life,will not be. a happy life. Woman ~s Spi'ritUal ~nd her ~nlSuence~ is~ SpjrituaJ Marion T. Sheehan writes: "Man in his leadership oi society has a basic protectiveness and a supportive attitude toward life. His special prerogatives are.strength and ag-gressiveness. Woman has a sense of trusteeship of life in both the spiritual and physical meaning. The spiritual qualities in woman--her reserv~e, refinement, and com-passion- complement man's characteristics by modera-tion. The source of these complementary qua, lities is in her spiritu~al life. For centuries, man has publicly ackn.0wl- *~ Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: KnopL 1955), 454. + 4. 4. Femininity and, spirituality voLUME 20," ÷ ÷ ÷ Joseph F. Gallon, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 252 edged this spiritual influence of woman by his expressions in art, poetry, and literature.''52 Woman is therefore more spiritual than man and her influence is spiritual. She should consequently be more prominent than man in her contribution to the note of sanctity in the" Church. W~e can readily admit that we have enough good re-ligious women; we may question whether we have a sufficient number of outstanding holiness. Learning and other gifts can be helpful, but only sanctity is true great-ness in the Mystical Body of Christ. Several authors state that woman geniuses are almost non-existent in history. Women are not found among the great theologians, phi-losophe~ s, writers, poets, composers, sculptors, painters, or scientists. Acompletely satisfactory .answer has yet to be found for this fact. No one merits the title of great and genius more than the saint. He has the talents of mind, will, and heart that conquer the measureless distance be-tween heaven and earth. He possesses the daring and originality to leap over reason into divine love. Can it be that the spiritual nature of woman is retarded because she is also too pedestrian? too restricted in her vision to the average,, the ordinary, the routine, the good? lacking in the vision and constancy demanded for greatness? Woman is likewise naturally more cultured and her in-fluence is more cultural than that of man. The Church may also ar.d justifiably look to religious women for a notable cultural influence. This is a wide field, and the cultural influence of the sister has been admittedly handi-capped by the lack of a proper education at the beginning of her religious life. To arouse sisters to reflection on this important matter, ,we .can be content with inquiring whether the statues in convents generally manifest the taste of a cultured person and whether the articles of de-votion made and used by sisters reveal the same taste. Must the inexpensive be tawdry and loud? Aren't Catholic repugnance and Protestant prejudice readily created and confirmed by some of the~se articles of devotion? "While he is still a child, woman.leads man to an understanding of art, to the integrity and power that goes into its crea-tion. She shows him that beauty is not only pleasing to the eye, but that through the eye it reaches every corner of the human soul. We may well ask ourselves.where we have failed in this sacred trust. Would so many of our churches be filled with the horrors they contain, the painted mon-strosities called statues which distract instead of embel-lish, which sicken instead of elevate, if the mothers of our priests and ministers had made the art gallery, the mu-seum, the concert hall as intimately part of their chil-~ Sheehan, op. cir., 155256. dren,s early training as the movies, the radio, the corn, ics?"53 Woman ancl Other Women One of the outstanding defects o~ woman, emphasized by practically all students of the subject, is the difficulty she has.in getting along with other women and'in friend-ship with other Women. Gina Lombroso again enlightens us: "Individually the.mani~ to be first prevents .the ~form-ing of real friendship among women, and hinders the'es-tablishment of that current of expansion and confidence among young girls and bider'women 6~hich would b~ of so much use and comfort in life: Woman does not-trust woman, because each one wants to be first and knowg that her best friend is ready to march'over her in-ordei" to be first, when her turn. comes.TM "Wom~n's inordinate self-confidence is, I believe, the Cause of w6men's lack of'con-fidence ir~ each other, as it is the reason for their failure to respect each other. :. This distiust is~the cause of the cordial animosity that reigns between women, and of the discredit which any woman in particular thr6ws,on-all~ women in general."5~ Woman is also more sociable than man, a more dependent', being; and more dependent on her environ~ment.These facts make common'life at once a necessity and a difficulty. ~The remedy is instruction and formation from the beginning of the religious life; to point out the difficulty to the young, to instruct them that their gifts of unselfishness, spofitaneous generosity, intui: rive perception of the difficulties~of others, iSf seeking the happiness of others are to be~ turned and devoted pri-marily to their own sisters. A happy community life is far more indispensable to a religious woman than to-a re-ligious man. It must have the climate that her nature de-mands and give her affection, satisfactory personal rela-tionships, sympathy, underst.anding, recognition, support, and help. The more she is a woman, the holier she is; but the more she walks alone, the less she is a woman. The current of resistance from woman to woman is also a basic reason for the relative unwillihgness and. slowness of sis-ters to talk about spiritual matters with their superiors. Spiritual direction presupposes mutual trust, and a su-perior of sisters will not attract confidences unless she~has given an almost bverwhelming and sustained proof of her spirituality, unselfishness, and trustworthiness. This mat-ter '6f~woman to woman also has deep apostolic implica-tions. In Christian education according to the mind of the Church, sisters are destined at least primarily as educators r~ Eloise $paeth" in $heehan, op. cir., 5. ~ Lombroso, op. cir., 57. ~ Lombroso, op. cir., $2-33. ÷ ÷ Femininity and , spirituality VOLUME 20, 1961 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS £54 of girls.A liking for our work and for those for whom we work is an important factor for success, and we do not in-fluence too many people that we dislike or who dislike us. Woraa.n. and Chastity ChastitLis a r~6c~e.~sity for the state of complete Christian per~fection:, It is also highly necessary for the apostolate of the nun. She is destined to be the spiritual mother of re. any "souls. In-.woman, chastity is a most extensive re-nunclauon. She re.nounces not only physical love but also the love of a husband and children. Because of her na-ture, these last two renunciations are~much deeper in woman than in man. They are the sacrifice of an affective life that is almost her very n.ature, almost herself. This re-nunciation must be complete anti absolute; she sacrifices forever.any affecti~)n that would impede the greater love of God and not merely the affection that would lead her into sin. The postulant, novice, and junior professed are to be pr~operly instructed on chastity. This is necessary from a physical and moral standpoint; .it is evoen more necessary from the spiritual aspect. Our consecration to God is, not to be blur~'d, confused, and diminished by artificial a_.n~puritanica! ignorance. The vow,, of_chastity is not merely to give up~marri.age; it is to give UP marriage, which is good and holy, for a greater_ good, .~the love of God_ and the virgi~nal love of s.o.uls.I.n his Encyclical o.n~ sacred, virgi.nity, Pius XII re-itera_ t~ed the traditional teaching of the Church the mo-t. ivg .t, hat leads a girl to the,religious life is love of God; her purpose is. to attain a, greater love of God in her own soul; and this greater and pure love is the source of her apostol~c.leal. Chastity is. not mere~ renuncia, tion, mere sacrifice; it is not mere.ly a moralistic and defensive virtue, not a mere exercise of vigilance. C.ha~s(ity is all of these things and demands all of them. Here~passion is strong and affections wayward and blind. Common-sense dic-tates constant vigilan.ce. The difficulty is that- chastity has been too much merely a negative and defensive virtue, the avoidance of sin and fidelity to the .precautions against sin. This is not in .agreement with the Pope's description~ that the motive of religious chastity is the love of God and its purpose the attainment of a greater love of God. Chastity must be made much more positive. Its purpose is union with G6d and a constantly increasing love oo~ God. This lov~ i~ spiritual. It is not in the same order as human lov.e, much less is ,it a disguised sexual love. The attainment of such a union demands that the spirituality of a sister be centered far more on the Person of Christ than in rule, ._regulation, and observance; that her mental prayer be centered on Him, not merely on abstract prin- ciplesl and that: it be distinctly affective. She. is to: e~.tehd this same approach to all other religious~exercises~ e.g,, .the examen, liturgical and other vocal prayer, and ~spir.itual reading. The close and intimate doctrines of our faith, such as the Mystical Body, the indwelling of the~Trg~nity, and the life of grace are to be made prominent in her life. She is to be drawn away from a concentration on the [earsome doctrines and is to base herspirituality primar, ily on the goodness and attractiveness of God, Whether or not a sister is attainihg the purpose o.[ ~haStiiy will be proved not by a mere absence of sin but by the Correlative virtues and signs that manifest an increased love of God. Is her prayer and life more familiar, closer to God? Is she less materialistic, less inclined to sensual indulgence, more mortified, more detached, of a more delicate conscience, nstinctively but not ~scrupulously apprehending sin and anything that could lessen her love of God? Is she a more ,piritually agreeable person? Although love of God is not ~n the same level as human love, by fidelity it becomes 3rogressively closer, more intimate, more real. It is the rue love of religious chastity only if it becomes increas-ngly less selfish, if its tendency is to give to God, not to ¯ eceive. This positive chastity produces the really apostolic woman, the sincere spiritual mother of mankind. A sister, )y the perception of the heart more than of the mind, will aave attained a knowledge and participation of God's ore for man; she will long to give to God and this she an do only by bringing herself and souls to a knowledge tnd love of Him; her peace and joy in the possession of god within her own soul will lead. her to the love of God n others who possess Him and to bring this possession to hose who are deprived of it; true love of God will urge ~er constantly to give to God; and her apostolate will hereby be maternal, because it will be distinguished by mselfishness, generosity, dedication, universality, and ~urity of intention. "Noble-mimled women, those in chom the spirit preponderates, succeed somehow in spir-tualizing the physical and in developing within them-elves an intensity and purity of spfritual love which pro-uces types of mystics, wives, and mothers who are the dmiration of: mankind."~ ?oncIusion Personal and apostolic sanctity are one. Our theme has een that the sanctity of the sister must be developed on er feminine nature and that sanctity implies no maim-ag or distortion of this nature bu.t its perfect develop- ~ent. Father Valentine, by a concentration on his main ~ Leclercq, op. cit., 296-97. Femininity and Spirituality VOLUME 201 1961 thought, may be underestimating learning and efficiency, but his words sum up and can aptly close this article: "One of the greatest needs in the apostolate is the woman. It matters little comparatively speaking whether she is learned or even efficient: but she must be a woman, as ma-ture, unpretentious, work-a-day, self-forgetful as the mother of many children, if she is to be worthy of the privilege of caring for souls in Christ's name.''57 m Ferdinand Valentine, O. P., The Apostolate o! Chasity (~ est-minster: Newman, 1954), 45. 4. ÷ 4. ANASTASIO GUTIERREZ, C.M.F. Teaching Brothers in the Church What I propose to say about the subject on which I was asked to speak by the presiding body1 can be summed up in the simple words: lay, teaching, religious. Anyone's rights and duties toward the Church constitute his juri-dical statug. The juridical pers¢.nality of these brothers can be no better defined than by the terms: religious, laymen, apostles. Religious The lay teaching brother is above all a religious. His rights and his'duties and at the same time his dignity flow especially from this character. First of all, there is no opposition between layman in its canonical sense and religious. Canon 107 teaches that there are in the Church by divine institution clerics and lay-men, and that both may be religious. This is why canon 488, 7°, defines the religious as one who has pronounced vows in a religious institute; and religious institutes~ may be, according to 4° of the canon, clerical or lay. Strictly, the religious state is no other than the means, perfect in itself, of professing socially and juridically the integral morality of Christ, His precepts and counsels, that is, evangelical perfection, the Gospel in its full integrity. It is obvious that this high duty of tending toward perfec-tion cannot be exclusively reserved for clerics, but that it must as well remain open to laymen. The religious state both considers itself as existing outside of the priesthood and actually does exist outside of the priesthood. In this connection it is proper to note that the .organization of the state of perfection arose in the Church as a lay state and that clerical religious congregations are not to be found before the latter part of the Middle Ages. Even the x This article is a translation of a talk given at the Second Congress of Major Superiors of Religious Orders and Congregations, October 29, 1957. Anastasio Guti~rrez, C.M.F., is a consultor of the Sacred Congrega-tion of the Council and an official of the Sacred Congregation of Relig-gious. vOLUME 20, 1961 257 ÷ ÷ ÷ A. Gugffrreg, C,.M.F. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 258 mendicant orders, not to speak of the Benedictines, did not at first imply the priesthood. St. Francis of Assisi him-self never received the priesthood. Not only is there no opposition between the lay state and the religious state, but one may with good reason add that the elements proper to the religious state are found to be distinguished and delineated more clearly among lay religious, because if these elements are common to both lay and clerical religious, they are then more pure unmixed among lay religious. As a matter of fact, priesthood imposes numerous obligations of its own which coincide, at least partially, with those of the religious state: celibacy, canonical obedience, apostolic obligations, abstention from secular affairs that are formally for profit. The same thing may be said of its rights: the person of priest is sacred, protected by the privilege of canon 119; he enjoys as his full right the privileges of the clergy; is owed special honor aside from whether or not he pro-fesses the religious state. Religious priests share these rights and these obligations independently of their religious character. Actually, with respect to his rights, the lay religious a person worthy of honor in the Church, for, "the religious state., is to be held in honor by all" (c. 487); and this respect is due to religious as well as to clerics (c. 614). The person of the lay religious is sacred because of the public consecration of his life and person exclusively to the service. Even if his profession acts in many ways contract between the religious and his congregation, it cannot be reduced to the category of business contracts, private, voluntary relationships binding in commutative justice. Profession, theologically and also juridically is seen from its effects) is the consecration of a person and a human life to the exclusive service of God and to practice of the integral moral code of Jesus: ". besides the common precepts, the evangelical counsels are also be kept" (all of them, none excepted) ',by the vows obedience, chastity and poverty." (c. 487). Of course, the individual makes this consecration; but it is ratified by the Church. Such a profession is the religious' holo-caust, but a holocaust which the Church accepts officially and which she offers in turn to God in her own name. The profound and consoling meaning of the public nature the vows is in this, that public vows are vows accepted the Church. The immediate juridical effect of this public and official consecration, this public holocaust, is the sacredness of the person. The consequence of this character of sacredness is immunity, in virtue of which the violation of such a by exterior sin against chastity or by a real injury -119) constitutes a sacrilege. Moreover, this': sacrilege im-plies, on the part of the subject, a new sin against the virtue of religion; and for the other party, in the case of a real injury, brings with it excommunication (c. 2343, § 4). Under another aspect .the dignity of lay brotherd, pri-marily because they are religious, demands consideration by reason of the public nature of their state, in. the exact and strict sense of public. In the Church the religious state is a public state because religious constitute the sec-ond category of canonical persons (cc., 107, 487). Iri other words, by her public and organic constitution, the Church today is constitutionally composed of clerics, laymen, and religious (c. 107). All the faithful belong necessarily to one or other of these specifically distinct categories. It ought also to be noted here that the public character of the religious state does not come from the priesthood which is often joined to religious profession. It comes from the religious character, itself, in so far as there is question of a social and constitutionally organized profession of the evangelical counsels. That is why the:religious 'state even among laymen is a public state. What is called the "domi-native power" of superiors is supernatural, canonical (c. 101, § 1) and public. Also, this power is exercised in the same way as jurisdiction, according to a,declaration of the interpretative Commission of the Code and, recently, of the, Oriental Code of Canon Law. Religious superi6rs are ecclesiastical superiors (c. 1308, § 1; coll. 572, § 1, 6c) in those affairs which concern the state of perfection as such, and for many which relate merel~ to the simple Christian life of the religious. Among the rights and privileges of lay religious;finally, may be counted those of clerics themselves.The Church does not wish to treat religious differently frbm clerics, so in many respects: she puts'the consecration" conferred by religious profession and the consecration-of Holy Orders upon an equal ~footing. Moreover, this similarity~, of treat-ment is only right. Finally, let us consider only the duties of the lay re-ligious: To the obligations, of all the faithful ("besides those precepts common to all") and to those which are proper to all religious ("ev~angelical counsels, canonical religious discipline"), lay religious add the obligations common to clerics, according to the tenor of canon 592. This completes, in its fundamental outlines, the jurid-ical picture of the lay brother as a religious. Layman . . Let us now examine themeaning of the word layman. When we apply this designation both "to a.religious and to a person in the world," it is clear that we are using the + + + Teach~ng Brothers in the Church VOLUME 20, 1961 4. 4. 4. A. Guti~,rre~, C.M.F. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 260 word in equivocal senses with very great difference in con-tent. It is terminology which certain authors, perhaps, are justified in criticizing. Applied to people in the worl'd the term layman in-cludes, canonically, a two-fold meaning, one negative and one positive. Negatively and in the unrestricted sense lay-men are those who are neither clerics nor religious. In a more restricted, but still canonical sense, they are those who are not clerics. This real but negative aspect is per-haps the one which first strikes anyone considering the or-ganic ~nd,constitutional structure of the Church. The lay-man as such can exercise no power, either of orders or of jurisdiction, these being ireserved to clerics, as stated in canon 118. With respect to the power of orders~ he cannot celebrate Mass~ consecrate or offer the sacrifice ',ex off~cio" (c. 802), nor perform any acts of public worship' (c. ,1256); he cannot administer the sacrament of penance (c. 871), nor confirmation (c. 951), nor" extreme unction (c, 938), nor in general the other sacraments (c. 1146). With respect to jurisdiction, the layman can have no share in it, neither in its teaching authority, nor in any of its governing au-thority, whether legislative, judicial, penal, or .executive, so long as these functions are free and discretionary. As a consequence, he is incapable of having an ecclesiastical office in the strict sense of the term (c. 145). This is the negative side of being a layman in the Church, a real as-pect which is fully applicable to the lay religious in'the more restricted sense of the word layman. This negative idea, which has prevailed down to our time, is incomplete, Postitively, the layman is characterized by a public juridical condition resulting from his own set of canonical rights and duties. But as a matter of fact this juridical con-dition is of little relevance here since in so far as rights and duties arise from this condition, they suppose a life in the world, which is the negation or the absence of the religious character. Neither are the relations between lay-men in the world and religious of interest here, nor matri-monial rights and family relationships, the rights of lay-men in a canonical process ,and in the admisistration of ecclesiastical non-religious goods, the whole section in the code "On Lay.Persons'~ (Book II, Part $), and right of lay association and so on. Here rather there arises spontaneously the idea of the constitutional character of the religious state in canon law. As baptism transforms man from citizen to Christian; and sacred orders, the Christian into the cleric; so profession transforms a member of the faithful into a religious. In, spite of its superiority, the religious state maintains itsi canonical,genus as a lay state. But the specific elementi religious, profoundly affects this generic element, as the species man is profoundly set off from the genus animal. Nevertheless, the following points, common to laymen in religion and laymen in the world, merit a particular emphasis. In relations with the hierarchy, "laymen have the right of receiving spiritual goods from a cleric accord-ing to the discipline of the Ctiurch, especially ~hos~ helps which are necessary for salvation" (c. 682).These are in particular apostolic preaching, divine worship, and the sacraments. Laymen can participate in the exercise of functions in the area of liturgy and ritual, such as active participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, serving Mass, acting as sacristan, choir member, organist; sexton, and so on important responsibilities which women ought not to exercise and upon which depend, in great measure, the full dignity of di~cine worship. They can also'participate in the domain of the apostolate. Here we approach the area of the third point of our triplet:' brothers, laymen, teachers; that is, religious as apogtles. Apostle The vocation of teaching lay religious is a canor~ical vo-cation that is essentially apostolic. Teaching constitutes their specific end, and it is clear that a specific end cannot be separated logically, psychologically, or juridically from the generic end. This is why it is that as their state of perfection, the re-ligious state, is public, so also their apostolic activity is not simply private activity which is praised and com-mended as private by the Church. It is certainly an apos-tolate that is in some sense official in the Church. Teach-ing religious have as it were a mission or a mandate of the Church, even of the Holy See if they are of pontifical status. The Roman Pontiff, writing to the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious on March 31, 1954, about lay teaching religious expressed himself in this way: "Let them form in Christian virtue the students given into their care as the office entrusted to them by the .Church certainly demands." Evidently the apostolate of those who teach is reducible to the authority of the magisterium of the Church. The Roman Pontiff affirmed this in a recent address to the Second World Congress of the Lay Apostolate (October 5, 1957) in defining the nature of this apostolate and of the mandate of the Church. "In the present case there is no question of the power of orders, but of that of teaching. The depositaries of this power are only those who possess ecclesiastical authority. Others, priests or laymen, collabo-rate with them in proportion as this power has been con-fided to them for the faithful teaching and directing of the ~aithful (cf. cc. 1327, 1328). Priests and also laymen can receive such a mandate, which may be, according to the situation, the same for one as for the other. Nevertheless ÷ ÷ ÷ Teaching Brothers in the Church VOLUME 20, 19~1 261 4- A. Guti~rre~', REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 262 such mandates are distinguished by the fact that one group is of priests, the other of laymen. As a consequence, the apostolate of the first group is priestly, and that of the second is a lay apostolate" (Civilt~ Cattolica~ 1957, p. 183, n. 9). And again:, "We are explaining here the concept: of the lay apostolate in its strict sense, according ,to what we have :explained above about the hierarchical apostolate. It consists, then, in this fact, that laymen assume tasks which flow from the mission confided by Christ to his Church. We have seen that this apostolate remains always an apostolate of laymen and that it never becomes a 'hier-archical apostolate,' even when it is exercised by a man-date of the hierarchy" (ibid. p. 186, n. 22); This directly includes laymen living in the world, not clerics or reli-gious; but it may be understood of teaching religious. The Pope speaks clearly of a mandate, but the qualified sense which he gives to this concept is clear,,even for the designa-tion of a task that is very noble. This.power. to teach, received by a mandate from the hierarchy, is rooted in the authority of the magisterium. It is not strictly jurisdiction, and :consequently laymen do not become clerics by virtue of participating in ecclesiasti-cal power, because they. are incapable of jurisdiction (c. 118) as the Sovereign Pontiff has eneregetically affirmed. This is why the teaching office of laymen is not authorita-tive and cannot of itself oblige one either to intellectual submission or to moral practice, except in so far as this office faithfully reproduces the authentic rriagisterium of the hierarchy. Moreover, the Roman Pontiff adds: "As far as the value and efficacy of the apostolate that has been developed,by teaching religious is Eoncerned, it depends on the capacity of each one and his own supernatural gifts. The words of our Lord may well be applied to lay teachers, to religious, and to all those whom the Church has charged with;, the teaching-of the.truths of the faith: 'You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world' (Mt 5:13~14)" (ibid. p. 183, n. 9). In conclusion, the .mandate to teach religion confers upon the layman, an ecclesiastical power, but this power is not that of jurisdiction. Rather it must be said that it is a purely executive power, not a discretionary one~ a "mere mission to.execute" which laymen are capable of having: Since it is socially and publicly organized, this aposto~ late, even though it is simply executive, cannot escape be-ing one of the Church's broad commitments; for she is to a great extent responsible to the world for the accomplish-ment of' her mandate. So it is that .teaching laymen have a great responsibility. It is necessary to add that besides the efficacy of their mandate, religious have an intrinsic union with the Church and her interest, a perpetual, necessary, and in-tegral union, They are fully united to her in virtue of their state of life, even in virtue of religion or of the vow of obedience (c. 499; § 1). This is why the religious apostolate, apart from its public organization, is in itself superior by its nature to Catholic Action. Catholic Action groups turn over their cooperation and their activity to the Church, but these are always freely given and for the most part temporarily and partially. The Church, while she tends to hold Catholic Action within proper limits, actually places more confidence in religious in all areas of the apostolate. The object of this vocation is related to the nature of the apostolate of teaching, Concerning this object, the Church certainly commissions her religious to teach pro-fane disciplines in proportion as human progress fulfills the providence of God for the world and for man elevated to the supernatural order. As a matter of fact, she claims as her own the right of erecting schools of all kinds (c. 1375). And let us note that this is a deep and very extensive area in which the mission of lay religious coincides with that of lay Christians living in the world, one which we cannot develop here. But the principal object of the Church's mandate is the teaching of religion: the Church wishes religious to be her collaborators in her specifically divine and supernatural mission. Allow me to single out here three matters or conclusions of a practical nature: First, there is need for a demanding preparation in the teaching of religion. This is demanded by the Church and by the spread of the kingdom of God, both of which are very much bound up with the teaching of religion. It is also demanded by the current of the times. Superiors of teaching religious are much preoccupied with all this; and the Holy See has wished to put herself in the lead in this solicitude by creating recently at Rome the pontifical institute, Jesus Magister, for the higher scien-tific and religious formation of lay brothers, as she did three years ago in creating the institute, Regina Mundi, for religious women. Second, the schools of religious, even lay religious, are, rigorously speaking, "Church schools." If other schools can receive a mandate from the bishops, those of religious, especially, if they are of pontifical rank, have a mission from the Holy See. Thirdly, teaching lay brothers have the duty and the mandate to teach religion; but they have also a certain right. This is why it is that, under the supposition that they are well prepared, they cannot without injustice be deprived of this right and hin-dered from exercising it. According to canon 1373, § 2, the ordinary of the place must take care that religion be taught in secondary schools and places of higher education by zealous and learned priests. This does not apply to the colleges of religious, but to the schools of secular laymen + + + Teaching Brothers in the Church VOLUME 20, 196i about which the same canon, is speaking (cf. c. 1379, § 1). In each case it is incumbent on the ordinary of the place: to approve of the teachers (when they are not already ap-proved by institutes of pontifical rank) and of the religion books; to exercise vigilance for the faith and good morals; to make a visitation of the college in connection with the teaching of religion and of morals (c. 1373, § 2; 1381; 1382; 336; 618, § 2, 2°). In general he can examine teachers and forbid one or another to teach religion; but he cannot ab-solutely deprive a college of religious of the right to teach religion in order to confide this task to a priest. In this matter, for religious of pontifical rank, it is possible to bor-row a good practical juridical criterion from canon 880, § 3: "But in the case of a formal religious house, a bishop is not permitted, without consulting the Apostolic See, to take away at one and the same time the jurisdiction of all the confessors of the religious house." Conclusion From what we have said, we may conclude that the lay teaching brother represents an altogether special type of person in the Church. He is a person who, without be-longing to the class of clerics, enjoys its generic rights, ob-serves obligations common to clerics, and participates, in a certain measure, in the power of the magisterium of the hierarchy, in this way becoming a powerful and very effi-cient collaborator with the priesthood. This is said of re-ligious as such, that is, those entirely vowed to the state of total evangelical perfection and to the discipline of this state as the Church has organized it. Nevertheless, he has points in common with laymen living in the world in what pertains to the concept of a layman in the restricted sense of the word. In the Church, the lay religious represents, then, a special vocation, divine and canonical, tenderly defended and protected by the Holy See. A. ~,~l~rre~, (~.~.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 264 MICHAEL NOVAK The Priest in the "Modern World Part of tl~e difficulty in establishing the role of the priest in the modern world is due to the historical changes in society: the separation of Church and State, pluralism, popular education, and the like.~ Part is also due '~o the spiritual, inheritance of the American C~ttholicisrh. What happens to the priest in America ;is important for the world because it is in America that the new forms of civilization are being nurtured and that a new Christian humanism is taking root, as both Christ.0ph~r Dawson and Jacques Maritain have noticed. But many things in our land conspire to confuse the role of the priest. The recent~ presidential campaign showed .that in many ~areas of our country the words "ecclesiastical pressures" conjured up an ominous and ugly image and that "priesthood" is still a word of super-stition. On the other hand, the Hollywood image, as in Going My Way, seems intent on proving that the priest is a "regul-.,- guy";: even in Pollyanna the fearsome min-ister had to be converted and become a friend of all. It is as though the psyche.of America, deeply scarred by its experiences with theocratic Protestantism in its early history and with the more or less autocratic clerical types which it knew in Europe, is engaged in a struggle to as-similate a difficult figure in its world view. Early propa-ganda explicitly described America as a new world and as a p.aradise; and perhaps implicitly as an es,cape from the sinful and tangled past of Europe. It was as- though America would be the land without original sin, the land of a new humanism built by reason in the high flood of the Enlightenment. In this view, expressed in the writings of Thomas Paine and the good but secular life of Benjamin Franklin and preserved in many of our academic environments, today, a role for the priest is difficult to find. He is a relic of the past, a past that is not admired. The modern Protestant, Michael Novak, who is studying at Harvard University, is living at William James Hall 109A, Harvard Univer-sity, ~Cambridge 38, Massachusetts. VOLUME 20, 1961 265 Michael Novak REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 266 proud of the influenc~ his congregationalist and indi-vidualist theory have had upon the formation of Ameri-can democracy, has more and more democratized his own clergy. The transition in Pollyanna from fire-and-brim-stone to friendliness seems to symbolize quite well spiritual and social ~volution of the Protestant clergy. But in Italy too ~he American priest and seminarian probably distinguishable from his European counter-parts by a humanness and humor of view that is quite As Father Ong has pointed out, the American pastor is also a building pastor, who knows the language of builders and fund raisers; he has thus kept himself the everyday world of men. His European counterpart often far more aloof, even austere. It is even likely that younger American priests inherit the congenial, friendly attitudes more markedly than their elders who are closer to Europe. But at what point can the young priest draw the line in being a regular guy? Where does his identification with the laity begin and where does it end? The modern emphasis upon the apostolate of the laity has also, like the [actors mentioned above, helped confuse the_role the priest. Externally, the expectations of people° around him, within the flock and without, have ,changed. his own spiritual development is pulled in way and that: to silence and to action, to human develop-ment and denial, to affability and'restraint. It is diffi-cult [or the priest to find himself. In nearly every culture but our own, the social sig-nificance of the priesthood was not only great but central. Whether by special talent of mind or imagination, physical appearance, or early consecration, a priest was chosen to stand apart~ from and above other men. His counsels were important if not crucial; often he was highest leader; if not, his knowledge about the past, opinions about the future, and symbolic power over unknown forces of life were essential to the man who was. The early priest seemed to have combined in his person the.roles of priest, prophet,~and king; in fact, it was into this pattern b[ symbolism that Christ Himself was born, though the three functions had by that time been separated in practice. The splitting of these [unc-tions began early, but the social symbolism remained in the days of Greece and Rffme the power of the priest in civic matters was very great. Only in early Christian culture did ecclesiastical affairs begin to stoutl y defended as independent of secular affairs, and historical process~o[ distinction begin. In the Nestorian councils, the Church fought bitterly for the right to her own doctrine and her own line of bishops, independently of questions of empire and political peace. In later times, emperors and kings grew restive under clerical power, and the people grew restive under the kings. A thousand years of political evolution have given .us democracies and republics in which the role of the priest has changed often and'nearly always in a .fashion that has delimited his functions more :and more narrowly. Still, even today, the stature of a priest as "another Christ" and as a man of education and authority is carried over to some extent into social and~civic matters. Thus the priest of today has behind him a long histo.ry in which he has possessed at least a twofold status.He has repre-sented not only the -spiritual authority of Christ (which extends to some temporal:spiritual or "mixed:' matters like marriage) but also the social authority of secular prestige and influence. ,Modern times, however, have marked a decline in this second status, for widespread higher education and the maturing of the modern fields of specialization have produced many other leaders than the priest: lawyers, .doctors, business and labor leaders, intellectuals and artists, the ministers of many religions, and even many from~among the ordinary public. The priest, then, can no longer take for granted his place of prestige in secular society; he is one among many and will have little more influence than his energy and talents .earn. Given the tradition of anti-clericalism, which lives on in its, own forms even in America, he will ha,~e even less. . Moreover, the leadership in education which the priest once held has gradually been lost since the Enlighten-ment. Modern education no longer follows the curricula of the medieval universities; most men seem to feel that our civilization, with whatever loss, owes many of its ad-vances, political, and humane as well as material, to the shift~ At any rate, the priest is no longer among the few who are educated; he is among the many; and the main-stream of education does not parallel his own but diverges [rom it. His education is now seen as specialized, with its own jargon and viewpoints. It is no longer a classical education, "universal" or "liberal" in Cardinal Newman's sense; rare is the seminary in which, the classes in Greek and in Latin are not simply a gesture towards a dying or dead tradition and in which classes in modern literature, history, and social studies have taken up the slack. The seminary is isolated; it is not ordinarily in a university milieu. The professors in the nonecclesiastical subjects are not ordinarily specialis~ts, producing and creative in their fields; sometimes they are teaching merely because as-signed to teach. The seminary library is ordinarily thin in literature, sociology, politics, psychology, economics; the periodicals are mainly religious, Catholic, and popu-lar. In the isolation of the seminary, the professors of 4- 4. Th~ Priest in th~ Modern World VOLUME 20, 1961 267 4. 4. 4. Michael No~ak REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 268 philosophy and theology rarely have an opportunity take an active contemporary part in modern political, literary, scientific, and even religious discussions. Their fields no longer represent leadership in modern intel-lectual circles; and even within their fields, Catholic work is, not without some justice, in poor repute. There are exceptions to these strictures, of course; but I be-lieve it will be found that they are exceptions in great part because they fulfill the criteria mentioned and have grown strong in swimming against the stream. The facul-ties of many seminaries are small, ingrown, overworked, and not contemporary in their outlook. A seminary stu-dent once said a professor of his had "one of the best minds of the fifteenth century"; and the humor of the lay in the ingenuity of expressing the professor,s com-petence together with his liability. Another change in modern civilization is that art longer looks to the Church for patronage; young artists, in fact, are often among the most anti-clerical, while priests are among the least appreciative of the arts, clas-sical and especially modern. Of course, ordinary people in general have lost touch with the arts, and it is to be expected that the priest rise always above his origins. Many of the difficulties in the matter of censor-ship arise from this alienation of artist from people, and artist from priest; where there is little sympathy, is blocked. In politics, too, the priest plays lesser part than he was wont to do; when he does try use influence by swaying others, even through non-violent picketing or letter-writing, it is resented. Perhaps springs from memories of the past, perhaps part from the ambiguities of role still inherent in situation. At any rate, in most lands the priest plays greater part in politics than other professional men other men in general, exception'made perhaps for influence and kind of his opposition to Communism. Just as men today are more educated than before, so the social arrangement is more sensitive. ~Powers are better defined, and organized pressures are more quickly felt and more deeply resented. Even on religious and theological subjects, the ordinary people hear many speakers, gain many ideas and in-sights, see many varied forms of worship, apart from what they learn from their own priest. The result is that our pluralistic civilization, the people are free in priest's presence in a way never experienced before. When they submit to him in doctrinal and moral matters, not because they are overawed by his social stature greater learning or because they have nothing else against, which to compare what he tells them. It is because they make an act of faith that his authority comes from Christ. It is because they possess the simplicity of free and willing obedience, precisely one of the notes most proper to the Gospels. The attitude of the laity towards the priest can perhaps be more definite and single-minded now than befqre. Western culture is perhaps losing the layers of non-essential clerical authority. It is true that in some lands the transition to this new freedom has at first been tragic. New freedom tends to be intoxicating; the old confusion of spiritual and social status is slow.to clarify. For a whole generation or two or more, the transition can wreak disastrous gaps in the prac-tice of the love that should be shown to God and neigh-bor. On the other hand, for those persons and those lands who do mature to such obedience in faith, the obedience of free men standing erect as Charles P~guy used to say, there is a great gain in clarity of motive and relationship. The priest does not rule the flock as a tyrant does his subject peoples, or even as a paterfamilias used to rule his slaves, but as a father does his grown and free sons~ "not as the rulers of the gentiles . " And perhaps it is true that the good father puts himself in second place. The peasant classes of Europe were wont to invest the priest with much more authority than this, perhaps a little as the rulers of the gentiles. In Italy it is still the custom .to kiss the priest's hand, while kneeling be-fore him, as it was once the custom to greet a liege lord; the respect of the Irish for the priest and, perhaps similarly, of the peopl~ of the Tyrol for their priests (the cultural leaders in the enduring attempt to maintain independence from England and Italy) is quite well known. But the descendants of these peasants, in America now, may well be beginning to deny to the ,priest some of the attributes, like quasi-infallibility, they once im-plicitly seemed to grant-him. They may reason that if the Popes have recently had to call for liturgical reform, for a revival of Thomism, and for several other new currents of activity, then things have not been all they should. When they see priests disagreeing among them-selves, they begin to understand the freedom that is al-lowed to prudential judgment of concrete situations, on which differences are bound to thrive. Thus, due to the social changes of the last centuries, not yet at their culmination in the civilization that is to take shape from our own, the role of the priest in a pluralistic land is trying. A vast range of excellences is required of him. His every fault grates on sophisticated, and specialized, nerves. The freedom of the layman is a heady freedom; habits of anti-clericalism persist, espe-cially where they are stimulated by habits of clericalism that have not yet disappeared. In a transition period genial equilibirum is hard to maintain. Only the sim~- 4. The Priest in Mo~ World VOLUME 20, 1961 269 4" Michael Novak REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 270 plicity of freely yielded intelligence, in faith, gives the priest effective authority, and even then not in his own name, but in Christ's. And yet this yielding is at the heart of Christianity, a splendid ever-renewed miracle. Priest and people take up mature relationship, as fallibl~ human beings, at this font. If the priest's relations with others were the only diffi-culty with the pressure of modern change, his lot would be easier than it is. His most painful' task is in the orienta-tion of his own inner life. It is often, though, it must be stressed, not always observable that the spiritual forma-tion given in the seminary has its roots in cultures far different from our own, ones whose obstacles to Chris-tian life and advantages for Christian life were different from our own. In such cases much of seminary spiritual formation is irrelevant and could not in fact be con-tinued except in the hothouse isolation of ithe seminary; in priestly practice it wilts away. Where the public prayers, rules, and mental attitudes inculcated in the seminary derive from the European piety of the last few centuries, they are not simple, in touch with contem-porary reality, or directly reminiscent of the Gospels. To the American of our day, they seem overlaid with un-congenial sentiment, a strange legalistic attitude toward God, and narrow suspicion. Not a few books on the seminary rule and on growth in spiritual perfection seem to delight in driving the soul to more and more precise observance; there is in them little sense of enlargement, wholesomeness, freedom, and love, such as one gets~in reading'the Gospels. They !cad away from the experience of God to the observance of discipline; yet they are not so demanding and deep-searching as the works of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa, which may not be read with near the frequency or attention. It might even be said that by their dwelling on the observance of discipline they conduce to a comfortable mediocrity and the easy appea~:ance of platitudes on the lips. The young priest has to make'up his own mind on each of these questions, but the difficulty is that the more in-tent on spiritual growth he is, the more he may, have given himself to uncritical docility. His spirituality, there-fore, may end up being a borrowed light, never seized by his owri independent judgment and rooted perma-nently and pei~sonally in his own intellect and will. The danger 'is great that the Jansenist strain so deeply rooted in most of the national stocks from which Our priests spring will be passed on uncritically from generation 'to generation and that .some young American clerics will strain every nerve during their seminary days to convince themselves of last century European attitudes which they do not share. It*is a shame When afterwards, as priests, they scuttle much of what they spent years trying to learn because it is unrealistic. Then,. Comes the tempta-tion to throw out everything that they learned. The task of the seminarian to grow up into the stature of a full human being of the late twentieth century and to grow up into the stature of Christ, is terribly difficult, because, for the most part, it must be done without guides. The riches of spirituality in the American spirit have hardly been noticed, let alone tapped; often the typically American virtues are stifled or at least warned against, perhaps because of the misunderstandings about "Ameri-canism" a half-century ago. The. young American priest, when he is faithful to his own best insights and spirit, is a new kind of priest and is working out a new image of spirituality. Perhaps some day one of them will set the new way d~wn in writing, and tl~e man~ will not feel so much alone. As the external social events of the c'enturie~ have served to strip down the ~ole of the pries~t t9 its priestly, Christlike essentials, so perhaps the new kind of. holiness will be only "the more excellent way" of which St. Paul speaks,'less legalist, more fully hum~in because divine, rddolent of freedom and love. To mfi'int~iin such holiness in the complexities of our age will be witness indeed to Christ. It will reach to the heart of our civilizati~6n. 4. 4. 4. The Priest in the Modern World VOLUME 20, 1961 - JOHN C. SCHWARZ, S,J. Journey into God ÷ ÷ John C. Schwarz, $.J., writes from 899 West Boston Boulevard, De: troit 2, Michigan. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 272 The Christian heart has always taken reverent inspira-tion from pilgrimage. But, in a certain real sense, the most sacred pilgrimage of all is traveled daily without a step taken or a sea crossed. This pilgrimage occurs i.n the Mass, a pilgrimage with vast practical significance for the dail,y life of the religious. Each morning at Mass the religious (and any partici-pant in the Holy Sacrifice, of course) travels a four-stage journey into God, a pilgrimage culminating in a renewal of abiding union wiih Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This journey's firslt stage begins with the introductory psalm and succeeding prayers at the foot of the altar, at a respectful distance from God. God is truly present, but priest and peop, le stand off, as at the entrance of a sacred shrine. God is present, but somewhat remote. The Mass moves on. The Consecration ushers man into the second stage of his journey, for now the once remote Lord becomes close at hand, warm and near, yet remain-ing exterior. God has drawn near, but union with Him remains incomplete. In the reception of Holy Communion the Lord dra-matically enters the human body and soul, _establishing a profoundly intimate union. So long as the sacred species remain, the humanity of the Word Incarnate abides. This union, though no longer exterior, remains temporary. This has brought the pilgrim to stage three. The final stage of the journey toward and even into God begins at last when the humanity of Christ Jesus departs with the Eucharist. The divine Persons remain-- in a union both interior and permanent. Only rejection by serious, wilful 'sin severs this union. Father, His eternal Son, and Spirit now reside within in a deeper, greater way. And thus a silent journey terminates in God. Significantly t,his renewal of union with the Triune God will occur for most religious as they conclude the time of Mass and meditation, setting forth into another' apostolic day. In God's designs Ithe Eucharist daily provides a visible, tangible reminder of the Christian's personal union with the indwelling God. This sacred symbol of grace and indwelling Love is held by the celebrant °above the ciborium, with the words "Ecce Agnus Dei . " Moments later, Christ Himself 'enters the body of those who re-ceive. Sensibly seen by the eyes and felt upon the tongue, the host is the living symbol and reminder of what the eyes can not see nor the tongue feel: sanctifying grace and union with the indwelling Lord. So "Communion is both a symbol and a cause of the inner'union which is aimed at.~'1 Nor is this profound union a fixed, static relationship. "The Eucharist is a food and presupposes the existence of life,''-~ and all life implies growth. The life of grace, so intimately linked to the indwelling, is.no exception. In fact, as Canon Cuttaz notes in his excellent study of grace? "The purpose and effect of Communion are to intensify God's presence in the soul by increasing grace." The Holy Spirit, sent initially in Baptism, is sent anew to the .soul with every increase of sanctifying grace. Hence wholehearted selfgiving in the Mass and Communion is the basis for a new sending 6f the Spirit and a deepening of the Trinitarian life within us. At this point a word of caution is appropriate. The heart of the Mass lies, of course, in the sacrifice of Christ and our privileged participation in that Godward act, not in Holy Communion. For Holy Communion derives its full meaning from its function in the sacrifice (and not vice versa), and it leads to divine fulfillment in the souls of those who have offered themselves to God "through Him, with Him, and in Him." God's indwelling fulfillment of His own desire to live in the human soul expresses the final perfection of His love. ~Nhat further can even God do while man remains in his time of growth and probation? Raoul Plus ob-serves that "This is the last word in the great secret of the Christian life." One often hears a certain school, automobile, book, or church structure praised, as "the last word, the finest, the ultimate perfection, superior to all others. The revealed fact of God indwelling stands as the "last word in the great secret," the ultimate gift. Even the stigmata of a St. Francis or the appearances granted to a Berna-dette ranked far below the Presence in their souls. But man's capacity for dull insensitivity in the presence of divine generosity rates high on the list of earth's won- ~"Sanctifying Grace" by E. Towers in The Teaching o] the Catholic Church (New York: Macmillan, 1954), v. 1, p. 564. 2 What is the Eucharist? by Marie-Joseph Nicolas, O.P. (New York: Hawthorn, 1960), p. 91. s Our Lile o] Grace (Chicago: Fides, 1958), p. 167. The essay on the indwelling, Chapter 6, is of particular value. ]ourney into God VOLUME 20, 196]. 273 ÷ + ÷ John C. $chwarz, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 274 ders. Imagine a man who barehandedly grasps a high-voltage cable exposed and sputtering, yet continues to converse amiably with bystanders while a stream of current charges through him! Transferred to matters spiritual, the image is not without value for stressing the fact that we comparably and steadfastly refuse to be impressed by the revealed fact of the omnipotent Creator's dwelling within us. Granted, voltage is felt, while God is noL Nevertheless, divine revelation confronts man with .the [act of the Trinity within when the soul possesses sanctifying grace. Such opportunity, provided by His presence, must be seized, utilized to the utmost; it should make a difference, shatter lethargy, produce results. Of what sort? Father Plus again: The imitation of the Lord Jesus should not be an imitation from without. We are not to copy Him in order to be able to reproduce Jesus Christ; we are to copy Him in order to be able to continue Him. Christ wishes to enjoy continuity in each one of us~ This is.the last word in the great secret of the Christian life . Our poor humanity is called to share, thanks to Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ, the life of the three Persons.' The daily Mass-journey into God (or perhaps equally accurately, God's journey into the soul) provides a daily fresh start in one's continuance of Christ's life. Deliberate efforts at patience and love, at self-sacrifice and under-standing, at prayer and obedience, are merely efforts to present to Christ a mature and maturing personality which He can use. Refusal and culpable failure (that is, when cupable) in such efforts produce a serious restric-tion of Christ's intent to continue His life through this human being. A personality of harshness, 6f resentment, of careful focusing on the almighty minimum scarcely serves Christ's uses and designs, just as a child's violin, with three strings missing, would thwart even the great-est virtuoso. God must not be relegated to the shadows of the soul. Recently a portrait by the French impressionist, Cezanne, sold for $616,000 to a wealthy connoisseur and his wife. Will these new owners place this valued masterwork a shadowy cellar or storeroom? Yet God indwelling may be, in practical el~ect, reduced to a comparable insignifi-cance. Elizabeth of the Trinity, saintly young Carmelite of our own century, considered the Divine Guest as a singularly practical, albeit sublime, influence; practical results are expected: "He is ever living in ore: souls and ever at work there. Let us allow ourselves to be built up by Him, ' In Christ Jesus (London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, 1923), p. 26. May He be the soul of our soul, [he life of our life, so that we may be able to say with Paul I live, now not I." Perhaps the personal frustration vaguely felt by "shine religious springs from their practidal refusal "to be built up" by Christ, refusing'to relinquish habits,and attitudes ininiicable to Christ. One ffbui~ e~pect that the Infinite Lord can not be constrained without some degree of un-easy tension developing ~as a consequence." One is re-minded of the massive tension generated when aircraft engines are gunned to full power while the plane stands motionless, braked tightly, just before its take-off run down the airstrip. The plane thrpbs, with power con-strained. Then, engines subsided~ brakes released, the craft sweeps into smooth, swift motion down the airstrip and gracefully aloft. Engine powerhas been channeled into its normal fulfillment. Smooth performance results. Ten-sion resolves into flight. Perhaps the tension in some religious lives is, at least in part, comparable in origin, stemming at least to an extent from constraining the 'Lord :within. His dynamic life and love seeks cooperative expression in the life and love of a religious. Refusal to make a lifetime relation-ship out of this can 'produce only frustration and con-flict. ~ . ~." . ~ '" ' The four-phase Mass-journeys, into God brings ~the re-ligious once again to the .threshold.oLanother day where our_hUman efforts at charity will;as two voices harmonize in one song, blend into Christ's charity:Our human pa, tience, compassion, teaching, courtesy, gentleness; work, will blend into Christ's. ~.~ The Christ-union in this life, so, rich a delight, prepares the soul for a future prize indescribably richer so states Gerard-Manley Hopkins:° "r Be our delight, 0 Jesu now ~ As by and by our pri[e art Thou, And grant our glorying may be World with end alone in Thee. 5In asserting .the possibility of supernatural sources of tension, there is no intention of denying the importhnce and prevalence o[ natural soui'ces of tension, culpable and inculpable~, i:onscious and unconscious. ~ Translating :the "Jesu Dulcis Memoria." VOLUME 20, 1961 CARL LOFY, ,s.J. Finding God's Will Through the Discernment of Spirits Carl Lo~/, S.J., who is studying at the Univer-sity of Innsbruck, lives at Sillgasse 6, Inns-bruck, Austria. REVIEW FOR ~ELIGIOUS 276 In a book published to help commemorate the fourth centenary of the death of St. Ignatius Loyola? a group of leading experts~on Ignatian spirituality has gathered a series of essays which, taken as a whole, constitutes one of the most valuable contributions to this field in the past decade. The profound insights it furnishes into the most fundamental aspects of the Spiritual Exercises make the book required reading for anyone seriously interested in retreat work and/or Ignatian spirituality. The most im-portant essay is that by Father Hugo Rahner on the dis-cernment of spirits. Most of the other~ eight articles pattern themselves ar6und that of Father Rahner's, espe-cially Father Heinrich Bacht's discussion of the discern-ment of spirits according to the early Church Fathers and Father Karl Rahner's study of the dogmatic implica-tions of finding the wili of God through the discernment of spirits. Hugo Rahner's Article ' ~ugo' Rahner's article can be summarized under the following po!nts: 1) For St. Ignatius the most important part of the retreatwas the election. Everything else in the Spiritual Exercises either builds towards this or is meant to strengthen it. 2) Among the three times outlined by. the saint for making the election, St. Ignatius felt that the second (that is, when the soul is moved by consolations and desolations) is and should be the most common. 3) As a result, the rules for the discernment of spirits take a Ignatius yon Loyola: Seine geistliche Gestalt und sein Ver-miichtnis. Edited by Friedrich Wulf, S.J., Wiirzburg; Echter Verlag, 1956. Hereafter this work will be referred to as Ignatiu.~. on extreme importance, since it is precisely through these rules that the retreatant distinguishes the different effects (consolations and desolations) of God, the good angel, and the devil in his. soul; moreover, it is through such dis-cernment that~the exercitant comes to a certain' election concerning God's will for him. In all this St. Ignatius had to presuppose several points as e~cident. The first of these is that~God does have a distinct will for each individual. Secondly, it is not al-ways possible to know that will simply by applying gen~ eral moral principles to particular~ situations, To know that each of two acts would be prudent ~ind good ,does not yet assure one to which of these two God is calling him. Finally, God can and often does manifest His will for the individual through consolations and desolations. When He so acts, His will can be discovered by applying the rules for the discernment of spirits to the different consolations and desolations one experiences in his prayer as he considers against the background of the life of Christ the alternatives of election. Father Rahner insists that this should be the most common way of making the election. ~ ~ ' "Impliqations ol This~ View,~ Let us consider for a moment some of the implications of this interpretation. In most present,day practice2 it is taken for granted that the'third time for making the election (that is, when the person is not moved by~ the different spirits) iSthe most common. Why this is so is not immediately evident. Perhaps we are afraid to attribute our consolations and desolations to supernatural causes when we know today how much can be caused naturally by the subconscious forces at work in us. (Father Karl Rahner handles this p~obl~m explicitly in his article.) In any case, we tend rather to elect what we are going to_do for God rather, than to discover, what God wants of us. Confronted by a choice between two good or indifferent acts, we normally ask ourselves: "Where can I most 2See, for example, John A. Hardon, S.J:~ All My Liberty: The Theology oI the Spiritual Exercises 0Nes[minster: Newman, 1959), p. 66: "This [the third time for an election] is the most ordinary. time [or reaching a decision." Father Hardon reduces the first time to a "miraculous grace" (an opinion quite co,ntrary to that of both Father Hugo Rahner and Father Ignacio Iparraguirre [Ignatius, pp. 305 ands311]) and handles the second time in three sentences. For him the third time is also '~the most securE" time. "]'his is some-what difficult to understand since, by defimtlon, ~n the first time the person "neither doubts nor as capable of doubting' (Sptr, tual Exer-ctses, n. 175). For Father Hardon t.he third ttme ~s valuable as a check on the second time, which Father Rahner also admits (Ignatius, p. 311). Yet it is interesting to note that for St. Ignatius the second time is the check on the third time and not vice versa; on this see. foot-note 3. + ÷ ÷ The Discernment of Spirit~ VOLUME~ .20, 19~1 277 " 4. Carl Lo~y, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 278 certainly save my soul? Where'can I be of more help others?~Along what lines d~o my talents run?" and so f6rth. All this is good, 'Fffther Rahner' would say, if we-have first tried the first two times of election and have dis- ,covered that the different spirits are .in fact not at work in us. Moreover, we should recall that St. Ignatius ques-tioned the earnestness of one who is :not so moved. other words, the presupposition that we are not and 'will not be moved by the different spirits is directly foreign to the saint's thinking, For St. Ignatius, the main task of.the exercitant is try to :get into vital, personal contact with God and this contact to ask God what He wants of him. Only God does not "answer" is the exercitant to consider quietly the. pros and cons; and~even in this case, after ar-riving at his decision, he is to ask God for confirmation in the form of consolation.3 Instinctively perhaps we find such language strange: ."How can God tell us His will through consolations and desolations?" And yet it re-mains true that Ignatius was convinced that God can and does "talk" to us through consolations and that ~e can interpret His "words" to us through the rules for the discernment of spirits. Once this fundamental position of the saint is accepted, ~°ne Sees these rules in their proximity to the election at the very heart of the Spiritual Exercises~ The same can also be said for our daily prayer as well. For, as Father Josef Stierli points' out in his article, "Ignatian Prayer: Seeking God in All Things," the search for God in all things is primarily a search for the will of God°in all things; only secondarily is it an affective con~ templation of Him in His creatures, In our daily prayer we are to ask~God what His will~i~ifor us, "not only in our state of life but also in. all particulars.''4 Father Adolf Haas shows ,us in his article, "The Mys-ticism of Saint Ignatius as Seen in His Spiritual Diary," how St. Ignatius did this in his own daily prayer. Here see the saint seeking, in the heights :of mystical union with the different Persons of the Trinity confirmation of his 8 spiritual Exercises, n. 178: "If a choice of a way of life has not been made in the first and second time, below are given two ways of making ~/ choice of a way of life in the third time." See also n. 180, where even in the third time of election we are told to "beg God our Lord to deign to move my will, and to bring to my mind what I ought to do in this matter fhat would be more for His praise and glory"--as 'though in one final attempt to r~main in the ~econd time. Only after this' request are we to "use the understanding to weigh the matter with care and fidelity." And after reaching a de-cision through this rational process, we are to "turn with great dili, gence to prayer in the presence of God our Lord, and offer Him this choice that the Divine Majesty may deign to accept and con-firm it if it is for His ~reater service and praise" (n. 183). ¯ Summary o] the Constitutions oI the Society oI Jesus, Rule 17. election concerning his order's poverty. "Eternal Father, confirm me in my election. Eternal Son, confirm me. Eternal Holy Spirit, confirm me. Holy Tri~nity, confirm me. Thou, my only God, confirm me.''~ The entire con-text of this prayer sho.ws, that Ignatius is here not seeking strength to carry out a.n'~ election already made, but the assurance that what he has elected is truly.the will of God. Confirmati.on means, therefore, the certitude, penetrating the entire personality, that one has really found Goffs will. It is--to use the phras~ found frequent!y in the letters of both St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier--"the grace to feel in the innermost part of ourbeing God's. will for us."O +, Role of the Retreat Director This interpretation of Father-Rahner, of course, raises serious dogmatic questions and difficulties. Can we really trust the rules for the discernment of spirits? Does God really make known to individuals His will for. them as' individuals? Are the first and second times for election really more secure than the more rational third time? What is the relation between God's will for~the individual and, the consolation experienced as confirmation? It was the task of Father Karl Rahner to answer these and other questions. He does so brilliantly; but .since his article will appear soon in English,7 we need, not discuss it here, especially since its complex reasoning processes would take us far beyond the scope of this present paper. What should be stressed here is that in the light of this interpretation ~ the role of the retreat director is seen under a new aspect. Retreat-giving need not involve so much the ability to give inspiring points' for meditation (Ignatius insisted that these be short and "to the point, that the main work be left to the exercitant"), as the ability to discern the spirits at work in the exercitant's soul in his search for the will of God. This is a pains-taking, delicate t~ask, not to be regarded lightly. Ignatius himself thought that of all the Jesuits of his day (over a thousand) he knew of only three who fulfilled his ex-pectation~ of,a good retreat master,s In this context the ~ Ignatius, p. 199. , 0 It:is astonishing to see how often this phrase occurs at the close )f the letters of both saints, In the original Spanish, Saint Ignatius )ften uses the word "sentir 'la voluntad de Dios," which means con-siderably more than "to know" and is better translated as~ "to feel" or "to. be deeply aware of." On this see Obras cornpletas~ de $. lgnacio de Loyola, edited by Ignacio Iparraguirre, S.J. (Madrid: BAG, 1952). ~ In the translation of the book Das Dynamische in der Kirche (Freiburg: Herder, 1958). a Ignatius, p. 257. ÷ 4- The Discernment VOLUME 20, 1961 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS last part of Father Bacht's article on the role of the re-treat director deserves careful study and restudy. Father Friedrich Wulf's article on Ignatius as director of souls is important in this connection, because it con-tains many remarkable, hitherto unpublished, texts which reveal the saint's personality. Here, too, we see the tre-mendous importance Ignatius placed on the discernment of spirits in his direction of others. The article furnishes rich food for thought for any spiritual director, Practical Importance of This Interpretation We have been able here to sketch only briefly the more important points of this book. There are many others. We can only encourage the reader to take the book and study it carefully; it is to be hoped that the work finds an early translation, for the ideas it contains are basic [or a proper understanding of the Spiritual Exercises and of Ignatian spirituality. Father Hugo Rahner's article is of special importance for it returns to the position of St. Ignatius that God really "talks" with us in prayer and in time of retreat, that He really makes His will known to us --His will for us as individuals. Retreat making is, there-fore, not so much a time of mere resolution making, as of finding God; not so much a renovation of spirit as an inner development in which the person strives for deep, personal contact with God and, in this contact, for God's will for him as an individual. This is the deeper meaning hidden in Ignatius' use of the word "election." This is a bold interpretation, but one which is receiv-ing more and more backing by recent research.9 It is an interpretation that deserves serious attention. One gets the impression at times that retreats are a trifle too volun-taristic, somewhat too impersonal, too separated from prayerful union with God. Do not many work out resolu-tions, make plans for the future, form new particular examens--all.quite independently of formal prayer? Of course, once we have made the resolutions and plans, we offer them to God, ask His grace to fulfill them, and so forth; but the resolution making process itself remains basically rounded-off in itself, shut off, completely (as it were) "our.own." Often we are n6t open to God during the process itself. "God, what will You have me do? What do You want of me?" Such an approach would open us to God within the very resolution making process. The latter would become, quite literally, a search for the will ~ See especially Gaston Fessard, S.J., La dialectique des Exercices Spirituels de Saint lgnace de Loyola (Paris: 1956) and August Brun-ner, S.J., "Die Erkenntnis des Willen Gottes nach den Geistlichen 3O0b u(n1g9e5n7 d),e ps ph. e1i9li9g-e2n1 2I.g Sneaeti ualss oy othne Lboibyloiolag,r"a pinhy G geivisetn u bnyd FLaethbeernll,l lv].[ Rahner in his footnotes, especially on pages 305, 312, and 313. o[ God. The dialogue with God would begin immediately (not merely after the formation of resolutions) and at a much deeper level of the indiyidual's personality. There would be (to use Browning's words) "no spot for the crea-ture to stand in," not even his good resolutions. For we are creatures in everything. We serve God only through His gift to us. He alone knows how we can serve Him as individuals with a radicality of dedication and surrender. He alone can break into the hard core that "protects" the inner core of a self and there touch us and so awaken us to life. It is possible and all too easy to form plans serving God which, although good, do not get down into the real self, do not take hold. of the Whole person, and which, when completed, contain the d.anger of being something "outside God," something strictly our own. To avoid this danger the use of the rules for the discern, merit of spirits in the second time to making an election can be of fundamental importance ~ind help. The Discernmt, nt o] Spirits VOLUME 20, 1951 281 WILLIAM H. QUIERY, S.J. Courage and Counseling William H. Quiery, &J., writes from Cam;, pion House, B29 West 108th Street; New Yolk 25, New York. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 282 Nothing has quite the' force to convince us that we are human as the phenomenon of fear. And nothing can ap-pear to be so ridiculous. Bruce Catton, in his account of the early years of the Civil War, Glory Road, records an amusing incident of a panic-stricken squad of Union troops put to flight by a rumor of a Rebel~breakthrough some miles ahead. As the men ran in disorder past a farm-house, a calm old lady sat on the porch enjoying the spectacle. The soldiers were almost out of their heads in the grip of mob hysteria, and the woman stood up and called to them, "What in the world are you boys running from? They're only men!" The soldiers had no answer for the jibe, of course. Each of them knew that he wasn't acting with cool reason at the moment. The enemy hadn't been seen and counted and a quiet estimation made of their striking force. The Northerners were simply running, that was all. It was the best they could do at the time. Terror had them by the throats. All the unknowns were jumbled and lumped to-gether and blown up into something like that horrifying ghost that children see leaning over their beds at night. That's what was chasing the squad of Yankees. Most of us have little trouble understanding this sort of panic because we have found ourselves in somewhat sim-ilar circumstances, in the grip of unreasonable fears and emotions. Everyone is acquainted with worry and anxiety and tension, at least of a minor sort: the "formless fears" of C. S. Lewis. What makes such fears particularly mysterious and exasperating is the fact that frequently.! enough we are fully conscious that there is nothing to be anxious about, or certainly nothing in the situation that calls for quite the emotional response we find ourselves giving it. We wonder where our courage is at times like these.' Yet strange to say, we have not lost our major life-ideals in any way: We would rather die than desert our cause, and we would never calmly choose to be traitors no mat-, ter what the threat. Still we find ourselves unnerved by ~' / a set of circumstances of small moment and reacting childishly while we know we are not childish at heart. And I am not speaking here of a. problem which i consider to be a specifically religious one.~.It would not be correct to say that there are special threats in the re-ligious or ,priestly life viewed in its spiritual aspects. For our consecration to God is nora gamble. On the contrary, vows are m.eans of making perfection of life more easy and secure. ~One. of the purposes of the vows, according to St. Thomas, is. to eliminate the "main 6bstacles to a perfect love and service of God, to,guarantee, as.much as is pos-sible on this earth, a secure hold on some of the most powerful spiritual means the Church knows of. If we are subject to worries and fears.of variou~ ~.kinds to a somewhat greater extent, than ordinary people, the reason is probably the simple fadt that we have taken owa rather ambitious form of life, that otir aim is high, that we make a more self-conscious effort right from the beginning to fill out and make use of our share of human talent. Our.,counterparts on the :non-religious level are the~politicians and the doctors and the scholars, yes, and those bent on heaping up a material fortune. It ivwith this group that we might find a compai~able level of tension~ anxiety, and worry: From this point of view, then, we, should not be sur-prised to discover that part Of the price of our spiritual ambitions will be some sort of, interior susceptibility to inner conflicts and phobias.~But we have far more reason for trying to control and limit our anxieties and fears ~ttian~ have other ambitious people. Out,target is not an earthly one, but the glory .of God and the sanctification of men. It will be a'great loss if we are kept from that. The panic of the Union troop was not a logical and calculated response to a threat, and this is the case'.with human fears generally.oOur responses are seldom exactly what they should be; and I am not referring to any sort of psychotic or compulsively neurotic reaction, but~just to the "off-balance" emotional reactions that perfectly normal people experience. For iristance, there is nothing unusually abnormal! in a religious who is worried, even greatly~ worried, abouf some truly risky situation: whether,~f0r example, a certain studefit should be. expelled for the good of the others or for the relief of the teacher. The trouble b~gins, though, when the legitimate and reas'6n~able worry develops into a permanent hnd troUblesome, anxiety that louvers his ef-ficiency and impairs the effectiveness, of his work. It is perfectly normal and rational to' experience the sensation of loneliness when one actually is ;ilone. The presence of God, for. the ordinary person, simply does + + + Courage and Counseling. VOLUME 20, 1961' 283 ÷ ÷ ÷ w. H. Qulery, s.l. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 28~4 not compensate for the absence of human companionship. Holiness does not change the social nature of man. But loneliness becomes an unreasonable thingwhen it carries us into a paralyzing depression despite all we do to pre-vent it. Such self-pity is not deliberately chosen. We not turn it on as we might a TV set. We should not be surprised, then, if it does not fade out with a simple flick of a switch. The ambitious role we have chosen in life often calls for public service. Religious frequently work in the public eye, teaching, lecturing, or representing their group in panel discussion or at a civic council of some kind. Every normal person will feel some sort of nervous excitement or self-consciousness in public appearances, particularly at first. But these normal emotional reactions can become unreasonable bullies. They can scare us out of our job and our vocation altogether; or, what is bad enough, ruin our performance. Nor does it satisfy us to say "God will supply" and done with it. We are not entitled to leave things to God until we have exhausted all our ordinary resources and our ingenuity as well. In action, it is a good rule to act though everything depends on our own work (as though God will not supply), provided we pray as though every-thing depends on .God. Other instances of normal emotions which get out hand are easy to find. To hesitate makes sense when much is at stake and when we are :all too conscious of our falli-bility. But excessive hesitancy and indecision can sap strength and waste our time. Again, discouragement an .understandable thing in view of our daily failings; but unfortunately this very subtle and dangerous emotion (Is it not a form of fear?) can grow into a sentimental resignation to mediocrity of a ruinous kind. Again, sense of guilt is common and healthy, scruples a torment-ing excess. Embarrassment is everyone's lot at one time another, but a perrilanent timidity is usually a limita-tion. All of us feel emotion at times; almost all suffer from excess of it at least occasionally. Under stress we feel con-fused. Some exasperating inner battle is'going on and must bear.it at least for a time. It is on such occasions, when we have only a blurred view of our value scale, that we make hurried and faulty decisions. If the instances emotional pressure are froequent, we may find ourselves regularly ,doing quite childish ,things. We know what right, but by a weird subconscious illogic, we do not feel that it is the right thing to do---at least not ~his time. We know we should not be timid or unnerved or so worried' as we are. It may even be clear to us that our state of mind is ridiculo~us, that we will laugh at ourselves later on. But at the time, it does not ]eel ridiculous at all. 'It is not a laughing matter. The philosophers can explain it all to us in technical terms. The mind, the); say~, exercises only political con-trol over the emotions. But what concerns the average person most is what in the world [o do about it.'What kind of interior politics will get the constituents back, into line? Prayer and the sacraments, mortification, sublima-tion, distraction, advice-seeking, rest--alL.of these we en-list in our cause and still we find ourselves over-reacting to minor threats, slipping into unreasonable depression, or harrassed by toll-taking inner unrest. Courage alone is not the cure. Nor,:in fact, can we-talk of a L complete cure in this world for this weakness in our make-up. A cure will only come in heaven with the restoration of the gift of integrity which the first human being lost for the whole family that follows him. A partial solution to this type of problem may very well be counseling--and that is.the burden of this article--but not just any kind~ of counseling will help. These are cases where information is not lacking--the sufferer ordi-narily knows the pertinent facts or at least knows where they can be found and so there is very little to be gained in having them told to him all. over again. And since the person's desire to get over the problem is very great to be-gin with, the type of counseling which includes strong urging on the counselor's part is .likewise of little use. Now this particular area is one that the so-called "client-centered" or "non-directive" or "self-directive" counseling is admirably suited to take care of. In practice such coun-seling has been found to help with many kinds of prob-lems, from normal everyday decision-making to the give-and- take of classroom discussion, from the troulSlesome minor f~irs we are discussing here to more serious per-sonality conflicts. Client-centered counseling is by no means a modern in-vention. In fact, some Catholic authorities claim that it is very similar to the approach'bf som~ traditional spir-itual directors. However, a new surge of interest has taken place in the field since the earlg. 1940's. Responsible for much of this new interest is Dr. Carl Rogers. His bobk, Client-Centered Therapy (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1951), is probably the most important book in the field today. In 1952 Reverend Charles A. Curran of Loyola University, chicago, published his well known book Counseling in Catholic LiIe and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1952), in which he demonstrated the relation of such counseling to Thomisti~ psychology and ex-plained how these psychological counseling skills can be 4- Courage and Counseling VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ ÷ w. H. Q=,iery, s.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 286 applied to specifically Catholic problems. This book is still the standard Catholic~ treatment of the matter, and though directed primarily to psychologists, would be valuable reading for anyone interested in learning more about the subject. . In the past fifteen years the seeds sown by these write

Issue 10.1 of the Review for Religious, 1951. ; JANUARY 15, 1951 o Schools of Spiri÷ualify .o . ° . oG. Augustine Ellard 0BenedictineS. prifid a li÷y ' Bernard A. Sause '~ . .; 2 °,Behol~l This Heart ° ' ' C.-,A. Herbs÷ Quinqubnnial Repor÷ .~.° ." . . . . . . . AdamC. Ellis Minis÷er of ~'he Sacramen÷s . ClarenCe McAullffe How Are Your Eyes? . M. Raymond C!,~sic on HigherPraye~ . ~,. JeromeBreunlcj Destiny" o{ ReligioUS Women . william B. Faher~ Questions and Answers Book Reviews R Vli::::W FOR Ri::LI IO.US VOLUME X JANUARY, 1951 NUMBER CONTENTS SCHOOLS OF SPIRITUALITY~G. Augustine Ellard, S.J .3 ON ACTUAL GRACE . 6 BENEDICTINE SPIRITUALITYmBernard A. Sause, O.S.B . 7 BEHOLD THIS HEART---C. A. Herbst, S.,I .1.6. OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 19 QUINQUENNIAL REPORT, 1951--Adam C Ellis, S.J .2.0. UNWORTHY MINISTERS OF THE SACRAMENTSm Clarence McAuliffe, S.J .25 NEW APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION . 32 HOW ARE YOUR EYES?--M. Raymond, O.C.S.O .3.3. HOME FOR TUBERCULOUS SISTERS . ' 38 CLASSIC ON HIGHER PRAYER--Jerome Breunig, 8.J .3.9. REPRINT SERIES . " . , ¯ 46 THE DESTINY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN~WilIiam B Faherty, S.J.47 BOOK REVIEWS-- Meaning of Fatima; Vocation to Love; Graces of Interior Prayer 51 BOOK NOTICES . 52 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 1. Voting in Local Chapter . 54 2. Pastor as Confessor for Religious . 55 3. Admittance of Ex-Novice . 55 4 Proper.ty Acquired after Profession . . .55 5. Meaning of "Religious" . . 56 6. Adding to Holy Father's Blessing . 56 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. January, 1951, Vol. X, No. 1. Published bi-monthly : January, March, May, July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Marys College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: Jerome Breunig, S.J. Copyright, 1951, By Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on Inside back cover. Review ~or Religious Volume X January--December, 1951 Published at THE COLLEGE PRESS Topeka, Kansas Edited by THE JESUIT FATHERS SAINT MARY'S COLLEGE St. Marys, Kansas REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is indexed in the CATHOLIC PERIODICAL INDEX Schools ot: Spiri!:u li :y G. Augustine Ellard,'S.J. IT IS A SIGN of the richness of the Church's spiritual life" that in it there should be "schoolsof spiritu.ality.'" Not even a gre~t saint could well represent that life in all it phases; to illustrate its we~ilth and depth and variety all the saints together would have to be called forth. No individual person nor indeed, any association of them, no matter" how holy and perfect they might be, could ade-quately e:~emplify all the different aspects and facets of the interior life. On the one hand thefecundity of Catholic doctrine is inex-haustible, and on the other the variations among men and women; their needs, providenti~al destinies, potentialities, and sb on, are innumerable. Given these two sources, namely, the fertility of what the "Church offers and the endless dissimilarities among men, it is inevitable that there should be within the Church groups having somewhat diverse conceptions of what pertains. to the spiritual life and then actually carrying them out in corresl~ondingly various ways. As in nature, so aiso in the supernatural order of grace the gifts of God are.most highly variegated. ~'There are ,~arieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministrations, and the same Lord. And there are varieties of workings, but the same God,. who worketh all things in all. But to each is given the manifesta-tion of the Spirit for the general profit." (I Cor. 12:4-7--West-minster Version.) To make up the whole Mystical Body of Christ and keep it functioning in accordance with the divine design.it is necessary th'at there should be different systems of members occupying different places in that great mysterious organism and discharging different forms of activity, even in the cultivation of the interior life and of the love of God. "For as the body is one.and hath many~members~ and all the members of the body, many as they are, form. one bogy; so also it is with Christ. Now ye are the .body of Christ, and.sey-erally his members: - And God bath appointed sundry inthe Church, first apostles, secondly.prophets, thirdly teachers.': (I C0.r. 12: 12, 27-.28-:-'Westminster Version.) As the various.organs Of the body, the heart for instance and the brain, posses~ at the sa~me.time a certain unity and a certain diversity of life, so also the .Mystical.Body of. G. AUGUS~FINE ELLARD Reoieto for Religious Christ must have among its numerous members, all sharing in one life, some who specialize, say, in contemplation and others in action, some who emphasize this virtue and others who excel in that. The revelation vouchsafed to us by God in the New Testament is a complete whole, made up of parts, however, which taken by themselves are unmistakably different. Nobody could fail to dis-tinguish the phases of it presented by the Synoptic Evangelists, by St. John, and by St. Paul. Abstractly, a school of spirituality is a distinctive system of doc-trines, theoretical and practical (principles and practices), pertaining ¯ to the pursuit of Christian perfection. Concretely, it is the group of persons who propose or use that system. These schools differ from one another in much the same way, and for much the same reasons, as the saints who typify them differ from one another. The limits of these schools are somewhat indefinite, and not everybody would enumerate them in just the same way. Tanquerey, in The Spirit'uat Life, distinguishes these eight schools in the modern Church: Benedictine, Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit, Carmelite, the School of St. Francis de Sales, the French School of the Seventeenth Century, and the School of St. Alphonsus Liguori (xxxii-xlvi). Influence of Religious Orders From this enumeration one might feel tempted to conclude that the schools of spirituality are about the same as the great religious orders after which most of them are named. 'As a matter of fact the respective orders do occupy a leading position in them. However, the schools themselves are much more extensive and less closely bound together. Thus, for example, presumably most people who are in Franciscan.or Dominican parishes would follow their pastors in their spiritual systems. But also sometimes one who belongs, say to a Redemptorlst parish would be a member of the Third Order of Mt. Carmel, and then very probably his sanctification would for the most part follow the Carmelite pattern. Moreover, all those who read Franciscan or Dominican authors and mold their interior devel-opment predominantljr in accordance with the ideals which they find therein would pertain to these same schools. Being Catholic and orthodox, all schools of spirituality have very much in common. Their essential cores are identical. They all have the same dogmatic basis, the same moral principles, the same general ideal of perfection, namely, total love of God, the same prin-cipal means to realize friar objective, and in general whatever is char- danuarg, 1951 SCHOOLS OF SPIRITUALITY acteristic of the Catholic spirit. Over and above these common and fundamental elements each school has its own distinctive notes. One prefers to seek light and inspiration from certain dogmas and another from others. Thus the French School of the Seventeenth Century shows a very special pre-occupation with the doctrine of the Incarnation. There may be different conceptions of God in the sense that different divine attri-butes or aspects are emphasized: think of .Dominican spirituality and God as Prime Mover in contrast .to the Carmelite and God as the All. The various virtues get various treatments: of all the schools the Franciican gives most attention to poverty. With regard to action and contemplation there are conspicuously different orienta-tions; this divergence is well exemplified by the Carmelites and the Jesuits. In Benedictine asceticism the liturgy plays a most prom-inent role; in that of St. Alphonsus and his sons its place is at least less. Somewhat contrastive attitudes are cultivated toward the sacred humanity of Christ: notice the Franciscan tender devotion to the crib and cross as opposed to Jesuit energetic imitation of Christ in His apostolic activity. In some spiritual groups and their doctrines there has been much of the speculative, element; in others, a mini-mum. A historical example of this opposition in tendency is the Rhenish School of the fourteenth century (Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroeck) and the reaction it provoked in such writers as Thomas ~ Kempis. Tendencies to be Avoided With respect to the divergence between schools of spirituality there are two exaggerated and contrary tendencies that are bad and ought to be avoided. One is to minimize or slur over the differences that really do exist and divide them. A narrow and unintelligent 'zeal for the un, ity of Catholicism leads some people more or less to overlook or deny the variations of form and doctrine that are dis-cernible in the rich interior life of the whole Church.~ There is indeed unity in essentials, but the accidentals are far from uniform-ity. One would as reasonably attempt to cover over the differences that exist between the religious orders and their diversified spirits. Real divergences between systems of spiritual doctrine and practice ought to be acknowledged. Oftentimes they offer new light and stimulation to one's personal religious life. In any case they are part of the yariety and beauty that pertain to the Church as the spouse of Christ. 5 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD The opposite fault is to magnify or overemphasize the distinc-tions and diversities between schools. After a11, these differences, though they are important in certain ways, belong to the accidentals, and leave the essentials unchanged throughout the whole Catholic body. Various phases of dogma are accentuated, but the general dog-matic background is identical. The ideals pursued by all are sub-stantially the same, that is, total love of find collaboration with God, with minor variations to suit special purposes or characters. Some stress this virtue and some that, or they blend them together in differ-ent proportions, but ultimately the great Christian virtues are the same for all. In each of the schools one may recognize the essential family likeness that demonstrates their Catholic origin and nature. Finally, it would be fallacious and unjust to rate one school above another. Human insight is not keen enough to gauge pre-cisely the merits and deficiencies of the various schools as they exist objectively and in the sight of God. But relatively, and as far as we can judge, each one of these schools is best suited and adapted to cer-tain groups of persons within the Church. In most cases Divine Providence gently and naturally and imperceptibly makes us pupils in this or that school. That there may be unity, harmgny, and organic development in one's interior life, it is as a rule advisable to keep fairly well within the limits of some one system. This prin-ciple will not prevent those who are more or less mature in their spiritual growth from availing themselves of whatever is best in all of them. Thus the supernatural life and beauty of the Church will ever become richer and richer. ON ACTUAL GRACE The excellent book, With the Help of Thy Grace, by John V. Matthews, S.J. (REVIEW, Vol. IV, pp. 66-67), is now being published in a revised and enlarged edition under the title, Actual Grace and the Spiritual Life. We are willing to underwrite the comment on the inside jacket: "The lucid appealing style of the author has turned what could be a difficult treatise into a simple, attractive and very helpful exposition of a mighty su.bject." The book is being published in the "Recall to the Spiritual Life Series" by the Mercier Press, Cork and Liverpool, 7/6. 6 Benedic!:ine Spirit:uali!:y Bernard A. Sause, O.S.B. MOST persons likely to be consulted about vocation to monas-ticism would probably consider it wise and discreet to emphasize its gratifying features: the beauty of the monastic home, the traditional love of the liturgy, the dignity and consolation of the work usually assigned to the monks, and especially the guar-antee of peace, security, and tranquility. Although he is often commended for his breadth of vision and prudence in governing,. St. Bene~lict does not belong to this school of,thought. It would be difficult to imagine a more forbidding and chal-lenging reception of an aspirant to the religious life than that which he prescribes in his Rule. "The newcomer is not to be granted easy admittance to the enclosure; he must be tested for four or five days to see whether he bears patiently the harsh treatment offered him and the difficulties of admission; he is placed in the novitiate under a mas-ter skilled in the art of winning souls, but who is made to sound most unpleasantly so;'the poor novice is tried repeatedly in all patience--a phrase that is quite meaningless unless one has lived its interpretation at the hands of an experienced master; the year of trial is devoted to showing him all the hard and rugged things through which we pass on to God; the Rule is read and explain.ed to him under the harsh term of "the law." (See Holy Rule of St. Benedict, Ch. 58.) There is more in the same vein. As one reads this chapter of the. Rule, this thought courses throughthe mind: St. Benedict begins with the assumption that a vocation is the consecration of a life to God's service; and while he willed it to be viewed with all the calmness and imperturbability of a life-long perspective, and was willing to make reasonable allowances, he knew that not a moment was to be wasted. Mortification, sup-pression of sinful man's inclination to evil, and the supreme impor-tance of the sacred obedience which with a distinctive forc.e dominates all monastic effort, are all integral parts of fashioning a character according to "his Rule. In harmony with that plan, which has stood the test of more than fourteen centuries, they can be begun, and con-tinued, only in high seriousness. A Spiritual Famit~l St. Benedict did not found an order in the legal, sense of the word. ¯ He wrote his Rule for an ideal monastery, for one moderately-sized BERNARD A. SAUSE Review for Religious family, governed by an Abbot who is believed to hold the place of Christ. (Ch. 2) Even to this day there is among all the followers of Benedict no more deeply cherished religious principle than the autonomy of the individual abbey. Those who lack more extensive acquaintance with the history of Benedictine effort may think of a number of isolated, relatively small and independent houses as an anachronism in today's widespread tendency toward centralization, but Benedictines know the Rule's provision as the spiritual force that has enabled them to make their worthiest contributions to the spir-itual life of the Church. As a youth the Patriarch of Western Monasticism.had lived for three years in the cave above Subiaco. In the op.ening paragraph of Chapter 1 of the Rule, which was written years Iater, he makes it clear that every trace of the eremitical life has been abandoned: his monastery is a group of sons under the intimate leadership of a father who in all matters pertaining to this distinctive way of life is' believed to hold the place of Christ. Together with the eremitical form of religion, St. Benedict discarded numerous monastic observ-ances and traditions that had been generally kept in the Church until his day (he died March 21, 547). A study of the elements that Benedict rejected is interesting for establishing the positive concept of his way of life. For the excessive bodily severity of the Orientals was substituted a round of carefully regulated practices and ideals that could be adopted by all who were admitted to the monastic family. The individualis~tic and subjective piety that so often had prompted excesses and rigorism was simply prohibited: works of supererogation and mortifications which were not made known to the Abbot and which were undergone without his approval and blessing were imputed to presumption an~d vai~glory. (Ch. 49) Prolonged psalmody and arbitrary additions to the Divine Office were excluded. Prayer was regulated'~ the effort of the entire com-m'unity united under the spiritual leadership of the Abbot. It was thought of as the sanctification of the day's work, and the consecra-tion of the night. The meticulous selection of the Psalms for the different hours, which no one has dared to change in the intervening fourteen centuries, despite numerous changes in the arrangement of the Psalter for all other groups in the Church; the comparatively long night Office; the relatively short day Hours, .emphasize this idea. The centralized organization in the Church, especially in the Pachomian monasteries, was done away with, and the individual danuar~t, 1951 BENEDICTINE SPIRITUALITY monastic family became the self-sustaining, self-governing unit of monasticism. These instances are not to be thought of as exhaustive but are merely of a general pattern that bore the stamp of guidance by the Holy Spirit? and, humanly speaking, the experience of almost a half century of actual observance, most of it*with~the responsibility of guiding others as their Abbot. They result in a balance and har~ mony that is of the essence of the monastic character, and invariably one of its most discernible notes. All this is made to fit into the setting of the ~mall monastic fam-ily. Under the leadership-6f their father, in Christ, the brethren pray together all the hours of the Church's official worship. Together they offer as a body the Sacrifice of the Mass. The consideration of private prayer, recognized by all serious religious as most Valuable, nay indispensable, is limited to one sentence: "If another desireth to pray alone in private, l~t him enter [the oratory of the monastery] with simplicity and pray, not with a loud voice, but with tears and fervor of heart." (Ch. 52) One must be careful not to draw false conclusions from so brief a statement. The importance of private. prayer is in no way .minimized. Quite the contrary is "true, as is exemlSlified in the whole history of monastic endeavor. But it was not the concern of St. Benedict's legislation, which was the life of the monastic family. The bretl, lren work together; they eat in a common refectory. They sleep under one roof. Their whole life centers about the or,a-tory. Ideally the sphere of the activity in which "the Lord's work-man," as Benedict calls the monk in the Prologue to his Rule, is to fulfil the promises he makes to God on profession morning, is small. Before the altar for several hours each day he devotes his efforts to the sacred liturgy, that all-important work of God's glorification and the soul's sanctification to which, in Benedict's plan, nothing is ever to be preferred. The refectory, where he reminds the brethren they are to serve one another in charity, the recreation hall, the infirmary, and, generally speaking, the whole enclosure of the monastery, become the scene of the works of charity, brotherly love, co-opera-tion, and good zeal.2 aSee Pope Pius XI. Apostolic Letter, Unigenitus Dei Filius, March 19, 1924. Acta Apostolicae 8edis, 16 : 133. 2The nature of mofiastic autonomy is dealt with expertly and at length by Butler, Benedictine Monachism. London, Longmans, Green, 1919. Especially p. 200 f. BERNARD A, SAUSE Reoie~ for Religious The Opus Dei ' The constitution of the monastic family has its definite purpose and method of operation. The Master of Montecas~ino calls it a School of the Lord's Service. His followers read into the phrase an objectivity that distinguishes it from other schools of asceticism and striving for personal perfection. Fraternally united in common desires, intentions, efforts directed by; the Abbot, whose outstanding qualification for his office must be a knowledge and love of God's law and zeal and ability in imparting it, the brethren devote themselves to the service of the Lord, Creator and Heavenly Father.The visible expression of their objective is in their social prayer and offering of the Sacrifice, which is the official worship of the Church itself, com-monly designated by St. Benedict with the attractive term, Opus Dei, the Work of God. In this matter the Rule mirrors the Golden Age of the Fathers in their love of the praises ceaselessly offered to the Father in spirit and truth by the Spouse of Christ, the Church. Although this praising of God constitutes neither the purpose of the monk's existence,3 nor his exclusive task, it is certainly his most important, holiest, and noblest of works, as well as the most efficacious in serving the Church and drawing Heaven's blessings upon the faithful. Whatever the pressure of activity, all other efforts remain secondary to this conse-cration to God's glorification; nothing is to be preferred to the Work of God. (Ch. 43) Many factors enter into tl~e complexity of monastic liturgical life, but in all its detail there is no confusion: it is all to be reduced to the simplicity of seeking God's glory in all things.4 It is based on the intelligent creature's conscious dwelling in the divine presence which strives to pour itself out in the humblest praises of the Eternal Goodness. It realizes that whatever perfection is achieved in the ascetical order is the work of God in the human soul. True monks eagerly praise the Lord working in them.~ It is a lifelong giving of aThis question is treated most attractively by one of the Order's outstanding asceti-cal leaders, Dom Germain Morin. Morin, The Ideal of the Monastic Life Found in the Apostolic Age. London, R. ~ T. Washbourne, 1914. Ch. 7, "Liturgical Praqer." 4The Benedictine motto, Ur in omnibus gloriIicetur Deus (usually abbreviated U.I.O.G.D.), That in all things God may be glorified, was early chosen by the saint's followers. While it occurs in the Rule (Ch. 57) in an isolated question dealing with material goods and their disposal, it perfectly expresses the general purpose of the monastic vocation. ~This phrase, taken from the Prologue to the Rule, is a favorite of all the classic commentators, and is accepted as a workable definition of grace. 10 danuar~/, 1951 BENEDICTINE SPIRITUALITY thanks to the Father of Mercies, an unceasing acknowledgment and atonement of imperfection and fault, an ever-renewed plea to be worthy to perform those works which are pleasing in God's sight. The whole effort is carefully regulated, for the liturgy is the solemn, official, public worship of the Church. Whoever would participate in the glorification of God by a monastic choir, or even study its execution of the sacred liturgy, must set aside all concepts of prayer that admit of mediocrity and external-ism. Here the goal is perfection, the absolute best of which men are capable through correspondence with the grace of vocation. Natu-rally, many allowances must be made. All the days of his life the monk will be humiliated in his attempt to offer a worthy praise of God, or, in St. Benedict's favorite phrase, to perform God's work. Although he knows that his effort is unfailingly acceptable .before the Divine Majesty, and that scrupulosity must be avoided at all costs, the religious realizes full well that he will never attain the goal of his desires: as a special gift, importing a most privileged union with God, prayerful love far exceeds all of man~s other abilities. More realistically, the monk knows that he can never wholly set aside the dread of praying unworthily, an offense that would pro-voke the Divine anger. "Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully." (Jeremias, 48:10) By his calling the monk is a professional in the worship of the Church: all his distinctive duties must be thorougMy colored, and even, to an extent, absorbed, by prayer's domination of his life. He devotes several carefully chosen hours each day and night to the chanting of the sacred psalmody--ideally, hours around which all other occupations are made to center, not hours inserted into a crowded schedule after other duties have been granted first considera-tion. He dwells in the monastery (repeatedly St. Benedict calls it the house of God), whose site is carefully chosen to help keep him at a distance from the world's distractions. He is freed from secular concerns in order to be intent solely on giving glory to God and achieving his own spiritual welfare. All the necessities of life are provided for him, so that care for material things may present no problem: in harmony with the whole plan, the virtue of detachment (St. Benedict does not use the word poverty in the sense now uni-versally adopted by religious) is interpreted as implying not so much self-denial as the consecration to God's glory of all they possess by a family of property owners. The works of obedience assigned to 11 BERNARD A. SAUSE Revleu~ [or Religious him are a studied part of the program, not vice versa. The Individual's Progress Understandably, the Rule, composed in the second quarter of the sixth century reflects and interprets the worthiest thought of the Golden Age that had preceded it. Its concept of the Universal Church and of the individual autonomous unit of Christ's Mystical Body, under the headship of him who is firmly believed to hold the place of Christ, is singularly free from the influences of individualism and subjectivism that have so often plagued the Church in subsequent eras. In its unpretentious way--for it deals always with the family, a small unit~it accentuates man's social nature to a degree that may not readily be appreciated today. The choir's prayerfulness; the good zeal exercised within the monastic family (Ch. 72), and by the family in its external works; the spirit of obedience as the pres-ence of Christ in the midst of the brethren rather than a legalistic treatment of the superior's rank and authority; corporateness of vir-tue; love of local tradition--a family trait, certainly; concentration on being rather than the more modern exhortation to action, are trends, attitudes, and ideals which will want long and careful study from today's novice before he can successfully translate them into action. But however helpful attention to his social nature may be in aiding him to be a worthy religious and man of the Church, and however deeply he may have drunk of the doctrine that all good comes to him through his monastic family, whereas all evil befalls him only through separation from the sa.me,6 the monk is soon brought to the realization that he remains an individual. He must also care intensely for this phase of his spiritual formation. The force of the good example of those about him, the spiritual assistance of his companions in religion, the,brotherly word of encouragement, the exhortations, private and public correction of faults, the infinite variety that "the aid of many brethren" (Ch. 1) may assume, are perceived by the individual, primarily. They wield a great force in his moral life. Humilitg St. Benedict has been called, with excellent right, the Church's 6This question is proposed at length in the meditations on stability, the vow of attachment to one's monastic family in: Sause, Bernard A., O.S.B., The School of the Ldrd's 8ert~ice. St. Meinrad, Indiana, Grail Press, 1948. vol. 2, p. 57 f. 12 January, 1951 BENEDICTINE SPIRITUALITY Doctor of Humility. St. Bernard, St. Thomas, and other ascetical masters, quote his exposition of the virtue at length and without modification. Chapter 7 of St. Benedict's Rule is a spiritual master-piece and commands the attention of any person who would learn humility profoundly. It applies the virtue to every phase of relig!ous striving to serve God--from fearful, conscious dwelling in the Divine presence, to control of laughter and the manner of walking. Obedience The distinctive feature of Benedictine asceticism has always been recognized as the spirit of obedience--which in most of its mani-festations is scarcely distinguishable from Benedict's presentation of humility. Obedience harmonizes and makes powerful the spiritual forces in the life of every follower of Christ. Created to be balanced and mutually helpful in man's nature, in a limited likeness to the per-fect harmony in Jesus Christ, the, mutual aid between intellect and will was destroyed by sin. Even in the new order, under the Second Adam, with the light of faith and the sacramental aids for the will, the struggle continues all the days of man's life on earth. Obedience restores the harmony, and in a vivid sense makes the monk like his Divine Model. In the opening sentence of the Prologue to his Rule, Benedict" calls monasticism "a return to God through the labor of obedience." In a broad sense one may say t.hat every chapter that follows is an unfolding of that statement. Commentators on the Rule delight in referring to St. Bernard's emphasis on the love motive necessary for ideal obedience: "Perfect obedience knows no law. It is bound by no restrictions. It is not content with the limitations of profession, but is drawn by the most powerful impulse of the will, under the influence of grace, into the realms of love. It submits unhesitatingly to all thai is enjoined, with the vigor of a generous and cheerful spirit , . , and heedless of ways and means, is infinite in its liberty. It is willing to embrace even impossible things, and confident of God's help, obeys from love even in such extremes.''7 Ideal Approach St. Benedict's treatment of obedience may serve to focus the attention on a point that may not sufficiently be appreciated in reading any one of the four accepted Rules by the great founders of religious bodies. The Rule stresses ideal obedience. For Benedict Bernard, Liber de pcaeeepto et dispensationeo c. 6. P.L. 182:868. 13 BERNARD A. SAUSE Review for Religious there is no such thing as mediocrity, or mere extern'alsubmission. For him an act of obedience must be "acceptable to God and agree-able to men." (Ch. 5) The virtue permits of "no delay in execu-tion, as if the matter had been commanded by God Himself." (Ibid) The same zealous imitation of Christ out of love of God (Ch. 7, third degree of humility) expresses itself in phrases denoting the quality of the monk's submission, like: "the ready step of obedience," "without hesitation, delay, lukewarmness, murmuring, or com-plaint." (Ch. 5) It is to be performed cheerfully. Benedict never descends from his ideal. In his P~ule he treats only of perfect obedience; other than that he mentions only the punish-ments for disobedience. With him the emphasis is not on what must ' be done to fulfil the law: he takes that for granted. On that assumption he builds. Positive human law is generally concerned with the minimum necessary to preserve an ideal. St. Benedict is intent on the maximum that man can offer his Creator. The thought may be viewed from another angle: the more uni-versal a society, the broader the concessions and the more numerous the provisions of tolerance that must be made for the weaknesses of human nature, the more general and sweeping, and easy-of-acceptance the norms which must be shared by everyone. By contrast, the smaller and more unified the group, the more sharply defined and intensified its ideal. The monastic family for which th~ t~ule is designed is large enough to embody and give expression to the social principles of religious life in common. It is compact and unified enough to preserve the most distinctive features that mark a group of men devotedly seeking God. Tile Lectio Divina An ideal of this kind must constantly be fostered by every means possible: in this case obviously by study, instruction, exhortation, good example. St. Benedict, who drew no distinctions among those who gave acceptable proof of sincerely seeking God, realized the importance of what is today commonly called spiritual reading for monastic formation. He demands several hours a day of this pious exercise which was more a leisurely study and mastering of revealed doctrine than the fretful flitting from page to page that moderns call reading, more an approach to God than an-ostentatious acquaintance with titles, authors' li~¢es and styl~s of writing, rather for spiritual upbuilding (aedi[icatio) than faithfulness in fulfilling a half-hour of the day's horarium. 14 Januarg, 195, I BENEDICTINE SPIRITUALITY Nothing Is to Be Preferred to the Love of Christ If the spirituality of the sons of St. Benedict has a distinguishing mark, it is that it is eminently Christocentric. The Master of Monte-cassinb employs an identical expression three times: Nothing is to be preferred to the love of Christ. Every line o~ the Rule seeks to induce the monks to translate that love into action. In the fourteen and a half centuries of their existence, the reli-gious who have borne the name of the Patriarch of Western Monks have contributed only two insertions into the Roman Ritual: the Sign of St. Maur, imparted ycith a relic of the True Cross and desig-nated with the name of St. Benedict's first disciple only because he first imparted it, and because his name is invoked in the ceremony; ¯ and the blessing of the medal-cross of St. Benedict, which is likewise a manifestation of complete confidence in the Sign of Salvation. Love of Christ underlies Benedict's every appeal. The perfection of obedience is that "for the love of God a man subject himself to a superior in all obedience, imitating the Lord, of whom the Apostle saith, 'He became obedient unto death.' " The love motive for other works, which presupposes the ascent of all the degrees of humility, guarantees the perfect fulfilment of every virtue. As nothing else ever can do, love of Christ leads to the worthiest prayer, the most acceptable offering of the Sacrifice, to intimacy of union with God. Contemplative Nature or: Monasticism As the monk continues to live under the grace-filled inspirations of his professed way of life, and is careful to hold himself ever free from distracting attachments (however good they may be), he dis-covers something of the powerful attraction of recollectedness (he has outgrown insistence on rules of silence--Benedict speaks much more often of judicious and charitable speech than of £ilence), the way of humility, the filial fear, the spirit of compunction that leads to inti-mate union with God. His whole carefully-regulated life, the daily liturgy's richness of thought, the environment of the enclosure, his private prayer, separation from the world, the humble works of obe-dience, the consecration of his whole being to God at the altar, will not allow him to remain silent. Now he must speak to God--no longer only in the prescribed and official prayers, but freely, gener-ously, in his own words unhesitatingly addressed to his FatheL pouring out the protestations of his love. Correspondence with the graces of monasticism bege'ts a love so intense that it informs one's every action: it seeks every possible means to prove itself. When the 15 C. A. HERBST Review for Religfous professed person begins to live on this plane, he realizes that the Father of Mercies, who is never outdone in generosity, has fulfilled all the hopes of profession morning. He has learned the spirituality of Benedict.of Montecassino, Patriarch of the Monks of the West. That, in fact, is the promise of the Master to his every follower. In the concluding paragraph of the Prologue to his Rule, he states: "As we advance in the religious life and faith, we shall run the way of God's commandments with expanded hearts [that is, with an ever increasing generosity] and unspeakable sweetness of love; so that never departing from His guidance, and persevering in the monastery in His doctrine until death, we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ, and be. found worthy to be coheirs with Him of His kingdom." "Behold This Head:. ." C. A. Herbst, S.J. THERE is a copybook seven by nine inches containing sixty-four pages treasured at Paray-le-Monial in France. It is the life of St. Margaret Mary written in her own hand, an account of her spiritual life and of the dealings of the Sacred Heart with her. Under obedience, with great pain, she wrote this Autobiographg. (Auto-biography: Life of Saint Margaret Marg Alacoque Written bg Her-self, Visitation Library, Roselands, Walmer, Kent, 1930.) From that little book, it seems to me, one can best learn to know, under-stand, and practice devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We learn there from her whose heart Christ found ready and so like His own, and from Our Lord Himself, the nature and practice of this world devotion which is everybody's devotion. One finds there a statement, a complaint, a request, and a promise. "Behold this Heart, Which has loved men so much, that It has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify to them Its love" (.Autobiograpbg, No. 92). This is the " statement. "So much." How much? Love is proved by deeds rather than by words. "He loved me and delivered himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:8). Our Lord, our Creator, 16 Januar~/, 1951 BEHOLD TH~S HEART came from eternal life to temporal death for love of us. "Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven; and was in-carnate by the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary; and was made man. He was crucified also for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried." All these wonderful feats of love our beloved Champion has done for us to win our love. And yet, in the very same breath with this statement of His love for us must come The complaint. ". and in return I receive from the greater number nothing but ingratitude by reason of their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt which they show Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel the most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me that treat Me thus." (Ibid.) Iwonder who could count the insults and outrages committed against Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist these nineteen hundred years! I wonder who could calculate the amount of ingratitude and irreverence and sacrilege and coldness and contempt shown the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament by religious, for these are the "hearts which are consecrated to Me." The deepest wounds and the ones slowest to heal are inflicted by rejected love. Men and women are driven to desperation and to self-destruction by this. Sins against Jesus Christ in the sacrament of His love wound His Sacred Heart very deeply. Sins committed by religious against the Sacred Heart whom they have chosen as their B~loved for life are especially hateft~l to Him. ~ Our Lord's Requests The request Our Lord made is manifold. "In the first place thou shalt receive Me in Holy Communion as often as obedience will per-mit thee, whatever mortification or humiliation it may cause thee, which thou must take as pledges of My love" (ibid.). Love longs for union with the beloved. Our Lord wants us to take His sacred Body and precious Blood in Holy Communion as food because food is most intimately united with us. He wants us to be united with ~he soul as frequently and continuously as possible, too. The mortifi-cation or humiliation frequent Communion might bring St. Mar-garet Mary in 1675, when it could easily be considered the mark of a presumptuous or proud soul is, of course, absent n6w. "Thou shalt, moreover, communicate on the First Friday of each month" (ibid.). The fact gives the clear, strong response to this request. One has but to enter a church on the First Friday and see a whole congregation rise as one man and go to Holy Commun- 17 C. A. HERBST Review [or Religious ion in Order to realize what.a revolution this desire of Our Lord has wrought. One readily notices that this request is more general than the nine consecutive First Fridays in reward fo~ which Christ made the "Great Promise." "Every night between Thursday and Friday I will make thee share in the mortal sadness which I was pleased to feel in the Garden of Olives, and this sadness, without thy being able to understand it, shall reduce thee to a kind of agony harder to endure than death it-self. And in order to bear Me company in the humble prayer that I then offered to My Father, in the midst of My anguish, thou shalt rise between eleven o'clock and midnight, and remain prostrate with Me for an hour, not only to appease the divine anger by begging mercy for sinners, but also which I felt at that time apostles~ which obliged me watch one hour with Me. shall teach thee." (Ibid.) to mitigate in some way thebitterness on finding Myself abandoned by My to repr.oach them for not being able to During that hour thou shalt do what I Each Thursday night Christ invites us to share in the sadness and agony of death He underwent during His Passion. He asks comp'hssion with Him, companionship, prayer for sinners, rep.aration for desertion by His apostles.These things are very consoling to the. Sacred Heart. Feast of the Sacred Heart "Therefore, I ask of thee that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honour My Heart, by communicating on that day and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends, for the indignities which It has received during the time it has been exposed on the altars" (ibid., No. 92). This was the climax of the desires of the Sacred . Heart. St. Margaret Mary celebrated this feast in a little way with her novices on St. Margaret's day, July 20, 1685. "This drew upon me, 'and also upon them, many humiliations and mqrtific.ations, for I was accused of wishing to introduce a. new devotion" (ibid., No. 95). It is a long and painful task to bring.into the liturgy the Church a feast founded on a private revelation, and its advocates also trod the way of humiliations and mortifications. But in 1765 the Holy Father Clement XIII approved the Mass and Office of the Sacred Heart. Plus IX extended it to th~ universal Church in 1856. It was raised to the rank of a feast .of the fir.st class with an octave by Plus XI in 1929. The same Sovereign Pontiff ordered that every year on the feast a solemn and specially formuiated act of reparation 18 danuar~, 1951 BEHOLD THIS HEART to the Sacred Heart of ,Jesus be made in all the churches of the world. And since, as the twentieth century dawned; Pope Leo XIII had con-secrated the whole human race to the Sacred Heart, this request of Our Lord was solemnly fulfilled by His spouse, the Church. The promise, too, is manifoldand, as is the way with Christ, the reward far outweighs in richness the required work. "I prom!se thee that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the ih-fluence of Its divine love upon tfiose who shall thus honour It, and cause.It to be honoured" (ibid., No. 92). We have to go to St. Mar-garet Mary's letters for more details." "He promises that all those devoted to this Sacred Heart shall never perish and that, as It is the source of all blessings, He will shower them in abundance upon every place where a picture of this Sacred Heart is exposed to be loved and honored. By this means He will restore broken homes. He will help and protect those who are in any necessity. He will spread the sweet unction of His ardent charity upon all religious communities in which a picture of. this Sacred Heart shall be honored. He will turn aside the just anger of God. He will restore souls to His grace when they shall have, fallen from it by sin." (Letter to Mother de Saumaise, August 24, 1685.) . With regard to the,"Great Promise" that the Sacred Heart "will grant to all those who communicate on the first Friday in nine consecutive months, the grace of final perseyerance" let Father Bainvel's remark suffice: "If I am not mistaken, the con-clusion will always be that the 'Great Promise' is something unique." Our Lord told "the beloved disciple .of His Sacred Heart" that He would fulfill these promises in return for the love and repar.at.ion shown Him in the practices He recommended. The ,substance of devotion to the Sacred Heart is love and reparation. His manifold request and .repeated statements and complaints show this clearly. OUR CONTRIBUTORS BERNARD A. SAUSE, the author of The School of the Lord's Service, a three volume set of meditations on the Rule of St. Benedict, is dean df St. Benedict's theological seminary at Atchison, Kansas. CLARENCE MCAULIFFE and C. A. HERBST are members of the' faculty of St. Mary's College, St~ 'Marys, Kansas. M. RAYMOND is a monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Trappist, Kentucky. ADAM C. ELLIS, G. AUGUSTINE.ELLARD, and ,JEROME BREUNIG are members'of, the editorial board of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. 19. Quinquennial Report:, 1951 Adam C. Ellis, S.3. THE Sacred Co,n, gregation of Religious issued a new decree on 2uly 9, 1947 regarding the quinquennial report to be made by religious orders and congregations, by societies living in com-fiaon, and by kecular institutes." In this decree the obligation was extended to all superiors general ofthe three groups mentioned; and a new questionnaire to be followed in making the report was announced as in preparation. Finally, a new annual report was made obligatory on all the superiors mentioned above. The text of this new decree was printed in the REVIEW for September, 1949, pp. 234- 240, with introduction and comment. When the forms for the new annual report were ready for distri-bution and the.new questionnai.re was available, the late Cardinal Lavitrano (d. August 2, 1950), then Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, addressed a circular letter to all superiors general in which he gave some practical instructions for making out both the quinquennial and annual reports. The official English ver-sion of the new questionnaire for the quinquennial report was pub-lished in the REVIEW, 2anuary to September inclusive, 1950. And in the November number, pp. 309-316, under the title "First An-nual Repoort," some practical suggestions for making out this report contained in Cardinal Lavitrano's letter were given, together with some others, in order to help our readers fill out these forms for the annual report for the first lime. The purpose of this final article is to offer helpful directives for drawing up the quinquennial report, and to indicate some practical conclusions to be drawn from the questionnaire itself. General Directives 1) Who must make this report in 19517 (a) All lay congre-gations ofreligious men (Brothers). (b) Likewise'the superiors general of all religious institutes of women in all the countries of America (North, Central, and South America). 2) In what language should the report be whiten? Clerical in-stitutes must answer the questions in Latin; lay institutes, Brothers and Sisters, may use the vernacular, that is, either English or French, 20 QUINQUENN!AL REPORT German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish.1 3) May the quinquennial report be t~/ped? It not only may, but should be typed if this can be done. Otherwise, if written by hand, the handwriting must be clear and good ink .used. The report should be typed or written on good bond paper, not too heavy, and not translucent. ' " 4) Must the question be stated before each answer? No, it is not necessary to include the question with the answer, but it suffices to put the number of the question before the answer. 5) What method should be followed in answering the questions? Always answer the question with a complete sentence, never with a mere "yes" or "no." Give briefly and clearly all the information pertinent to the subject. An example or two may help. Question 24 a) reads: "Is the general council at present up to its full member-ship?" The answer might be: "Yes, the generaI council is up to fulI membership at present. One of the councilors died during the year 1950, but another councilor was elected in conformity with the pre-scriptions of our constitutions." Again, question. 190 states: "Was the delivery of the dowry made according to law?" The answer might be simply: "We have no dowry." 6) When must the report be handed in? Any time durin.g the year 1951. But it should cover the five-year period from 1946-1950 inclusive. 7) Must all the councilors sign the report? Yes, all the coun-cilors and the superior general must sign the report. Hence the report, when completed, should be given for a private reading to each of the persons who are obliged to sign it; after they have done so, it should be discussed in a common meeting and corrected or improved, according to circumstances, if that be considered necessary by the majority, before it is signed by all. ~-There are three official Latin texts of the new questionnaire or Elenchus Quaes-tionum: (1) 342 questions for pontifical institutes; (2) 322 questions for diocesan institutes; (3) 171 questions for independent monasteries and houses. However, bnly the first, that for pontifical institutes, has been translated into Eng-lish. Furthermore, in the questionnaire for diocesan religious, there are three ques-tions which do not appear in that for p6ntifical institutes, and in the questionnaire for independent monasteries and religious houses there are fifteen such questions. ThoSe using text two or three, for diocesan institutes and independent monasteries respectively, will have to find their questions in the larger text for pontifical insti-tutes. To facilitate this task, a chart has been drawn up giving the correlation of numbers for the three texts, and on the back of this chart have been printed the additional questions just referred to. A copy of this chart may be had free of charge by" sending a self-addressed, stamped (three cents) envelope, to the author of this article at St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. 21 ADAM C. ELLIS Reoieto for Religious 8) What should a councilor do after he has voiced his objections to the superior and to the o[her coimcilors in cbunc[l meeting, but to n6 avail? First of all, he must sign the report along with the others. Then he may, if he wishes to do so, submit his owh judgment to that of the unanimous contrary opinion, and rest satisfied. Finally, if he feels bound in conscience to report the matter to the. Holy See, he may do so in a private letter, being careful to state only objective facts in his minority report. 9) To whom is the report to be sent? Orders, congregations with simple vows, societies living, in common, and secular institutes approved by the Hotel See must send their reports directly to the Sacred Congregation of Religious; address to. Very Rev. Secretary, Congregation of Religious, Pallazzo delle Congregazioni, Piazza S. Callisto, Rome, Italy. All diocesan institutes, independent mon-asteries ~nd houses are to send their report to the local ordinary of their mother house. When he has read it, he will add his comments to the report and then send it on to the Sacre~l Congregation of Reli-gious. If the diocesan congregation, society, or secular institute has houses in other dioceses, the local ordinary of the mother house must send copies of the report to all those local ordinaries as well, and'after receiving their comments, add them to his own before sending the report to the Holy See. 10) In the case of a ponti£cal institute of religious women, who sends the report to the Hol~ See? Is it the local ordinary of the mother house, or the superior general? The decree of the Sacred Congregation of Religious (No. VII) states explicitly that the supe- .riot general is tO send in the report after she has obtained the signa-ture of the local ordinary in conformity with canon 510. 1 1) What is the import of the signature of the local ordinary? Must he read the report?' The local ordinary has no obligation to read the quinquennial report of a pontifical institute. He merely signs it in order to authenticate (subsignare) the signatures of the superior general and her council members. Practical Hints from the New Questionnaire 1) From question 4 for diocesan institutes one draws the con- ¯ clusion that it is the mind of the Holy See that diocesan congrega-tions should apply to the Holy See for the status of a pontifical con-gregation (iuris pontitfcii) when they have developed sufficiently to meet the requirements. 2) Similarly, from question 9 for diocesan congregations it may 22 danttarv, 1951 QUINQUENNIAL REPORT be inferred that they are not to be divided iiato provinces. 3) Religious are not to undertake new works, whether spiritual or temporal, which are beyond the scope of the special end of their. constitutions. Question 5 asks whether this has been done, and by what authority. 4) For the establishment of a new religious house, a written contract should be drawn up in accordance with canon law and with due regard to civil law (question 21). 5) The superior general has the obligation of promulgating decrees and decisions of the general chapter, and of enforcing them (questions 35- 37). 6) The councilors of religious superiors~--gener.al, provincial and local--are to be given due freedom of speech: and the common law as well as the particular law must always be observed in the decisions, appointments, and voting of whatever kind (question 53). 7) Matters in which the common or particular law grants to councilors a deliberative or a consultive vote must be submitted to them for their consideration in common; hence meetings of superiors and their councilors must be held regularly (questions 49-51). 8) Superiors are expected to observe the provisions of .canon law and of the constitutions regarding both the comm6n obligations of religious, and the special obligations of their own office (question 62). 9) It is the desire of the Sacred Congregation of Religious that, where it can be done conveniently, a confessor should be available in the chapel before the reception of Holy Communion (question 85). 10) Superiors are to see to it that religious are allowed a suitable time for preparation for and thanksgiving after Holy Communion (question 85). 11) The administration of the property of a religious institute must be carried on not arbitrarily, but according to the common law and to the constitutions (question 109). 12) When for just reasons the permission of the Holy See is obtained tO engage in business, every semblance bf fraud as well as of avarice is to be diligently avoided, and care must be taken to see that the religious occupied in these business dealings may not suffer spir, itual harm (question 130). '13) The Sacred C~?ngregation of Religious considers it a grave abuse to delay the profession of a novice because the expenses of the postulancy or. novitiate had not been paid (question 164). 23 January, 1951 QUINQUENNIAL REPORT 14) No religious once professed of temporary vows should ever be without vows because of a failure to renew them at the proper time (question 200). 15) The Sacred Congregation of Religious wishes that the use of the telephone and of the radio be regulated by superiors and chap-ters, and that radio programs be censored (questions 214, 215). 16) Religious superiors are to watch over and assist those of their subjects who are pastors (canon 631, §§1-2) and, in case of need, admonish and correct them (question 292). 17) Superiors (a) are strictly obliged to give their subjects ade-quate preparation for their work, whether it be teaching, nursing, or other corporal or spiritual ministry, and (b) they should see to it that their subjects get suitable food and sleep; and (c) that in the exercise of external works the religious life be'fostered, and all moral dangers avoided (questions 301-311). Conclusion We have given a considerable amount of space in the REVIEW to Reports to Rome, both to the new questionnaire for the quinquennial report as well as to the new annual report. At first sight one might conclude that these reports are of interest only to the superiors who have the obligation of making them. But if we examine the ques-tionnaire we shall find "that it contains a very practical and fairly complete statement of the law of the Church regarding religious, with continual references to the canons of the Code of Canon Law which are generally cited,' and with frequent allusions to the decrees, instructions, and jurisprudence of the Holy See. Hence all religious can read the questionnaire with profit. The questionnaire likewise affords a safe norm of action for superiors, consultors, treasurers, and masters of novices since it provides them with a valuable reminder of their duties. Hi~her superiors can find in it direction for govern-ment, and a stimulus to action, since it provides for them matter for the study and examination of their duties and obligations. Finally it provides a safe guide for the visitation of houses inasmuch as it gives the principal points upon which action is to be taken during the visitation. May all religious derive profit from it, and find in it the ideals and standards of the Holy See in their regard, as well as a norm for the solution of many poi.nts which may appear to be obscure or controverted. 24 Unworl:hy h inist:ers ot: !:he Sacramen!:s Clarence McAuliffe, S.3. THE attitude of Catholics towards their priests differs radically from that of Protestants towards their clergymen. The Protestant pastor is expected to possess the social graces. He must keep in good contact with his flock. He should be a good story teller, a hearty hand-shaker, a sinceie sympathizer. He should have a pleasing voice since one of his principal functions is to lead congregational prayers and songs. He must have some preaching ability, but he must be careful on what subjects he exercises it. He is not likely to" be criticized i£ he speaks on government planning or child welfare or home economics even though he forges no link between such subjects and man's salvation. If he deals with reli-gious topics, he must confine himself to a limited number of moral questions or to a few hazy dogmatic generalities. He ought to be an adept organizer, and the more dances, bazaars, dubs, social gatherings he organizes, the more satisfied will his people be. If he is found wanting in too many of these endowments, he is likely to find him-self a pastor with a much diminished congregation, or on pastor besieged by an indignant congregation which will have him ousted from his post. This may not be true of all Protestant denomination~ and parishes, but it certainly holds for many of them. Catholics, too, would like to see their priests gifted with many of the aptitudes demanded of the Protestant clergyman, but they con-sider them as secondary. They expect their priests to be men of God (Protestants also expect good example and a certain righteousness in their spiritual leaders), but even moral deviations do not make the priest unbearable. Catholics realize that the priest, whatever his lack of talent or his delinquen.cies, holds a sacred office. He has been con-secrated eternally to God to do, not his own, but God's work. He may be morose, anti-social. His sermons may have the effect of a mother's lullaby. His singing may be a series of auditory shocks. But the principal work he has to do does not depend on his personal capabilities. He says Mass. He confers the sacraments. 'These are his prime duties. Everything else is secondary. And it is a marvel of God's operation in the faithful that most of them realize that their 25 CLARENCE MCAULIFFE Review for Reiigious prie.sts., can administer-beneficial sacraments and celebrate effiicacious Masses even though they are '.'bad priests." Our people are aware that the !~/Iass and the sacraments have a God-given eff~cacy that can-not be frustrated by unworthy ministers. The subjective spiritual condition of the priest cannot impede the divine effects of those reli-gious rites which were instituted by Christ Himself, because they operate automatically. What Are the Reasons? It might be profitable, however, for us to examine the reasons for this. Why is it that a callous sinner can confer a sacrament which will bestow its spiritual effects on a recipient who is properly dis-posed? Why is is that sacramental ministers who do not have even the Catholic faith, such as apostates, rationalists, heretics, schismatics, Jews, pagans, can nevertheless, confer a sacrament or sacraments without interfering with their power to sanctify those who receive them? The facts are certain. Unl~oly ministers and faithless min-isters can do so. But how do we know that Christ Himself wanted His sacraments to operate independently of the holiness and faith of their ministers? Before answering this question, it might be well to insist that in all cases the minister must place the external rite of the sacrament correctly. He must properly unite what we call the "matter" and the "form" of the sacrament. Take the example of Baptism. The minister must always use true natural water. He must so apply this water to the recipient that it touches the skin and flows. He must at the same time pronounce the prescribed formula of words with his lips. Since baptism can be validly administered by any sane adult whatever, no special power deriving from orders is required in its minister. Essentials for Validity/ In all the sacraments except baptism and matrimony, however, the extraordinary spiritual power bestowed by ordination is essential for validity. No matter how holy a minister may be, therefore, his efforts to produce sacramental graces are in vain unless he administers conectly the basic external elements of a sacrament. Even should this be done, no sacramental graces are communicated unless the min-ister is endowed with the unique spiritual power conferred by ordi-nation. Once so much is assumed, we now ask why 'it is that a def~tive spiritual condition of the minister, such as the state of mot- 26 Januarg, 1951 UNWORTHY MINISTERS tal sin or lack of faith, cannot prevent a sacrament from imparting its graces automatically to a person who is sufficiently disposed to receive it fruitfully. It should be observed that reason alone, independent of God's revelation, could not have decided the correct answer to this ques-tion. God surely could have, had He so willed, made the validity of all th~ sacraments contingent on the faith and holiness of their minister. Had He done so, ministers would have had an additional incentix;e to foster their faith and to preserve the state of grace. Fur-thermore, reason left to itself might argue that a ministbr bereft of faith and holiness could not be an active agent in the administration of sacramentsl since these.by their very nature infuse grace and aug-ment the v.irtue of faith. How can one who does not possess the Holy Spirit confer the" Holy Spirit on another? These and other rational considerations cotild be advanced to prove that ministers of sacraments must have faith and at least the state of grace. But although our faith is always reasonable, we hever learn it by having recourse to reason as its main conduit. The object of faith is God's revelation which is proposed to us proximately by the Church. Hence faced by the present problem, we seek the Church's teaching and tra-ditions. But we shall show later on that, even from the rational side, we can advance excellent reason why God made His sacraments independent of the faith and holiness of their ministers. No Rebaptisms It had been the custom in the Church from her earliest days, just as it is a.t p[esent, not to rebaptize heretics when they were converted to the Catholic church. Such heretics had already 'been baptized in their own sects and so by heretical ministers. But if the rite had been properly administered, the Church simply took for granted that such baptisms were valid even though conferred by ministers who rejected, either culpably or inculpably, part of the true faith. Such converts from heresey were obliged merely t6 make a profession of faith and to go to the sacrament of penance. About 220 A.D., Agrippinus, Bishop of Carthage in Africa, began to inveigh against this custom. He declared that such converts should also be rebaptized because their previous baptism was invalid by the very fact that its minister had not possessed the full Catholic faith. The illustrious St. Cyprian, successor to Agrippinus in the See of Carthage, sanctioned the same opinion and insisted on its observance in the dioceses of Africa. When, however, he consulted 27 CLARENCE MCAULIFFE Review [or Religious (about 254 A.D.) Pope St. Stephen about the ma~ter, he receipted the following reply: "If, therefore, heretics of any sect whatever come to you, add nothing to the traditional practice of granting them absolution." This decision of St. Stephen's, based as it was on the ancient custom, came to prevail despite temporary opposit'ion in Africa and Asia Mi.nor. Thus we find St. Augustine, looking back on the dis-pute a hundred and some odd years later, declaring: "According to o Blessed Cyprian, his predecessor Agrippinus had been the first to "amend" this most wholesome custom (of not rebaptizing heretics) ; rather should we believe that Agrippinus was the first to corrupt, not to correct it." So, too, St. Vincent of Lerins some years later pro-nounces this judgment .on the dispute: "The antiquity (the custom of not rebaptizing heretics) was retained, the novelty was exploded.'~ Finally the Council of Trent expressly defined the matter as an article of faith against the Protestant innovators of the sixteenth century: "If anyone says that baptism which is conferred in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, with the ifitention of doing what the Church does, is not a true baptism, let him be anathema." It should be noted that this definition is concerned directly with baptism alone. Nevertheless .it is certain that heretical ministers, provided they possess the power and place the matter and form cor-rectly with the intention of doing what the Church does, can ~¢alidly confer any sacrament whatever. All the sacraments are la~ien with. the merits of Christ. That is why they confer grace automatically. If, then, heresy in the minister cannot prevent the spontaneous infu-sion of grace by baptism, neither can it prevent this infusion of grace by the other sacraments. So, a true bishop, even a heretic, can val-idly confirm or ordain. Heretical priests, if validly ordained, can say Mass and administer Extreme Unction. The only ex~ception is the sacrament of penance. For this sacrament not only priestly power. but also ecclesiastical jurisdiction is necessary .for validity. If this jurisdiction is wanting, absolution becomes invalid, but it does not become invalid because the minister is a heretic or an apostate. The invalidity proceeds solely from lack of jurisdiction. It is, therefore, universally true that heresy in the minister does not make any sacra-ment invalid. Moreover, although the controversy of the third century was concerned v~ith heretical ministers only, we know for certain from 28 danuary, 1951 UNWORTHY MINISTERS other sources.that ministers who possess no trace whatever of divine faith, such as rationalists, apostates, pagans, can validly administer baptism. Hence the practice of urging even pagan doctors or nurses to baptize infants, when they are in danger of death and no one else is available should be retained and even spread. The Council of Florence declares, though it does not define as of faith, the following: "In case of necessity not only a priest or deacon, but even a layman or laywoman, yes, even a pagan and a heretic is able to baptize, pro-vided he observes the rites of the Church and intends to do what the Church does." Can Sinners Act Validly? But these arguments do not answer the question whether a sinner also can confer a sacrament validly: Lack of faith is often incul-pable. ¯ A sincere Protestant, for example, even though he does not have the true faith in its fullness, may be in the state of grace. No sin attaches to his incorrect belief because he honestly believes it is correct. Hence a minister deprived of the true faith may be free from sin. On the other hand, a minister may retain the Catholic faith and yet be in the state of mortal sin. Thus a priest might be a sinner because he deliberately violated a grave precept and yet the faith of the priest remains intact. Hence it does not follow as a logical con-clusion that since an unbeliever can validly confer a sacrament, there-fore a sinner can do the same. Nevertheless, if we revert to the third century dispute previously outlined, we shall find that from it we can deduce that sinful min-isters cannot impede the efficacy of baptism. Some, at least, of the heretical ministers who had baptized converts who later were admitted into the Church without a second baptismal ceremony, were not only heretical, but were also formally heretical. They knew they were in error and yet they obstinately persisted in their error. To do this is to sin very seriously. Hence some of these ministers were at the same time heretics and sinners. Yet the validity of their baptisms was never questioned on this second score. St. Cyprian was worried about their unbelief, not about the culpability of that unbelief. Therefore the ability of a sinner to administer baptism validly was not even challenged. It is clear, then, that everybody admitted implicitly that sinners could validly baptize. " Should there be some doubt whether any of these heretical min-isters were culpable of their heresy, we should have to prove our point from a slightly different angle. Even though their heresy may 29 CLARENCE MCAULIFFE Reoiew for Religious not have been sinful, this much at least is morally certain: some of those heretical ministers who had performed the baptism of later converts, were guilty of mortal sin of some kind. It would have been a .miracle if none of them during a period of two centuries had been in the state of sin when baptism was administered. Yet the fact remains that when their converts joined the Church, no one even dreamed of investigating the moral state of the heretical ministers who had baptized, them. Everybody, even St. Cyprian and his fol-lowers, realized that the results of such an investigation would have been irrelevant and could have had nothing to do with the validity of the baptisms conferred. Thus even those who denied the validity of baptism when performed by a heretic, implicitly conceded along with the whole Church that the sinfulness of the minister could not affect the sacrament's value. The Council of Trent When heretics such as the Donatists and later on the Waldensians and Albigensians (13th century) and still later the followers of Wycliffe and Huss (15th century)asserted that sinful ministers could not validly confer the sacraments, they were condemned by the Church officially. Finally in the sixteenth century when the leaders of the Protestant Revolt repeated the same falsehood, the Council of Trent proscribed the error as heretical when it declared: "If anyone says tl~at a minister in the state of mortal sin, provided he observes all the essentials which belong to the effecting or conferring of a sac-rament, neither effects or confers the sacrament, let him be anathema." Thus confirmation, extreme unction, confession and the other four sacraments lose none of their power to produce grace in their recipi-ents just because their miniiter happens to be a sinner Sacraments, therefore, truly produce their grace "'ex opere operato,'" not only independently of the merits of the subject, but also independently of the merits of the minister. The latter's deficiency in faith or his moral degradation cannot destroy or even weaken their efficacy. Fittingness of Doctrine Once we know that God has revealed this doctrine, we can find good reasons for His making the essential rites of His Church superior to the weakness of their ministers. In the first place, the minister of a sacrament is in the strictest sense, only a minister. He is not acting in his own name, but in that of Christ. He places rites that were instituted by Christ, not by himself. He places rites that bear within 30 d'anuary, 1951 UNWORTHY MINISTERS themselves the me~its oF Chris't, not his own merits. He is merely an official. Now we all know that officials can act just as efficaciously in performing their official functions regardless of their personal beliefs or delinquencies. A judge may not beIieve in the law he officially upholds, he may be a disgrace to his fellow citizens in his moral conduct, but his decisions do not lose any of their binding force because of them. He acts in the name of the State in rendering judgments, his verdicts are just as binding as those of a judge who believes in the laws and whose private life is blameless. Similarly, the.subjective beliefs and moral vagaries of the minister of sacraments cannot obstruct their grace-producing power as long as the rites are properly placed and conferred. Again, if the sanctifying activity of the sacraments were depend-ent on the faith or holiness of their ministers, the faithful would be beset by endless mental anxiety about their own spiritual welfare. They would wonder if the priest who says Mass is in the state of graceand a true believer. If not, they would get no grace from Holy Communion when he would distribute the Sacrament. Again, a dying sinner wants to confess his sins. His salvation depends on a good confession. But suppose the priest who hears his confession is himself a great sinner and, as a result, his absolution would be invalid? The penit.ent would lose his soul because he did not make an act of perfect .contrition. Anxietq Removed Moreover, the anxiety would be increased by the fact that we cannot know whether a 19erson has faith and is in the state of grace. Faith and holiness are primarily internal qualities. We cannot be certain that the minister of a sacrament has them. Our judgments about the holiness of others are necessarily superficial, since we can-not glimpse the inner workings,of any human soul. As a result of this principIe, we would never know for sure whether any sacrament was fruitful for us, and the entire Church, both clerical and lay, would be in a continual ferment. Such a spiritual condition would hardly be compatible with the reiterated promise of Christ that His followers would enjoy peace of soul. Finally, if the efficacy of the sacraments were contingent on the faith and sanctity of their ministers, certain lines of conduct incom-patible with the teaching of Christ would be almost necessarily engendered. The laity would be suspicious of their priests. They would pry into their private lives. They would be on the watch for 31 danuar~, 1951 UNWORTHY MINISTERS scandalous reports about them. They would misinterpret many of the actions of their priests. They would falsely conclude that a priest was a sinner when he was not. Priests would be reported some-times rightly, oftentimes wrongly, to their bishops. Bitterness, detraction, calumny, suspicion, rash judgments would tear apart the Mystical Body of Christ which on the Word of God Himself should be permeated with that harmony that flourishes between the different organs of a healthy human body. The doctrine, therefore, that the value of the sacraments does not depend on the faith or holiness of their ministers, a doctrine so for-eign to the Protestant mind, is part of our Catholic faith. It is a most consoling doctrine. Ou~ sanctity depends upon ourselves. This is true not only of our meritorious works, but even of that sanctity which results from reception of the sacrameni:s. Sacraments work ex opere operato. They produce their grace independently of the spiritual condition of their ministers. These ministers are expected to keep in the state of grace. They are obliged under pain of mortal sin not to administer a sacrament unless they are in this stale. But if they fail to observe this precept, they harm only themselves. They cannot harm thos~ who receive the sacraments from their hands. The recipient need worry only about himself and his own preparation. If .this preparation is substantially suff~dent, he himself will receive grace ex oiotre optrato and no human being cart prevent this Qod-given' effect. NEW APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION Pope Plus XII has recefitly issued a new Apostolic Constitution Sponsa Christi. This document regulates the cloister or enclosure of nuns in such a way as to make it 15ossible for the nuns in postwar Europe and elsewhere tosupport themselves since r~any contemplative monasteries have lost all their endowments and are receiving relatively few vocations. The strictly papal cloister of canons 600-604 is limited to that part of the house in which the nuns habitually dwell (cells, dor-mitories, refectory, community room, private garden, and the like) under the title of major papal ~loister, while the rest of tl~e house and grounds within the monas-tic compound where the labors for the support of the community are carried on are called minor papal enclosure. The Apostolic Constitution also treats of Federations of Independent Monasteries and recommends them by pointing out their advantages without, however, making them of obligation. We hope to give our readers more information on this Apostolic Indult and on the subsequent Instruction of the Sacred Congregation ,of Religious. 32 I-low Are Your I::yes? M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. CARYLL HOUSELANDER claims that are like clouds of wind-blown seed," that within them lies the mysterious secret power that seeds have to brit~g forth life.'" I turned from her article to my mail. Three letters, so brief they are more fittingly called "notes," showed me that Caryll had been most conservative. She could have claimed more than seminal pow-ers for words. She could have said that there are occasions when they have all the might we now know lies in certain atoms. I was living one of those occasions. Let me tell you about it. The first letter I lifted told how an Archbishop, in a public address, had infqrmed his audience that the Trappistines in Wrent-ham, Massachusetts, had received more than four hundred applica-tions this past year. "Half of them," he added, "were from dissatis-fied religious.'" That word "dissatisfied" set me thinking. After a little while I wanted to write to the Archbishop and tell him the longer we live in religion, the more dissatisfied we grow. Not with our vocations. No! Not with our rules and constitutions. Indeed no! Not with our work or our fellow-workers. Daily our love for these grows. But we know a gnawing dissatisfaction which is nothing but a loneliness for heaven and a longing for the face of God. I could have given His Excellency example after example not only of middle-aged religious, but of diocesan priests, who have come to me thi~ past year with eyes turned avidly toward Gethsemani. Why? Because of that divin.e restlessness so aptly described by Augustine when he exclaimed: "Our hearts were made for Thee, O God, and they shall never know rest until . . ." Yes, the longer we live, the lonelier we grow for the sight of God and the sharper becomes our dissatisfaction with life on earth. I did not write that letter. For the longer I pondered the matter, the clearer I saw that there is another kind of dissatisfaction in the lives of some religious and I feared the Archbishop might have been referring to that. I know it should never be there. Occasionally I am puzzled beyond the telling to find it deeply ingrainedin indi-viduals, who have greyed in religion. I meditated and mused on this matter for days, not only because of what' the Archbishop had said, 33 M.~RAYMOND Reoieto ~:or Religions but because of two other letters in the same mail. A mother general had written: "The appointments were placed in the mail last evening, and I am glad to know they are accompanied by your prayers." A sister superior had written: "The Annual Thin Letters just came in, so pray . . ." You can see how those two sentences kept me thinking along the lines in which the Archbishop's remark had set my mind. I believe they will have the same effect on all who entered religion before we begin to ~peak and spell the way they print the Ordo, that is, before any woman was known as a ~4"AC, any girl as a ~VAVE, or any boy as just another GI 3oe. For the most part the thoughts conjured up are pleasant. For it is always refreshing to find real religion in religious, .Christ in Christians, and self-forgetfulness in selfish human beings. But as we go on thinking, it will be clear to all that both Mother General and Sister Superior had only one prayer in mind. They wanted me to pray: "'ut videant--that they might see.'" For while anyone who has celebrated a silver jubilee in reli-gion can tell tale after tale of actual heroism brought forth by.the few words these "annual thin letters~" or their equivalents Carr~ , they will also have memories of a few human tragedies brought on-- not by the "letters" mind you, but by the eyes that read them. There's the point: it is the eyes that read them. This fact that not only our happiness here on earth, the proper development of our characters and personalities as religious, and our genuine progress in the spiritual life, but in very truth our ultimate sanctity and consequently our eternity in heaven or hell depends entirely on our vision has been so deeply impressed on me by a series of happenings which began with what I have already narrated, that I feel I would be untrue to God and His grace did I not ask you: "How are youc eyes?" First, there was the nun who had just received her "thin letter" and was starry-eyed. I had to think that I was looking on one who was radiating the same wonder, awe, and joy that must have rippled out from Bernardette after a vision of "the Lady" and from Mar-garet Mary after a session with the Sacred Heart. Her letter told her she was to spend the next few years, and perhaps the rest of her life, in India. She was tremulous with happiness, for she realized she had been specially chosen for a special task, that a high commission had come from the High Command. And while she was not blind to the trials that lay ahead for her as a human, she was wihe enough 34 ¯ Januar~j, 1951 How ARE YOUR EYES ? to focus her gaze on the trust that had been placed in her by the Divine. Her only request was: "Pray that my family see it as I do." Then there was an older nun whose ~yes held a different light, whose tongue told a different tale. She had not been changed. No "thin letter" or its equivalent had come to liberate her, as she said, from her "misery." I spoke to her as earnestly as I could about Divine Providence and the wisdom of God, insisting that He gives us the one environ-ment in which we can best grow. It did not take. I spoke of supe-riors as representatives of Christ, striving with all my might to stir up faith and have her thrill to the truth that in hearing them, we hear Him. She did not respond. I appealed then to what has always appealed most to me, showing how obedience is the touchstone Of our loyalty to God and the grandest tribute of our love. I made very little impression. She lifted eyes that were lusterless and dull, eyes that seemed to hold in their deeper depths some slowly pulsing pain, and said: "Oh, if I could only see it that way!" The contrast struck me forcibly. All too vividly did it make me realize that there is such a thing as .spiritual myopia and very real astigmatism of the inner eye, the eye of the soul. I tried hard to excogitate some corrective for this faulty vision and some sure cure for an eye-ailment so serious that it can ruin a life. Recently, when I was in the hospital for a check-up of my "wild cells," the supervisor of surgery invited me to a tour of her depart-ment. I went. I had heard exceptionally high praise of the arrange-ments in this particular hospital. I soon saw that there was firm foundation for that praise. Sister showed me through sixteen or eighteen splendidly-equipped operating rooms, opened glass cases that held so many skillfully-shaped instruments that I was open-mouthed in marvel at the ingenuity of man and the thqroughness of the sci-ence of surgery. Then she had a nurse show me what a specialist would use in a lobotomy and explain the entire technique. I was speechless in admiration of the daring of these modern doctors. But it was not until Sister had led me into the smallest room on the whole floor that I saw why God had planned this particular visit at this particular time. "This is where they do the eyes," she said, as she opened a case and dazzled me with a display of shining steel scalpels more delicate than any I could have dreamed existed. Then she told me of the "eye-bank," revealing one of the greatest marvels of modern surgery. .35 M. RAYMOND Review for Religious It seems that specialists can take the cornea from the eye of a dead man, stretch it over the blind eye of one who is alive, and have him see. You can readily understand ,why my meditations and musings for the next few days were on the possibilities of some similar sur-gery for the eyes of the soul. If we priests, I thought, who so often have to use what we may well call spiritual scalpels, could only take the cornea from the eye of Calvary's dead Christ and stretch it across the blinded eyes of. Then it burst on me! What I had been dreaming of as a possi-bility, what I had been turning in my mind as a bit of fond fancy and a fetching analogy, I suddenly realized was actual fact. Baptism has done for the eyes of our spirits what these master surgeons are now doing for the bodily eye~ of the blind. Has it not, by subtlest sacramental surgery, inserted us into the Mystical Body of Christ? Has it not made us His members? Of course. But where are the eyes in any body? Are they not in the head? Does it not follow then, that so long as we act as His members, we will see things through His eyes? The musings and meditations of these few days had led me where meditations and musings of the past ten or twelve years have almost invariably led me--to the doctrine of the Mystical Body of, Christ. Think along with me now and see whether this doctrine, properly understood and rightly applied, does not allow us to diag-nose the diseases we have mentioned, isolate the very germs that cause them, ~nd proffer the infallible cure. That sounds hopeful, doesn't it? Almost too hopeful. But let us see. At baptism we were made Christ, but we did not cease to be ourselves. Hence, while the sacrament effected much ex opere opecato, it left almost as much to be accomplished ex opere operantis. For while those waters and words, plus the proper intention on the part of the minister, sufficed to incorporate us into the God-Man; to transform us into Him not only our own 'intention will be required, but along with it what may. well be water--our sweat and tears-- and what most certainly will be works. Limiting ourselves to this matter of vision, can it not be said in all sincerity that in baptism we received a sort of supernatural trans-plant, giving us a second lens, so that now we can look on all things either through the lenses that are human, or the stronger ones that are divine? Is it not true that we Christians, and especially we reli- 36 ~anuaql, 1951 How ARE You~ EYES gious, have double-vision ? that we are able to view things either with the eyes of man or with the eyes of the God-Man? that on every-thing which impinges in any way on our consciousness we can foolishly limit our sight at secondary causes or have it pierce through to see Him who is the First and" the only Uncause'd Cause? Is there, anything in our days or nights, .anything in the entire sweep of our lives, that cannot be looked upon in practically the same way we look upon a consecrated Host? The "species" are there. The "thin letters" of which I spoke came from a definite address, passed through the ordinary channels of the mails, bore the signature of a human being. But to the Christian conscious of his or her Christhood, to the religious fully aware of his or her dignity as His member, to the soul sensitive to reality, these things are but "species," mere accidents: the substance lies beneath. Why is it, then, that we do not always see things this way? Simply because we do not look through the divine lens. The trouble is not in our minds; it is in our wills. Our eyes must be directed. If we set them looking through the cornea we received from the First Adam, we shail see as human beings. That is what happened to Felicit~ Lamennais, once his writings had been condemned by Rome. His friend and fellow-worker, Lacordaire, was wiser. He looked through the cornea given by the Second .Adam, and saw truth. The deathbeds of these two men might well haunt all of us, for they con-- tain the greatest lesson for anyone's life. One used the eyes given him at birth and died a reprobate. The other employed the vision given at rebirth and died as we all want to live and die--in the arms of Mother Church, which are also the arms of Him who is our Head. But I don't have to go to that extreme to show you the practi-cality of looking at things as members of His Body. I can limit my-self to the question of temporal happiness, that quiet of mind and peace of soul we all crage, and prove that this doctrine is the panacea. Oculists will tell you that many a headache comes from using improper lenses. I will tell you that in the spiritual order many a heartache comes from the same cause. If we want happiness every hour of the day, if we want an easy pillow at night, if we want a conscience that will approve us and.our actions at every examen, one thing alone is necessary, to direct the gaze of our minds through the . lenses given us by the God-Man and see always and in everything exactly what He saw, the Will of the Father. Simple, isn't it? But let me tell you it will make life sublime. 37 M. RAYMOND Review for Religious L~t me say that I can safely paraphrase St. Alphonstis Liguori and claim that "what distinguishes perfect from imperfect religious is the' use of the divine lens." Or I can borrow from St. Teresa of Avila and say that you can be assured that the devil has no better device to keep us from the heights than to have us look through the cornea we had when we came from our mother's womb, neglecting the one, gained by being born again of water and the Holy Ghost. What an example Peter Claver gives us of all this. He had de-voted himself to the slaves at Cartagena. Alr'eady he had baptized more than a quarter of a million when word came from his superior: "Stop baptizing." I think most of us would have answered that command the way Peter answered the command of the high priest: "We must obey God rather than man." But Peter Claver stopped baptizing. The saint had been holding public devotions to the pal-pable spiritual profit of the poor benighted slaves. His rector told him to put an end to them. Claver could have looked, as many of us would have looked, and seen the hand of the calumnious and the enviou~ in this mandate. He didn't. He put an, end to the devo-tions immediately. But the campaign of hostility went on. Small-souled criticism won from superiors the injunction that Claver change his whole manner of instructing. Now remember this man had been as effective in his milieu as Xavier had been in the Indies. What would you have done in the circumstances? What would I have done? Claver changed his entire manner of instructing. But still: the opposition was not satisfied. It did not rest until it had obtained from higher authority the complete removal of this man from this glorious work. Claver went to his new assignment with all the cheer with which a newly ordained priest goes to the altar. How could he do it? By using the divine lens, acting as a member of the Mystical Body of Cl~rist and seeing superiors through the eyes of the Head°of that Body and hearing in their voice the voice of God the Father. Now who w~uldn't thrill to hear His voice? Who would not leap to obey His command with a happiness--but I had better stop there, lest what,seems lyrical prove a humiliating expos~ of our own short-sightedness. HOME FOR TUBERCULOUS SISTERS An entire wing of private rooms (twenty-eight) in Sa~,ta Teresita Sanatoriuin is being reserved for tuberculous Sisters. The Sanatorium is cared for by Carmelite Sisters of the Third Order. Address Santa Teresita Sanatorium, 819 S. Buena Vista Road, Duarte, California. 38 Classic on I-ligh'er Prayer Jerome Breunig, S.J. [The book reviewed in this article was not controversial in purpose though the theoretical position of Poulain is now controverted. Thus he holds that mysticism in his' special sense is outside the normal development of the Christian life. The book is reviewed independently of its controversial stand because of its unique value for spiritual direction and for its descriptions of mystical experiences.--ED.] AUGUSTIN POULAIN'S The Graces of Interior Prau. er1 is a ¯ great book. It is unquestionably one of the most important and influential books ever written on the science of prayer. It is not new, but it has been out-of-print for so long that it may be new to many of our readers. Because of this and of its importance for many religious as well as of its special timeliness today, it seems necessary to review at greater length this reprint of the classic work. Poulain's book was first published fifty years ago. Ten years later the first English edition appeared. The present volume from Herder is all the more valuable because it includes an introduction by J. V. Bainvel. This introduction gives a thorough, competent review of the book, adds an occasional needed qualification and clarification, and presents a brief picture of the impact .the book ha~t on mystical studies. As far as the present reviewer knows, Bainvel's introduc-tion, a book in itself, is here appearing for the first time in English. Written primarily for spiritual directors and then for mystics and budding mystics, Poulain's book will also be helpful for anyone interested in God's extraordinary communing with souls." The secondary title of the book is "A Treatise on Mystical The-ology." It is necessary to note from the beginning and to remember that Poulain, unlike most spiritual writers of the present day, uses the term mystical in a very restricted sense. Today there is much evidence of interest in mystical theology and in the supernatural phenomena which are its object bf study. Numerous Manresa and otl~er study clubs are investigating ascetical and mystical problems. .N~ew periodicals devoted to spiritual sub-jedts have appeared in recen~t years. Thomas Merton's books have found a wide reading public~. The number of vocations to the con-templative life has increasedI Another example of and a contribution to the g~owing interest is E. Allison Peers' standard edition of the 1See the "Book Review" section, ~. 52 for details on publisher, price, etc. 39 JEROME BREUNIG Religious works of St. Teresa of.Avila and St. John of the Cross. In fact, books on 'the theory, of mysticism, biographies of mystics, anthologies of such writings,' books of private revelations have multiplied in the past few years. But interest and concern is by no means limited to the academic realm of books. The press has given extensive pub-licity to some of the stigmatics of the present day. Keports of appari-tions have become well known throughout the world. While remaining deeply respectful before God's special dealing with chosen souls and deriving spiritual benefit from them, there is always need for caution and guidance in order not to espouse every claim of super-natural "intervention. Helpfulness of Book In this milieu Poulain's work has a special timeliness. For people who would like to evaluate private revelations, cases of visions, stigmata, etc., this is the book. The book is helpful on the level of practical judgment of publicized supernatural phenomena and on the level of theoretical study of mystical theology. In Graces of Interior Prager the interested priest, religious, or lay Catholic, as well as the non-Catholic, the scientist and the non-scientist can find a rather complete, systematic, and factual study of extraordinary supernatural phenomena. The book should help clarify an outlook, perhaps modify misguided enthusiasm. At any rate, it will foster a more reserved and prudent, point of view. For instance, Poulain showsA that even among the saints there were false visions and even in true visions false human alloy sometimes became mingled with the divine. Those interested in the problems of mystical theology should welcome this volume because it is a good counterbalance to the the-oretical ~pproach that is now being emphasized. Poulain follc;ws the descriptive rather than the speculative school which endeavors, as he described in his pre.face, "to systematize' all facts theologically by connecting them with the study of grace, of man's faculties, of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc." R. Garrigou-Lagrange's The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life is a good example of the speculative school. From the Author's Preface Poulain clarifies his purpose at the outset. "I wishec~ as far as possible to give very clear and accurate descriptions as well as v~ry plain rules of conduct." His purpose, then, is descriptive and pre-scriptive. He continues: "If I do not associate myself with the specu-lative school it is not from contempt. It deals .with many high and interesting questions. But the readers I have in view do not desire 4O January, 19~ 1 CLASSIC ON these things.(I am writing especially for those souls who are beginning to receive the mystic gr.aces and who do not know how to find their way in this new world. And I address myself to those also who are drawing near and who have entered into the adjacent states. Now such persons requir.e,something really practical. They wish for exact pictures--I was about to say photographs--in which they can recognize themselves immediately. They also require rules of conduct reduced to a few striking formulae, easy to ~emember and to apply.i~ He fbresees an objection. "Certain theologians would require more than this. They will perhaps see in this little book a mere manual, resembling those treatises on practical medicine which do not lose themselves in high biological theory~ but merely teach us how to make a rapid diagnosis of each disease and lay down the proper treatment. But I confess that I should think myself very happy to have attained such a difficult end." ~. The author's precautions which seem applicable to most works by mystics or on mysticism are the following. They are also in his preface. "The mystic" graces do not h"f t t:he soul out of the or"dmary.~b~¢~t~ conditions of,Christian life, or free it from the necessity of aiming perfection." ~,~Mystical graces are not sanctity but merely powerful~ means of sanctification; they mu,~st be received with humility and co~. responded-to with generosity."~ To pass our time in dreaming of the mystic ways is a dangero~uus error." Finally, "for all spiritualc~a~.~ ~ questions it is necessary to have a director. The more extraordinary)~I/~e~ the ways by which the soul is led the greater, as a rule is the Unlike most writers on the subject of prayer, Poulain's purpose is not primarily inspirational but rather Scientifically descriptive and prescriptive. The object of .the study, of course, of its very nature . has inspirational value. Nor does Poulain exclude this for he ends his preface: "I pray God that this book may accomplish the only end that I bad in view: the good of souls. (May" it awaken within them-~ {an attraction for prayeO'and the need f'o unite themselves with the divine Maste~.). ~May the souls raised to the fruitful joys of the mystic life become more and more numerous in the Church, especially amongst those who have been consecrated to God.:~ Send forth spirit., and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.'~ Teacher and Scientist Poulain was a teacher and a scientist. As a good teacher he took 4i JEROME BREUNIG Review for Religious pains to be clear. He had been a p~ofessor of mathematics for many years, and the reader suspects that he was adept at the use of the bl_ackboard. In hi.s early years be wrote a book which he playfully called the"Poor Man's Ge,ometry." In this book he used all his inven-tive genius to simplify the theorems for the slowest boy in the class. In Graces ot: Interior Prancer, "with its short phrases, its explana-tions simple sometimes almost to the point of na~vet~, its clear divl-siofis, its many paragraphs, its clever typographical devices" (Bain-vel's description of Poulain's style, page xxxvi), we find the same gracious teacher eager to bring the difficult subject matter within his pupil's wave length. As a scientist in the best modern traditions Poulaln endeavors to support his statements by factual data. He has so arranged the book that after each chapter he gives evidence to support the previous dex~el-opment. The basis for his treatment of interior experience is the writing of the mystics. In many instances he has also drawn from his own experience with mystics of his own time. Poulain himself said: "In thirty years I have come to know thirty-three persons who seem to have real supernatural graces, and nine who have false visions" (p. xxxv). The scientific treatment should commend the book to all. Incidentally, the book should help non-Catholic doc-tors, psychiatrists, and others who wish an introduction to mystical phenomena but would find a purely speculative treatment based on the unseen realities held by faith alone relatively unintelligible. The Table ot: Contents Poulain has divided his treatise into six parts: (1) Preliminary questions which give principal definitions and explain ordinary prayer; (2) General ideas about the mystic unlon;(3) A study of the degrees'separately; (4) Revelations and visions; (5) Trials of contemplatives; and (6) Supplementary questions. Herder's present volume adds to the appendices of' the original work an appendix on the question of acquired and infused contemplation and another on the discernment of spirits. The latter includes the Rules of St. Igna-tius, Counsels of St. Teresa on Temptations, ~ind Illusions and Marks to Discern the Si3irit of God, according to St. Margaret Mary. The author begins his work by making a clear-cut distinction between ordinary prayer and extraordinary or mystical prayer. To clear the ground for the distinction he first points out four degrees of ordinary prayer, namely, vocal, meditative, affective, and simplified prayer; next he notes the progression and describes at some length 42 January, 1951 CLASSIC ON PRAYER affective praye.r and especially the prayer of simplicity. According'to Poulain, the prayer of simplicity, though close to mystical prayer, does not" contain a,ny mystical element. The prayer of simplicity is still the result of human~efforts. All kinds of prayer, of course, require grace. He confines the hse of the word mystic to "supernatural acts or states which our own industry is powerless to produce, even in a low degree, even momentarily" (p. 1). The author then points out four degrees of the mystical union: 1) incomplete union (prayer of quiet) ; 2) full union (prayer of union) ; 3) ecstatic union (ecstasy) : 4) transforming union (spiritual marriage). Always the teacher and scientist, he distinguishes each successive degree by a new discernible fact. In the prayer of quiet the union between God and the soul is incomplete, for the imagination is free and distractions are possible. In the prayer of union the imagination is no longer free, but the action of the senses is not suspended, com-munication with others and withdrawal from prayer are possible. In ecstasy all sensation and voluntary movement are suspended. In turn, spiritual marriage is distinguished as a stable and constant state. "'To explain mysticism in an hour's time" After this general division of the higher supernatural states, the author attempts to describe what constitutes this higher state. He realizes the ground is holy and the task is difficult, but hear the ear-nest. sympathetic teacher: "The ordinary man prefers speed to every-thing else. Details do not usually interest him, but only the main lines . . . He seems to say: Try in an hour to make me understand exactly what mysticism is. This can be done" (p. 64). The fun-damental nature of the mystic union Poulain describes as God's presence felt. He states this in two propositions which he calls theses, The first thesis affirms the fact, the second uses the analogue of sensa-tions to enlarge on the experiential presence. After this he gives ten secondary characteristics of the mystic, union. Because of the special importance, the two theses describing the fundamental nature of the higher state will be given in the author's own words. The first thesis: "The mystic states which have God for their object attract attention at the outset by the impression of recollection and union which they cause us to experience. Hence the name of mystic union. Their real point of difference from the recollection of 43 JEROME BREUNIG Rew'e~v [or Religious ordinary prayer is this: that in the mystic state, God is not satisfied merely to help us to think of Him and to remind us of His presence: He gives us an experimental, intellectual knowledge of this presence. In a word, He makes us feel that we really enter into communication with Him. In the lower degrees, however (prayer of quiet), God only does this in a somewhat obscure manner. The manifestation increases in distinctness as the union becomes of a higher order" (pp. '64-65). In the explan'ation that follows immediately Poulain says: "There is a profound difference between thinking of a person and feeling him near us. And so when we feel that someone is near us, we say that we have an experimental knowledge of his presence. In ordinary prayer we have only an abstract knowledge of God's presence" (Ibid.). This %xperience of God" is obtained through quasi-se.nses in the spiritual order. His second thesis brings this out. "In ~he states inferior to ecstasy we cannot say that God is seen save in exceptional cases. We are not instinctively led to translate our experiences by the word sight. On the other hand, that which constitutes the com-q~ X.mon basis of all the various degrees of the mystic union is that~he. spiritual impression by which God makes known His presence, mam-fests Him in the manner, as it were, of something interior which penetrates the soul; it is a sensation of saturation, of fusion, of im-mersion. For the sake of greater clearness, we can depict what is felt by describing the sensation by the name Of interior touch" (pp.90- 91).) Poulain that mark 2) 3) 4) 6) 7) The Secondarg Characteristics of Mgstic Union gives (p. 114) the following ten secondary characteristics the mystic union: The mystic union does not depend upon our own will; The knowledge of God accompanying it is obscure and confhsed; The mode of communication is partially incomprehensible; The union is produced neither by reasonings, nor by the consideration of creatures, nor by sensible images; It varies incessantly in intensity; It demands less effort than meditation; It is accompanied ~by sentiments of love,' of repose, of .pleasure, and often of suffering; 44 danuar~], 1951 CLASSIC ON PRAYER /) "~_ 8) It inclines the soul o,f, itself and very eflicach3usly, to the~ " 9) It acts upon the body and is a" cted ~ I0) " " It ~mpedes to a greater or less extent the production of cer-tain interior acts; this is what is called the l,igature. In the third part of I~is book, Poulain studies each of the degrees of the mystic union s~parately. His explanation of the Two Nights of the Soul pointed out by St. John of the Cross is enlightening. TheNight of the Senses is a preliminary state, "the borderland of the mystic state," while the Night of the Soul, which precedes the trans-forming union, comprises the three lower states of mystic union u~ader their fiegative aspect. In his treatment of revelations and visions Poulain continues .the descriptive-prescriptive method, especially noting the possibility of false visions and of the false mingling with the true. He also gives rules-of-thumb for directors and for recipients of the heavenly favors. The section on trials.to contemplatives is brief, but brings out ¯ that contemplatives must be cut in the heroic mold of the Crucified. In his final section on supplementary questions of mysticism, the author treats in the same.scientific manner of topics such as the desire for mystic union, quietism, and frequency of the mystic states. Concluding Tribute What Cardinal Steinhuber wrote of the first edition forty-five years ago still stands. "It is with real satisfaction that I have read your Reverence's book on The Graces of Interior Prager. I cannot resist the desire to congratulate you with all my heart upon this fine and useful work. Directors of souls and the masters of the spiritual life will draw from it abundant supplies of enlightenment and the counsels necessary to enable them to solve the many complicated questions that they will encounter. What pleases me is the sim-plicity, the clearness, and the precision of your exposition, and still more, the solidity of the teaching. I can say the same for the care that you have taken to rely upon the old and approved masters who have written on the subject of mysticism. You dispel their obscuri-ties, you reconcile their apparent contradictions, and you .give their language the turn that the spirit of modern times demand." 45 Reprint Series The following groups of articles are now available in 50-page booklets, with paper cover: NUMBER 1: Father Eltard "On Difficulties in Meditation--I"--Vol. VI, p. 5. "On Difficulties in Meditation--II"--Vol. VI, p. 98. "Affective Prayer"--Vol. VII, p. 113. "Contemplation, the Terminus of Mental Prayer"--Vol. p. 225. VII, NUMBER 2: Father Ellis The "Gifts to Religious" series: "The Simple Vow of Poverty,"-~Vol. VI, p. 65. "Common Life and Peculium"~Vol. VII, p. 33. "Personal Versus Community Property"~Vol. VII, p. 79. "Some Practical Cases"~Vol. VII, p. 195. NUMBER 3: Father Kelly "The Particular Friendship"--Vol. V, p. 93. "Remedies for the Particular Friendship"~Vol. V, p. 179. "Emotional Maturity"--Vol. VII, p. 3. "More About Maturity"--Vol. VII, p. 63. "Vocational Counseling"--Vol. VII, p. 145. Prices Please note that we cannot accept orders for less than ten copies of any of these booklets. The following scale of prices applies to each of the booklets: 10 to 49 copies . 30 cents each. 50 or more copies . 25 cents each. Instructions for Orderlncj 1. Order according to the Number printed above: e.g., 10 copies of Number 1 ; 10 copies of Number 2; and so forth. 2. Send payment with order; calculating the price for each order according to the scale of prices printed ,above. 3. Make checks or money orders payable to Review for Religious. 4. Address your order to: The I:dltors, Review for Religious, St. Mary's College, SL Marys, Kansas. 46 The Des :iny of Religious Women William B. Faherty, S.J.1 ACURSORY PERUSAL of Our HolyFather Pius XII's speeches on woman's role in modern life might well lead one to the hasty conclusion that they contained little direction for reli-gious women. He spoke of motherhood as "the sphere of woman." He set down a great challenge for women today--to rebuild family life,--and as the first means towards this objective he wanted them to restore the aura of honor and dignity that should surround a mother's place there. The Religious Sisters, on the other hand, have renounced the pos-sibilities of motherhood in the home to consecrate their lives to Christ's service. Are they therefore on the periphery of the great so-cial reform work to which Pope Plus XII called modern women? The only answer that can justly be given after a careful study of the papal teaching is a round "No." Some readers have drawn too many hasty and unfounded conclusions from the Pope's words. They have not read all his speeches on the general subject. (He has addressed groups of women nine distinct times on various aspects of their lives and work.) They have accorded too much attention to the Pope's more novel and sensational statements, such as his pro-claiming the unmarried lay state a "vocation," and his urging women to vote and seek public office. When the full picture of the Holy Father's teaching is seen, the important place of religious women comes sharply into focus. In his most publicized speech of October 21, 1945, Pope Plus XII did state: "The sphere of woman, her manner of life, her native bent is motherhood. Every woman is made to be a mother . . . For this purpose the Creator organized the whole characteristic makeup of woman." Immediately, however, he clarified the issue that he was speaking of motherhood "not only in the physical sense," but also in the "spiritual and more exalted, but no less real" sense. This was consistent with the general tenor of his teaching. In a speech2 g!ven four years previously, entitled, "Guiding Christ's Little 1Father Faherty of Regis College, Denver, is the author of The Desting of Modern Woman in the Light of Papal Teaching, which is reviewed in this issue. (See page 52). The present article is based on a section of the book. ~Copies of this inspiring address can be obtained at a very low cost from the Nat. Council of Catholic Women, 1312 Massachusetts Ave., N. W., Washington 5,D.C. 47 WILLIAM B. FAHERTY Review for Religious Ones," the Pope had spoken more explicitly on this two-fold motherhood. Addressing the mothers in his audience, the Holy Father remarked: "Our words have been addressed principally to you, Christian mothers. But with you we see around us today a .gathering of nuns, teachers and others engaged in the work of Chris-tian education. They are mothers, too, not by nature or by blood but by the love they bear the young." Then turning directly to this latter group, he continued: "Yes, you too are mothers; you work side by side with Christian mothers in the work of education; for you have a mother's heart, burning with charity . . . You are truly a sisterhood of spiritual mothers whose offspring is the pure flower of youth." Such were the Holy Father's beautiful words on "spiritual motherhood." Praise of the Religious Life Pope Pius XII's remarks on religious life came not as a separate statement but as part of the full teaching on woman's role in the modern world. In his address of October 21, 1945, he discussed all three "vocations" open to young women today: marriage, the un-married lay state, and the life of the' consecrated religious. About the religious life, he stated: "For nigh onto twenty cen-turies, in every generation, thousands and thousands of men and women from among the best in order to follow the counsels of Christ" have left the "world" to devote their lives to His service. "Look at these men and women," he continued, "See them dedicated to prayer and penance, intent on the iiastruction and education of the young and ignorant, leaning over the pillow of the sick and dying, ope~l-hearted for all their miseries and all their weakness, in order to relieve them, ease theml lighten them and sanctify thm." "When one thinks of young girls and women," he concluded, "who willingly renounce matrimony in order to consecrate them-selves to a higher life of contemplation, sacrifice, and charity, there comes at once to the lips the word that explains it: vocation. It is the only word that describe so lofty a sentiment." The Pope finished this passage with ~he explanation that the call of God may come either as an overpowering summons or as a gentle impulse, sd diverse are the modulations of His voice. Addressing the representatives of Italian Youth Organizations in 1943, he spoke at length on the great need 0f vocations in these times, especially in the fields of education, organized charity, and danuar~, 1951 DESTINY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN foreign missions. After extolling the value of religious life in fos-tering the Church's mission and mentioning the great solicitude of the Church today for the life of consecrated service--a solicitude rarely equalled, he insisted, in the long annals of Christian history-- the Holy Father concluded, "Let her accept it who can, taking Christ's words in "the sense of an invitation and encouragement." As a fitting crown to this speech, he made the memorable statement, "Christian virginity is the triumph of civilization." The Challenge to Modern Woman When the Pope challenged modern woman to work for the restoration of family llfe, he realized that many would very justly wonder why the Church continued to encourage the call to the reli-gious Sisterhoods. Why not lay less emphasis on this vocation for a decade or so? After all, where Catholic family life is strong, reli-gious vocations abound. Anticipating this reasonable objection, the Pope forestalled it by an immediate and thorough answer. "Is the common good of the people and the Church perhaps jeopardized by this (the encourage-ment of the religious vocation) ?" he asked. "On the contrary, these generous souls recognize the union of the two sexes in matrimony as a good of high order. But if they abandon the ordinary way and leave the beaten track, they do not desert it, but rather consecrate themselves to the service of mankind with a complete disregard for themselves and thei~ own interests by an act incomparably broader in its scope, more all-embracing and universal." They have given up the possibility of children of their own, yet they" teach the children of others the way to Christ. They help mothers in the care of their youngsters by establishing day nurseries. They substitute for the mother in conducting orphanages. They care for the sick members of all families. They protect the unity and sanctity of the family, furthermore, in a hidden but very influential way. While those intent on de.stroying the foundations of Christian civilization advise infidelity within the marriage bond and "free love" outside, the Church points with paternal pride to thousands upon thousands who have gone beyond the command of God and have accepted His free call to do something even greater. Because of this sacrifice, hundreds and hun-dreds of married people can ask themselves in the midst of ditficulties: "Can I not live up to the high requirements of my state of life, when 49 WILLIAM B. F!KI~ERTY so many of my fellow human beings live up to the more exacting demands of a higher state?" Renewal of Familg When the Pope suggests means to effect the renewal of the mod-ern family, the great part religious Sisters can play becomes even more evident. The foundation of all work for the restoration of the fam-ily, the Holy Father remarked, is a solid personal spiritual life. The first goal is to be the restoration of the honor and dignity that should be the Mother's in the home. Who are in a more strategic position to build a solid spirituality and proper attitudes toward home life in the mothers of tomorrow than the Religious Sisters who teach them in the schools and colleges today? Nor are Sisters engaged in other apostolic activities on the periphery of this great work. Those who conduct hospitals, retreat houses, and the like, have a part that is perhaps less obvious but equally important in thi~ work of family restoration to which their Holy Father challenges them. Conclusions Certain profitable conclusions for the individual lives of the Sis-ters suggest themselves from the words of Pius XII which have been briefly considered here. If religious Sisters are to look on their'life as a spiritual motherhood, the qualities that mark a true. Christian mother's relationship with her children--the qualities that marked Our Lady's relationship with her Divine Son--will be the aim of the religious Sister. This will counteract any influences which in these days of standardizing agencies and statistical social service might lead an occasional individual toward a depersonalized goal of expertness in nursing, teaching, or other profession. Secondly, the v6cation of most young women to be the mother of a family in the home could receive much more stress in high school and college instruction, equal in quantity even to the attention most Sisters very justly bestow on their own high type of vocation. Above all, the Holy Father's words should be an encouragement and an inspiration in these apocalyptic times which he himself has called "perhaps the greatest religious crisis humanity has gone through since the origin of Christianity." 50 Book Reviews THE MEANING OF FATIMA. By C. C. Marfindale, S.J. Pp. 183. P. J. Kened¥ and Sons, New York, 1950. This is not just another book about Fatima. It gives a brief, dear description of the Blessed Virgin's appearances; but tO that it adds a frank appraisal of the difficulties and inconsistencies in the account of the Fatima happenings, and a sensible, penetrating expla-nation of these problems. Fr. Martindale's treatment is marked by a fine balance. He is objective, almost scientific in his approach; yet sympathetic and sensi-tive to the human dements involved. He is very, discerning in his evaluations of the testimony given by the witnesses, parti.cularly the three children; yet there is never a ting~of debunking. Add to this reverent, straightforward attitude the fact that the author is inti-mately acquainted with Fatima and with the previous writings about the subject, and it is hard not to accept his judgment on the appari-tions. Special attention should be drawn tothe introduction, which is the key to Ft. Martindale's treatment of the Fatima narrative. In a few pages, the author gives a brief but dear explanation of the Cath-olic Church's attitude towards private revelations. His analysis of the psychology of the "visionary" is particularly valuable. This in-troductory section alone would be enough to make the book worth reading, and the remainder of the book fulfills the promise of the troduction.--BERNARD COOKE, S.J. VOCATION TO LOVE. By Dorfhy Dohen. Pp. ;x-k 169. Sheed and Ward, New York, 19S0. $2.50. Aiming at high ideals, the lay apostle is often handicapped by all-too reaIistic obstacIes. Writing from a layman's viewpoint, Miss Doben gives the reader a deep insight into some practical ways of ~etaining spiritual idealism. Religious will find in Vocation to Lo~e a refreshing newness clothing old principles, and may blush at the evident bigb aspirations of "people in the world." After a comparatively long and somewhat disconnected intro-ductory chapter, the author develops ten unified chapters on pene-trating studies of important consequences of tooe. The reader ad-vances through increasingly more interesting and satisfying topics. Outstanding for their simplicity and depth are four chapters on 51 BOOK ANNOUCEMENTS Reoietu for Religious detachment, prayer, loneliness, and f~ustration. The clear and descr.iigtive style throughout is captivating. Religious and laity alike, who ambition great deeds for Christ, should profit from these fifteen-minute excursions into refreshingly modern answers to the old problems f.acing the zealous apostle in making reality approach the ideal.---ROBERT P. NEENAN, S.J. THE GRACES OF INTERIOR PRAYER (Les Graces D'Oralson): A Treatise on Mystical Theology. By A. Poulain, S.J. Translated from the sixth edition by Leonora L. Yorke Smith and corrected to accord with the tenth French edition with an introduction by J. V. Balnvel and an appendix on the discernment of spirits. Pp. cxli q- 665. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, Mo., 1950. $6.50. For the review of this book see Father Breunig's article, "Classic on Higher Prayer;" pp. 39-45. BOOK NOTICES Another tribute to. the present Age of Mary is F. J. Sheed's THE MARY BOOK which gives a biography-anthology of the best Marian. literature published by Sheed and Ward during the past quarter- ~ century. The reader will find a vast variety of subject matter plus diversity of presentation by great-name authors--Chesterton, House-lander, Claudel, Von Hildebrand, Martindale, Lund, to name only a few. Those eager to read more exhaustively on the subjects will find the sources of the selections listed in the back of the book. Besides the prose, beautiful poems on Mary, these not limited to the last twenty-five years, enrich the collection. Thirteen illustrations, four of them in color, of famous statues and paintings, contribute the final artistic touch to this little library on things Marian. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1950. Pp. xii -f- 411. $4.00.) THE DESTINY OF MODE

Issue 9.5 of the Review for Religious, 1950. ; A.M.D.G. Review for Religious °~Venial Sin r o P. De LeHer Sensitiveness . Winfrld He;bst On Family Spirit . . ¯ . Gerald Kelly Christ on W)nnincj Friends . Jerome Breunlg ~uestions and Answers Book Reviews Report to Rome VOLUME IX NUMBER RI::VII:::W FOR RI::LIGIOUS VOLUME IX SEPTEMBER, 1950 NUMBER 5 CONTENTS VENIAL SIN--P. De Letter, S.J . ¯ . 225 SENSITIVENESS---Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S ." . 233 FOR YOUR INFORMATiON-- Suggestions for Superiors General; Vocational Questions; Medlco-Moral Problems; Catholic Dailyi C~nfessors' ~Patron; Sisters of St. Joseph; "Mike"; Reprint Series . ~. 236 ON FAMILY SPIRIT--Gerald Kelly, S.J . 237 CHRIST SHOWS US HOW TO WIN FRIENDS--Jerome Breunig, S.J: 252 " BOOK REVIEWS-- Our Way to the Father; The History of the Popes; The Holy See at Work; .Little Meditations on the Holy Eucharist . 256 BOOK NOTICES . . , '. . . ' . 261 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 262 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 21. Jubilee Indulgence . , 265 22. Permission for Trips . 265. 23. Authority to Change a Custom . 266 24. What are Norrnae? . 266 25. Collective Nouns Applicable to Sisters . 267 26. Meaning of "the rule." . . 268 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 268 REPORT TO ROME . 269 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, ,September, 1950. Vol. IX, No. 5. Published bi-monthly: January, March,May, July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January" 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.3., Gerald Kelly, S.3. Editorial Secretary: Jerome Breunig, S.J. Copyright, 1950, by Adam C~ Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable lengtb, p~ovided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscript,on price: 2 dollars a~year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writin9 to us, please consult notice on Inside beck cover. Venial Sins " P. De Letter, S.J. \ SPIRITUAL authors commonly teac, h that a sure sign of fervor in a religious is the hab.itual avoiding of venial sins, just as tepidity betrays itself in frequent and lightly-committe, d daily faults. Between these two dispositions which are neatly character-ized in their, extreme types is a nearly indefinite number of degrees. The steady effort of good religious aims at approaching the ideal of fervor, which implies a constant care to exclude from one's daily life whatever is sinful. It is worthwhile to consider this negative aspect of the striving for religious perfection, not because it is more important than the positive practice of virtue, especially of charity tov)ard~ God and neighbor, but because this refraining from all that is evil is easily ascertainable and consequently serves as an unmistakable indication of genuine fervor. Concerning this negative aspect of perfection, two questions may be asked: (1) when exactly do we commit a venial sin? (2) what is normally possible, or not possible, as regards the avoidance of venial sins? The first question aims at outlining clearly the scope of the matter under discussion with a view to cen-tering our attention on the really sinful objects and not on what is mistakenly called sinful. The second purposes to define the bound-ari4s within which our efforts may be successful, thus eliminating the danger of expecting what may well be beyond human powers. 1) When do we commit a venial sin? The question is clear and simple. And so is the answer--in the-ory. But how does it work out in practice? When is a thought or a desire or a word or an action a venial sin and not merely a positive imperfection, that is, something which is less good than its opposite .or than its omission but which is not sinful in itself?1 The question lln holding firmly to a distinction between venial sin and positive imperfection, Father De Letter is following what seems to us to be the more common and the better opinion. For a very fine presentation of the contrary opinion, especially with reference to the teaching of St. Thomas and the Thomistic school, see The Morality of Imperfections, by J. C. Osbourn, O.P. We might add here that even theologians holding the same opinion as Father De Letter might find difficulty in agreeing on a list of examples of either small venial sins or positive imperfections. For instance; one of the examples that Father De Letter later gives of venial sin ("deliberate thoughts or words of vanity which reveal an inordinate self-concern or self-esteem") might also be given as an example of a positive imperfection. 225 .P. DE LETTER Ret~ietu/:or Religious is worth asking because-a different, judgment isto be made of what is sinful and what is riot. We commit a sin whene~'er we knowingly and voluntarily go against the manifest preemptive will of God, that is, when we do or choose what He forbids, or neglect what He commands. The sin is venial only, and not mortal, when either the knowledge or advertence or the voluntariness is imperfect or partial (even though the matter be grave), or when the object of the sinful act itself is light whether of itself, as in a harmless lie, or because of parvity of matter, as in a small theft. Accordingly there is a first category of venial sins which may be called defective or miscarried mortal sins. Though of less practical importance for our present purpose, these must be mentioned briefly. They are the sinful actions (or thoughts, etc.) which ordinarily would be grave sins but happen to be venial sins on account of incomplete advertence or voluntariness. In other words, since they are imperfect as human acts, they are also .imperfect as sins. This may be the case with thoughts or desires against purity which are o.nly half noticed or half consented to; or with words or actions against chhrity when the gravity or harm involved is in good faith neither realized nor intended. Though faults of this kind may evi-dently occur in the life of a religious, they are not the ordinary "daily" sins which we are here .considering. Consequently a mere mention of them suffices. The other class of venial sins consists of those thoughts, desires, words, or deeds which of their nature involve only light guilt. Yet, even these are not subjectively sinful unless they are deliberately willed with the realization that they are sinful. In other words, these three conditions must be fulfilled, even in a venial sin: (a) actual knowledge-~either implicit or explicit, clear or confused--that some-thing is sinful; (b) some degree of voluntariness, at least incom-plete; and (c) an evil object, that is, the thing done is, or is thought to be, contrary to a divine command or prohibition. Whenever any one of these three elements is entirely absent there can be no question of even venial sin (except in so far as a culpable negligence might be at the root of them). According to these requirements, an unnoticed distraction in prayer is not a venial sin (as long as it is unnoticed); nor is an unheeded imagination or thought of self-complacency; nor a reflex reaction to some exterior stimulus, such as a sign of impatience; nor an uncharitable thought or unkind word which, without any fault 226 September, 1950 VENIAL SINS of our own, we fail to perceive. In all these cases the first element required for a venial sin--namely, actual knowledge--is lacl~ing. Similarly, the element of voluntariness is absent, for example, in the case of a harassing distraction in prayer which is noticed but not accepted (that is, sincerely rejected); or in a persistent but resisted unkind thought; or in an uncharitable remark that escaped before we could control ourselves. Finally, no positive command of God is disregarded by the omission of an exercise of devotion which is not obligatory; or by not choosing a more perfect andmore difficult way of performing one's duty; or by contenting oneself with what is good without preferring the better; or by recreating well and taking natural relaxation with less supernatural motives; or by talking during times of silence without necessity though not without some usefulness. All these actions .are in themselves good, even though they are less good than other ways of acting. There is not, how-ever, on that score, anything sinful in them. But when thoughts, desires, words, or deeds combine all three elements mentioned: awareness, voluntariness, evil object, they must be called what they are, venial sins. Noticed and accepted distractions in prayer mean irreverence towards the Almighty and consequently are sinful. Thoughts or words against charity which are conscious and voluntary go against the good will we owe all children of God and therefore are sins. The same must be said of a lackof self-control which is voluntary, and of wilful impatience by which we deliberately cause pain to others. Deliberate thoughts or words of vanity which reveal an inordinate self-concern or self-esteem are venial sins because they offend against truth and humility. Thefts of small things, or a lie which is not unjust, a lack of self-control in the matter of food, all these are, supposing some awareness and voluntariness, venial faults because they involve an evil object. Since in all these failings the degree of conscious and free consent may vary, the degree of guilt will also vary accordingly. At times the guilt will be slight, at other times more serious. Often enough it will be difficult for us to determine bow much wilfulness and guilt is involved. But then we may safely leave the estimate to Him who reads the hearts of men. All this teaching of the spiritual authors and moralists looks elementary enough, and so it is. Yet it might be good to stress this one particular point: when in our own daily lives we find defective ways of thinking, speaking, or acting which totally lack any one of 227 P. DE LETTER Ret;iew ~'or Retigious the three conditions of venial sinfulness, we may truthfully and peacefully consider that they are not sins--unless, perhaps, there be some more.or less guilty negligence in their root cause. Consequently, we need not confess them nor endeavor to be sorry for them though we can rightly be sorry for the previous negligence which may be the cause of them. They may well be humbling and unpleasant defects which serve to mortify us. But before God and in our conscience they do not harm us spiritually. No one will doubt all this. Yet it not infrequently happens (as personal experience amply proves) that although we realize full well what we should do from a theoretical point of view, nevertheless, in pr.actice, we are unable to act accord-ingly. If the aforementioned defects are not sinful, there is no humil-ity or sanctity in speaking or acting as if they were. (This does not mean, of course, that there can be no true humility in acknowledging our negligence which is the cause of them.) If they are not evil they do not give rise to th~ spiritually harmful effects which are inherent in venial sins. More particularly, they do not cool the fervor of our charity towards God and neighbor, nor do they prepare the way for serious lapses. Whatever evil is in them lies in their root cause only. Shall we conclude that we need not concern ourselves about them at all? This conclusion would not be fully warrantdd and would not harmonize with the fundamental endeavor of religious life which aims at more than the avoidance of sin. It is right to conclude that we need not see sins where sins do not exist. We should, however, be careful about these morally guiltless defects which may well spring from some not guiltless negligence and easily turn us in the direction of sinfulness. Many of the examples quoted above would cease to be sinless as soon as some degree of awareness and wilfulness would enter into them. The care to be taken concerning them evidently does not consist in directly going against them; in most cases that is practically impossible. But they can be eliminated partially by slowly and patiently building up within ourselves strong psycho-logical habits, which incline us in the opposite direction. For example, if we develop a general disposition of kindness and good will, we slowly create in ourselves a "second nature" that will by itself prevent many an unkind thought or word. As to actual practice, must we believe that it is relatively easy for religious to commit venial sins? At times we are led to believe that we could hardly live an hour or fulfill our ordinary daily duties without committing some venial sin or other. Every idle word, every vain thought, every complacency in success seems to be sinful to 228 September, 1950 VENIAL SINS some extent. May we hope that this fear or opinion is somewhat exaggerated ? Different temperaments and different views may incline different people either to severity or to leniency. But no one will deny the principle which both the severe and the lenient must respect: that the degree of free consent to a forbidden object (which in the case of venial sins is something not grievously evil) constitutes the measure of guilt. Without voluntariness there is no guilt and no sin. The divergencies of opinion will, then, stem from the different estimates as to how much freedom of consent is involved in our defective actions. 2) What is normallv possible, or not possible, in avoiding venial sins? This question may seem somewhat surprising. But it is impor-tant that we ask it and find an answer to it if our endeavor to exclude venial sins from our lives is to be enlightened and effective. It would be useless and harmful in the long run to strive after what is impos-sible. SOoner or later such a course of action would inevitably lead to discouragement in the face of repeated apparent failures. So, too, it would be prejudicial to our spiritual progress if we mistakenly did not try to do what is feasible. In this matter we are not left to personal conjectures and reason-ings or to the teachings of private authors. The Church.has given bet own authoritative and even infallible teaching. Four centuries ago the Council of Trent defined against the Protestants that a man in the state of grace is unable "during the whole of his life to avoid all sins, even those that are venial, except by a special privilege from God such as the Church holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin." And when explaining bow venial sins of their nature do not destroy the state of sanctifying grace the same Council conceded that "during this mortal life men, however holy and just, fall at times into at least light and daily sins which are also called venial." This is a most precious hint which must preserve our endeavor both from presump-tion and from dejection. It clearly states what we'must not expect, and what, therefore need not surprise or disappoint us. We cannot hope to exclude from our whole lives all venial sins; we shall not succeed, however saintly or advanced in the spiritual life we may be. Unless we can count on a special privilege such as our Blessed Lady had received we should be trying and promising ourselves the impos-sible. And who would claim for himself this privileged treatment 229 P. DE LETTER Reoieto /:or Religious which is altogether exceptional (the Council of Trent mentions only one.exception, the Blessed Virgin) ? We need not, therefore, be aston-ished or disheartened if, in spite of our best efforts and after long fidelity to the inspirations of grace, we still at times fall into light or daily faults. This is the common lot, the Church says, of the saints. We surely do not expect to be better than the saints, nor shall we be disappointed when we come to know from experience that we are not. But lest some one might find in this doctrine of the impossi-bility of avoiding all venial sin a pretext for taking things easily, the Church has carefully weighed her words. She has infallibly defined only this: It is not possible without a special privilege to avoid all venial sins during an entire lifetime. Whatever is less than this no longer comes within her infallible teaching. Strictly speaking, therefore, it may be true that some saints, even without a special privilege, would commit, say, only two or three venial sins during their whole lives. Even then the Church's definition would remain intact. But this interpretation obviously minimizes her teaching. Her mind is clearly different. She grants that even saints sometimes fall into light sins. How often, she does not say. But she definitely seems to say, from time to time. And it would follow logically that this frequency will vary according to the degre~ of virtue or sanctity or moral strength which a saint has reached. The Church's. teaching, therefore, cannot offer any pretext for an easy-going life. But it is a valuable safeguard against presumption or discouragement. It pre-serves us from attempting the impossible. But the impossible is a distant limit to which we can always approach nearer and nearer, for we can almost indefinitely reduce the number of our small sins. In this connection we should recall the twofold division of venial sins commonly given by spiritual writers: first, the fully voluntary or deliberate venial sins which one commits calmly and with unham-pered freedom, precisely because they are onltj venial and nothing serious; secondly, the venial sins of weakness in which the volun-tariness is only partial and diminished by surprise, or inattention, or fatigue, or listlessness, or some other reason, but in which there still is a sufficient degree of advertence and free consent to make them guilty and to make us responsible for them. This difference in venial sins is well known from experience; each one can no doubt trace it in his own life. Now. it is clear enough that we are able with God's grace to exclude from our daily lives the first category of venial_sins. We can 230 September, 1950 VENIAL SINS make up our minds and be determined not deliberately to commit any venial sins. Since these are fully deliberate, it depends on our free wills alone to commit or not to commit them. From the very nature of the case, we are not here taken by surprise. If we were, there would no longer be question of fully deliberate faults. And our free will cannot be t:orced into a completely free consent; it is we ourselves who decide. Many theologians, it is true, declare that Christians do not in fact avoid all deliberate venial sins during a whole lifetime with the ordinary graces they receive. Because of our innate weakness we some time or other lose sight of the determina-tion not to sin venially. Yet, with growing fidelity to grace and growing abundance of graces these faults can, in those approaching to perfection and sanctity, be eliminated altogether from their daily lives. Accordingly, it is not this class of venial sins which the Church mainly had in mind when she declared tb~t it is impossible for a just man to avoid them entirely during his ~ hole life. What Trent infallibly declared pertains to the second kind of venial sins, which are not fully deliberate. Even saints cannot with-out a special privilege avoid all such sins of weakness. Will this sur-prise any one? Catholics who believe in the fall of m~n and in original sin with its moral consequences on our human nature and on its efforts for good, will expect this. Our weak human nature would require, in order never to be taken by surprise by attractive and pleasing but forbidden objects, a vigilance and self-control so con-stant and so uninterrupted that ir is normally beyond our human strength. Much, of course, depends on the environment in which we live and on the virtuous habits and moral strength we have acquired. Where little or no occasion or temptation arises it is not hard to maintain the degree of watchfulness which bars complete surprise. And for the advanced in virtue and the strong of character, for the humble and the recollected, the charitable and the pure, invitations to sin will be fewer and less attractive. Even they, however, will " have their moments of weakness when they are caught off: guard and when they ball-knowingly, half-willingly do, say, desire, or think what they should not. We cannot expect that this kind of venial sins will ever be fully banned from our lives. We can never feel entirely safe and secure against their attacks. All we can do, and all we oug~hot to do, is by indirect action to try to diminish their number and to decrease the measure of wilfulness and.guilt in them. This effort can and should advance on a nearly indefinite scale leading us always closer and closer to the limit pointed out in the Church's 231 19. DE LETTER Review For Religious teaching. And this goal is our best endeavor. Venial sins, even the semi-deliberate ones, do spiritual harm in many ways. The harm decreaseswith the decreasing guil't, but it remains proportioned to the guilt. From all this it f611ows that a twofold result can be achieved by all of us in the matter of avoiding venial sins. First, we can with the help of grace that is always at our disposal, bann from our lives all fully deliberate venial sins. Secondly, we are able, with the help of the same grace, notably to diminish the number and the guilt of the half-deliberate ones. As regards the avoidance of fully deliberate venial sins, nothing more need be said. The thing has only to be done. But to avoid the semi-deliberate sins, we must concentrate on indirect tactics. We can increase our watchfulness against surprise attacks and make sure that this watchfulness does not relax to the point of dangerous neglect. We can counterac' the causes of unguardedness. And that practically means to grow in virtue and moral strength; for strong virtue can counterbalance the weakness of human nature which is the root cause of our being caught unawares. This indirect action against venial sins is to be applied according to each one's special needs. Each one has to develop those virtues and that moral fortitude which go against the kinds of venial sin to which he is ordinarily tempted. Some insist on charity because they easily fail in that line; they ought to cultivate a general disposition of kindliness in thought, word, and deed; both in prayer and outside of prayer they can thus build up a habit which will be a permanent counterweight against hasty and almost reflex unkind actions. Others are prone to thoughtless and selfish words and actions which are prompted by a natural urge to self-seeking 'and self-assertion: they should develop recollected self-control with the natural means of peacefulness and will power and the supernatural aids of a living' spirit of faith, a sincere and exclusive desire of what God wants, and a spiritual depreciation of all that concerns self only. These examples indicate what is meant by in-direct action against half-deliberate venial sins. The idea is to coun-teract the roots of weakness and inattention from which these faults normally spring. It is possible to paralyze these causes of sins in an ever-increasing measure.' The more we grow in virtue and holiness, the less become our faults in number and guilt. Religious approach this ideal of purity of heart in the measure of their fervor. And their advance in the spiritual life also depends proportionately on the purity of their lives. It is, therefore, impera- 232 September, 1950 SENSITIVENESS tive to know and to do what can be done .with. regard to our daily faults. The more generous and sincere our endeavor in this regard, the more truly shall we be what the religious profession demands of its followers: .giving our best endeavor to acquire the perfection of the Christian life. SensiEiveness Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. THyoAuT t hwea ost ha'e rv edrayy c. aInt dseide msesl ft-hreavt ealsa tai orne lwighioicuhs Iy ¯oruec weiavnetd t ofr obme as open as one can prudently be, as ~lear as water in a crystal vase. You tell me that you have marked down sensitiveness, ~/our inor-dinate sensitiveness, as your very character itself, .and that you have made resolutions accordingly. Humility in all its forms was, and is to be, your weapon,against this fault of character. You tell me that your sensitiveness is the direct offspring of pride and self-love, and that already¯ some years ago you recognized it as .the great enemy against which you must fight unceasingly. 7y'ou believe that you have made just a little headway against it but that much still remains to be done. Very frankly you tell me that your sensitiveness injures you somewhat as follows. Following a reproof, a censure, an admoni-tion, sometimes even the slightest, you become intensely excited interiorly; you feel bitter and hard. Then come unkind thoughts, bitter reflections, inconsiderate criticism, plans to drop or change reso-lutions, temptations against your vocation, discouragement. You state that absolute silence is your only safety then; for were you to speak you would become violent and say things which you would certainly regret, but which, because of your pride,, you might never retract, to your great spiritual danger. Often you are thrown into this state by a single look of disapproval or by something which is done by an individual or by the community that is not to your liking. You add that a strange phase of your sensitiveness is that it is often aroused even by things which are not intended as offensive. This being so, something must be done. And you ask me to tell you what. 233 WINFRID HERBST Review ~or Religious I do veril~r believe that you cannot get rid of your sensitiveness as such, as a natural quality. But in your striving after religious perfection you certainly can keep it down; you can direct it into the proper channels. You can be sensitive about your Heavenly Father's business. To say, "I will not let my pride get the upper hand in the future," would be a useless resolution. What you must do is con-vince yourself that there is nothing in you or about you in which you may of yourself glory and boast. In other words, as you your-self s~uggest, you must acquire humility; and since the best way to acquire it is to practice it, you must let no day pass without seeking occasions to do so and you must from time to time make it the sub-ject of your particular examen according to Rodriguez. But I would have you remember that humility is in every way compatible with manliness, courage, 'resolution, magnanimity, a longing to do great things, a will to win. With St. Paul you may say, "I can do all things." But you must not fail to add in all sin-cerity and humility, "In Him who strengthens me." Humility is truth; and this assertion of St. Paul's is always true. In the proper discharge of your duties you must have a certain confidence; in your studies you need a certain ambition. But all things must be with God and for God, not for self and for men. And, of course, this confidence, courage, and resolution should not show itself in self-praise. How can you boast of that which you have not of yourself, of that which has been given you? You have in a special manner received everything from God: your wonderful vocation, your remarkably good health, your mod-erate endowments, your love of order and exactness, your zeal in religious observance. You simply need confidence and resolution. Cultivate it, then, especially interiorly. I would really like to impress it upon you very earnestly that you may and must have con-fidence in yourself, provided always that self is wholly and humbly lost in God and leaning upon Him, upon Him in whom you can do all things. Confidence in yourself--yes; but at the same time be deeply im-bued with the conviction of your own nothingness. Be persuaded that it is vain and ridiculous to wish to be esteemed because of certain endowments received as a loan from God. Practice acts of meekness, patience, obedience, mortification, sor-row for sin, the renunciation of your own feelings and opinions, and the like. 234 September, 1950 SENSITIVENESS If no attention is paid to you, show no resentment but bear it with resignation and tranquillity. Do not condemn the" actions of others, interpret everything charitably, and, if the fault be manifest, strive" to attenuate it as much as possible. .And forget about it, unless your office obliges you to apply a remedy. In open questions do not contradict anyone in conversation; do not get overexcited in arffuing: if your opin, ion be considered of little worth give way quietly and remain silent. When you must defend the truth, do so courageously, but without being violent or. contemptuous. Lay up a good store of gentleness so that in all circumstances you may ~etain your equanimity. Do not nourish in your heart feelings of dislike and revenge against those who offend you. If anyone blames you or speaks ill of you, do not fly into a pas-sion bu't examine your shortcomings and humbly thank God for preserving you from such things. Whenever you are in.clined to be impatient or downcast, fight against such a temptation courageously, being mindful of your sins and of the fact that you deserve greater chastisements from God. If you .commit a fault and are despised for it, be sorry for the fault before God and accept the dishonor incurred 'as an expiation for it. Yes, I think you should concentrate on the practice of humility. Humility is a fundamental virtue, a sure pledge of sanctity, a token of predestination. A most important lesson taught us by the Divine Savior is this: "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart." In order to practice humility, be convinced that of' yourself you have nothing but sin, weakness, and misery; that all the gifts of nature and of grace which you enjoy you have received from God, who is the principle of your being; and that to Him alone is due all honor and glory---ornnis honor et gloria. But, you may exclaim, the program you outline is simply heroic. I'm glad you feel that way about it. A proper spirit of humility makes you realize that it will be difficult to live according to the out-line given and that you will be subject to many failures. But that should not prevent you from trying or cause you to give up once you have tried. Recently a religious wrote to me with reference to an article'that I had published on rel!gious observance: "I feel that I have you for a 235 WINFRID HERBST friend because of the barbs contained in your article on religious observance. Try as I might to rid myself of those timely printed remarks, I kept coming back and rereading the same. Ashamed is the right word, indeed. Yellow or coward would be the right word too. Why? I kept asking myself. After having to admit the truth the answer seemed to be: not wanting to be considered a goody-goody and not being concerned about being a perfect religious." To which I replied: "It is a good sign, this dissatisfaction with self. I am not worried about you, so long as you accept your short-comings without discouragement and try to profit by them. It is a sign of growth in humility." For Your Information Suggesfion for Superiors General The first annual report covering the year 1950 must be made by all religious superiors general (even by superiors of independent monasteries and houses) on the forms issued by the Sacred Congre-gation of Religious, not later than the end of March, 1951. During that same year all superiors general of lay institutes (Brothers and Sisters) in both Americas must send in the quinquennial report for the years 1946-1950. A new questionnaire has been published for this report. The English text of the questionnaire (342 questions) costs $1. The ten forms for the annual report including an explana-tory letter by,'the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Re-ligious cost fifty cents. These forms and the English questionnaire should be ordered now. Send a bank check or an international postal money order (obtainable at any post office), for $1.50 made out in favor of Sacred Congregation of Religious to: Rev. Giulio Mandelli, Archivist, S. Congregation of Religious, Palazzo San Callisto, Rome, Italy. Be sure to register your letter at your postoffice to avoid losing it in the mails. We hope to publish some practical suggestions regarding the filling out of the annual report in the November issue; on the quin-quennial report in the January issue. gocaflonal Ouesflons An interesting and practical pamphlet is One Hundred Vocational (Continued on page 251) 236 On F: mily Spirit: Gerald Kelly, S.3. ~T IS TRADITIONAL usage in the Church to refer to a religious institute or community as "a religious family." This expression is rich in meaning; and all of us can profit by occasionally reflecting on it. The present article is designe~l to provide a stimulus for such reflections; it is by no means calculated to do full justice to the possibilities. . Leaving the Old In itself, the expression, "a religious family," has a positive meaning. It signifies that the religious community is a family in its own right with the duties and privileges that belong to real family life. But this positive element presupposes something negative: a break with one's natural family. Without separation from the old there can never be complete incorporation into the new. Logically, therefore, our reflections ought first to be directed towards this negative element, separation. It is well to note at the outset that separation from parents and relatives is not easy. It is very difficult indeed. Nevertheless, it is a mistake for religious to think that only they are called upon to make this sacrifice. As a matter of fact, even children who marry must effect the same separation if their married life is to be a success. All the best psychological studies of failures in marriage stress the fact that one of the principal causes is the fact that one or both parties remain "tied to their mother's apron strings." The truth of this research merely illustrates the inspired words of Genesis (2:24): "Wherefore, a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife." Married people must realize that they are starting a new family, and that they must break definitely with the old. The same is true of religious. In this matter of separation we have both the example and the words of Our Lord to show us the way. When He was twelve He permitted the hearts of those He loved most dearly to be filled with anguish because He must be about His Father's business. Years later He parted definitely with the finest of mothers and the best of com-panions in order to give Himself to three tireless years of His Father's business and to climax it all with His crucifixion. And He confirmed 237 GERALD KELLY this example by strong words about the need of separation. In Matthew (10:37) we read: "He the( loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." And in Luke (14:26) are the even stronger words: "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." It is obvious that, despite the force of His words, Our Lord is not telling us that we must tear the love of parents and relatives out of our hearts. His own love for His Mother was deep, intense, and tender; and it remained so all His life. Yet it would have been an imperfect thing, and unworthy of Him, had it urged Him to stay with her one moment longer than the divine plan permitted, or had it been allowed in any way to interfere with His apostolate. This is the model of our own affection for parents and relatives. We are supposed to love them. We are bound to them by ties of blood and gratitude. But the love must be well ordered. It must not interfere, even slightly, with the purpose of our religious life, for to achieve that purpose is our Father's business. From the beginning of our r~ligious life we have to set ourselves resolutely to accomplish the physicai and mental separation from parents and relatives that allows us to give ourselves quietly and wholeheartedly to our religious duties. And one of the first and most important lessons we must learn is to entrust our dear ones to Divine Providence. It often happens that a religious has hardly entered the novitiate when he begins to receive distressing news from home. Father has lost his job; mother needs a serious operation; a baby niece has diphtheria; a nephew was in a terrible accident; the black sheep of the family has got .into some new trouble. News of this kind will be more or less frequent all through our religious lives. Unless we adjust ourselves properly to it, it can be the source of constant anxiety that spoils our mental prayer, diminishes the efficiency of our work, and even tempts us to abandon our religious vocation. Of course, it isn't easy to rid oneself of such anxiety. We cannot just.say, "I won't be anxious," and thus put all the worrisome thoughts to rout. But in a positive way we can cultivate the attitude that in leaving parents and relatives, we are putting them into the hands of God, and that if we give our thc~ughts to God and our own vocation, God'will take care of our dear ones. After all, we are not the only ones who need a great trust in Divine Providence. Letter-writing is another test of w.ell-ordered love of parents and 238 8eptembec, 1950 ON I~AMIL~ SPIRIT relatives. It is one thing for a young religious to write home every day; another to write so seldom that parents can justly complain of neglect. It is one thing to write pages and pages of small talk: another to write, "Dear Morn: I'm fine; hope you're the same. Love." These examples are extremes; but not entirely fictional. It is well for religious to cultivate the habit of writing home at regular intervals and to keep that habit as long as ~heir parents are living. The letters need not be long, but they should not be too short, either. A letter is neither a book nor a telegram. We should try to make our letters interesting, without at the same time revealing details that should be kept within the privacy of our community or of telling things that might cause needless worry. There are some mothers who, if they heard their beloved daughter had a sore knee, would immediately think in terms of an amputation. We learn through experience that innocent remarks in letters can easily assume explosive proportions. When I was a young religious I went to the hospital" for a check-up that was little more than routine. I mentioned this fact casually in a letter to a devoted aunt. Three weeks later my superior called me to his room. In his hand was a telegram from the same devoted aunt. She had just heard that her nephew had only a short time to live and she wondered whether she should come at once. That was the first news I had of my desperate condition. Upon investigation, I found that my aunt had told a friend of my check-up, and this friend had told another friend, and so on; and as the news passed from friend to friend my condi-tion grew steadily worse. Finally the original news, transformed by the ghastly details of my incurability, got back to my aunt. Then there are visits. Some time ago I presided at a discussion group made up of mistresses of novices and postulants of various institutes. One of the points discussed concerned the visits to pos-tulants and novices b.y parents and relatives. The customs varied greatly. One of the institutes simply has the absolute custom: no visits till first vows--and this institute has.a two-year novitiate. I am not exaggerating when I say that all the other novice-and postulant-mistresses gasped with envy when they heard this. All agreed that, hard though it seemed, this would be the ideal arrange-ment. All complained that when visits are allowed the day after the visit is like beginning the postulancy or novitiate over again. Some may disagree with me, but I think the religious who is stationed far from home is blest. This is true of monastic institutes because it prevents too much visiting from relatives. And it is even 239 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious more true of other institutes, for it not only prgvents the visiting on the part of relatives, but it helps to preserve in the religious himself the perfect interior liberty which keeps him at the free disposition of superiors. They can send him where he is most needed or most useful without fear of opposition. Occasionally there are good reasons for being stationed near one's home; but such reasons are rather rare and are usually of short dura-tion. Yet it is not unknown that some religious are ingenious at conjuring up reasons why they should be stationed in the shadow of their own home. And sometimes the relatives themselves exert pres-sure to this effect. These relatives have no ill will. They simply do not understand the nature of the religious life; and they need to be set right on this point. The religious who wants to be'a perfectly pliable instrument in the hands of God should not leave the burden of explanation to superiors. He ought himself to assume the respon-sibility of pointing out to his relatives that, in entering religion, he placed himself at the disposal of superiors, and that he wants to work where they think he should work. Living the New The preceding points could be amplified and similar ones added. But, since I have undertaken this article with the purpose of stressing the positive aspect of our family life, I wish to devote most of my space to the elements that contribute to genuine family living in religion. ' The first of these positive elements is paternal government. Some-one has said that government is paternal when it manifests the "gentleness, kindliness, and love of Christ." No doubt that expresses the idea most beautifully; yet, unless we translate "paternal" into terms of ordinary family life, we shall remain in the sphere of mere theory. A good father is supposed to be solicitous for each member of his family, while at the same time seeking the common good of the entire family. This is not easily accomplished even in a family of five or six children; it is certainly much more difficult in a religious community of ten, twenty, thirty, and even more subjects. Never-theless the ideal is there; and it cannot be lowered without prejudice to true family life. This ideal clearly rules out favoritism, as that word is ordinarily understood. But it hardly means that a superior cannot have any especially intimate friends within his community. It is commonly 240 September, 1950 ON FAMILY SPIRIT said that Our Lord had a special regard for St. John; yet no one would dare accuse Him of favoritism. In the best families, parents often have a special love for one child without in any sense neglecting the others. They do not love the others less because they love him more. _And we ourselves, as subjects, often have warm, intimate friendships with a few members of our community without in any way diminishing the charityw'e owe the others. This is human. Supe-riors do not (or should not) cease to be human when they take office. Nevertheless, special friendships present a danger; and superiors, even more than others, must guard, against the danger. Any superior who gives his friends privileges he would not give others, who violates confidences to satisfy their curiosity, who neglects the others Of his community to be with them, who allows them to have undue influence in the managing of the community is certain.ly not governing paternally. Solicitude for the individual must always be subordinated to the interests of the group. All of us, even without having been supe-riors, must have experienced at times the difficulty of living up to this standard. A teacher may have a boy in his class, a thoroughly like-able lad, who is constantly a drawback to the rest of the class in studies and in discipline. Or a prefect may have discovered that a youngster has been stealing or has other bad habits that are infecting the group; and he may be torn between the two unpleasant alterna-tives of having this boy dismissed with the probability that he will not go to another Catholic school or of keeping him in the school with risk of great harm to the others. In problems such as these the ultimate solution must be in terms of the greater good-~and that is usually the common good. We should do all we can to save the individual boy, but not at the expense of the group. And the supe-rior has to solve the similar problems that arise in community life in the same way. He will show great sympathy and tolerance for the wayward or cantankerous subject. But this tolerance has its just limit. The community has a right to its good name and to peaceful living; and its right should not be jeopardized for the individual. A good father likes to be with his family. Every institute, I suppose, prescribes that the superior be present at community meals and community recreations and that he stay home most of the time. This is not merely for the sake of discipline: it is a requisite for good family life. I might suggest, though, that the expression "most of the time" be emphasized. A wise old Father once remarked that a good superior will make it a point to get away from his community 241 GERALD KELLY Ret~iew for Reliqious occasionally. It is good for both the superior and the community. It is clearly a case in which "absence makes the heart grow fonder." And this is also true of ordinary family life. When parents get away occasionally both they and the children benefit by it. When we look back on our childhood, one of the things that very likely strikes us forcibly is the memory of how our parents adjusted themselves to us. When with us they lived in our world, the child's world; and they did not try to force us into theirs. I think that this fact helps to illustrate the full meaning of paternal government in religion. The good superior seeks the interests of his community; he lives in their world, not his own. For instance, he does not monopolize recreation with his own topics of conversation. Or, to put the same example in another way: he does not recreate the brethren; he recreates with the brethren. Paternal government neces- ¯ sarily implies that the superior look upon the members of his com-munity as his children. This is obvious; the correlative of "parent" is "child." But "child" in this context means "son or daughter"; it does not mean an infant or even an adolescent. The paternal supe-rior, therefore, treats his subjects as adults. He has respect for their age, their dignity, and their talents. Many other things could be said about the paternal superior. He can be stern; he is never harsh. He fosters religious idealism by his good example. He is a good provider in accordance with the means at his disposal and the purpose of his institute. He makes sure that his subjects have plenty of time to see him. He tries to employ them according to their strength and their talents. He encourages them to develop their talents for the good of the institute and ultimately for the greater glory of God. And so forth. I cannot develop these points without converting this into an article entitled, "How to be a good superior"-~by one who has ne~er been a superior. The next topic concerns us, the subjects. On the basis of experi-ence, I.should know much more about this. However, it is~rather human to know 'more about the other fellow's job. A friend of mine who was appointed a superior several years ago made a very appro-priate speech on the night of his installation. "A week ago," he said, "I knew everything a superior ought to do. Tonight I'm not so sure." In terms of the religious family, the correlative of paternal gov-ernment is filial confidence. This expression is not easily explained. It seems to signify something that we recognize almost instinctively --like the taste of chocolate--yet are only faintly able to describe. 242 September, 1950 ON FAMILY SPIRIT fundamental element seems to be confidence in the superior's judg-ment. And by this I am riot.referring to the fact that he is in the place of Christ. That tells me merely that I am right in obeying him: it does not tell me he is right in commanding. Religious life would be nothing short of a continuous miracle if all of us lived it day after day and year after year With the conviction that the supe-rior is wrong, but we are right. For ordinary peaceful living we need the confidence that at least generally speaking the superiors are right, that they govern well, that their natural judgment is good. We needn't endow superiors with either infallibility or impeccability in order to gain this confidence. If we may judge from the content of several anonymous letters sent to this review, some religious think that the first requisite for becoming and remaining a superior is stupidity. The attitude of such religious is not readily diagnosed. Perhaps the cause is indigestion, or sleeplessness, or some mental maladjustment. At any rate, it is certainly pathological. And we can all thank God for that: for, if that attitude represented the normal outlook of religious subjects, we should be in a sorry state. I am not saying there are no bad superiors--no unrealists, no martinets, no tyrants amongst them. But I do say most emphatically that there are enough good ones for us to preserve our confidence in the institution, even on a natural basis. And I believe that in saying this I am expressing the view of the general run of religious subjects. As a group we have a basic confidence that our superiors govern well. This does not mean that we do not occasionally, or even frequently, think we could plan things better. Nor does it mean that we never criticize. Most of us, no doubt, indulge in enough criticism of supe-riors to provide matter for a periodic particular examen, for confes-sion, and for good resolutions. We can and we should improve. Nevertheless, some criticism, provided it is not too frequent and especially that it is not bitter, is no major impediment to family life. In considering the paternal-filial relationship, reference, to the manifestation of conscience is inevitable. As has been remarked more than once in these pages, the fact that the Church has forbidden supe-riors to demand a manifestation'of conscience has been stressed to such an extent as to lead many religious to think that their conscience is simply none of the superior's business. The very nature of reli-gious .government shows this to be absurd. Superiors are supposed to assign subjects to places and offices in such a way that the individ-uals can save and sanctify their souls and that the general good of the 243 GERALD KELLY Reoieto t~or Religious institute is promoted. An assignment which defeats either of these ends defeats the purpose of the religious life itself. Yet, how is a superior to make a wise and provident disposition of subjects according to the two-fold purpose of the religious life unless he has an intimate knowledge of his subjects? And how is he to get this knowledge adequately without the help of perfect candor on the part of the subjects? It is very saddening to hear a religious whose assignment is actually proving his spiritual ruin, say: "I just couldn't tell my superior about this difficulty." The fault may be his; and it may be his superior's: in either case, the condition is lamentable and should never have been allowed to develop. Perhaps both superiors and subjects could profit by reflecting on the fol-lowing words of a saintly and experienced spiritual director: "Nothing helps so effectually to engender a paternal attitude toward a subject as the account of conscience; for, when I open my heart to my superior I constrain him to take a fatherly attitude toward me and a fatherly interest in my welfare. Thereafter he cannot remain just my superior if he be a man of normal humanity. Then, this bestowal of my inmost confidence upon my superior will be powerful to effect in my soul the reciprocal relation of filial trust and love. Conversely, when I withhold my confidence from the superior and refuse to open my heart to him, I make his position diffi-cult as far as fatherly feeling is concerned. Sometimes our superiors may seem to us to lack paternal interest. The fault may be theirs; but likewise it may be ours, due to the fact that we have never given them our confidence." Paternal government and filial confidence are the constituent ele-ments of family life in the superior-subject relationship. The third element is the bond of union among the members. ,~,11 that we gen-erally say concerning fraternal charity pertains to the explanation of this element. I shall content myself here with pointing out a few things that seem to have special relevance to our "family" charity. In our mutual relationships there ought to be no quarreling, no offensive teasing, no harsh words. This certainly is the ideal of our charity. Yet, ~i wholesome family spirit can exist among us without perfection in this ideal. Consider again the analogy with the good natural family. The brothers and sisters squabble a bit; the parents lose their tempers occasionally. But they "make up fast"--as the saying goes; a short time after the explosive incidents everyone is acting as if nothing disagreeable had happened. To strive for this is perhaps to have a more realistic goal in our community relationships. 244 ON FAMILY SPIRIT Despite the noblest of resolutions, we get out of sorts, and we fly off the handle. Given a group of normal human beings, these things can hardly be avoided entirely in the close associations that make up community living. But we can certainly avoid prolonged teasing that hurts, continued bickering, harboring grudges, and so forth. These are things that deeply wound family spirit. Our goal, therefore, is to love the members of our community in much the same way as the members of a good Catholic family love one another. It is hardly possible to accomplish this perfectly. There is truth in the old maxim that "blood will tell." On the purely natural plane it is often easy to preserve an intense affection for our blood brothers and sisters even when they possess characteristics that o'thers consider unpleasant. In our dealing with others, even with fellow religious, there is much greaterneed of explicitl~r stimulating motives for love. Certainly there are many powerful motives for mutual love among religious. One of these was expressed graphically by a mili-tary chaplain when he returned to his community after the last war: "You don't know how good it is to sit at table again with a group of men who are all in the state of grace!". These are startling words --perhaps even a bit exaggerated. Yet, isn't it true that they express a profound reason why there should be great peace in the companion-ship of religious? Day after day all of us say Mass or receive Holy Communion--a reasonably sure practical sign that we are living habitually in the friendship of God. There are many saintly people outside of religion, and many others who, if not canonizable, do live constantly in the state of grace. But there are many others who are unjust, obscene, blasphemous; and even good people in the World can scarcely avoid their companionship. In religion our lives and our recreations are spent with companions who, despite many small and irritating faults, are substantially good. Their supernatural goodness is not the only reason why the companionship of religious should be enjoyable. Even on the natural level religious are apt to have more likeable qualities than any average group of the laity. At any rate, that ought to be the case; we are screened for especially undesirable qualities when we apply for admission as well as on the occasions of our .vows. It is true that most of us look back and wonder how we passed the screening; and those of us who entered before the days of intelligence and per-sonality tests may frankly admit in the secrecy of our hearts that, if these tests had existed in our day, we should not have made the 245 GERALD KELLY Reuieu~ for Reliqiou~ grade. No doubt, despite all the screening, some serious mistakes are made. Some pass through t~he screening processes who later become real menaces to community life. But the general percentage of com-panionable characters should be and is much higher than would be found elsewhere. I mentioned before that it is not uncommon for children of the same family to fight among themselves. I have seen two small' boys, brothers, literally mauling each other over the possession of a small wagon. Then another boy appeared and attempted to align himself with one party. But the brothers would have none of that! In a flash their own quarrel was ended and they were united against the intruder. This is typical of good family life. No matter how much the members fight among themselves, they present a united front to outsiders. We religious should have that spirit of family loyalty. In some sense, at least, each of us must have looked on his own ¯ institute as the "best of all" when he entered religion; otherwise we would have joined another. Certainly it is the "best" for us now; and it is not only legitimate but laudable for us to foster a spirit of preferential love. I think it was St. Francis de Sales who sa'id: "For us there is no congregation more worthy of love and more desirable than ours, since Our Lord has willed that it should be our country and our bark of salvation." I have heard that Sisters attending summer school show great interest in the habits of other institutes and that sometimes they exchange habits. But they return to their own with the serene con-viction that, though the others have some good points, theirs is the best. This is not narrow-mindedness. A young man may have the most profound respect for other women yet very reasonably look upon his own mother as the best in the world. So, too, religious may have great esteem for the members, the habits, the customs, and the work of other institutes, yet they prefer and treasure their own above all the others. The well-ordered love of one's institute will not, however, blind us to its deficiencies, or prevent us from trying by legitimate methods to improve its customs. No institute is so perfect as to exclude the need of occasional changes, especially in non-essentials. It is not true loyalty, but sheer obstinacy, that urges us to hold fast to old things just because they are old; that resists any reasonable modi-fication in the habit or any change of customs. Even the general laws of the Church are not so perfect as to exclude change. Family loyalty will not blind us to the defects of our brethren; 246 September, 1950 ON F!kMILY SPIRIT but it will certainly prevent us from criticizing either our brethren or our institute to outsiders. These things are family secrets; outsiders have no right to know them. I am referring here to criticism of one's superiors or fell0w-religious before the boys or girls in school, before the nurses in training, before the p~rish priest, or before the men and women in the parish, and so forth. To reveal to such per-sons the real faults of the community is detraction; and to misrepre-sent the community is calumny. And the harm done by such gossip easily assumes serious proportions. In censuring disloyal speech, I am not thinking of revelations made to canonical visitors or of the unburdening of one's conscience in confession. The canonical visitor is deputed by the Church to ask questions, and in his exercise of this function he is not to be con-sidered an "outsider." The confessor is bound by the most absolute of secrets; and the community is sufficiently protected against harm, even when the religious, in explaining his faults or trials, must inci-dentally refer to the misconduct of others. Further Practical Suggestions I have tried to keep my explanation of the constituents of reli-gious family life from being too theoretical, and I hope I have suc-ceeded to some extent. I should like now to increase the practicality of this article by suggesting a few concrete ways of contributing to the family spirit of our institutes and communities. The purpose of a religious institute is to carry on the work assigned to it by the Church and thus honor God and further His kingdom in the souls of men. In the ordinary providence of God, the supernatural efficiency of the institute depends on its holiness, and this holiness is not some abstract thing; it is, concretely" speaking, the sum total of the holiness of the members. It is very true, there-fore, that each member can say: "The holier I am, the holier is my institute." This truth should be a source of great inspiration and encourage-ment to all religious who are devoted to their religious family. For, in the matter of holiness there is no distinction of grade or work. The general, the provincial, the local superior, the teacher, the nurse, the dean, the housekeeper, the cook, the sick, the retired, the contem-pla. tive, and so forth--all have an equal opportunity of promoting the family cause through an increase of holiness. The saintly cook, therefore, makes a much finer contribution to the most exalted pur-pose of his institute than does the tepid preacher or the worldly 247 GERALD KELLY Review ?or Reliqious teacher. Holiness, of course, includes the whole of one's life--prayer, work, suffering, and so forth--but it refers particularly to the interior life of prayer and penance. In these interior things every religious has great power to help his institute. For one thing, it is the interior spirit that gives the real supernatural value to our own work. Moreover, the interior life of one can have a tremendous influence on the apostolic, work of the others; and it is well for the contemplatives, for those who do the hidden, humble works, and for those who are ill or retired, to note this. This last point is of supreme importance, and I should like to illustrate it by a simple example. A priest seldom goes on'a mission, rarely enters the confessional, without the realization that he may have to de~l with some souls who are "stubborn" or "weak," souls that desperately need superabundant grace for their conversion and salvation. Some of these people seem to have the kind of devil that Our Lord said is driven out only by prayer and fasting. Yet they themselves are too weak or too hard to do the required prayer and fasting. If they are to be saved, someone must do it for them-- at least enough so that they will finally respond to the grace that enables them to carry on for themselves. ~Fhe priest, despite the best of intentions, cannot do it all. On occasions like this, I have always rejoiced in the realization that I have a n~amber of friends who gladly offer some of their pray-ers and sufferings for my apostolate. Shortly after my ordination I was privileged to meet a saintly nun, Sister Agnesetta, of the Sisters of Loretto. We became fast friends, and she was a great help to me until the day of her death. As a young Sister she had been reduced to the state of a helpless cripple. During her last years she could barely lift her tiny knotted hand to blow a whistle when she needed help. Exteriorly she was so cheerful that a casual visitor would think she enjoyed being bedridden. Yet interiorly, for upwards of twenty years she felt not only the physical pain of her illness but the much greater crucifixion of frustration, of "being on the shelf." I cannot express how much it meant to me to begin some apostolic work with the knowlkdge that some of her prayers and sufferings were being offered for me. I have mentioned Sister Agnesetta by name because she has gone to her reward and cannot be embarrassed by my words. I could mention many others and of different institutes, if they were not still living. And I imagine that every priest could do the same. 248 September, 1950 ON FAMILY SPIRIT What has all this to do with family spirit? The answer, at least as regards active institutes, seems obvious. For in the various active institutes, there are teachers who are trying to win wayward pupils, nurses who are trying to bring about deathbed conversions, preachers who must stir the hearts of the impenitent, confessors who must draw penitents away from habits of sin. These and others exercising the apostolate need supernatural help. And what is more natural than that they look for this help from the members of their own institute? I do not mean that our vision should not take in the whole Church, with its entire apostolate; I simply mean that our own institute should normally have the first place in our apostolic intentions. My remaining suggestions will be very brief. First, there is our work. The work of a religious institute is teamwork; it is not the accomplishment of any individual. Each of us contributes to the cause; and it is only by the complete co-operative effort that the desired result is accomplished. In terms of family spirit, this is another consoling truth. It makes each of us realize that his job is important. Then there is charity. The finest act of charity a religious can show his brethren is good example. All of us know the force of example: how easy it is, for instance, to keep the rule of silence when everyone else observes it; and how difficult it is when even a few neglect it. And, speaking of example, I must at least mention our dealings with externs. They are prone to judge a whole institute by one member: hence each member has a tremendous responsibility to his religious family when he deals with them. The religious with true devotion to his institute will always try to act in the presence of externs in such a way as to cause them to esteem his community and his institute. Also, as regards charity, there is the matter of mutual correction. The very fact that we are a family gives each of us an added respon-sibility for the welfare of the others and, of course, for the reputation of the institute. In a family, when one of the children is making a fool out of himself, the other children tell him or their parents about it; and, observing the sound principles of fraternal correction, we religious have to do the same thing. Sometimes religious note that one of their brethren is on the verge of giving great scandal, yet they say nothing either to the individual or to superiors. This is shirking responsibility, a gross form of family disloyalty. Poverty offers a fertile field for the family spirit. The religious 249 GERALD KELLY Review [or Religious who fully realizes that community life is a sharing enterprise--that "he lives off the community, and the community lives off him," as the saying goes--will not refuse gifts just because he "would have'to turn them in," will not spend his time calculating how he might add some gift to his superfluities without sinning seriously against pov-erty. How would we live if no one were willing to. "turn things in"? And in a natural family, would it not be a strange father or mother or sister or brother who would refuse a generous gift because, "Really, I don't need it for myself; all I could do with it is give it to the family" ? Religious with a family spirit do not waste things. They do not leave it to someone else to turn off a radiator when heat isn't needed, to close a window when it is letting in too much cold air or when a storm is brewing and floors or furniture would be ruined. They do not get books, clothing, and other things that they do not need. In other words, like the members of any poor family, they economize. Perhaps I should add, by way of parenthesis, that when I speak of the need of dconomy, I am thinking mostly in terms of men. I have often wondered how we men could get along on Sisters' salaries, or how we could crowd our books, wardrobes, and various junk boxes into the cells or (more often) dormitories that make up the living quarters of our convents, or how we should look were our clothes subjected to the frequent mendings that give Sisters' habits such a long life on this earth. In my religious life I have heard much about obedience, but after the first few years I seldom heard anything new. A few years ago, however, I did hear a retreat master say something new--at any rate, it was new to me. He said, "The obedient man is the available man." This brief statement expresses in a practical, concrete way the whole secret of religious obedience. Our strength lies in the fact that a supe-rior can dispose of us according to the common need; that he can command us, or ask us, or merely suggest to us, and he always finds us ready. We don't shirk a job; we don't dodge responsibility. Few things can be harder for a superior than to have to approach a sub-ject whex~ he knows his request will be greeted by eithe} a growl or an alibi; and I imagine that few things are sweeter for the superior than the realization that his community is composed of available sub-jects, religious who graciously accept any assignment at any time. One concluding remark. To foster our humility, we are often told that if we were gone our place would soon be filled and the 250 community would not even miss us. Perhaps that aspect of our life is sometimes overdone. Perhaps it is good for us to think occasion-ally of how important we are, of how much we, as individuals, mean to the community. The thought can be very inspiring. I trust that some of the suggestions made here will help to provide this inspi-ration. FOR YOUR INFORMATION (Continued from page 236) Questions Asked bg Sisters. It contains questions and answers first printed in a quarterly entitled Vocational Notes for'Sisters. This reprint contains the first htindred questions which appeared in the Notes during 1949 and 1950. The prudent, informative answers are by the Very Reverend Father Clarence, O.F.M.Cap., and the Rever-end Father Jude, O.F,M.Cap. It can be obtained for 15 cents a copy from: St. Anthony's Vocation Club, 220 Thirty-Seventh St., Pittsburgh 1, Pa. Medlco-Moral Problems Modern medicine faces us with numerous ethical problems. Many of these problems are thoroughly discussed in two booklets, Medico- Moral Problems, I and II, by Gerald Kelly, S.J. The booklets are published by The Catholic Hospital Association, 1438 South Grand Blvd., St. Louis 4, Mo. Prices on each booklet are: 50 cents a copy; 12 for $5.25; 50 for $20.00. The Catholic Hospital Association also publishes in pamphlet form Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Hospitals. This is the revised medico-moral code which is now used in a large num-ber of dioceses throughout the United States and Canada. Price: 25 cents a copy: 12 for $2.75; 50 for $10.00. Catholic Daily A group of Catholic journalists are planning to publish a daily newspaper dedicated to reporting the news of the da~r in the context ,6f Christianity. The projected publication date is October 10, 1950. For the staff of this paper, The Sun Herald, the work is a vocation, an apostolate. The founders of the new paper have incorporated as The Apos- (Continued on page 264) 251 Christ: Shows Us I-low !:o Win Friends Jerome Breunig, S.J. SINC, E it was first published about fifteen years ago, Dale Carne-gie s book, How to. Win Friends and Influence People, found millions of buyers and readers and has become one of the most popular works of non-fiction in our time. It is obvious to .religious who have read the book that Dale Carnegie has many good ideas which would help them practice the virtue Christ recommended above all. Equally obvious is the shallow humanitarian viev~point and the mercenary self-interest that is illustrated in most of the ex-ample}. Since many of the people with whom we come into contact - are influenced more by the humanitarian mentality of this book than by the mind that is in Christ Jesus, it'might be useful to observe how much better Christ can teach us how to win friends-~even according to Carnegie's rules. Carnegie gives six rules for making people like you: (1) become genuinely interested in other i~eople; (2) smile; (3) remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language; (4) be a good listener; (5) talk in terms of the other man's interest; (6) make the other person feel important, and do it sincerely. ' But the very idea of making people like you may seem foreign to religious and a sordid thought. The religious works only for God, seeks to be unknown, sees in superiors and others "no one but only Jesus." True enough, but the loftiest supernatural motives should not be high-lighted in such a way that they crowd natural means out of the picture. Christ, the Religious of religious, worked onl~r for God's glory. "The things that please Him, I do." To do this more effectively He tried to make people not only like but love Him. How else explain the Cross! And when man's love grew cold, Christ did not hesitate to dramatize His desire to win men's love by wearing H~s Heart on His breast, announcing to the world through St. Margaret Mary: "Behold this Heart, which has "loved men so much and receives nothing in return but ingratitude and indifference." Christ was "genuinely interested in other people." He was 252 CHRIST SHOWS US HOW TO WIN FRIENDS moved with compassion for the multitudes because they were as sheep without a shepherd. He wept over ,Jerusalem. "How often would I ha,~e gathered together thy children, as the ben dotb gather her chickens under .her wings, and thou wouldst not." Christ's interest extended to individuals as well. He pitied the plight of the leper and healed him: "I will, be thou made clean." What interest He showed in Peter! On at least two occasions He insured a pros-perous catch of fish for him. At another time He cured his mother-in- law. Interest is also shown by prayers. "I have prayed for you that your faith fail you not." Genuine interest in others is a big step towards developing that mind that is in Christ ~lesus. It dispels uncharitable thoughts. "The only person who does not improve on acquaintance is self," observes Father Faber. The same writer notes that kindness is not too diffi-cult, for though there are many unkind minds there are hardly any unkind hearts and that a kind mind can be developed by thinking about, being interested in, others. A kind mind implies much thifiking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. A retreat master developed the same thought by the following illustra-tion. A caricaturist seizes on a character weakness and emphasizes it out of all prop.ortion, while the artist is careful to shade the weak-nesses and make the finer qualities stand out. And the artist always comes closer to a true likeness. Dale Carnegie makes much ot: the. smile, featuring Charles Schwab whose smile was literally a million-dollar one. The Evan-gelists do not record the obvious. There is no written record of Christ's sm.ile, yet there is no room for doubting.that Our Lord smiled when He looked up and saw Zacheus, who had to climb a tree to catch a glimpse, when the quick-witted Phoenician woman an-swered, "Even the whelps are permitted to gather the crumbs," and when He surprised the apostles with the miraculous draughts of fish. More important than the smile is what is behind it, the cheerful, light-hea.rted disposition. Christ was a man of sorrows, but He did not let that cast a gloom around Him. He brought cheer to .the wedding feast at.Cana, did not want the Apostles to fast "when the bridegroom was with them," and celebrated Matthew's joining up by eating and drinking with sinners. Christ's doctrine fosters afun-damentally 'cheerful .disposition. "Come to Me all you that labor and are burdened and I will refresh you." "My yoke is sweet, my burden light." "When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites." 253 ~EROME BREUNIG Ret~iew ~or Religious . Professional personality-developers insist on the practice of saying "Good Morning" to develop the smile. "Good Morning" leaves a smile on the face. Religious should not need to paint a smile by any artificial means. Religious should be the happiest peo-ple on earth, and they are. Smiles come readily. Humility, chastity, and charity thrive in an atmosphere of cheerfulness. The best "propaganda" for vocations is a cheerful religious. An old Father observed that the number of vocations from a particular school was. in exact proportion to the number of cheerful scholastics on the faculty. "Remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the language." Jim Farley could call fifty thou-sand men by their first name. Christ could call fifty billion by their names. "I am the good shepherd," Christ said, "and I know mine and mine know me." The comparison to a shepherd has a special reference to knowing by name. Shepherds in Palestine then and now have a special name for each of their sheep. The sheep recognizes and answers when its name is called. True Christian charity rather than the wisdom of this genera-tion should prompt a religious to pay the personal respect implied in remembering and using another's name. It is disconcerting to find one who should know our name remembering only our face. The inability to remember another by name leaves the impression that he does not impinge our consciousness to any extent. Our Lord paid this mark of respect to His fellow men. Mary Magdalen did not recognize Christ on Easter morning until He said, "Mary." There are other instances. "Lazarus, come forth." "Martha, Martha." "Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?" On His very first public appearance we find Christ fulfilling the next rule for winning friends: "Be a good listener. 'Encourage others to talk about themselves." On this occasion we observe Christ as a youth in the temple "listening to them and asking questions." Whenever his enemies were baffled by His wise answers, we always have the assurance that C~ist heard them out first. "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar? . Of which of. the seven will she be wife at the resurrection?" His enemies thought they had a sure enveloping. pincer movement only to find themselves suddenly disarmed, by the. wisdom of the answer. But in every instance Christ did not inter-rupt them until they had finished. A beautiful instance of encouraging others .to talk about them-selves is seen on the road to Emmaus. While the two disciples were September, 1950 CHRIST SHOWS US HOW TO WIN FRIENDS con;cersing and arguing together, Jesus drew near and went along with them. He began the conversation, "What are these discourses that you hold with one another as you walk, and are sad?" "Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?" "What things?" Our Lord encourages them. With kindly for-bearance He listens to the entire story. It is only after they have talked themselves out that He begins with Moses and the prophets and interprets to them the Scriptures. Perhaps Father Faber had Christ the Listener in mind when he wrote the paragraph on kind listening. "There is also a grace of kind listening as well as of kind speaking. Some listen with an abstracted air, which shows their thoughts are elsewhere. Or they seem to listen, but by wide answers and irrelevant questions show they have been occupied with their own thoughts, as being more interesting, at least in their own esti-mation, than what you have been saying. Some listen with a kind of importunate ferocity, which makes you feel that you are being put on trial, and that your auditor expects beforehand that you are going to tell him a lie, or to be inaccurate, or to say something of which h~ will disapprove, and that you must mind your expres-sions. Some hear you to the end, and then forthwith begin to talk to you about a similar exl~erience which has bet:allen themselves, making your case only an illustration of their own. Some, meaning to be kind, listen with such a determined, lively, violent attenti6n that you are uncomfortable, and the charm of conversation is at an end. Many persons whose manners will stand the test of speaking break down at once under the trial of listening. But all these things should be brought under the sweet influences of religion. Kind listening is often an air of the most delicate interior mortification and is a great assistance toward kind speaking." Christ, of course, is still listening. He listens to our prayers. He still hears, through His priests, our confessions. Christ "spoke in terms of the other man's interest." Without parables He did not speak to them. And the parables and illustra-tions were taken directly out of the lives ot: the listeners. Fishermen heard truths in terms of nets, farmers, of seed and crops, women, of house cleaning, etc. In the beatitudes Christ took what was closest to most of his hearers, poverty, suffering, lack of property, mourning, persecution, and showed how they could transform these liabilities into assets. 255 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious Finally, tracing out the pattern of Carnegie, we observe that Christ "makes the other person feel important and He does it sin-cerely." "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." To Nathaniel, "A true Israelite in whom there is no guile." To Peter, "Thou are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church." John and James were called "Sons of Thunder." Christ has a more sublime way of making others appreciate their dignity. "We will come to him and make our abode with him." The dig-nity of a Christian! As St. Paul echoes and reechoes: "You are temples of God and the Spirit of God dwells within you." All of Dale Carnegie's ways to make people like you are merely applications of the golden rule, which is of divine origin. In fact, the golden rule was formulated by Christ Himself in His sermon on the mount. "All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them." Of course, Christ both in His example and His teaching (He began to do and to teach), shows other ways to make people like you. For instance, "Greater love than this no man has than that a man gives his life for another." Not only does Christ show us how to win friends. The supreme friend-winner sfipplies the necessary and only adequate and enduring motivation. He seems to make the final judgment at the end of the world hinge on what we do or don't do for others. "As long as yofi did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to Me." Book Reviews OUR WAY TO THE FATHER: Meditations for each day of the year in four volumes. By Leo M. Krenz, S.,J. Pp. xx -I- 518: 411; 535, 516. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1950. $15.00 (set of four volumes). In "An Apologia" introducing this rich four-volume series of meditations and readings the author gives an account of "the pur-pose, plan, and method of this course of meditations for religious." Besides that portion of the text which constitutes the meditation proper and is printed in large type there are added paragraphs which in many various ways supplement what is primarily proposed for reflection and prayer. To each meditation is prefixed'a preamble, 256 September, 1950 BOOK REVIEWS consisting usualIy of some verses from Scripture, to strike as it were the keynote that characterizes the exercise. There are always two preludes, three points, and a colloquy. It is highly distinctive of this meditation-course that very often in smaller print there are additions "intended to afford further helpful explanations; to sup- . ply more pointed applications; to furnish pertinent biblical, his-torical, ascetical, theological, or philosophical information; or even to satisfy longings for better knowledge of some puzzling dogmatic truth or fact . It is hoped that these supplementary notes and additions may do helpful service as welcome material for pertinent spiritual reading, and at times even for deep study and possibly for round-table discussion." This expedient of appending further develop-" ments helps the author to achieve what seems to be one of his leading preoccupations, namely, to provide religious who make use of these four hundred meditations with a carefully planned and elaborate exposition of a fairly complete system of spirituality, comprising both instruction and motivation. Hence this work could be used for devotional reading in a way and to an extent that would not be true of typical meditation books. A special effort is made to keep in mind the needs of both beginners and proficients in the religious life and in mental prayer. The ways in which Christ and the Apostles instructed their first disciples are consciously imitated with the design of proposing the highest ideals, of getting them practically accepted, and at the same time of pointing out the discrepancies that are only too likely to exist between the profession and the performance of religious men or women. The epistles of the New Testament are also used to learn and copy the method and means by which the Apostles sought to transform recent converts from Judaism or paganism into "be-lievers . doers . and lovers." With this touch of antiquity goes a peculiar flavor of modernity, in that the spiritual lessons of these volumes are studiously adapted to the conditions of our times and place. Evidently it is the author's most earnest and zealous hope that those who use these suggestions for prayerful reflection will. become just what, in accordance with the highest religious ideals and their own special vocation and under present-day circumstances, they ought to be. The theme dominating the whole series of medi-tations is that God is an infinitely good and great father and is inviting us to" an ever closer union with Him. --G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD, S.J. 257 BOOK REVIEWS Reoieto for Reti~ious THE HISTORY OF: THE POPES. By Ludwig yon Pastor. Translated by E. F. Peeler. Vol. 3S: Benedict XIV (1740-1758). Pp. xllv -I- 516. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, Missouri. $S.00. It surely seems like a return to normalcy when Herder resumes the publication of the English translation of Pastor's great'History. This is the very volume that Pastor was working on when death snatched the pen from his hand in 1928. But so much work had been done upon the pontificates up to and including Plus VI (d. 1799), that these materials were later rounded out and .published with the aid of several scholars named in the introduction. There are thus several additional volumes to appear in English; we trust their appearance will not be further unduly delayed. Those who want their Church history to be nothing but "edi-fying" stories had better not take up this volume; those who have enjoyed--and been built up--by the previous ones of the series, will know what to expect here. They will see a Pope, sixty-five at his election, eighty-three at his death, patiently, even light-heartedly governing the Church in a setting of unparalleled diplomatic black-mail. "Our pontificate," he once said, "will be famous for the injuries we suffer" (p. 111). He more than once described himself as "working with a pistol at his head" (p. 273), carrying on in the face of disappointments, insults, frustration. But by every conceivable concession he prevented for those eight-een years all the gigantic conflicts of the day from reaching the explosions that carrie not long afterwards. The chief interest of this volume turns on that slippery story of the ,lansenists, who for a long time had enjoyed immunity and pro-tection, particularly in Fiance, in their defiance of papal authority. Many different factors complicated the "straight" religious issue, but at every turn it was the Church in France that was torn to shreds by parlement and prelates, by Pompadour's open immorality, and Louis XV's blundering ineptitudes. As early as 1750 Parisians were calling themselves "Republicans," and a French bishop recalled in a pastoral letter that an English king had been beheaded in 1649 (p. 225). But as Benedict passed from the scene the 3ansenists were still in the ascendant, and the party's gre~atest hour, the Synod of Pistoia (1786-87), was still in the making. It is almost another preview of history that in the early years of this pontificate a group of people came together in Rome to plot the total destruction of the Society of,lesus (p. 390). One of those 258 September, 1950 BOOK REVIEWS plotters was a young man named Ricci, who later achieved a baleful fame by presiding at the Synod of Pistoia as its bishop. It is one of the ironies of history that he was a nephew of a General of the desuits he had helped to destroy, and who had died in prison in 1775. Even in the Sacred College there were those who said: "Hold Rome in check by Gallicanism, but Gallicanism by means of Rome" (p. 287). In Benedict's lifetime this conspiracy was. contained, but later on the Tanucci-Pombal-Choiseul p~essure, not to mention the monarchs they served, produced the suppression of 1773. Benedict XIV had a scholar's reputation, particularly in histori-cal and canonical fields, when he came to the papacy. His has been an enduring influence, as organizer, legislator, reformer. His regula-tions for beatifications and canonizations still govern those functions. He .was hailed as "the greatest of the canonists" (p. 298), even as Gu~ranger later said of him that no Pope had ever possessed such a knowledge of the Roman liturgy (p. 301). The book's final section, treating of the missions, handles two other famous controversies he settled: the Chinese Rites (duly 11, 1742) and those of Malabar (Sept. 12, 1744). In this connection it is regrettable that the translation mirrors conditions as they were twenty years ago, for, owing to prgfound changes in the religious mentality of the Orient, it is precisely these acts of Benedict XIV that have been changed in our day by Plus XI and Pius XII. But that was in the interval between the writing of the book and this English translation.--GERALD ]~LLARD, S.d. THE HOLY SEI: AT WORK. B~/Edward L. Hes÷on, C.S.C;. Pp. x~v + 188. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 1950. $2.50. This book gives us a popular but adequate explanation of how the Holy Father, supreme visible head of the Church, together with his Senate of Cardinals, governs the universal Church through the medium of the Roman Curia. After a brief introduction explaining the nature and meaning of the terms: Pope, Curia, and Cardinals, the author passes on to the most important part of the book--a one-hundred page account of the various Roman Congregations--in which he discusses the Con-gregations, first in general and then in particular, giving the origin, history, competency, and personnel of each. Part three does the same for the Tribunals ot: the Holy See: the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature, and the Sacred Roman Rota. The fourth and last section treats of the Offices of the 259 BOOK REVIEWS Revieu~ for Religious Holy See: the Apostolic Chancery, the Apostolic Datary, the Rev-erend Apostolic Chamber, the Secretariate of State with its associated Secretariates of Briefs to Princes, and of Latin Letters. A chapter on the Code of Canon Law, the official bod~ of ecclesiastical law for the Latin Church, and one on the election of a new Pope bring the work to a close. The Holy See at Work contains a wealth of interesting details, such as the process of a petition through one of the Congregations from beginning to end, the meaning of "the secret of the Holy Office," the appointment of bishops, the relation of the Churches of the Orient to the Latin Church, the various steps by which a diocesan religious congregation obtains the approval of the Holy See and becomes pontifical, the evolution of a mission from an apostolic prefecture to a diocese, steps to beatification and canonization, special procedure of the Sacred Penitentiary, process of a marriage case through the Rota, kinds of papal documents, the election of a new Pope. Priests and religious, as well as the interested laity, are indebted to Father Heston for having made all this information available in handy form and at a reasonable price. Twenty-two illustrations and three charts enhance the usefulness of the volume. --ADAM C. ELLIS, S.J. LITTLE MEDITATIONS ON THE HOLY EUCHARIST. By Rev. Thomas D. Williams. Pp. 319. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wis-consin. $3.50. The Holy Eucharist deserves our whole-hearted appreciation and highest esteem. Yet, because it is shrouded in mystery, and our senses fail to penetrate the veil which hides the Real Presence of Jesus on our altars, we often fail to value this priceless Gift of God as we should. How can we become thoroughly acquainted with so inestimable a treasure, how acquire a conscious security of faith? By frequently meditating on the Real Presence, on the value of Holy Communion, and on the significance of the Sacrifice of the Mass. To make this easy and attractive, Father Williams offers a short meditation for every day of the year on some phase of the Eucharistic mystery. These considerations, based on the words of Scripture and the teachings of theology, are so clear and simple, so attractive and devotional, that any one who ponders them slowly and prayerfully will continually grow in knowledge and love of the Holy Eucharist. The author makes excellent and practical use of Scripture texts, which lend a stimulating touch to every paragraph. Throughout 260 September, 1950 BOOK NOTICES we sense a mellow tone of ~olid piety, and nowhere is there the least evidence of sentithentality or pious exaggeration. We highly recom-mend the book for use in visiting the Blessed Sacrament. --HENRY WILLMERING, S.J. BOOK NOTICES WE LIVE WITH OUR EYES OPEN is a sequel to the earlier work by Dom Hubert van Zeller, O.S.B., which was entitled We Die Standir~g Up. In his first book Father van Zeller treated chiefly the obstacles encountered in the quest for holiness. In the thirty-nine essays of the present volume he centers our attention on the means to sanctity. Here as before the treatment of his theme is straightforward and stimulating. Most of the essays discuss the use of creatures, in-terior prayer, mysticism, asceticism, and the proper orientation of the virtue of love in general and as applied to the sacrament of matri-mony. (New York: Sheed ~ Ward, 1950. Pp. x -q- 172. $2.00.) Richelieu's France of the seventeenth century was the scene for the life and work of Charles de Condren, the second superior of the Oratory in France. M. V. Woodgate's CHARLES DE CONDREN iS not a mere pious biography in the old tradition, but a balanced, though brief, account of a very human, holy, and at times, weak personality. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1950. Pp. xi + 155. $2.25.) LITURGICAL PRAYER: ITS HISTORY AND SPIRIT, by Msgr. Fer-nand Cabrol, O.S.B., is an offset reproduction of a liturgical classic which first apeared in its French original in 1900. It was later trans-lated by a Benedictine of Stanbrook in a 1921 edition. The litera-ture and the notes cited are, therefore, of the last years of the last cen-tury, but the text, by a man who could combine deep knowledge with popular presentation, is as timely now as when first written. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1950. Pp. xiv -t- 382. $3.50.) The important role of congregations of religious women in the development of the Church, and especially of Catholic education, in the United States cannot be overemphasized. One of the latest his-torical studies dealing with this theme is Sister Maria Kostka Logue's SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH OF PHILADELPHIA. This carefully docu- 261 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Reoieto for Religious mented, highly objective, and interesting work covers a century of growth and development of the Congregation in the eastern states from 1847 to 1947. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1950. Pp. xii q- 380. $5.00.) Religious, by profession particularly interested in the hidden life of Christ with its message of self-effacement, obscurity and obedi-ence, should be grateful to Dr. Patrick J. Temple for PATTERN DIVINE: OUR LORD'S HIDDEN LIFE. This book fills a real need, for too many books on the childhood of Christ are either apologetic or piously exaggerated, while chapters in standard "Lives of Christ" are generally too meagre. Dr. Temple gives a detailed account of the exterior life of the Holy Family at Nazareth and presents the Jewish life, society and thought that affected the youthful Christ. Every page of the book is documented, and the explanations in the foot-notes justify the claim that the story of PATTERN DIVINE is not imaginative and fictitious, but sober truth and reliable fact. The devotional tone, which pervades the whole account, is conspicuous in a concluding summary paragraph for each chapter. A very copious bibliography and a detailed index are additional assets of the work. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1950. Pp. xii-k 389. $5.00) PRAYER FOR _A_LL TIMES, by Pierre Charles, S. J., and trans-lated from the French by Maud Monahan, is a reprint of a spiritual classic that has already gone through seven editions. The publishers are to be congratulated for combining the former three separate vol-umes. into one. Each of the ninty-nine chapters of two and one half pages deals with some important point in the spiritual life. The book can be used either for spiritual reading or for points for medi-tation. One chapter at a time is sufficient since each chapter demands reflection, application, prayer. The deep spiritual insight and many practical suggestions are brought home in a kindly spirit and a graphic style. (Westminsier, Md.: The Newman Press, 1950. Pp. 328. $3.50.) BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS [For the most part, these notices are purely descriptive, based on a cursory exam-ination of the books listed.] THE GRAIL, St. Meinrad, Indiana. THE HOLY RULE OF ST. BENEDICT. Pp. xiv q- 95. $1.00 (paper) ; $2.00. (cloth). 262 September, 1950 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT8 SAINT BENEDICT THE MAN. By Dom I. Ryelandt, O.S.B. Translated from the French by Rev. Patrick Shaughnessy, O.S.B. Pp. 102. $1.25. The first book, a second printing, besides the Rule contains a Short biographical sketch of St. Benedict by Aidan Cardinal Gasque~ and a sermon on the saint by Pope Pius XlI. The second contains three studies of the inner life, "the moral physiognomy," of St. Bene-dict. The studies are based on an analysis of his Rule, on St. Greg-ory the Great's life of th~ saint, and on a comparative study of St. Benedict and St. Francis de Sales. B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, St. Louis, Missouri. CHRIST THE SAVIOR. By Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. Translated by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B. Pp. iv + 748. $9.00. This is the English edition of Ft. Lagrange's Latin textbook, DE CHRISTO SALVATORE, a commentary on the Third Part of St. Whomas's SUMMA THEOLOGICA. A thirty-page "Compendium of Mari-ology" rounds out the volume. ISTITUTO PADANO DI ARTI GRAFICHE, Rovigo, Italy IL DIRITTO DELLE RELIGIOSE. By Rev. Louis Fanfani, O.P. Pp. xxii + 346. L. 1500. This is the third edition of the author's Italian LAW FOR RELIGIOUS WOMEN based on his larger Latin work, DE IURE RELIGIOSORUM. "It has been brought up to date with the most recent decisions of the Holy See, and has been improved in some points by a more accurate exposition of the canons of the Code referring to religious women." NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Margland. REVOLUTION IN A CITY PARISH. By Abb4 G. Michonneau. Pp. xxi -~- 189. $2.50. The city parish is in the mission of France among the working class population in the Paris suburbs. A co-worker, Father H. Ch. Ch4ry, O.P., and the Abb4 discuss in dia-logue form the needs and difficulties, the objectives and methods in their missionary apostolate. SAINT PAUL AND APOSTOLIC WRITINGS. By Sebastian Bul-lough, O.P. Pp. xviii q- 338. $3.00. This latest volume in the series of Scripture textbooks for use in Catholic schools in England deals with the Pauline Epistles, the seven Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse. Ft. Bullough's exegesis and commentary provide a valuable background for a more intelligent and fruitful understand-ing of these important New Testament writings. 263 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Ret;ieto for Religious SERMON NOTES ON THE SUNDAY PROPERS. By Rev. F. H. Drinkwater. Pp. 119. $2.00. A reprint. The author derives useful themes from parts of the Mass propers exclusiye of the epistles and gospels. SOME RARE VIRTUES. By Raoul Plus, S.J. Translated from the French by Sister Mary Edgar Meyer, O.S.F. Pp. vi q- 213'. $1.75. All virtues are rare, but some that Fr. Plus treats of are especially rare, such as "Knowing how to be grateful," "Good use of time" and "Pity for the sick and afflicted." It is the first English publication of this work. THE. SUPPLICATION OF SOULS. By St,f Thomas More. Edited by Sister Mary Thecla, S.C. Pp. xiii -{- 187. $2.50. This book is Thomas More's refutation of the heretical work of Simon Fish,' SUPPLICATION FOR THE BEGGARS. This is an instance to prove Father J. J. Daly's remark "More's was the" only pen at the service of the Church to do battle in the vernacular against heresy." In the book St. Thomas defends the clergy against irreverent and unfair attack and upholds the doctrine on purgatory, making a moving ap-peal for the poor souls. The book is mostly, but not exclusively, of historical interest. FOR YOUR INFORMATION (Continued from page 251) tolic Press Association, a non-profit organization. One departure from existing journalism is the financing of the paper. Instead of advertising it will depend on circulation revenue. And for initial expenses the founders are enlisting the charity of those Catholics who believe there is a need for such a paper. There will be five issues weekly, and two editions: one local and one national. The national edition will be delivered by air cargo and should reach most subscribers on the day of publication. Prices for one year are: $14.00 for the national edition; $12.50 for the local. For the scale of prices on shorter terms, as well as for other informa-tion, write to: The Sun Herald, 702 East 12th St., Kansas City 6, Mo. Confessors' Patron St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists, has long (Continued on page 280) 264 ues!: ons Answers ~2 Im We wish to gain the Jubilee indulgence. Our local ordinary has made no pronouncement on the subject. Have our i:onfessors the authority to prescribe the necessary conditions for gaining this indulgence? Is it neces-sary to go to confession and to receive Holy Communion each time? As Father Bergh pointed out in his article on "The Holy Year of 1950" in the January number of the Reuieto, the general require-ments for gaining the Jubilee indulgence in Rome are: reception of the sacraments of Penance and.the Eucharist,-and visits to the four major Roman basilicas in which certain prescribed prayers must be said. Outside Rome, for those who are entitled by way of exception to gain the Jubilee indulgence at home (all women religious among others), the local ordinary or any confessor delegated by him may substitute other works, of religion, piety, and charity in place of the visits to the four Roman basilicas. In places where the local ordinary has, made no provision, confessors may presume that they have received tacit delegation to make the substitution. Confession and Holy Communion are required for each gaining of the indulgence. ~22m Is it in accord with canon law for religious 1o be given permissibn ÷6 take trips during the summer if their relatives pay the expensesmeven if those trips are pilgrimages to Rome and to various shrines? The obligation to common life which is imposed upon all reli-gious by canon 594 forbids superiors to allow certain members of the community to take a trip (even though it be a pious pilgrimage) merely because parents, relatives, or friends are willing to pay the expenses. Common life requires that the community supply a reli-gious with whatever he needs, just as everything which comes to him as a religions must be put in the community funds. Common life also requires that, generally speaking, equal opportunities be given to all members of the community. Hence a superior could allow the members of his community to make a pious pilgrimage provided that he supplied the necessary expense money for such members of his community as do not have relatives or friends who are willing to pay for them. Again, the constitutions of the community would have to be consulted to see whether such trips, pious or otherwise, are allowed. An article explaining this matter of common life in 265 QUESTIONS AND ~NSWERS Review for Religious detail will be found in this Review for January, 1948, pp. 33-45. When we say that common life generally requires that equal opportunity be given to all, we do not mean that it is a~ainst com-mon life to allow certain privileges (like a pilgrimage) to jubilari-ans, to the perpetually professed, and so forth. In such cases, how-ever, the use of the privilege should be extended to the whole group and should not be limited to those who can procure the necessary funds from relatives or friends. --23- Has a meeting of provincial superiors presided over by the superior general and his councilors the authority to change a custom which has been observed in the congregation for over one hundred years, or is such a change reserved to the general, chapter? Only a general chapter can change customs which are common t~ a religious congregation. The constitutions could give the power to the superior general and his councilors, but this would have to be stated explicitly. --24~ What precisely are the Normae, so often referred to in leglslation for religious communities? How much authority is aHached to them? Must all constitutions and custom books of nuns conform to these Normae? About the year 1860 the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, then in charge of all religious orders and congregations, began to establish uniform regulations for the new religious congre-gations, especially of women, which were increasing in number. More or less uniform sets of constitutions were given to them on trial, until they took permanent shape for each congregation in the draft which was given final approval. In the course of forty years some things were changed, others were added, and some were dropped. These regulations, in the shape of a set of model constitutions for religious congregations with simple vows, were published on June 28, 1901 under the title of Norms according to which the Sacred Congregation o~ Bishops and Regulars is accustomed to proceed in the approval of new institutes with simple vows. The Normae did not establish any formal legislation for religious congregations, but were published for the sole use of the Sacred Congregation as a guide in the composition and construction of constitutions for new congre-gations with simple vows seeking the approval of the Holy See. Thus most of the congregations approved during the last part of the nine- 266 September, 1950 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS teenth century and first part of the twentieth (until the new Code of Canon Law in 1918) are based exclusively on the Normae. These old constitutions had to be revised in order to bring them into con-formity with the new Code of Canon Law. However, most of the matter contained in the Normae was incorporated into the Code, with modifications, omissions, and additions, of course. Hence the Normae are useful even today because they give us a better under-standing of the canons of the Code which deal with similar matters, as well as of the constitutions themselves in which the wording of the Normae has been retained in great part. To answer our question-: New constitutions and customs need not and should not conform to the old Normae but exclusively to the present Code of Canon Law. --25~ Is ÷here any difference in ÷he meanlncj and in the use of the followin9 words applicable to Sisters taken collectively: community, order, sister-hood, congregation, institute? In everyday life these general terms are used indiscriminately to signify a group of religious women. Canonically speaking, how-ever, there is a difference in their meaning, which is contained in the definitions provided for us in canon 488 of the Code. Thus: (1) An "institute" (religio) is any society, approved by legitimate ecclesiastical authority, the members of which tend to evangelical perfection, according to the laws proper to the society, by the profes: sion of public vows, whether perpetual or temporary. (2) An "order" is an institute whose members make profession of solemn vows. (3) A "religious congregation" or simply a "congregation" is an institute whose members make profession of simple vows only, whether perpetual or temporary. The canon does not define the terms "community" and "sisterhood," but it does define (4) "nuns" as religious women with solemn vows or, unless it appears other-wise from the nature of the case or from the context, religious women whose vows are normally solemn, but which, by a disposition of the Holy See, are simple in certain regions; whereas "sisters" are reli-gious women with simple vows. The term "community" is not used officially in canon law. It popularly indicates either an "institute," which is a general term in-cluding both orders and congregations, or it is used to identify a local group of religious, classified in canon law as a "religious house." "Sisterhood" is a popular term for an institute of religious women, 267 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS whether of nuns or of sisters, though technically it should be restricted to an institute of sisters only. 26 Do the words: rule, holy rule, constitutions, and customary, represent distinct thlncjs, or has the term "the rule" the same meanincj as "constitu-tions"? Technically the term '"Rule" always refers to one of four great rules which most religious orders followed down to the sixteenth century, and which they still follow, and which are followed by a number of modern religious congregations. These are: the Rule of St. Benedict, the Rule of St. Basil, the Rule of St. Augustine, and the Rule ot: St. Francis. To these four rules, which are stable and unchangeable, other regulations regarding details not contained in the rules have been added, and these additions were called "constitu-tions." In the sixteenth century the new orders of clerics regular who did not adopt any of the four great rules, introduced a new system whereby the fixed and stable parts of their legislation were called "constitutions" while other minor regulations which were changeable were called "rules." Modern congregations, even though they follow one of the four great rules, have a body of practical legislation known as "constitu-tions," and approved either by the local Ordinary or by the Holy See. Minor observances are called "regulations" or "rules." The term "customary," or "book of customs," and the like, indicate observances usually brought into being by custom or usage, first in one community, then in another, and finally in a whole insti-tute. These may be changed by a general chapter, but no general chapter has the right to change the constitutions approved by the Holy See or by the local ordinary. OUR CONTRIBUTORS P. DELETTER is a member of the faculty of St. Mary's theological college, Kurseong, India. WINFRID HERBST, writer, retreat master, former master ot~ nov-ices, is on the faculty of the Salvatorian Seminary, St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. GER-ALD KELLY and JEROME ]~REUNIG are members of the editorial board of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS.Fr. Breunig succeeds Father Alfred Schneider as editorial secretary. 268 Report !:o Rome [In the following pages we conclude the publishing of the List of Questions to be answered in the quinquennial report by pontifical institutes. We have printed these questions, not only as an aid to superiors who must answer, them, but also as a means of giving all religious a better knowledge of the Church's law concerning religious. The questions are published exactly as they appear in the official English trans-lation. Questions marked with an asterisk (*) concern only institutes of men: those marked with a cross ('1") refer only to institutes of women. For information about the means of obtaining the copies of the questions, see p. 236.--ED.] ARTICLE III Coneernlncj those who have departed or been dismissed, and others who leave the Institute Concerning those who haue gone out from the Institute 248. a) How many in the Institute and in each Province, at the expiration of their vows did not renew them, either because they chose not to do so or because they were not allowed to do so. b) How many of the professed of temporary vows were dis-pensed during their vows, and how many of the professed of per-petual vows were dispensed. 249. Were those who were dispensed from tbeir vows at their own request or with their consent, forced, or without serious and grave reasons and precautions permitted, to leave the religious house before the rescript was duly executed. 250. How many transfers, if any, were there to another In-stitute. C6ncerning apostates and fugitiues 251. a) How many apostates and fugitives, if any, were there during the five-year period. b) Did the Society or Institute observe the provisions of law concerning apostates and fugitives, by seeking them (c. 645 § 2),and if this proved fruitless, by proceeding against them according to law, so that their juridical condition should be clearly defined. Were the provisions of law regarding those who came back observed (cc. 2385, 2386), and is watchful provision made for their spiritual good. Concerning those dismissed bg Superiors and those not admitted to profession 252. a) Since the last Report, how many of the professed of 269 REPORT TO ROME Review for Religious temporary v, ows and how many of the professed of perpetual vows have been dismissed, according to Provinces. b) In the dismissal of religious, whether of temporary or of perpetual vows, were the norms of the common law (cc. 647 § 2, 649-672) as well as those of the Constitutions observed. c) Was the same done in regard to not admitting the professed of temporary vows to the renewal of their vows or to perpetual profession (c. 637). 253. Were the dismissed of temporary vows, while the recourse duly made within ten days was pending (c. 647 § 2; S. C. of Reli-gious, 20 July 1923, AAS, XV, I923, p. 457), and the dismissed of perpetual vows, before the decree or judgment of dismissal had been confirmed by the Sacred Congregation (cc. 652, 666), forced to leave the Institute. 254. Are the dismissed who are not in sacred orders released from their vows by the dismissal (c. 669 § 1); and if the vows remain, does the Institute show solicitude regarding their condition (c. 672 § 1). Concerning those dismissed by the law itself and those sent back to the world 255. What were the cases, and the causes which led to them, for both the professed of temporary and those of perpetual vows, where they were either sent back to the world on account of grave scandal or very grave harm (co. 653, 668) or dismissed by the law itself (c. 646). 256. Were steps immediately taken according to the Code (cc. 646 § 2, 653, 668) to determine the condition of those dis-missed by the law itself and of those sent back to the world. 257. Is there any such person whose condition still r~mains undetermined. 258. What cases if any have occurred of the reduction to the lay state of religious who had received sacred orders; how many were voluntary and how many penal. Concerning those who were exctoistered 259. How many cases of exclaustration were there, if any; are the causes carefully and conscientiously pondered in the presence of God before the petition is recommended and the rescript executed. 260. Does the Institute take care: a) That if it seems necessary to ask for an extension of the 270 September, 1950 REPORT TO ROME indults, they be renewed in due time. b) That the persons who are excloistered lead a worthy reli-gious llfe and return as soon as possible to some house of the Insti-tute. 261". Likewise does the'Institute take care regarding those who have been secularized on trial, and regarding their return to religion if at the expiration of the three-year period the indult is not renewed or they are not accepted, by the Ordinary. Concerning absences from the house ¯ 262. Do Superiors see to it that subjects remain out of the house only for a just and grave reason and for the shortest possible time, according to the Constitutions (c. 606 § 2). 263. For absences which exceed six months, except for studies or ministries according to law and the Constitutions, was the permis-sion of the Holy See always obtained (c. 606 § 2). 264. Is it allowed by reason or under color of a vacation, that time be spent with one's parents or outside a house of the Institute. Concbrning the deceased 265. Were the prescribed suffrages faithfully and promptly per-formed for all the deceased. ARTICLE IV Concernincj the various classes and conditions of religlous § 1. - CONCERNING CLERICS (This is dealt with in the Report on formation and studies). § 2. - CONCERh~ING Conversi OR COADJUTORS Concerning their education and training 266. Do Superiors, in accordance with c. 509 § 2, 2° give to those religious who belong to the class of conversi, instruction in Christian doctrine; and do Superiors, both before and after their pro-fession but especially during the earlier years, carefully attend to their spiritual, intellectual, civil and technical education according to the functions which they have to fulfill. 267. Are the religious allowed to engage in works which do not seem to be suitable to the religious state. 268. Do Superiors with paternal charity diligently provide also for the bodily health of the conversi or coadjutors. 271 REPORT TO ROME § 3. CONCERNING THOSE WHO ARE APPLIED TO MILITARY SERVICE Concerning the profession of those who are to be called for the first time to active militarg service 269*. Did Superiors regulate according to the decrees of the Holy See the temporary professions of those who are to be called for the first time to active military service or its equivalent. 270*. Were perpetual professions permitted before the first active military service or its equivalent, to which the young men are liable to be called. Concerning the religious during their militarg service 271". a) Did Superiors take care of their members in the service, watch over their life, communicate frequently with them, requiring a periodical account of their conduct, their actions and exercises of piety, etc. b) What special means were used to secure their perseverance. 272*. In cases of dismissal for just and reasonable causes, or of voluntary s.eparation from the Institute, did the Major Superior fol-low the p~escribed procedure and faithfully conserve all the docu-ments in the Archives. Concerning the renewal of temporarg profession after military service and the making of perpetual profession 273*. For admission to the renewal of temporary profession, was everything done which is prescribed by the common law and in the decrees regarding this matter. 274*. Was the prescribed time of the temporary profession com-pleted after military service, and also the time of the temporary vows which is prescribed by law and by the Constitutions before the making of the perpetual profession. CHAPTER III CONCERNING THE WORKS AND MINISTRIES OF THE INSTITUTE ARTICLE I Concerning minis÷ties in general Concerning the special end and the works of the Institute in general 275. Were the ministries proper to the Institute abandoned or neglected. 276. Were any works engaged in which are not contained in the 272 September, 1950 REPORT TO ROME special end of the Institute; if so, with what permission was this done. Concerning abuses in the exercise of ministries 277. Were any abuses in the exercise of ministries introduced during this time; if so what were they. 278. Is all appearance of avarice carefully avoided on the occasion of ministries. 279. Was begging from door to door, according to law (cc. 621, 622) and the Constitutions, done with the required permissions. 280. Moreover, in begging, were the rules of law (c. 623), the instructions of the Holy See (c. 624) and the norms of the Consti-tutions observed. 281. By reason of or under pretext of ministries, are an excessive or too worldly communication with seculars and frequent and pro-longed absences from the religious house permitted. 282. What precautions are taken in this communication in order to avoid harm to the religious and scandal to seculars. Concerning difficulties with the secular clergy or with other Institutes, etc. because of the ministries 283. On the occasion of the ministries did any friction occur with ecclesiastical Superiors, with pastors and the secular clergy, with other Institutes or with Chaplains. What were the chief instances of such difficulties and where did they occur. 284. What probable reasons can be assigned for these difficulties. and what remedies can be suggested for their avoidance. ARTICLE II Concerning special ministries Concerning Missions among infidels and heretics 285. In the Missions, or in any one of them, did the religious life suffer any harm, and if so, what were the reasons for this. 286. What safeguards were used or should have been used so that in the apostolate the faithful observance of religious discipline and the care of one's own sanctification be better secured. 287*. In the Missions, is the internal religious Superior distinct. from the ecclesiastical Superior. 288*. Did this union of offices in the same person result in advantages or rather in disadvantages. 273 REPORT TO ROME Review for Religious Concerning Parishes, Churches and Sanctuaries 289*. For the incorporation or union of parishes, was an indult of the Holy See obtained, according to cc. 452 § 1, 1423 § 2, so that there should be a union or incorporation properly effected. 290*. In what form were Parishes united to the Institute: pleno iure (absolutely, at the will of the Holy See), in temporalibus, etc., and from what date. (A copy of the document should be sent if there is one). 291". Was an agreement made with the Ordinary of the place to accept any parish. (Send copies of the agreements made during the five-year period). 292*. How do Superiors watch over and assist those of their subjects who are pastors (c. 631 §§ I-2), and in case of need admonish and correct them. 293*. Was the office of local Superior ever united with that of pastor, observing c. 505; did this union give rise to difficulties, or was it on the contrary attended with good results. 294*. Did the Institute obtain from local Ordinaries that Churches or Sanctuaries should be entrusted to it; if so, with what permission and on what terms and conditions was this done. 295*. How do all Superiors see to it that religious discipline suffer no harm from the ministries engaged in by the religious in parishes or in public churche~ which are entrusted to them. Concerning Colleges, Schools and Seminaries 296,*. Has the Institute entrusted to it any Seminaries of clerics, and if so on what terms. (Documents and agreements entered into regarding this matter during the five-year period should be attached). 297*. In these Seminaries, are there any difficulties with the Ordi-naries, concerning either the religious life and discipline or the gov-ernment of the Seminary. 298*. What measures and efforts are employed toward the sound and thorough training and religious education of the students. 299. Are there houses for the residence of young people who are attending public schools. 300. In these cases is very special care taken to see that the schools are safe from the standpoint of both instruction and education; especially is a careful supervision maintained over the instruction and religious education; and if there are any deficiencies are they carefully remedied. 301t. Are there schools which are attended by both sexes; 274 September, 1950 REPORT TO ROME as regards fixing the age beyond which boys may not be admitted or retained, have the prescriptions made by the Ordinaries been observed. 302. Do Superiors strictly see to it that Rectors, Prefects, Teach-ers and Professors receive adequate preparation for their work: a) Scientifically, by acquiring knowledge which corresponds adequately to the grade of the class, and by obtaining degrees and certificates, even such as are recognized outside ecclesiastical circles. b) Pedagogically, by the study and practice of the art of teaching. c) Spiritually, so that they may exercise the office of teaching with a genuine zeal for souls and make it a means of sanctification for themselves and others. 303. Do Superiors carefuIly see to it that the work of teaching be properly harmonized with religious discipline. 304. Did they promptly remove from the office of teaching those who in practicing it make light of the religious life and are not a good example to the students. Concerning the practice of the corporal works of mercg 305. Does the Institute practice the corporal works of mercy toward the sick, orphans, the aged, etc. 306. Are there: a) Guest-houses and hospital

Issue 6.1 of the Review for Religious, 1947. ; Review for Religious 3ANUARY 15; 1947 °YouIdre as ony Pe r?a r . ~ . ~The Editors On Difficulties in Meditation . ' . G. Augustine Ellard The Little Office of Our Lady . : . . Adam C. Living in Christ . Charles F. D(~novan "Open My Mouth, O Lord!" . Richard L. Roo~ey Oualifications of Pos÷ula nts Sister of'the Precious Blood Recruiting for the. Brotherhoods . Brother Placidus The Cl~urch Unity Octave .~ . . Father Bartholomew Communications Book Reviews Ouesfion~s Answered Decisions of the Holy See "VOLUME VI NUMBER 1 REVIEW FOR . RELIG, IOUS VOLUME VI JANUARY, 11947 NUMBER , cONTENTS YOUR IDEAS ON PRAYER~-~The Editor~ . . . ON DIFFICULTIES IN MEDITATION" G. Augustine Ellard, S.J; COMMUNICATIONS . 16 OUR CONTRIBUTORS '~ . . : . : . . 1 THE LITTLE OFFICE oF OUR LADY--Adam C. °Ellis, S.J, 18 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE . 24 LIVING IN CHRIST'--Charles F. Donovan, S.J . 28 CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS ON PRAYER . 32 "OPEN MY MOUTH, O LORD !"--Richard L. Rooney, S.J . 33 BOOKS~,FOR HOSPITALS . . . ¯ . 36 QUALIFICATIONS OF A GOOD POSTULANT-~Sister of Preciotis Blood 37 CHURCH UNITY OCTAVE .INDULGENCES . . RECRUITING FOR THE BROTHERHOODS--Brottier Placidus, C.F.X. 45 THE CHURCH UNITY OCTAVE--Father Bartholomew, S.A. 50 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- .1. Absencd from Novitiate during Second Year . 53 2. Reappointment of Local Superiors . 53 3. Pd'wer to Prescribe Community Prayers; Imprimatur . 54 4. Meaning of Spiritual Re.lationship 54 5. Mism Recitata Permitted under Certain Conditions . ~.~ 55 6. Absence from Postulancy . ~ 55 7. Superior Appointed for Unexpired Term . 56 FLOUR FOR ALTAR" BREAD,S . ~ BOOK REVIEWS~ ~ A Bedside Book of.Saints; Extraordinary Life of Marie Louise Brault; ¯ Lumen, Vitae; The Index to American Catholic Pamphlets; The Systematic Teaching of Religion: Ancient, Christian Writers . 58 BOOK NOTICES . . .~ . : . °. 63 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, January, 1947.~ Vol. VI. No. 1. Published bi-monthly; January, March, May, Ju!~, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys~ Kansas. with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kan.sas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: Alfred F. Schneider,~ S.J. Copyright, 1947, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription p~ice: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S, A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on Inside beck cover. Review ~or Reli gio'us Volume VI ~January--December, 1947 Published at THE COLLEGE PRESS Topeka, Kensas Edited by THE JESUI~T FATHERS SAI¯NT MARY'S COLLEGE St. Man/s, Kansas " REV~IEW FOR RELIGIOUS is indexed in the CATHOLIC PERIbDICAL iNDEX. Yobr. J Jeas on Pray6r? The Editors. VARIO S TIMES in the p~st, the editors of thi.~" EVIEW. have suggested some definite topic to be dis-cussed in the Communications Department with th~ intention of pooling useful ideas and informatioh." For example, we have had communications on spirithal direc-tion, on formalism in religion, .and On vocations. Of all _the discussions, by far. the most interesting and profitable was the one concerning spiritual direction. This discussiofi" "'o ran through an entire year; and when it was complete&we Were able to publish a very helpful su.rvey of all the articles and commu,.nications. . Why was~spiritual direction such a frutifui .topic for discussion? The reason seems to be thatTM the topic has a definite persor~al meaning to most religious. They have "id~as and ideals ~r~.the subject; and they. can and'will express themselves. It is all but inevitable that communi- ~ation~'which touch upoh matters that are concrete and that are of personal significance-will be successful. We should like to start another series of communica-tignsi" and we think we have a,subject that should vie.with. spiritual direc~iori in its personal appeM to.religious. The Subject we wish to suggest is Pra~jer. Here'is our plan. During the present year, beginnin~ with this issue, we hope to publish a number of. articles prayer. In these, attention will be drawn to many of the "difficulties.ordinarily met with in prayer and. an attempt will be made to indicate ways and means of overcoming them, Thui we hope to give our real:ldrs,suggestio,ns, that will be of ,great constructive value. Yet our purpose can 3 THE EDITORS '~" - ha, rdly b.e.attained ~erely by, formal articles. We need the informal, perso~ial t6uch of communications. Prayer is somethin.g,that pertains intimately to the life of a religious. E~ry religiouS, we su~,pose, has at least tried mental prayer, and has met with success or failure. We think that all reli- '~gi~,us Ould gain mu~h by an interchange of Views on these failures and succeSSeS. Hence, we ask fo~ communicatiohs to supplement or if need be--tocorrect our articles. What should be included in these communications? It .is hard to give a Comprehensive answer to thi~iq~estion. Here.are ~ome suggestions~: You have read or heard some-thing '~about prayer;~ you have .tried it and founfl it either ~.helpful or useless. You have .experienced di~culfies-~-or discovered methods and h~lps that the ordiffary books do notmention.~ Others would like to hear about ~uch things. Why not tell them? These are but priming suggestions;. they are not intended tolimit'th~ ~scope of your communi-c_ a~ions. The importfint thin~'is_that you tell about pr~yer,. ~/our ideas concerning, prayer, and so forth. It seems that the s.ubject should be limited, for the most partl to mental prayer;, however, we certainly do not wisl"i to exclude correspondence on vocal pi:ayer. , Who should write these communications? Anyone Who i~ intdrested;, anyone who .has somethinl~ to say. Whethei ~rofi aie'a superior ora Sub~ject; a sPkrituai ~direc~orI h~ retreat master,-a priest, a Sister, ,a Brother; whether your irocatidn stresses the acti~ce or the contern-plh~ive-iife you :can hace~something worth while tO say on this important subject. If we can cbmbine our articles and communica'- tions in such a way as to give us 'a practical- suivey of.all the' real difficulties and real helps to prayer, we shall have accomplished something truly worth while. [ NOTE: Please see. p, 3 2 for directions concerning cdramunications.] On Difl:icul ies G. Augustine Ella~rd, S.J. |~ ET US .take meditation~ to be a heart2to-h~ar~t confer- I~ ence with God upon one's spiritual problems. .Th~ -intellectual moment is expressed by "conference,'~ in ~he sense of consultation or discussion; the affective moment by "heart-to-heart"; and-the element of prayey. 'is. implied' in the words "v~ith Gsd." Moreover let us take the term meditation both in the narrower acceptation of discursive mental prayer and in the broai:ter use as men.t~l prayer. general, except of.course infused contemplation. The diffi') culties are encountered primarily in meditation in the former sense, but in diminishingdegrees, they occur also in those forms.of mental prayer that are commonly called affective or contemplative. The purpose of these remarks is purely practical. And it would seem that not many-efforts in the spiritual life ~ould be more practical than endeavoring to make medita-tlon le~s sterile and more effective. A. TheFacts I cannot imagine that anybody who has tried over a ldng period of time to pray mentally would ~leny that there are difficulties imit. Even'St. Teresa, that, soaring eagle of " Avila, who must have found about as much facility and delight in it .as anyone, at a certain stage in thedevelop-ment 6f her prayer-life used to shake the hourglass because it was too slow to her tas,te in measuring the hour for medi-tation. Yet there are ascetical writers, carried away appar-ently by zeal and forgetful of experience, who assert that "mental. prayer is not difIiculU' As a.matter of fact, it seems quite certain that the diffi-culty bf meditation ranges" all the way from sheer impbssi- ,G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD "" Review for Religious bilit_-y, to,no.difficulty at all. There ar_.e.some people'who are ~h~si~aii~ and }imply'i~capabi~ Of itl .and tl~ere are others "~ho diari.ng .long periods of time find only e?ase and delight in it. These represent the two extremes. If we consider the generality of per~gn~who apply thedas~lves 'to addita-ti0n, m~impression-is that th~ difficulty is both c6mmon and gre~t. In any case, whate;cer the f~cts be, let us acknowledge them candidly 'without exa'~g~ration or diminfition: "~ ° Ess_e_ntially the difficulty Of meditation seems'to consist in a cert~iin darkness of mind and'a certain apathy of soul. It kvill be noticed that. these two conditions are precisidy the" contrary Of w.hat constitutes actual grace, namely} illumina-tion of the intelligence and movement or irispiration Of the will. "A~ all~ven(s when one finds 'medit~ition hard, it seems scarcely possiblTto go on in it; or at least it seems that to proceed would be laborious and painful." ~ B. Causes o~ th~oD~gi~ultg. ~I. P~ray~r~ in general is difficult to human natureqn v,~ri-ous degrees ~because of its supern, atural c~aracter; ~because the senses find little therein to occupy themselves, w~tla: because, if it ~s a conversation~with God, it is really .rathel a mont~logtie'thafi a dmlo~ue; ~because oftetitirfie~ itdbes not fit-,qn comf0r[ably~'With one's moral habits;, and finally~ because it tends to become too monotonous and staid': '~ The difficulties of.mental prayer'm6re particularly~ma'~r be external or ,internal; and, if external, they' may be eitl'i~r inevitable 6r~avoidable.~', Where~ meditation must bemade in com.mon; s~m~ persons may unavoidably or not' annoy and disturb others.Perhaps there are. distractihg noises from "the neighborhoo~t that one cannot get .away fr0rfi. ¯ Examples of trouble from within an~ of a physical natU're would be ill health, fatigue, and that old besetting weak-ness, ~som~ol~nce, ~. "~ ,Januar~t, 1947 ON DIFFICULTIES II~°MEDITATION Psychological difficulties may be hardly r~mediable or fairly remediable: Some people are. congenitally and intel~: lectually incapable ofo meditatiom except perhaps on ~pec'ial occasions, just as some y&~ng people cannot assimilate a higher educati6n. There is no use in dodging this fi~ct. Such people must seek their sanctificati6n by other means. Other persons are~more or less unfit because of an imagination thht~is either° too torpid, or too flighty. The temperament of some is too nervous a~d unstable. A high-degree of extraversion, that ~is, the tendency to be preoccupied with external interests, is a distinct impediment to mental prayer. Deficiencies that are more ~asily remedied are the fol-lowing. One may be too ignorant of God and divine trutlfs; of the doctrine of prayer itself, and of its importance. Then there is the old 4~aunting specter of distractions, voluntary or in~coluntary. _-Distractions coming from one's duties or~ work are a special probl.em all by themselves. There is a whole series of difficulties stemming fiom moral origins: general negligence or tepidity in the spiritual life, some particular faulty hab'it, neglect of recollection, half-hearted applicationto mental prayer, carelessness in-preparing for it, .resistance to grace'calling in times of prayer for some specific sacrifice,- and finally the discouragement due to repeated past failures in cultivating meditation. The' author of a redent work entitled Di~cuttfe.s ot: Mental Prager, (Boylan) fihds the moral difficulty to be the greatest of all (p. 41). II. If we mak~ the rather obvious comparison ofmedi-tation with the recitation of the Divine Office (each is nor-maliy about an hour of prayer), in meditation we n0ti~e that what is to be done is-not so definite, there is less activity for the sens_es, ~and the sanction for acting is far less.com-pelling. In the Office there is less liberty to do this or that, there is more-monotony and repetition,- and oftentime's \ 7 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD ~ Reviet~, ~or Religious there is less harmony between wl~at One says and what one~/ feels. " " _This suggests another comparison. We observe that in reading some things .we must plougl5 ahead laboriously and toilsomely and only under pressure of some necessity ~or gther.' Contrarily some books are so interesting that they may tempt us not to put them aside even to the neglect of our duties. Again a little knowledge of haman nature reveals that it is easy and pleasant for, say, 3~oung men to carry on long conversations or even reveries by themselves on athletics, for businessmen to discuss or think about ventures that promise money-profits, and for arl~ists and Sscientists to occupy themselves with their chosen specialties. Lastly did anybody ever hear a lover complain that it was tedious and boring to busy himself mentally and.emo-. tionally, even for.protracted periods, with his beloved, and even if she were absent? "For where your treasure is, there will ~rour heart be also" (Luke 12:34). III. From the causes indicated above and from these comparisons, the conclusion seems to be that the~.primary source of difficulty in mental pra.yer is none other'~than tack o1: interest. Interest would not remove all ~ifficulties--a pursuit can be interesting and still be hard--but with it one would be glad to make the'effort. Interest v,;ould, unless this ~analysis_be wrong,~take away the principal and characteristic difficulty in meditati_on-.~ People are not dis-tracted from that in which prevailing interest lies. Nor do they go to ~leep when. they have an opportunity to occupy themselves with it. They can never feel bored with it, .nor complain that it is'dull. ~ ~Another conclusion is that this lack of interest cannot be due to a deficiency of interest-evoking .qualities in the objects dealt with, e.g., God,~ life-eternal, and so fortl~- rather i~ must be attributed to some inadequacy in the sub~, 8 danuar~t, 1947 ON DIFFICULTIES IN .MEDITATION ject~'h{ms~lf, in t,he :person, prayin~ ax:d eyperiencin~g the ennui. He is like a' child who is being introduced to some-thing that in" itself is re;illy:ver~y interesting; but as yet, the child does not realize the fact, and consequentl~ .it easy.to direc~ 0rhold its attention. He may be compared to a man who !s b~eginning to read a b6"ok that:on the: whole is~ ir~deed thrilling ;, and hbsorbing, but not in the first chal~ter, or two: '.Many studies and investigations are not in~ter~sting hntil,one gets fairl~ far into them; thin'they may~ become all-engrossing. So~it~, seems to be with'mental prayer. In the case ih.which a,person's troubles With meditation,are mor:il rather than psychological there is a doubledeficiency ~f.interest: t6o little appreciation of the. values of'the good life, and too little ,insight into %hat meditation should mean to him. . C. WhatIs to Bb Done? ~ I. Clearly the. fi~st thing to do is to remove the obstacles that can be got rid 'of. A change of place could in some cases put'an end:?o many disturbing circumstances. If one's external posture is~ not quite reverent, and one is not lazy,; that at least can be remedied with comparative facil-ity. Much of. the trouble i!hat: m~ny people h~ve with meditation could and should be handled by takihg another ~and better time "for.it. I'refer to the early morning ~ind sleepiness. Phy°sically and psychologically meditation is a more difficult form of work than, say, an hohr of study, Therefore one ought to be physically fit for it.~ /ks a ma't~- ter of fact in the quiet and dhrk hours of early morning many are not. If the hour for praye.r cannot be changed. possibly the time _for retiring could .be advanced. Certain bodi!y ppsitions, for example, kneeling, star~ding, or walking, espedally in the fresh air, are less conducive to somnolence and more helpful to 9ttention and devotion.¯ It would-be infinitely better merel~r to read than to sleep away G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD the ~ime of prayer. "Writing too can be an aid. At all events there is. no use in torturing oneself and racking one:s n.e.rves and getting into a condition in which, " although awake indeed, one is unfit for any~_serious mental effort. II. Now let,us see what we can do positively, espe-cially with regard to building up interest. Since the objects with which we occupy ourselves inmeditation are in them-selves~ interdsting, in" fact incomparably more apt to capri- 0 vate attention than the trivial-things that come. into compe-- tition with them and distract us away from them, to becomd interested we need to kno~¢ them better and underthe appropriate°aspects. Admittedly- this is no.t easy. Since those objects are spiritual or supernatural and since all our knowledge comes through the senses orat least must follow the. analogy df sensible things, to know and evaluate super-sensible things well and adequately may require much effort and exertion. In proportion as the-realities anal values, that we hav~ to deal with are high above the mate-rial level, to reach that height and main'tain our heavy and earth-bound selves there we may need powerful and con-tinuous operation on the part.of our two spiritual motors, namely, the intellect and the will. 1. We may need more knowledge about God, the Bles-sddTrinity, the Word Incarnate, and indeed about all the ! sacred truths; at least wd may be deficient in the right kind" of. knowledge of them, that.is,~ that which is realistic, thor-bughly assimilated, personal, and effective. Certainly we need to find these doctrines interesting. This is true in gen-eral and for everybddy, but especially for one who would" be something of a contempl.ative.- The great majority, of people can hardly hope to discover.many new truths' for themselvds; the most that t~hey, can. expect to accomplish, is to review and reclarify this knowledge by .furthe.r residing, ¯ listening, or reflection. It is now a lawof, the Church that i0 Januar~o l P4 7 .ON'D.IFI~kCULTIES-IN MEDITATION' the-following, wOrds of Pope Pius XI should be read to young religious clerics at the beginning of each year: For since the sole or at least the chief function of those who have consedrated themselves ~to God is prayer, and the contemplation or meditation of divine things, how will they perform that most sacred _ duty Unless they be thoroughly and intimately versed in the doctrine of faith? " W~ wish,first of all, to call this to the attenti6n of those who lead a retired life in the contemplation of heavenly things; for " they err if ~hey i_magine that after havii~g either ~eglected_in the beginning or'later" abandoned their theological studies, they will be able without that abundant knowledge of God and of the mysteries of faith which is drav~n'from sacred studies, to go along easily in the. higher spiritual life and .to be lifted up to intimate union with God. As regards others whether they be engaged in" teaching ~. or in dail~ o in'tercourse with people, will" not that varied ac~vity'in the sa~red ministry be the stronger and more efficacious, the more brilliant and replete'they ;ire with the fulness of learning? (Pius XI. AAS 214.81.) A" particular field of s/acred doctrine that is most,useful for meditation and that'is susceptible of cultivation indef-initely is the life ofChrist. The more one knows about,it, the more realistic will one's knowledge and apprechtion of the God-man be. ~[t is always possible to learn something more and. thus add a bit of freshness and novelty to one's ac.quaintance with it. In this connection it may. be .men-tioned that viewifig suitable pictures of the Holy Land ani:l 'of the life of Christ would contribfite an additional touch of realism to one's imagery and~nowledge of Him. These suggestio~ns ark not to be taken to imply that the kind of kno-,kledge which an archeologist or historian seeks is just .the same as that which makes for a greater love and imita-tion of Christ. Theology may be definedas faith ~seeking "under~- standing, that is, a scientific, theoretical knowledge of revealed truth. Similarly mental prayer may be described as faith seeking understanding, but now an insight that is dynamic, practical, and vital. ._ 11 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review for Religious 2. After learning more about the sacred truths, one should make a special effort to see them as interesting. ¯ At least in three~vcays they are'interesting in themselves: (1) in~ asmuch a~ they~ answer the most fundament~il questions that we can ask; (2) in that they are singularly- fitted to excite the emotions of fear, pity, hope, and love; and (3) they disclose tremendous dangers andopportunities for each one of us personally. 0 The first and most fundamental need of any personas sore( sort of philosoph.y of life; giving a solution to s'~ch problems as what he is, whence he is, why he is, what is the sighificahce of the things about him, and so on. To such queries. Catholic doctrine supplies answers at once simple enough to satisfy average rfiinds and profound and sublime enough tb keep the best minds investigating them indef-initely a~d profitably.They are like rich mines that can ne~er become quite exhausted. Thus Catholic doctriffe gives the best available satisfac.ti6nto our deep instinct for truth and knowle~lge. - . ~ Ingeneral it seems quite correct to say that whatever is fit to excite fear ot hope or love in men'shearts will interest them. The experience of all,"writers, ~peakers, and story- ~elle~s woul~d.seem tocorroborate 'that S'tat~ment~ - .Now there are no facts, or for,.that matter, no creations of fiction either, that ~re,so apt to arouse men'to fear or sti.mulate thereto h6pe' or inflame them tb love as just those doctrines which commonly form thei themefor meditation.: Objec-tively this is so true. that no beiiev'er w6uld hesitate for an instant to"affirm it. But subjectively? There's the rub. These-fact,:are not known so as t6 be excitingly inter-esting. We need to become more keenly and vividly a~are-bf ~11 that these truths mean for fear and hope and love~ Of themselves they are great~,enough to give th~ human heart the most thrilling expefience's,rthat it c~n. possibl~; 12 'danuary,, 1947 ON DIFFICULTIES'IN MEDITA]HON have; but first they must be apprehended clearly eho~gh and under the appropriate as.pegt. , It is natural for ~en to be interested in whatever they perceive'to contain uncommon opportunities or dan~ers for themselves personally. If a.stranger at the other extremity Of the 'block is ill, it may be immaterial to me. But if learn that he has infantile paralysis and may pass the infec-tion on to me, that is a very different matter. Similarly if read that Mr. So and So a t.housand mile,s'away has dis-covered oil on his property, what is tffat to me? If however oil is found or~ the property adjacent to mine, why, it would be folly not to take notice, and promptly too. Now the ~ruths of faith disclgse to us g.reater dangers and oppor-tunities for our own dear selves than any that the~world can-offer. If men were only sufficiently and properly acquainted with them and their tremendous significance for them personally, nothing would be more. natural than to be interested and eagerly alert about the matter. 3. In the case of some religious there "would be less diffi-culty and distress in mental prayer if they hr~eto more" about it. Perhaps they have hardly added to their knowledge of it.since they left the novitiate; possibly_even What they learned then has become dim and vague. But even if they remembered it all, mature religious could scarcely consider themselves well-informed on prayer and well-prepared to cultivate it if they had only a novice's acqu~aintance with the theory and practice of it. This is all" the more'.true inasmuch ~ls for obvious reasons it would be indiscreet for novice masters to give more than introductory instructions on prayer. ]~f more were given, some novices would mis-understand arid mi~app!y it. CFully trained religious should be conversant with the principal points in the theory and practice of meditation° or discursive mental prayer, of affective prayer, and contemplation'._ ,Many would add now 13 G; AUGUSTINE El;LARD ~ Reolew [or Religious that they should" have an experimental as well as a specu÷ lativeknov~ledge of mystical or infiased contemplation;" '- _which, they maintain,, is quite'necessary, for the normal development of the interior life and for the perfection of charity. At the very minimum religious should ~not ti~e ignorant of the fact that if they exercise themselves in medi-tation well and earnestly for a sufficient period of time. ,usually it is to be expected that they will pass on .to higher forms of prayer that are both easier and more fruitful. Orie - shbuld not countupon remaining in the freshman~ class, so to speak, with all its drawbacks, forever.- Greater familiarity with the theory and practice of mental p~ayer should naturally issue in greater interest in it. This interest may be increased~also by striving-to see and.fed,what a difference it makes to be proficient in it: first, the fact that it really does make ~/ difference; second, what kind Of difference; and third, how much difference. The differences are .to a great extent the same a's those between ~he good and the bad life, be, tween devotion to God and relative neglect of Him, between heaven and hell.- Hence al'l"tfie reasons that %e have'to be good, all thev~lues ofGod Himself, all the advantages of His blessed plan. for us, may .be urged as so.many motives for striving to medita.te well. " Our final destination is the beatific vision and love of the Infinite. Is. there,an.y activity possible on the way that is more closely akin to it or a bettdr help" to it than the con-templative:' considerati0n and love of God? If we take the - practical i~roximate aim of our existence here to be keeping the precepts and counsels of God, then in general and nor-mally the most effective means of achieving that purpose , seems to be precisely mental prayer. And that from the very nature of things. Keeping the divine precepts and counsels requites a certain disposition of n~ind and will, a- , .14 dahu~ir~/, 1947 ON'DIFFICULTIES IN MEDITATION certain .vision and inclination that is the_natural result of m~ntal prayer more.than of anything"else. All the active [life of ~any spirit consists in thi~nking andwilling, rand .where there is no thinking and w~illing there is no-spiritual life. Iri mental prayer the human.spirit normally reaches its summit in religious' thought and volition. When b,! means of grace God. leads one t6. do some good or avoid some evil, He enlightens the mind ahd moves the will accordingly. Is there any exercise so closely related to this divine illumination and.inspiration or so,,apt to further the process as meditation or contemplation? Again, our super-natural life and perfectiofi consisl~ in thinking and willing. like God; in mental prayer very especially we do just that. Probably no one would deny that in all our spiritual armory there is no more'telling weapon than the' retreat. Retreats are so effective.partly because under favorable ~ir-cumstances they bring to° bear upon one the whole battery. of s[firitual arums at one and the sam~ time, but partly also ' becfiuse the most essential and fundamental actix~ity involved in'making a_retreat is skrious and practical reflec-tion on eternal tri~ths. It is this that makes those truths seem real enough to stir one's emotions and change One's ways of living. One might object that to feel much interest in the dogrfias of religion and particuJarl~.y in the prayerful consideration of them it is necessary that a person should already have mad~ great progress in meditation., In oiher words, the remedy suggested presupposes that the malady has been cured. The fact is tha.t, there is an ascending spiral of inter-est and progres_s, and that o~ne must break into it where best one caw. At the very minimum a man who has some appreciation of the value 8f mental pr.ayer can begin'; a little p~oficiency will give greater interest, and that in turn COMMUNICATIONS Review for Religious greaterprofictency, and so on indefinitely. - Similarly prayer and good living constantly interact one~,up.onthe other in a sort oF virtuous spiral. In a subsequent ,paper it is hoped to propose certain, other aids to combating the difficulties of meditation. Reverend Fathers: In compliance with the request in ~the November j.ssue of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS that readers send in information in regard to the interruption of the choral recitation of the Divine Office, I am sub-mitting the following~ data: About twenty years ago we ~ent a similar question to our Gen-eralate in Rome: "Is there any regulation that .the Divine Office mfist be interrupted when, during its recitation, the tabernacle is.opened and Holy oC.o m m u n i 6 n i s b r o u g h t t osi tchKe . The answer we received was: "No, the Divine Office should be continued standing." From L.iturgical Law by Rev. P. Chas. Augustine, O.S.B., D.D:, B. Herder Book Co., p. 149, I quote the following: ". each canonical Hbur (public recitation.) should be recited without inter-ruption." Since the Divine Office~s a "public prayer" (Augustine, p. 101) and "is recited in the'name of the Church" (A~ugustine, p. 17-3). is it not "in accord with respect for our. Sacramental Lord, who is passing by," to continue its recitation instead of stopping "and thus allow 'all the individual members to greet Him as each one's devotion may suggest" ? One other passage from the Dominican Ceremonial, I would like t to quote: "Non fiat pulsatio Campanulae in alia parte Missae, neque alibi, nisi notetur. Item non est pulsdnda ad Missas privatas celebratas e conspectu Chori, tempore O~cii aut Missae. Conventualis." (S.R.C. 5. Martii 1767. 1,4. Mail 1856.) 16 January, 1947 COMMUNICATIONS From the above does it not follow that private Masses,~maY be celebrated and Holy C~mmunion be distributed during the recitation of the Divine Office? Dominican ,Sister. Reverend Fathers: Three times, weekly our chaplain carries Holy Communion to the sick while the choir is chanting the Little Hours before Mass." "Apart . from the fact that it is very difficult to hav.'e a-choir stop and start .duling a Psalm or other prayer without considerable disturbance find ~ annoyance, I fail to see why one's private devotions are considered superior to or should take precedence over the liturgical prayers of the Church. I have noticed that frequently when Our Sacramental Lord is pa.ssing through our choir, we are chanting the Gloria Patri or similar words of praise. What could be more fitting than such a greeting? If we are chanting our Office in union with that divine intention with which Christ praised God on earth as set forth in tl~e Aperi Domine, why should we substitute our owri private devotions, however sub-lime, for these prayers of the Church when Christ Himself enters our midst? This would seem to'imply that our minds and hearts are not, and should not be, so closely united to God in liturgical prayer as in private devotions, Ghich would be a lowering 6f ideals arid an unnecessary concession to-human weakness. We have better order and much less disturbance by simply kneding during the time the priest is preparing and carrying the -Blessed Sacrament through the chapel while the chdir continues without interruption. ,And we take it for granted that ,the minds and hearts of the choir members are United to their Sacramental Lord whether He is hidden in the tabernacle or passing through their midst, and that they are adoring Him "in spirit and in truth." A Superior. ouR CONTRIBUTORS ~ FATHER BARTHOLOMEW is director of the Church Unity Octave. BROTHER PLACIDUS is vocation director for the American Province of the Xaverian Brothers. CHARLES F. DONOVAN is studying education at Yale University. RICHARD L. ROONEY is on the staff of The Queen's Wor/~. G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD and ADAM C. ELLIS are members of our editorial board. 17 The Li!:t:Je Off:ice ot: Our Lady Adam C: Ellis, S.3. .C~T. BENEDICT, the founder of the religious life in iiae -~, West, ,perfected the Divine Office by instituting Prime and Compline as the morning and night piayers of his monks. In the early centuries after Benedict, when most of the monks-were still engaged to a great extent in manual labor, the Divifie Office remained rather fixed. Each mon-astery, as well as eac~h cathedral chapter, had its own cus-. toms regarding details, but the substantial elements re-mained the same for all. In the course of time "more of the monks took up the , study of l~tters and gradually confined themsel~es to the recitation of the Divine Office and to study, thus giving rise to the distinction between choir monks and ttie conversi or lay Brothers, who continued to carry on, the manual labors nec,essa,ry for the sustenance of the monastery. In the various ref6"rms which took place in monastic circles from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries nufnerous devo-tional practices were gradually added to the recitation of the Divine Office, since the choir monks now had more leisure for such devotions. Thus, in the 'course of time the, fifteen gradual psalms, the seven penitentiil psalms together with " the Litany, the Office of the Dead, an Office of All Saints/ (Vespers and Lauds only, late~: shortened to our present commemoration of All Saints), and finally the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, c~ime to be recited-in conjunction _with the Divine Office, which was then called the Great ONce to distinguish it from these minor additions. From the monks these devotional additions passed to th'e cathe- THE LITTLE OFFICE O~ OUR LAD~ dral chapters arid t~the diocesan clergy.1 ° While there W~is a certain degree of general conformity in, the West by the end of the thirteenth century, there also existed an infinite variety of minute and indifferent details i~ these liturgical prayers. The Council of Trent felt the ~need of curtailing these devotional additions tothe I~ivine Office and" of introducing uniformity "regarding details. Hence' it requested the Pope to ,work out such a, reform, materials for which had already been collected by Pope Paul IV. Thelreform was completed l~y,Pope St. Pius V, who in 1568 by the bull Quod-a Nobis published the "reformed ~Ro~nan Breviary for the Western Church, making it obliga-tory on all religious orders, monasteries, dioceses, and churches which did not possess a l~iturgy, of their own extending back over two hundred years. In this reform the Pope released both religious and diocesan clergy from the" obligation of reciting any of the devotional additions men-tioned above, but he highly recommended them as forms of private devotion for all, and enriched their recital with indulgences. Hence they are still printed iia the Roman Breviary as appendi~es to the Divine Off=ice. The Little ONce of the BleSsed Virgin appeared' fi~rst as a private devotio~ in certain Benedictine monasteries. "ir~ Italy, Peter the Deacon, the chronicler of Monte Cassino, informs us that its recitation in that monastery w, as a cus-tom of long standing begun by. ~:eason of a command of Pope Zachar'y (died 75~2). However-that may be, the cusr tom had ~ertainly been in vogue at Monte Cassino for a very long time when Petdr wrote his chrbnicle~ in the early ye~ars of the twelfth kentury, 'and by that time it had pi~ssed to other Benedictine monasteries of Italy. The use of the XThose who.,_are interested in ~earning more about this developme_nt of devotional" additions to.the Divine Office will find a detailed accent of it in Bishop: Liturt~ica ttistorica, chapter ix, pp. 21 I- 2 3 7. 19 ADAM C. ELLIS Revieu~ for Religious Little Office of the Blessed Virgin~ was customary ~in the monasteries of England b~fore the coming of the Norman conquerors in 1066. Records from the tenth= and eleventh centuries in France and Germany sh6w that i~ was~in use in individual monasteries and cathedral churches such as "Augsburg, V~erdun, and Einsiedeln. Cluny introduced but restricted its recitation to the monks in the infirmary~ since the ~nfirmary chapel was dedicated to-the Blessed Vir-gin. Finally it was through the Black Canons (of St. Au-_ gustine) that the Littl~ Offifice passed into common use among the diocesan clergy. By the end of the thirteenth cent.ury it was recited both by religious and by cathedral and other chapters of canons throughout Western Europe. After the reform of Plus V some of the older orders retained the Little Office as an addition to the Divine Office~ . to.be recited on certain days, or in some cases as the official ot~ice'of their lay Brothers. S(. Francis de Sales prescribed°° ,it for his Order of the Visitation in place of the Greater Off~e.and stated that "the Office of Our Lady is the soul of "- devotion in convents of the Visitation." Many of the new congreqations of religious "founded during the nineteenth century have adopted ~he Little Office and recite it daily in w~hole'or in part (Vespers and Compline) or at least.on Sundays and holydays. Others who are prevented by the nature of their,work from assembling together at a fixed hour, have.to content themselves with a private recitation as time_permits~ keeping choir with their guardian angels.- TileLittle Office of the Blessed Virgin was long a favor-ite de~;otion of pious.layfolk, especially in England, where '- there were two versions of "Mary's Hours". current as far back as thee eleventh century. In a report ,to his govern-.~ ment about 1496 the Venetian Ambassador to England related of the Catholics of that day,: "Th_~y all attend Mass. every day and say many toaternoster.s in public the women 20 ,lanuaGI, 1947 ~- THE LI ,TTLE OFFICE OF OUR LADY carrying long rosaries in their hands, and any that can read taking the Office of. Our Lady with them, _and with some corhpanion reciting it in the church Verse by verse after the manner of dhurchmen." Nowadays many of the laity use the Little Office as their. dail.y prayer. It is part of the rule for Dominican, Carme-lite, and Augustinian Tertiaries, and Franciscan ~Tertiaries are exhorted although not obliged to say it. '- , Obligation [of Religious, Cdngregatiobs T.he obligation of reciting the Little Office. of the Blessed Virgin in ~rel.igious con, gregations arises entirely from the constitutions. Generally speaking the obligation falls upon the communit__y as a whole, so that the superior has the responsibility'to" see thilt the Little Office is recited as prescribed by the constitutions.-- This obligation; however, does not bind under sin, as was expressly stated in the Norrnae of 1901, article 156. What is the obligation of th~ individual religious with regard to the Little Office? Generally speaking, there is no obligation for the individual religious, since, as was sfgted above, the obligation rests on the.community as a whole, Hence an. individual'religious who has been excused from' attending the common recitation of the Little Office has no obligation to recite it privately unless the Constitutions expressly require this. ~ ~Reciting the Little ONce in the Vernacular "" Must the Little Office of th_e Blessed Virgin be said in .I2afin~ or may it be recited in the vernacular? We are dis, cussing here merely the law of the Church, leavin~ the° question of indulgences aside for the moment. Unless the-constitutions prescribe that the Little Office must be said in Latin, it ,may be recited in. the vernacular, that. is, in am" language, provided the translation used has the approval bf 21 ADAM C. ELLIS ' --' R¢Oie~o for Reffgious " ~a local ordinary. This opinion .of reliable post,Code authors is based fipon several answers of t~e~ Sacred Con-gregation of Rites (Decrees 3221, 3897, and 3945). - Even though the constitutions require that the I~ittle Office must be, recited by the community in Latin, the indi., vidual religious who have been absent from choir, and who are obliged by the constitutions to recite priyately the parts of the office which they missed, may recite those parts in the vernacula~ unless the constitutions expressly state that even in such a private recitation the Latin lan.guage must be used. ,Indulgences We hav, e seen above that Pope St. Plus V had already 'granted indulgences for the recitation of the Little' Office on the occasion of his reform of the Roman Breviary. Pope Leo XIII revised and increased these indulgences. The official manual 6f indulgences, Preces et Pia Opera, published by t~he Holy See in 1938, gives the following under N. 289: ~ "To the faithful who have devoutly recited the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, even~ though_they are ob!iged to do so, are granted: "An indulgence of 500 days for each hour of the same Office; an indulgenc~ of ten yea,rs for the "entire Office; a plenary indulgence¯ under the usual c~nditions, provided they" have recited the entire Office daily for a full month." When Pope Leo XlII revised and increa~sed the indul-gence~ granted for. the recitation of the Little Office, in 188 7; :the Sacred ~ Congregation of Indulgences was asked whether these indulgences could be gained by the recitatiori of the Little Office in thel vernacular, or whether the Latin form had to be used. On September 13, 1888,~the Sacred Con-gregation replied that the. Little Office must be recited in Latin in order, to°g~iin the indulgences. .~his rigorous reply was~ mitigated bya later:decree of August 28, 1.903~ :22 January, 1947 ~. THE LITTLE OFFICE OF OUR LADY approved on the same day by Pope Plus X, which allowed the indulgences-to be gained for the private recitation.of the. Little Office in the ~ernacular, provided the.translation used had be~n.checked and approved by a local ordinary in' whose territory that language is current. In a later answer given to Cardinal Mercier on December 18, 1906, the same Sacred Congregation replied by explaining that the recita-tion of the Little Office was still t6 be considered private even tho~ugh it was said in common within the religious house, or even in the church or public oratory attached to the religious house, provided that the faithful are not allowed in the church or public oratory while the religibus community is. reciting the Little Office in common. Method of Recital The official text of the Little Office to which the iiadul-gences are attached is the Latin text which is printed in the back of the.Roman Breviary. Any translation used must be a faithful version of this text, approved by the Sacred Penitentiary, or by a local ordinar~r in whose territory the language used is current (canon 934). It is nb longer necessary that the Latin text be printed along with the translation, as was formerly the case, but the translation used should be complete, that is, it should c0ntatin the rubrics as well as the text. The rubrics are Sufficiently clea~ and need no explanation. Two points, however, may be mentioned here in answer t6 questions received. The Te Deum is said at the end of the third lesson of Matins .throughout the year,-except during. Advent, .and from Septuagesirna Sunday, to Holy Saturda~r_inclusive. But even during these periods it is said on all feasts of the Blessed Virgin, as Well as on the feast of St. ,Joseph which occurs during Lent. .The Final Antiphon of the Blessed Virgin 'is always DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE ¯ -said after Compline, and after Lauds if the offee is inter-rupted then: otherwise after the last hour immedihtely-fol-lowing upon Lauds. In the common recitation this final antiphon must likewise be said at the end of any redtation, for instance, at the end of the litt.le hours (Nones), if these - be said separately. Conctusion Religious should c.herish the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin and make frequent use of it. It,,is theoldest offdal prayer of th~ Church in hon~ar of Our Lady. If obliged by rule to rec¯ite the Little Office, religious will do well to avoid being absent from the common recitation, or from asking to be excused for slight reasons. 'They may rest" assured that Our Lady will not. be outdone in generosity, and will reward them bountifully for the devout and fervent recital of "Mary's Hours." Decisions Of e Holy See [EDITORS' NOTE: Inthe past .it has been our policy to publish only recent Deci-- si0ns of the Holy See which might be, of interest to religious. However, it fre-quently happens that there Were no such decisions; and consequently this depart'. merit "had to be omitted. To avoid such a ¢onting.ency in the. future, we have itiMded on the new polic~ of-puNishing both recent and old decisions. The latter will gather under one heading the various pronouncements that ,pertain to the canons governing religious, ] Old Decisions Regarding Impediments to Entrance (c. ~42) ' 1. The first among the diriment impediments listed in this canon enacts that "'those who have belonged to a non-Catholic sect" cannot validly be admitted to the novitiate. As soon as the Code was pub-lished, these words gave rise to the notion that converts coultt not be receivedinto the.religious life without a dispensation from'the Holy See. To dispel this false notion one of the first answers given by the Cqd~ Commission, October 16, 1919, declared that these words of 24 Ja~uar~., 1947 -,~, DECISlOIq8 OF THE-HOLY SEE 'ca'non, 542:did.'not a~6ply. ~i(o~tho~e wh~o, moved by ~the ~g~ace 6f .God, camednto~be Church from~ h~resy, or ~chism in which they ,were .born,, 'but~ rather to ~thbse .~ho fell away frbm the faith arid joined a non- Catholik . ' A 'lattr,an~ei give~- by' the same Gommission.~Jnly{ 30, ,.19,34, interprets~the~'wbrds "non-~atholic sect" to include ~"as regains all 1{~1 e~ects : ~. persdds w~o~belong or ,bav~ belonged'tot an atBeisti~ ~:-'Id:view of these answers, the S.~ Congregatmn' of Religiou~ now ~p~roves-tbe following text for new constitutions: "Those whohave fallen away fro~ the Catholic faith and have joined a non-Catholic or atheistic sect." :: ,.~., ~The .l~st,,of the.impedi~nt impediments .to entrance into reli-gion ,.(.canon -542, ,2 o ~ excludes '-'Ori~ntal~:. in institutes ~of,~ the Latin rite~ithout,thee,written permission of t~e~Sacred gongregation:for .t~e East~rn~Church." ~owever, according to anl answe~ given by,the ~ode Commissi6fi,ofl. November 10 ,q 925,.~VOrientals who, without changihg their rite,~ are*being ~r~pa~ed to ~establish .religious houses and'provinces of.the':Ofiental rit4; ma~ be,licitly, admitted td the nov-" iceship imreligious~institutes of the Latin rite, without, the permission ~dntioned in canon 542, 20." The r~ason for the seeming'exception "is obvious, Ordinarily the Oriental who joins ~ Latin institute~must-change his rit~. Hence the ~eed of~spe~ial p~r~ission from th~ S. Congregation of the Eastern Church. Hoyever, after the first world ,war s~me re~jgious orders of.men ;beg~n to ~receive candida.tes belong-ing to an Eastern rite with a, view to the establishment of, houses~ of s~ch a rite, and eventu~11,y eyen of provinces. _Sinqe these novices did not change their rite.,during the course o~t.he novitiate, thg Code ~9mm{~sion'~eclared thug ~t~erg ~as no need to obtai~ermissiqn to admit them'kto the novitiate, of the Latin ,rite. ~. . . 3. A joint decree issued by the S. Congregatipn of:Religious and ~y .:the. S.~gongreggtion of Seminaries ~n&,Studies, dated. J~ly, 25 !941, cofitains, the ~following part ,of interest ,to ,religious~ "Before a person who.for any .reason~ ha~.qeft a geminaryr,is~ admitted .:to a~ reli- "gi0us fami.lg,,,the religious.:s~perior.,must have recourse to the.,S: Con~ gregatiqn o~ Rdigious,. which will inform .superiors of~jts ,dgdsion after .having,.con~idered-all the circumstances of the cas~.'~ ,.This decree was. appgoved, confirmed, and ord~re~ published by.His Holi- ,, ~'When, a_we, first p'rinted ;this ,decree in~ ~VIEW,, FOR, ~EEIGIOUS 25 DECISIONS O~ THE~HOLY ~SEE r Reoietu for Religiotts ' (v~l. I, p. 71) we expressed the opinion that 'qf a'seminarian applied for entrance into a religious institute and was accepted by the religious superior before, he left the se?ninary, the case would not have to be referred to the S. Congr.egation of, Religious.". This opinion was ¯ confirmed by a private answer of the S. Congregation, dated May 11, 1942, and sent to th~ procurators general of several religious orders. It reads as follows: "The Decree of the SS. Congregations of Reli-gious and'of Seminaries does not apply to those who leave a seminary or coll~ge in order to embrace a life of perfection in some religious institute, as sufficient provision is made for them in canon 54.4, § 3." New Decisions September 14. 1946: The Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments issued a lengthy decree of great interest and importance. It grants to pastors~the faculty of administering the sacrainent of confirmation to dying persons-under certain circumstances. After-recalling l~he teaching of the Church regarding the nature and effects of this sacra-ment, the decree recalls that only bishops are its ordinary ministers ¯ but that to provide ~r the needs of the faithful the Church sometimes confers this faculty upon priests as extraordinary ministers. Since these needs have increased grea, tly because of the war. the decree makes the following provisions: 1. By a general ir~dult of the Holy See. the faculty to confer the sacrament of confirmation as extraordinary ministers (can. 782, § 2) and limithd by the conditions liste~l below is granted, to the following priests: (a) to pastors who have their own proper'territory; ('b) to the vicars mentioned in canon 471 (practically, to religious who are pastors) and to vicars econorne (administrators Of parishes) ; (c) to priests who have the permanent and exclusive care' of souls in a certain territory .with a determined church, provided they have all the rights and duties of pastors. It is important to note that the decree grants this faculty 0nly to priests who have parochial rights and duties in a determined terrffory. Therefore it does not grant the faculty to assistant pastors, nor to chaplains of hospitals even thoffgh they be exempted from the juris-diction of the pastor. Furthermore, pastors can'not delegate this faC-ulty to other priests since, as will be seen below, it is granted to them for their personal use only. 2. The above-mentioned ministers may personally, administer confirmation validly and licitly only to the faithful who~are actually 26 danuary, 1947 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE ~within their territory, ,including persons who ~ir~ there temporari)y. Therefore they may administer the sacrament to persons in semi; naries, hospices, hospitals, and all other institutions inclu.ding those cared for by exempt religious. However, the faculty, may be used only when the faithful in question are in danger of death from a seri-ous illness from which it is foreseen that they will die.- 3. They may use this "faculty even in the episcopal city, provided the bishop cannot be called or, is legitimately impeded from confer-ring the sacrament personally, and pr.ovided further that there is no other bishop (.for example, a titular bishop) who could act as a sub-stitute without grave ihconvenience. 4. Confirmation should be administered according to the disci-pline 6f the Code of Canon Law as adapted-to the circumstances: and °the rite,prescribed by the Roman Ritual should, be used as gix;en in detail'in the decree. Furthermore, the sacrament must be conferred gratis: that is, no stipend may be. demanded under any circumstances. 5. The sick person should be instructed as well as circumstances per.mit so that he may receive the sacrament fruitfully. If he recover.~, ,the instruction is to,be continued. , (Cf. can. 786.) °6.' The pastor mus.t enter the name of the person confirmed, together with" his own ,name and those of the parents and sponsors, in the confirmation record book according to the prescriptions Of canon 798~, With this addition: "Confirmation was administered,by reason of the apostolic indult because of the serious illness of the perso.n confirmed, which put him in danger of death." It must also be entered in the baptismal record (can. 470, § 2). If the person confirmed belongs to another parish, his pastor is to be informed and SUlSplied with all the necessary data. 7. The pastor must s~nd an authentic 'notice to the diocesan ordinary each time. he confirms a'sick person in danger of death. In Part II, the decree repeats the provisions of the Code of Canon Law concerning the sacrament of confirmation; and in Part III, the form to'be used in administering the sacrament. It began to have the force of law on.January I, 1947. / In conclusion it should be" n6ted t1~at this decree also applies to infants @ho are in danger of death from a serious illness from which :it is foreseen that they will die. (Cf. can. 788.) :Living in Chris!: CharIes,F. Donovan, S.J. AS LONG as we are conscious, the powers of our soul are bu~y doing o,ne of three things: they are absorbing _and assimilating facts, pictures, impressions, stories, sounds from the wo~ld around us thrbugh the co~muni,ca=" tion line of the senses; or they are woi~king on data already" assi.mila_ted '-reflecting, loving, hoping, fearing, desiring, planning; or they are communicating our personaliz.ed reaction to our environment---our ideas, affections, hol~es, fears, and plans to the world .outside. While we are fully conscious; the soul is active, incr, easing its ,store o~ material for cognition and volition, acting upon the existing store through ~eflecting and willing, or giving outward expression to its thought~ and desires._ If it is our" °conCern t6-subject the total activity of our soul, ~t0 the domination of Chris~; we must see to it that Ch'rist enters into and olors each of these rational processes, the assimi-lat~ ive, the menta,l, .and the expressive process. We must 'make sure that Christ is th~ standard and sharer of every- ~hing that enters our soul, of everything that transpires within the soul, and of everything.that, the soul transmits to the world. Th'is care for the complete Cbris.tianizing of our~soul~s activities may be summed up in the prayer: "Let everything that enters my soul be Jesus;sifted; ~let~every-thing that is in my soul be Jesus;ste~ped: let everything that ;leaves my soul be Jesus-laden." It:is important" in the first plac~-to be careful about what we allow into our hallowed' inner sanctum. We ~ire to a large _~ktent determined in character and cast of mind by the impressibns from the world that pass through the LIVING IN (~HRIST gales of the senses;-and so we must make Christ our gate~ keeper'so that all undesirables will be excluded. All ,of us ,have an enemy within, a fifth column--the°drag of con-cup'iscence and the fuse of pride. But tlfe unruly~elements inside can best be controlled if they are not supplied and atigmented from-without. The world bristles with sights, @ords, actions, ideas, emotions which are unholy;~a'nd it is _wise to Use Our Lord as a sort of screen through which every applicant for admission to our soul must pass ir~ order that unworthy and un~-Christlike applicants may be screened off and rejected. If a visitor enters the contagious ward of a hospital, he is given a mask to wear to keep from inhaling lethal germs. There are germs lethal to our soul. everywhere _about us, not isolated in a single spot as in a ward. ,,We are not being prudish when we are on our guard against them~ °There: are books not necessarily vicious books, but sophisticated, cynical books which we will not read if Christlike sim-plicity is important to us. There are topics which we will not discuss, pictures we will not entertain, tastes and atti-tudes we will not imitate if Christ's friendship is precious to us. It is not a sign of weakness or immaturity to guard one's treasures: anyone knows that. And the common-sense concl-usion is that if we leave something unguarded-it is because we do not treasure it. Since Christ is our treasure, let Him also be the norm for deciding what is fit for entrance into our soul and what is not. It is foolhardy, if not insin-. cere, to say, "I can stand this book or this conversation or this luxury even though it isn't quite Christlike.", What Our Lord can't stand, I can't stand. And therefore our avowed program must be "Let everything that enters my soul be Jesus-sifted." But the world outside, is static and tame compared-to the world in our soul-~--,the world of imagination, of con- CH/(RIIE$ F. DONOVAN Review for Religious science; of memory,mind, and will; the woridof worries, affections, regreys, daydreams, aversions,,and joys. Human iife, rationai,lifel is essentially interior. We may ~xternalize some of it in speech or act, but.only a fraction of it. There are th6ughts too deep for words; there ~are secrets of the heart, there are feelings, reflections, and desirestoo swift and profuse for expression. It is this inner universe, this realm oflour own making, this life Within a life, that'we most particularly want dedicated to God. The exclusion of worldly influences from the soul guar-antees a Christlike inner life no more than precaution against .germs guarantees bodily vigor. Beyond and deeper than the question, "What goes into. the soul?" is the ques-tion, "What goes on in the soul?" Are the manifold activi-ties that add up to the self I have made and am making out of the self God gave me the int,erests, efforts, and attitudes that constitute my truest life are these uniformly inspired and guided by Christ? Suppose, for instance, I like my current assignment. Is this liking merely personal and subjective? or has the satisfaction something to do with Christ? And what of the hobbies, friendships, and arribi-tions I find most zestful? They may be wholesome in themselves, but they should not be left unrelated to Our Lord. The sanctification of our inner life, as far as it depends upon us, consists in subjecting all "affections, thoughts., attachments, and dreams, all passing reflections and lasting ideals to the sweet yoke of Christ. There should be no region of the soul that is neutral, no enthusi-asm that is merely natural. The process of baptizing all the innocent and spontaneous activity of °the soul, of extendi.ng and.intensifying the sway of Christ in ou~ heart, is the lifelong business of growth in holiness. It is a hori-zontal and a vertical growth: more. of our life ismore deeply saturated with the spirit and influence of Christ. 30 danuar~t, 1947 LIVING IN CHRIST That is what we 'mean when we say, "Let everything in my soul be Jesus-steeped." Finally, the inner self is not hermetically sealed. It is constantly pouring out through the communication lines of the body and asserting itself before the world. Whether we think of it or not, by merely living with people, by .the most casual association, we have some influence 6n them, because ~ impressions from us--words, attitudes, demeano~ ---enter, thiough their senses and register, however slightly" and evanescently, on their souls. Herein lies outsocial opportunity and responsibility. Some part.of us is going to alter the people we meet. What part is it going to be? We imagined a screen at the entrance to our souls, sifting out and discarding un-Christlike elements. We do not want a similar screen at the exit so that everything Christ-like is separated and hel~l within. If we have anything worth communicating to the world, it is not our ego: it is Our Lord. We aim at a s,anctity that is not purely self-contained, but. outflowing and apostoli, c. " , The apostolic ideal-is summed up perfectly in the~ prayer said at Mass while the missal is being changed for the reading of the gospel: "May the Lord be in my heart and on ~y tips, that I may announce His holy gospel worthily and well." Note the twofold presence of Christ that makes one an apostle Christ in the heart and Christ. on the lips. ~To have Our Lord on the lips and not in the heart is hypocrisy. To have Him in the heart and not on the lips is selfish, perhaps cowardly. Not just our words. but our whole conduct, our patience and sympathy, our expression and gestures, can be me.ssengers of Christ, the true and enduring good ne ~ws, sent out-from our souls to ourfellowmen. We want nothing to go Out into the world, as.representative of us.that is not also representative of Christ. And so With a sense ofurgency and .responsibility 31 CHARL]~S F. DONOVAN we,resolve, "Let everything that leaves ,my soul be Jesus-laden." ' 0 ~ It is almost a spiritual, bromide that sanctity is not something for only a segment of our lives, whether it be a segment, of time or a segment of interest or activity. The ideal is to have no piece-work or paff,time holiness. The ideal is for sanctity to suffuse and interpenetrate the total life in all its areas and at all its levels. And this means a threefold co-operation with Christ, Christlike in learning, Christlike in being, Christlike in doing. A .prayer com-prehensive enough to embrace all conscious aqtivity, yet which includes life's complexity and richness in a broad three-part formula is the one recommended here: Let everything that enters my soul be Jesus-sifted. Let everything that is in my soul be Jesus-steeped. Let everything that leaves my soul be Jesus-laden. COMMUNICATIONS ON PRAYER In our editorial (pp. 3-4) v~e ask for communications on prayer. It will help us greatly if the following points are observed by those .who send such communications: 1. If at all p.ossible, type your letter, double-spaced, and leave at l~ast an inch margin on each side of the page. 2. Make the letter as brief as you reasonably can, withoflt hbw-ever sacrificing'ideas ~or the sake of brevity. 3. Address your letter to: Communications Deparfmenf, ~ Revlew For Religious St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. 4. Names will not be published,with these ie~t~rs unless the senders explicity ask" for this. However, if you do not object to doing so, please'enclose your name, so that the ~ditors can get in touch with you if this is necessary. ' 32 "Open My Moul:h, 0 ,Lord!" Richard L. Rooney,.-$,.~,-~ ~UR vocal prayers are quite likely to be unsatisfactory to our; ~ selves, and, eve are afraid, to God. One of tl~e chief causes of. this condition comes from the fact that frequently they art too" superficial. How many of us religious find, for example, our best, most meaningful prayer in the daily r~citation of the Office? We say. the familiar words. We know what we are saying; but, do we not stop on the 'surface of them? Does the real depth and the beauty and the energy embodied in them penetrate our souls? We recite those prayers. Do we really pray them? Since we are asking a number of questions, may we add one more?: How many times in the past year have you taken the prayers of the Office as subject matter for your meditations? It is this very prac-. rice that we would urge upon anyone who wants to change the daily recitation from an onus to a real opus. Let a religious take time out regularly, to meditate on these ~surface-worn and apparently well, known prayers and he (or she) will experience a doubly surlSrisinlg benefit. He will find a real spiritual treasure hidden in the ~rayers be has so long taken for granted. He will go back to choir and find that the prayers which he has recited for years have taken on a new. life and warmth. He will no longer find himself "saying'" the office but actually pra~.tinq it !. The use of books which deal with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Creed, the Psalms will demonstrate the truth of these statements to anyone who gives them an honest trial. The present article, and future articles that We offer here, will a~tempt a like demonstration for the shorter or rfilnor pr~ayers scattered throughout the breviary. They are the prayers which are most likely to slip°off our tongues with ~the greatest dispatch. Again, the prayers selected for these pages Will be such as are cbmmon to both the full Divine Office and the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The~" are offered here in the hope that they will enrich our readers' prayer life in general and in particular will give new light, arid life~'~b thei~ Offi&-worship. The "'Aperi'" Having made the sign of the cross, the religious or priest begins RICHARD L. ROONEY Reofew for Religious .the recitation of his Office with a prayer which sl~ould be committed to mem0ry~.~ If. it is, it can be made to'serve as an introductory prayer for any and all other prayers and works, from a visit to the chapel to a trip to the laundry. It will help to make of everything that one does a canticle of praise to the Lord in fair weather or foul. The Aped is, in fact, a brief but pregnant instruction in the whole science of prayer, of conversation with God. o Think and pray Over it .fin your own gray, or consider prayerfully the following ideas: "Open my mouth, 0 Lord." How often we forget that we cannot so much as begin to p~ay unles~ God Himself inspires and aids us! We cannot so much as say. ."Abba" (Fad:her) unless the Holy Spirit gives us to say it, unldss He opens our mouths and looses our tongues. True here especially are the Lord's words, "Without me you can do nothing!" We cannot even ~peak to God by ourselves alone: we cannot name the Lord Jesus without His help[- i "to bless thy Holy Name" That is one beautiful thing about the Office, it stresses our own blessing of God rather, than seeking further blessings for ourselves from Him. It takes us away from our selves. Perhaps that is one reason" why "objective" prayer is less popular than more personal ¢ffu_sions ! Let me pause a moment and look at my own prayers. Which pl~edominates in them? Praise? ot petition? .Why? How.much more we would grow in divine life if we looked out and up at Him rather than in and down at ourselves, if we sang God's blessings instead of crying our own woes. "cleanse as well my heart from all empty, evil and distracting thoughts." A peasant going to an audience with a king dons his best raiment. It may be poor, but it will certainly be clean. Our own souls may not be rich with the thoughts of an Aquinas or glowing with the love of a Bonaventure but they can at least be clean when we gd to talk with God. " Being poor and weak we need God's help here again to second our efforts to dust away thoughts, which are empty, to wash away thoughts which are evil, to banish thoughts which would intrude themselves to Blur our converse V~ith the Divine Majesty. ,Our thoughts are~ empty when they are not filled with God or :.34 danuar~, 194Z ~'OPEN .MY MOUTH, 0 LORDt'~ things divine~ or His interests in ourselves and. others, They are evil, when they are proud, vengeful, bitter, impure, hateful, discgura.ged; despairful, small, petty, mean. They are distracting When they would lead, our minds away frorfi God even to things good in them-selves but out of place here in this wondrous hour of communion with Him. "Enlighten my mlnd." How much this dim little intellect of mine needs the casting into it of light divine~! How much I need to see in the darkness that.sur-rounds and sometimes fills me! But I cannot see unless God gives me light. I can take courage, for the good God hhs this light. He can, He will share it with me~ Torpid, cold, inert, its embers dying, my will need~ to be stirred up into active, flaming love. Oh, not the love of feeling, but the white-hot love of~ faithfulness to my state, to my fellows; the love that shows itself in little, hidden sacrifices, rule-observance, kindness; understanding, sympathy. I have not the strength nor the courage to stir it up myself. Do you then, dear God, enliven it and set it afire. "to the end that I may recite this Office worthily, with attention and devotion." Our preceding petitions have not been sent to the heart of God for anything that we might get out of them; but to the end that God may be better praised and served: to the end that we may give Him a gift, a gift of love, a tiny love-gift-offering of praise; to the end that this praise may be less unworthy of Him than it ever would be with~ out His help, without the touch of His grace:to the end, finally, that it may not be marred by any inattention, any niggardliness, any holdin'g back of love, ,any willful imperfection. "and that I may deserve to be heard in the presence of thy D;vlne Majesty through Christ our Lord. Amen." Who am I to stand before God, even to praise Him? Of myself deserve nothing save exclusion from the divine presence. I deserv~ only ieprobation. If God will hear this my initial petition, however, which,I offer through His divine Son, then by His grace I shall merit to bd heard. My feeble voice shall be joined toall the voices of the other members of~His Mystical Body. All of ours in turn shall be blended into Christ's. We shall then be heard everi in the presence of the all-august God, not for ourselves, but for His reverence. "RICHARD L. ROONEY "0 Lord, in union with that divine intention with which thou didst praise God on earth, I offer thee these hours." -. O Lord Jesus Christ who are also lover, friend, savior, and ~rbt~er, I-Tinsignifi_cant, of little worth, sinful, on occasion Your .c.rucifier--I offer Thee these hours: Hours? Nay, technically they'are ['hours": actually they are but a few minutes. Yet despite their brevity and my littleness I offer these prayers to You. I offer them through YOU to the Father. ° -':Takethem, then. U/rite them to that intention by whicl~ You di'rected Your Own praise to God while You were here on earth, tha~ intention th~t~You still have in.the tabernacle and in You/ place in l~e~aven. Then, lo, out of that union my poor pri~yers shall be t~rans-formed. ¯ The Father will look and see not me but You praying again 'in me. ~ He will be as delighted today as He was yesterday when You offered Him the sacrifice of praise on the night:shrouded hilltop or at "th~candle-lit supper table. He will not see'the soilurebf my selfish-~ heSS .nor hear the dissonance of my inconstancy but only the blazing beautyoof Your divine voice! BOOKS FOR HOSPITALS Religious who conduct hospitals, especially With nurses' training schools, will be interested in these books: Medical Ethics/:or Nurses. by Father Charles 3. McFadden. O.S.A., and Professional Adjust-ments, by Sister Mary Isidore Lennon, R.S.M. Father McFadden'~ is the best book on medical ethics we have yet seen. The material~is carefully selected, arranged with a fine sense of proportion, and helpfully illustrated by numerous practical Cases. Published by F. A. Davis Co., Philadelphia. Pp. xv + 356. $3.00. Prot:essional Adjustments presents a well-rounded plan for intro- ~iucing the student nurse into her newly-embraced professiorial life. it shows her the entire life (interior, social and strictly prdfessional) bf the "nurse from entrance into training school to finial achievement. ~ke Father McFadden's book, it is eminently practical. Published by C. V. Mosby Co., 3207 Washington Ave., St. Louis 3, Mo. pp.~299., $3.00. 36 Qualifications a ,ood Pos!:ulant: Sister of the p~:~cious Bloo~l- [EDITORS' NOTE:'W~ are printing this article and the one which,follows.because we think that religious will find in~thefa much helpful material for Vocation Week. "The author, of the prese'nt article prefers to remain unknown, [t is substantially the samd as a paper read at the Vocational Institute 'held at St. Francis College, Quincy, Illinois. June 30, 1946, under the auspices of. the Franciscan Fathers. For' a treatmen~ of this same sufiject from the canonical point of view, see the article,. ~"Admissio~ to the Religious Life," by Father James E. Risk. S.J., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Volume II, p. 25.] ~E ALL AGREE that there is an imperative need. of ~ ,~ vocations to our Sisterhoods today. -We are keenly aware of the~acute shortage corrfmunities are,suffer-. i,ng in the numberof vocatioris, and as a cons4quence we are putting forth every effort to increase them. Bht in doing ,this we must not forget that the candidate who seeks admid2 sion must be p.roperly~,,qualified, for the 0life she wants to. lead. Therefore an inv.estiigation as to th~ fitness o'f the possible member is of first importance; and in our eagerness to get recruits, we must be on our guard lest we, sacrifice qu'ality for quantity. ¯ When a young, girl, plans her life and ~he question of a possible call to the reli.gious state arises, .sh~ will naturally ask l~rself,-"Have I a true vocation?:' Before she Can answer that question intelligently, a serious c0nsider_ation ofthe nature of re.ligious vocation and an examination of her qualifications for the religious life are of fun&imentdI importance, both to her and to the community ~she °may desire to join. What is a vocation to the religious life? "It is a call that proceeds from God to serve Him-and to seek perfection by faithfully following the three evangelical counsels. " ~ SISTER OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD Review for Religious According to canon law: "Eve~:y Catholic who is not debarred by any'legitimate ithpediment, and is inspired, bv .a'. right intention, and is fit to bear the burdens of the reli-giou's life cap be admitted into religion" (Canon 538). , Given that there are no legitimate 'impediments,. our first-duty is to ascertain whether the applica_nt is motivated by.the right intention. In Chapter 58 of. The Rule of St. Beffedict; the saint instructs the novice master to ~'watch over 'the newly admitted postulant with .the utmost care and to see whether he is truly seeking God,_ and is fervent in the Work of God, in obedience and in humiliations." Our next step is to consider the essential qualific~itions that will make toward "fitness to bear the ,burdens of the religious life." ,These qualifications can be summed up under three main headings. Acc, ording to Reverend B. Strittmater, O.S.B., "a true vocation rrianifests itself in the" necessary~fitness; namely, "the candidate must be endowed. -with physical health, he must be able to acquire, sufficient kriowledl~e, and he must possess adequate sanctity o(life.''1 To face ,the difficulties and to carry on the apostolic" Work of our various communities, one' needs physical strength and fitness. The life of a religipus is a strenuous -one that taxes the strength day after day, with f~w reprieves. It does .not take a .gigantic nor a herculg.an strength, but it does.demand a normally healthy body to, e.ndure~l~he strain of working through the'day plus the addi-. tional duties demanded by the rule and customs of the respective congregation or order to Which a Sister.belongs.- , This is true of every type of active life, be it nursing, social work, teaching, cat.echizing, caring for the orphan .or the-old folks,'and so on. 'A normally healthy person is more likel~ to maint~in,a IRev. B. Strittmater. O.S.B., "On Vocation. What It Is~" Journal of Religious ln-structi. on, XVI (~April, 1946), 719. Januar~], 1947 QUALIFICATIONS OF A GOOD POSTUL_ANT well-balanced emotional.and mental life. We can expect" such a candidate, .under proper guidance, more easily'to develop,th'e emotional maturity which is an essential requi-site in working for and with souls. We know, too, that child-adults, can accomplish littlethat is of lasting value, Finally, as ~he Scholastics say: "Grade is built on nature."_ It is frequently in a "healthy body that we find the healthy soul." It is true that a number of religious; many of whom .the Church has crowned with the halo of sanctity, were ph.ysically weak and performed great works in spite of these handicaps. Ho-weve_r, few of them wi~re thus handicapped when, they sought admission to the con-vent. .The vocation to physical suffering when.given tO .religious usually comes after the novitiate days,-after tFie soul has been formed and tested. I~t is all-important, there-. fore, that our candidates .possess energetic, healthy bodies, .capable of physical endurance,~free from physical, deformi-ties, and vibrant~with the vitalit3~ of youth. - The applicant must, of course, have soundness of mind: there must be no strain of insanity and no highly emotional ,traits; and it is well to ascertain these facts in reghrd to every applicant. It is evident that such persons are not. desirable for religious life, since they will never be able to make themselves one with the heterogeneous group that lives together in a convent. But mere soundness of mind is not sufficient. The can-didate must be able to gr~asp the meaning of religious lif~ and understand its obligations. This is essential because, if the religious life is not understood, the subject will be car-ried onward by emotionalism which will manifest it.~elf ii~ a crisis. Such a person might remain normal if she were in the lay state, but in the religious state she easily becomes neurotic. Moreover, she must-,ha~e sufficient intellectual' ability to make herself useful in such a way that her supe- 39 A~.SISTER:OF TI'~E PRE¢IO~US "BLOOD ~riors .know~sh~e will ~carry.thelresp0nsibility j6f. the~p0sition or W~ork,given fier,~.be.,,it ~high or low':. ~,_~In~a ~6r~d,~.oher intel-lectuababilit. y, must be ~u~ient to~make her.,a responsible, dependable ~r~ligio~s. ~. ~ ~.~ ~ L~, ~ ',,~ ~ ~ ~ ~. Be~jd~s~aving sufficient, intellectual ability.~t6,gra~p the ,mea.fiivg of religi0us:life and,of .ac~ui~ting:herself. bf the ~0rk assigned h~r, ~tbe applkant ~mus~also~ poss~s~ those q,al.~fies. ~f chhracter, which. ~are .requi~ed,,,for~ the: s0cihl "[~spects of common life:~ By this.,I,~mean~that.~he,must.~have .ability ~an~. the[ disposition, to react~tO her environment ~consistent, effective, :afidqnt~rated-~ann~r~. A~:religious.,.~oes .npt, liye ,~¢i~h~one;.: t~o,.~or, eve~.thre~ people; ~but ,~ith ,Ja.rge :g~.pup.that may .humber ~fr6m ten ~t6 a~hundr~d~ or.more-. .persons~of~alLcha#ac.ters, .ages; temperamen~;~and~ di~posi- .ti0n~. She must' p.ut aside h~r o~fi,tastes;her o~n~likes' and ,g.js!~ikes, inxorder, to:live the co~munity or~family' life in peace:?nd harm6oy.~,. It is ~important.~therefo~e:tliat "didate possess ~ ~ealthy S0dal attitude., ~he .following. statement,, made b.yz a ~n~ted ~psychiatrist, ~ seems ,.to., me to q~r~y.~a~special message to~feligiousdn regard to this~point. .He~said:~"I much prefer t0 see a, young~ girI whb has lived the normal social life of an ~ adolescent having~tasted- its .innP~nt.~njoyments to the full.enter a convent thanAhe gir!~ ~.ho~seeks,to isolate h~rself an~.spend mffch- ti~e avher , .devotions ~n preference to social inter~ourse~it~:others. ~It has been my~e~perience~ that, ~any~religious, ~wh~ are s~kjng v0cations~f0r thei~ ord~rs,~have m~de~jfist this~error ~of e~gouraging the~girl ~who.isolhtes he~self :in,preference to the~one who enj0~s having a good~time:~ ,;Later,. time proves that the isolationist loses h~r-e~0tional,~ evefi'mental bal-ance, and.becomes unfit to carry on,.her duties as.a religious.~' This[needs~.~o further~comment, ,~hefefor~ the :candidate ought: t0 give.s~me assurance, that,she possesse~in a. measure the~ fol!o~ing charicteristici She sbguld ~sh0~,that'~ She danuar~], 1947 QUALIFICATIONS OF A GOOD POSTULANT recognizes, her own~ assets and limitations; knows enough about human beings not~to exp"ect too much from them; is .adaptable and open-minded; enjoys her work; sleepswell: is interested in the common good; has a sense of humor; ap-pears calm, happy, sereneY - Possessed df such characteristics the applicant will be enabled to adapt and adjust herself to the mln~r different situations she will meet, and will the more easily learn the~ art of becoming "all things to all men." Such a healthy -social attitude arms the candidate to meet and overcome the problems .that. will arise; at the s;ime time, it helps her to appreciate the opportunity community life. offers that her iridividual life might be a fuller and.richer one.8 The third qualification required of the candidate is that "she possess adequate holiness of life." We are not looking for perf.ection, but there must be a foundation upon which the structure of Christian perfection can be built if the~.can-didate i~ to reach the goal of religious life which is the seeking of God through charity. Therefore it is .not suffi-cient for a young girl merely to appear pious; something farmore genuine must be manifested. "Briefly, she should sho¢ a real interest in things religious, such as the glory of God, the welfare of the Church of God, and the salvation of souls. She will recognize that she has her own limi~a2 tions and consequently needs guidance and help; this. is another mark of a practical Christian spirit. Most essential, "however, is the spirit of prayer. This can be determini~d especially by frequent.attendance at Holy Mass and the fre-quent reception of the sacraments. '~ ¯ ' The fundamental prerequisites for religious vocation are charity and sincerity. The more fully charity is devel- ~Cf. Carl H. With;rington, Educational Psychology (New York: Ginn and Cdm-pariy, 1'946), p. 8Cf. Walter Farrell, O.P., 2t Companion r~ the Summa, Vol. Ill--The Fullnes, of Life (New York: Sheed and W, ard,. 1940), p. 5 I1 ft. 41 A SISTER OF ~HH PRECIOUS BLOOD Reuieu) fo~ Religious oped the more vital will b~e the growth of the religious in the Christian life, the more far-reaching the work fo~ souls. Therefore, love for Christ, love for Holy Mother Church, and love for one's fellowmen, and all three in a more than an average~measure, are the root and heart of a vocation and constitute the fundamental and indispensable motivation in every call to the higher 'life. Evidences of such a charity - should-be noted in the conduct of the candidate before she is accepted intothe postulancy. Charit~ alonewill not suffice; the'candidate's seeking for God must be sincere. The determination she shows in ogercoming inevitable difficulties and obstacles, her candor and'frankness in'her ~elatiofis with stiperiqrs and com-panions, these are manifestations, of the sincerity of "her intentions and-the integrity of her motives. Without this sincerity all efforts on the p:irt'of superiors to form and, guide the future religious will be more or less wasted; hence the importance of te,sti,n~ this virtue of the applicant. Humili}y and obedience, reverence and willing submis- Sion to superiors are essential. A proud disposition Under-mines the spirit of humble andvoluntary'obedience, hn. obedience that should be. p)ompted by ~onscience and a ~re, spect for authority. The applicant who has a proud and insubordinate character is not suited for the religious life and should not beehcouraged. OI~ the other hand, the soul with a humble disposition, who-is convinced of her own limitations and consequent dependence,on God, who is con-vinced too of-tl~e need of prayer, of the necessity for suf-fering, and of the usefulness of correcti6ns, shows great promise. Such a soul will easily be led to realize~the impor-tance and value of obedience, the necessity of renouncing self-wi,ll, and the need of following the directions of a supe~ riot. Patience and generosity should be manifested to some 42 January, 1947 QUALIFICATIONS OF'A GOOD POSTULANT degree, but if the candidate has true charity and'is sincere and ob~di~n.t these virtues will gradually be-developed under the proper direction. Finally she must have the cou.r.age and determination to follow through, to persevere no matter what obstacles confront her, to push on without ever resting on past laurels, and to do this every day of her life. A further important consideration is the family back-ground of the Calididate. This is a real necessity, today, when Our family life has in so many, instances become cor-rupted by broken homes, infidelity to the marriage vows, mixed .marriages, birth control, and other prevalent social evils. Other things being equal, th6se candidates who come from Catholic families where the faith has been cher-ished and made the guiding principle of life more readily develop into promising religious embued with a holy enthusiasm for their vocation than candidates who com¢ from families where an atmosphere of genuine faith and sound morality ~1o not prevail. Special consideration should also be given to the recent convert, who seeks admission while yet in the first fervor of ber ne~v-found faith. Is'it not, better for her to spendzsome time in the world, con-scientiously fulfilling her duty as a,zealous Catholic before she takes on the additional burdens of religious life? Ought she not first learn to fight in the ranks before she enters the vanguard? I have tried to outline in some manner the desirable qualifications of those who would seek admission to the. , religious life. While no sing!e applicant Will possess these ifi their fullness, nevertheless there should be definite indi-cations that she possesses them in some degree and that with the help of God's grace and the proper guidance and direc-tion she will 15e able to reach that peifection her vocation -demands of he~. .- 43 SISTER OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD It is most essential for the healthy growth of our reli-gious communities that we bear .in mind the fact that no~- every one wh~ knocks at the convent door is called to be a religious. It is the sacred duty of any Sister, be she supe~- "rior, novice mistress, or the'influential friend, to conscien-~ tiously investigate the qualification of any possible mem-ber before she encourages her to enter the convent. During the recent war, our young men an[l women were subjected to detailed ,physical and psychological examin'ations, and ~e were appalledat the number declared ,unfit to fight for tlae protection.of our country. The officers w~o conducted these examinations could not, and would'not admit those who were physically.and mentally unfit. We are recruiting forces to carry~on the work,,of Christ. We need women who measure up to standards. Religious ~ave always been honored in the Church of God, and it is essen-tial that we strive to keep Christ's Vanguard true to the title St. Cyprian has given it, "the claoi~e portion of Christ's~ flodk." If we admii: girls.to our postulancies and juniorates without using the proper discretion and prudence, we can-not expect our religious of the coming generation to main:- rain this standard. And only if we maintain it can Christ's~ -command, "Go ye forth into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature," be fulfilledin that part of the apostoli~ field it is~given us. by the Church to cultivate. CHURCH UNITY OCTAVE INDULGENCES On, February 12, 1946, Pope Pius XII increased the indulgendes originally given to.the Octave observance. A plenary indulgence may be gained once a month by each of the faithful who recite the authorized prayers every day provided the usual ~onditions requisite for gaining a plenary indulgence are fulfilled. "'A plenary in-dulgence is also granted each .time during the Octave that the faithful shall recite the prayers for unity. In acJdition, on each day of the Octave a partial indulgence of 300 days may be gained provided that the same prayers are said with at least a contrite heart." (Cf. Church Unity Octave leaflet.) I cruifing for :he Bro :herhoods Brother Placidus, C.F.X. RECRUITERS for the various teaching orders encounter many obstacles in their zealous work, but the teaching o" Brother seems ~0-me~t more than his share~ In ad-dressing groups of grade and high,school pupils, he at once becomes aware of a towering barrier--the present-day world. The decline of home life, indifference to religious vocations among Catholic parents, separations ~ind vorces, lack df Catholic educational facilities for" all our Catholic youth, and the unreligious atmosphere in secular educational institutions--theie are~ some of the initial hindrances to the Brother recruiter. Such influences naturally narrow the recruiter's inter-ested audience. A further handicap may be added, namely, the general unpopularity of the teaching vocation. 'How-ever, the recruiter on his round accepts these hindrances as unavoidable evils bat finds it hard to meet a more intangible difficulty, which may be termed an attitude. He "tries to make excuse for it on the ground of lack of understanding about the importance of the teaching Brother in the teaching apostolate of the Holy Catholic Church. True, the teaching Brother is better understood and appreciated today than he was in past years; but there is still enough active misunderstandi~ng about him to deserve comment here. Except among boys who have come in contact with teaching Brothers in their schogls, there is a woeful laek0f information on the subject. ~hotlsands of boys in Catholic schools are fully aware of the-work of the priests and Sis-ters, but have never heard of a teaching Brother. " They can 45 BROTHER PI~ACIDUS , ~ ~, Retffe~v [or Religious distinguish the work ofdioceSan priests ffofn that of reli-~. gious, or the work o~ these tw6 from that ~f missionaries, but are completely unaware of the existence of men who have a God-given ~rocation to a consecrated, life in the class-" room. Pa_rents are equally uninformed. Even many who have boys under the care of the Brothers seem a bit confused as to ~_wh.at the vocation to the BrotherhOod really is. They believe "Brother" applies only tb candidates for the priest-, hood at a certain stage of preparation.~ But the almost general belief is that it applies only" to a member of a reli~ gious order who takes care of the temporal affairs of the monastery, that is, the lay Brother, ._ That the last-mentioned idea is in many boys' minds is apparent. frorri their openihg words to the recruiter in an interview. The boys obviously, feel that they h~ive a_cail. ~ from God, but realize that they lack the talent necessary"~ to'become priest.s. Since the recruiter-is interested only in ¯ candidates for classroom te_aching, he" has to direct such \ boys to orders which receive lay Brothers. He is forcedto " Lhis decision by the ever improving ~tandards required for diocesan and state certification of teachers. Gone are-the days when young men who lack the ment~al'ability to study for:.the priesthood-may be accepted into the ranks of the teaching Brothers. , Pastors Where Brothers teaqh insist rightly .tha't'only teachers Of recognized fibility be placed'on the staffs of their schools, but often, with strange: .inconsistency, they urge. that some boy of good character~but of limited mental capacity be giyen a chance to enter the ranks of th~ teaching Brothers. Where this attitude exists, its corollary.~is, also present, that anyone of except.ional ability, even though dra, wn'toward the life Of a ~teaching Brothe,r, must be oma_rk~d f6r the priesthood. Discussion of the possibility 46 ,lanuary; 1947 / RECRUITING FOR THE BROTHERHooDs of the priesthood for such a boy is certainly in order; but tha~ the' amount of intelligence should be the determinant is inadmissible. The late Rev. Felix Kirsch, O.F.M.Cap'., said on the subjecl~: Still an indulgent pastor may often come forth with this objec-tion: "But this particular boy is too intelligent to become a t~aching Brother." I should hardly think such an objection possible were it not for the fact that I recently heard a plea made against a boy's vocation on ~hls ground: How could any human intelligence be too" fine to b~e consecrated to God in the noble work of making men of our boys! Is any ability too fine for the work that we expe~t of the teachers in our high schools an.d colleges?.1 Another strange attitude all too frequently, confronts the Brother recruiter, that becoming a Brother is a half-way step in the service of God. Even many pr!ests and Sisters share this convictior~, s~tirely not through any lack of esteem for the Brothers, but most.ly from thoughtlessness or lack of understanding of the need and'importance of male religious teachers in the present working of the teaching aposto.late of the Church. The story of one Brother, new prominent in his con-gregation, illustrates the "half-Step" attitude quite clearly. While attending a high school conducted by" an 6rder of religious priests, he made known to his spiritual adviser his intention of becoming a teaching Brother. He was sur-prised to hear i~mediately, and on subsequent visits, a talk on the priesthood. He listened with attention to these talks and accepted them up to a certain poin.t. Af.ter se.veral ses-sions, when he still insisted, that he felt drawn to be a teaching Brother, his adviser said: "Bill, it's like ,this: Become a Brother, and you're serving God 50 per cent: become a priest, and you're serving Him 100 ~er ~ent." This per cent business set the boy to thinking. He 1The American Ecclesiastical Review, LXXVII (1927), p. 16. 47 BROTHER PLAcIDUS Review ~of Religio~s wondered what per cent his go.od mother w~s.earning in the service of Christ. And how. about the Sisters who had. taugh.t him in the elementary schools--they couldn't become priests what per cent for them? His: thinking~ became more int~eresting--if somewhat more confusedm during a-retreat which he made shortly afterwards. In bne 0f the talks,, defending the nobility of the.contemplative life; the retreat master said: "When,all is said and done, those heroic souls who enter the contemplative orders have gone all out in their zeal for God, and really, serve him 100 per cent." This made him wonder then whetlSer priests who-were not conte.mplatives were really serving God 100 per cent! The whole series of incidents dealing with the business 6f per-cents finally brought him. t6 thinking of God with a marking book in His hand, a.Divine Teacher g.rading all His children; and the picture likely brought him back t6 his original intention of becoming a te_aching Brothe~. It is perfectly natural that a zealous priest, interested in an increase in the number of pries, ts, be on the lookout for fitting candidateS. However, it would be helpful for him sometimes to take the long range view whenever he feels that he is losing a priestly vocation to the Brothers. ~Appropria.te' to this subject, one priest had this to say: It may seem paradoxical to contend, that the very dearth of priests should' urge ~s to encourage vocations t6 tff~ teaching Brother: hoods. Yet a venerable ecclesiastic, closely connected with elementary education for many years, has been quoted recently to the effect that. wherever the Br6thers are in charge of the seventh and e'ighth grades vocations to tl~e sacerdotal and the religious life are numerous, and that vocatlonsdecrease when the Brothers are replaced by the Sister~; The same authority went on to explain that boys oi: that age revere the Sisters, but are not so apt'to confide: in them.2 Any of the Brotherhoods can substantiate this sthte- ZKirsch, op. cit.o p. 15. ~ 48 Januarg, 1947 RECRUITING FOR THE BRO'rHERHOODS ment with statistics. A cer_tain Brothers' high~.s, cho61,~ opened only in ~1930, h~s affeady thirty-.two of its. gradu-ates ordained priests. Another, opened in 189~4, has sent two l~undred hnd twenty-two to become recipients of the sacrament of h0!y.orders. The conclusion then must be hpparent, tha~ morse Brot.bers means more priests. The tendency: t'o regard the Brother's vocation as a halfway measure is-very confusing tb an honest applicant. He has been told that the Church recognizes the vocation of a teacl'iing ~r.other as a special call. Then he finds some members of the Chfirch t~eating him to the prospect of not being able to serve God perfectly as a teaching Brother. Father. Claude- Kean,~ O.F.M. treats the matter poignantly in a recent article: This vocation [the teaching Brother's] is as distinct as our own [the Priest's]. Men do not choose to be Brothers: they are chosen by God for that role. Frequently from their earliest ,years, the Brotherhood attracts .them. They do, indeed, possess the physical, mental, and' moral fitness for ,the priesthood--as, for that matter, do many layfolk; but they lack that first of all vocational, d.eterminants, tho'desire, for the priesthood. (Italics mine.) Their articulate in-sistent call is not to the sanctuary, but to the Catholic sch0ol-room. They would imitate not the Christ of the Upper Room, offering mys-tical, Sacrifice, but the Christ of the Temple Portico, teaching daiiy.~ Although _tl~e picture presented ~bove may look pretty~ dark for the Brother recruiter, it actually .has its brighter aspects, not the least of which is the uniformly courteous welcome accorded him on his rounds by both pastors and Sister principals." Still'there is enough need for clarifying the rol'e of the te~aching Brother in the Church militant to justify what has been said above. oCf. The Priest, January, 1946, p. 25. The . u Unit:y THE Church Unity Octa~ce has as'its object the return of the Straying anderring'children of be'rest; schism, hnd i~fidelity to the true f~ld of their for"effathers. Our"Lord has said, ~-'Other sheep Iohave that ire, n0t0of this fold, them a~l~o must I bring. ~ There shall be one fold and 6he shepherd." (qohn. 10, 16:) There is but .ohe true fold. The sheel5 in other folds are'stray sheep, led by-wan: dering shepherds away fr6m their true home. It is the purpose of the Church Unity Octav~ to promote prayer, and work for thd benefit of these stray sheep that th.ey may qtiickly find their Father's home. TlSat tl'ie Church was always one and has ever existed as the true fold set.up by Christ is the.Catholic belief based upon the teach!ng of her Divine Founder Himself and upon,khe fact of her apostolic ~uc-cession. The Protestant notion that unity probably never existed. but that it might be realized by a compromise amongst the con-tending and bpposite opinions of the various religious bodies, is cer- -tainl'y untenable. Jesus Christ founded His one Church. That Church h~s.remained ~uch as He founded it in its visible, organic, and divinely constituted uniter with the divine protection promised to it~and,preserving it inviola'ble in its purpose and doctrine. The late Pius XI wrote in his encyclical, Mortalium Animos: '"There is but one way in which the unity of Christians may be. fos-tered, and that is by furthering the return to the one trueChurch of Christ of those who are separated fio~ it." ~ T~ent~r years before Pi.us XI wrote this, an Episcopalian minis-ter, fir~d with.thd ideal of unity and sighing for the reunion of all Christians founded an octave og.pra~rer as a means of fostering Chris-tian unity. This octave was ~o begin on the Feast of St. Peter's, Chair at Rome and to end with the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. The Octave was to be used also fo.r studyipg the question of ,unity, especially, the doctrine involved ~nd' methods of attaining it and of acquiring a deeper U'nderstan~ing of thd~ problems that were ~re~ented by the many religious~bodi,es s~eparated fromo that -unity for which Christ had prayed. There are many reasons why we should pray and work earnestly for Church unity; but let us be content here to consider a few that are "basic and of special interest to us: God in His essence is perfectly one. All His qualities and~ftri- 50 THE CHURCH UNITY OCTAVE butes are cer~te~ed in Himself, so that 'qHe"who is" is the Truth, He.i~ Holiness, He is Supreme Goodness, and He is Infinite Perfec-tion. Alth~.ugh in God there is a distinction of Persons--the Father" who begets the Son, the Son who proceeds from,the Father,-and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from both the'Father and the Son--these three Persons all have tile same Divine Nature and are equally God. They are Perfect Unity. Christ based His prayer for unity on the oneness of the Father in Him, and of, Himself in the Father. And the Church Unity Octavel regardinff this:as the greatest motive for unity, has,adopted Christ's words as the antiphon to the petitio~n for unity: "That,they all may be one, even as :thou, Father; in'me and I in thee; that they also ma',~ be one in us, that the world may believe that thou" hast sent-me" (John 17, 21). , ./ust as God is one and all truth,is in Him, so truth is one, "Thi~ truth is centered in one authority, by which God has ordained that all men should come to Him. Ther~ i~ only one way that leads to Go'd, and that is the Church which Christ has set up to teach men the truth and to leadthem to their God-given destiny. If there were a multiplicity of ways, then there would be a multiplicityof yarying doctrines: and truth would be divided. This would be contrary to the unity of the Godhead and the unifying order of creation, It would mean that God is not one and that chaos would eventually reign. But the Triune God in His infinite wisdom has revealed to us how the m~ny may be one in their lives.and, moreover, how they must believe and work as one if they would become united with Him in His Godhead, not only in this life, but also in the world to come.~ Another motive for,unity is the King~l~ip of Jesus Christ. Our Lord was sent down upon the earth_, to set up a. kingdom in which all' men might' make their peace with His heavenly Father. By reason_of the Hypostatic'Union, whereby the humanity of Jesus is united to, His divinity, Jesus is the most excellent of the works of God and has .b~en given ~lominion over all creatures. AsKing bf heaven and earth, He has a right°to the service and obedience of all men. He has established" one rule, which all must'follow if they are to serve Him faithfully. This kingdom cannot be divided since it is most perfect. It has God for its author and for its ruler: and a visible authority has been appointed by the Divine King to rule in His name, to teach" His laws to all men, and to minister justice and peace by His powder. ~_ A powerful motive for.faithfully observing the Church Unity 51 ~'F/~THER BARTHOLOME'W Octave is that of atonement. By. the Fall o'f ~dam we xvere. separated from God a~ad deprivedt of everlasting hnioh with Him,. Reparati6n was n~eded in order to restore the supernatural, grace and gifts "that had been lost. The Son of God willed to come. down upon the earth to. make adequate atonement fo~ the infinite offense lagainst~His Father. And the effect of this~atonement was' unity. Atonement means "to make one." By His whole life and Lspecially by. the shedding of His Blood upon the Cross, Jesus reconciled us to His Father and made us one in Him. Thi~ motive should .appe~l" to religious~i.n a sp.ecial ~ay0 for their lives of prayer and self-denial offer them many opportunities for~.the practice of atonement. We have outlined some of the principhl motives., which should urg'e religious and others to 'obserVe the Church Unity Octave witl~ all possible fervor and devotion. Religious may co-operate in a sp cial way by instructing lay people--their pupils, their patients, and others with whom they come in contact teaching them the -meaning and the.purpose of the Octav~ and u~rging them to join wholeheartedly in .the work. But above ~all else religious should co-operate by .their pra$~er, for prayer is the primary means by which. the purpose of the Octave is to be attained. If daily ~hroughout the Octave all rehgmus spend some t~me praying for the part,cular reten-tion of the day., their prayers will not go unanswered. "In union there is strength." If all join together to petition for the fulfillment of Our Lord's own .prayer, "that all may be one." they may be sure/ that He .will be in the midst of them to hear and answer them. A striking example of Christ's readiness to respond to our peti-tions may be seen in the conversion of that small Anglican band of Franc.iscans founded by Father Phul James Francis. Less than two~ years after he had inaugurated the Chu~rchUhity Octave, Father Paul and his sixteen associates, comprising the Society ,of the Atonement, recognized t_he cla,ms of'the*successor of St. Peter, made their submis-sion to his autl~ority, and were received into the true fold. Similar if less striking answers to our own prayers may confi-dently be expected. ~Ignorance, here~sy, and schism will be dispelled in time and all men will become one in the love and service of God. And it is the duty of all, whether they already be. within the one'." true fold or outside it, by the love they bear for one another and by the uprightness of their lives, to hasten the d.aywhen there shall be "one fold and one shepherd." FATHER BARTHOLOMEW, S.A. 52 Our consfitu~fions prescribe a two-year nov;flare. OnE of our novices completed her canonical.year on December 8, 1945. Because of 'illness she missed 32 ~ays during her second y.ear novff;ate. Does she have to make up these 32 days before she ;s permiffed to take her f;;St vows, or m.ay she pronou~nce her first vows on December 8, 19467~ i " Whether absence from the novitiate during the second year must be. made UP or not will depend entirely u.pon the constitutions and the-will of superigrs~ The general law of the Churc~requi~ing that an absence of more than fifteen days must be made up, and that an a.blsence of more thai1 thirty days interrupts the novitiate so that it must be begun over again (canon 556) applies only to tile canonical or t~rst yea, r of novitiate. Hence your constitutions must be. con~- suited. If they say nothing on this subject, then the second year., of novitiate is not required for the validity of the~ subsequent profession ~(canon 5551 § 2), but.only for its licitness, and days df absence would not have to be made ,up, unless super!0rs think it well to require that this should be done . k4a~/a local superior who has served two ~erms.of ~hree years each and then was out of office for one term of three years be now a ppolnted ~s~ super;or of the same community in Which she already served for six years? ¯ ~Canoh 505 i~f' ~he Code of. Cation Law prescribes that "local superiors are not to hold office for more than,three years; on the i~xpi-ration, of thi~ ~rm they can be reappoin[ed ~o th~ Same office if the constitutions ~6ermi.t' it, but not immediatelyfor 'a third term in tl'i~. Sa~ne, religi~sus£h0use.'' From this textit is cl~r that ~o local sui~e~io/ may remain SUl3erior 0f the same religious house for more thim six Vears without ~ special permissibn of ~the Hdly See. Nextl~he word "immediately" must~be considered. It means ,the local superior'wh5 has served ,tWO terms must be removed from office in that community for the time being, but it does not forbid tile reappoin~ment of that superibr to the same community after the lapse of three years. Henc'e~ the answer (o our question is thi~t the local superior.who has served,, two terms of three.years each and then was ou~ of otfice for one term 53 QUESTIONS AND ANSV~ER~ Review [or Religious of three years may, now be appointed again ,asolocal superior of that s~a~e community. ,,~ ,. , " Do the delegates at a general c~hapter have the right and the .power o prescribe, that the piqus exhortatlon, of a,founder or foundress, which I~h~' nelth~er an ~rhpkima~tur nor an indulgence, be mad6 ? ~'art of the com- ~unity.prayers? ifis, nqtla prayer, but a pious.exhortatlon. Do not all prayers~sald in common call for the imprimatur of the lochl Ordinary? The general chapter in a religious c.ongregation has dominative power'over the members (canOn 501, § 1) and can, therefbie, issue 6rdinations or dtcrees which are binding upon all until revoked by a .ft;fure thapter. There seems to he no objection to the reading of a ¯ pt0us exhortation.by the founder or foundress du~ing the recitation 0.f tlde communit~r prayers,. While it istrue that canon 1259 requires the Ioc~il or~in~ary's approvai for prayers and pious exercises ~or us~ ~n churches and oratories, this is commonly ~interpreted to apply to /~ew prayers and devotions rather than' to prayers once apRro~red~ by any local ordinary, 6r to such as .haVe the equivalent approval of :i'oiig Usage. ~ " "" Furthermore, community prayers said in a convent ~chapel When ~hefaithful' are notpresent are not ~ubli~ but pri~ate pra~l~e~s, and therefore would nor come under the regu~lation .of canon' 1259: Hence the pious exhort~ition in question would not need an imprima-tur in order that it may be read during community prayer.s_ , Kindly ~explain what is meant by "spiritual-relationship" .and how it is determined. ~ : Spiritual relationship is a supernatural bond which arises from the 's.acramen_ts of baptism and.confirmation. ,It unites the person :baptized with the m~nister of baptism as well as with l~is sponsors ~(cahon' 76~), and the person confirmed with .hi~ sponsor only .(cangn 797). .This spiritual, bond imposes upon.sponsors the obli, .gation of having a perpetuai interest in their spiritual child (hence~ ~ the name "godfather"), and. of seeing to it that the childreceives~.~a proper Christian. education and lives up,to the promises they made in-his n~ame,during the baptismal ceremony (canons 769 and 797). -,While they should always retain an interest in, their spiritual child, sponsqrs should, not interfere in its Christian education as. long as the "Januarv, "1947 . QUESTIONS AND'ANSWERS parents' of the child are doing their duty. Because of this close spiritual union between sponsor, and child,. the Church has made this bond a diriment impediment to marriage, but only in the case' of spiritual relationship arising from baptism-". (canon 1079). Has the Holy See published, or in any other w.ay made known, an-official disapproval, of.th~ manner of assisting at Mass that is known as the Missa Recifafa? Father Bouscaren's Canon Law Di'~est, II (ed. 1943), pp. 198~ 200, gives five replies of the Congregation of-Rites concerning the Dialogue Mass. From these replies it .is clear that the Holy See wil'l: no~ tolerate some forms of the Dia.logue Mass. but that, with certain. r~strictions and under certain Conditions, individual bishops" and other local ordinaries may permit this form of piety in their ryspectik,¢ ter-ritories if they deem_it advisable. Though there appears to be some. difference of opinion concerning' the limitations, it seems to us tha~. they may be summarized as follows: 1. The faithful may. recite the server's responses'in union with-. the server; and the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei with the priest. 2. The practice is to be allowed only to those who can carry it -on in ~an orderly ahd dignified manner. 3. It should not cause disturbance to ~.he celebrant or to other-priests celebrating in the church. Such are the limitations as we understand the matter. In prac'- rice, since those who ~ish to have the'Dial6gue 'Mass must get the. permission, of their own local ordinary, they should also have a clear understa.nding with him as to just what conditions {hey are to observe. A day student at one of bur colleges wishes to enter the novitiate-in time to receive the habit on July .IS. She will not finish her semester. studies' and examinations until the end' Of January( Would it be"permis-silble for her to.walt until after~the examinations and enter then, probably 0n.February 2? or may she enter on January 15, take up her resid.ence at the college until after the examinations, and then return to the,novitiate? ¯ Reliable commentators on the canons 6f the Code regarding reli, 55 -QbE~TISNS AND ANSWERS R~oieto Io[" Religious gious hold as probable th( opinion~ that if' the su~n ~of all absences from tile postulancy does not exceed fifteen days,, sfich absen~es-;:need n0t°be supplied provided the~e are good beasons for, them. Hence it- ~-ould ~eem better to have.th~ st.udentin.question go to the novitiat~ on January 15 to be admitted with her class, and then at the proper time return to the college to take her semester "examinations. She should go back to the novitiate as~soon as the examinations are oger. ~[~ @0uld ~unwise tO let her remain at the college for fifteen full days unl.ess, that is unav6idable. Later absences fr6m the postulancy may be necessary, and if the total absence exceeds, fifteen days, such days o~ al~s~nce should be made up before the p~stulant is. all6wed ~p~ receive the habit" and to begin her novitiate. The local superior of the mother.house died recently. Her term of offlceWould not have e~plred till the fall of 1948. May .a Sister be #ppolnted %fill out the unexpired term, or must the appolritment be for-three years? ¯ Canon 505 forbids local superiors to holdoffice for more than three years. It does'not forbid a te~m of less" than three years, ,althOugh that is the nobmal term. Hence, unless_the Constitutions require a full term of three years, a Sister may be appointed to fill out the ianexpired term of the deceased local superior. This would be rea~ sonhble in case it is customary to change all local superiorsat the sametime, but it should be made clear to the Siste~ appointed that she is merely to complete th~¯ unexpi.red term so that possible misunder-standings may be avoided later on. If ~t is not tustomary-to change all local¯ superiors at the same time, it would geem advisable to appoint the new superior for three years, unless special circumstances, make it advisable to appgint her for the unexpired term only. Flour for Altar Broads ' " In our September, 1946, number (Vol. V, p. 338), We gave the principles to be followed in getting flour for altar breads; and we" asked, if our readers could supply any information that might' help' in the actual app!ication of these principles, ~v*e have received, several ¯ infor'~native communications~ and we subjoin the: main points. -Needless to say, we are not a~tempting to give final directions in" this QUESTIONS_AND ANSWERS matter. Nor are we mentioning individual' dealers or brands of flour for the purpose of recommending one more than another. 1. A priest referred us to two articles published in The American Ecclesiastical Revtew. (Vol. 35, 1906, p. 579; and Vol. 73, 1925'; p. 397). These articles show the great difficulty of being assured of unadulterated wheaten flour when buying from commercial dealers, and they strongly recommend that those who make altar breads secure their flour from religious communities that make such flour. 2. A commun,ity of Sisters notified us that they had a chemist analyze the commercial flour they use for making altar breads, ~init the chemist pronounced it pure wheat. When we requested more-pa~ rticular information concerning this flour, the Sisters replied: "The flour we use is Pillsbury Best, or Pillsbury 4X, or Pillsbury AA Cake flour. All these are pure wheat. We do not use any family flour, as they Have vitamins added." - 3. Another community of Sisters sent an interesting communi-cation, the pertinent sections of which run as follows: "In answer to your request . . for information from youb readers who make altar breads, we are embodying in this letter an exact, copy of the statement received from our flo~r mill which describes very fully their method of insuring 100% pure. wheat~ flour: " 'It is quite evident that extreme caution must be exercised t6 insure an unadulterated 100% wheat flour. The first step, before milling starts, is to insure that all foreign seeds, dust, and other mat-ter be removed from the wheat before milling. Choice wheat is set aside, cleaned as it would be for milling ordinary flour, and' then sub-jected to an aspirator cleaning (air suction for removing dust and light foreign particles) plus an additional processing through another disc cleaned, and the mill thoroughl}; cleaned from grinding rolls on through the packing machineby. During the process of m.illing, all bleaching processes are tut oiat as are also the malt flour feeders. With these steps kaken, one can be positively certain that the final prod'uct is as pure and unadulterated as it is humanly possibl~ to make. With the grinding ot: flour automatic as it is, not even human hands come in contact with it." (Belgrade Flour Mill Co., Belgrade. Minnesota.) "The managers of this Milling Company are Catholic and trust-worth~,. They have assured us that they follow this procedure in .making Altar Bread flour for us." 4. We close these communications with ~in interesting NCWC 57 BOOK REVIEWS " , . ° Review for Religious" news,release that refers particularly, to the new "80-per-cent" flour: The news release was .clipped,from a diocesa_n paper and sent to us by 'one of-:our readers.Weoinclude only the'points that bear directly on the information we bare been geeking: " ~'T~oge Catholics who have fdlt a.nxiety and uncerfainty about the validi~y.,of '80-per-cent' flour if used in making hosts for Con-_ secration may cease to worry. ,So says the Rev. F~ancis, 3. Con-nell, C.SS.R., associate professor 0f moral theology at the Catholic University of America. "Father Connell~has learned from government officials that '80- per-cent' ~our~ is actually composed wholl~r of genuine wheat. The phrase merely, means that nowadays 80 per cent of.the bulk of the wheat u~ed for flour is°retained in the finished productl with 20 per cent becoming a b~y-prodia'ct. Formerly:pnly 72 per cent of the wheat was used for the flour's comp~0sition. The new flour contains a larger ¯ amount of the wheat berries' husk and is richer in food value, despite its darker hue. , "In_ addition, the fact that hosts made from the '80-per-cent' flour are a shade darker than those used heretofoie is no impediment to their~valid-and lawful use for the Holy Eucharist. " '~'Oh.the Otherliand, Fa~her.Connell declares,, an effort should be made to obtain for altar breads flour that has not been "enriched" .by' the inclusion" of small amounts of iron, calcium, and-barley flour. O.nly pure wheat and water are supposed to be use,d. 1.Difficulty' in ge.tting unenriched flour, however, allows perfectly lawful use of the ~-nriched variety." [NOTE: A somewhat similar statement by Father Connell may be found m The Ecclesiastical Review, CX (Feb., 1944), 145-46.] :Book Reviews A BEDSIDE BoOK OF SAINTS. By the Reve_rend Aloysh~s Roche. "Pp.,xl °'~ '-I-145. The Bruce Publlshin~ Cornpany~, Milwaukee, 1946.- $1.75. The title of this book hits off the book itself apt.ly eno.ugh. From the lives of saints, Father Roche has with remarkable industry pieced together al!. sorts of interesting items under'such headings.a~ "The Human Nature of the Saints,'~ ".The Common Sense of the Sain.ts," "The Wit and Humour of the Saints,'-' and st) on. The resulting book, 'in which, the material from the different saints', lives is spuzi~ 58 danuar~. 1947 BOOK REVIEWS .- out into a continuous narrative, isthe iort of fhing one welcomes. " for occasi0nal readiiag. It can be dipped into at any time, and even for:very short periods, with interest ,and satisfaction.' - -F~ither Roche emphasizes not onlywhat is interesting .about. saints but what is normal as well. It is characteristic of our'tim~s that we I/ave some sort of psychological need f6~ telling ou'rde!ves how normal the .saints are--they[re just like everybody- else--- although other ages .seem to have derived their chief satisfaction con-cerning the saints from noticing how different they are" from. ordina.ry persons. Of course the saints are both normal and different. Aware-ness of the normali,.ty which Father R6che stresses should not make the reader complacent--the saints were just like me, after alll so all right; but it shouldxshow~him tl4at the .world of thd saints'is not some sort o~ fairyland but quite like his own-~-a world not readily analyzed and e, asily fitted into little formula's, as the world in most ' biographies turns out to be, but a world concrete and mysterious, - often puzzling and confusing enough, a world with-a good many loose ends, so far as .we can see. This is the world we know, the , , world the saints knew, the world in whicl~ God dwells, the world in ~ which sanctity grows;. Tfiis book, now published for the first time in the United States, , was originally published in .England by Burns~ Oates, and Wash-bourne, Ltd., in 1934.W. 3. ONG, S.,J. EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF MARIE LOUISE BRAULT. By Lohis hier, S:S. Tr~n~la÷ed from ÷he French by W. S. 'Reilly, S.S. Pi~. 306. The Newman"Bool~ Shop, Westmlnsfe~, Maryland;q946.$3.50'. Spiritual dividends and a good deal of amazement are in store for the'~readers" of Madaine Brault's definitely extraordinary life. we ~re ;iot ac~ust0fiaed to associate such, happeni_hgs .with the twentietfi tury; T~ Catholic~ ands, religious, who'like the Master are con~emned for their belief in the supernatural, such remarkable confirmati6n of all their cherished beliefs, brings welcome comfb-rt. But of even greate~ worth is the~in~pact of one's own. soul from meeting a personality " , like Madarhe Brault. Dutiful'wife, arid mother of eleven childrefi, heroically cbaritable to the'sick and suffering,, afire with zeal for.her neighbors' salvation and .the reliet:,of the ~so~ls in purgatory, she ~" responded to grace as the finely tuned instrument to the least touch of the Master, ,Her love for God and particularly, for the God-man makes the passion of earthly lover~ a'sorry rival, This .obscure 59 R~view ~or.Religious Canadian~woman, who died in' 1910, is referred to as a "star of the /~rst magnitude in the skT of mysticism." Her letters," which reveal the astonishing events of her inner life and which were written under obedience, are said to recall the &ritings ofoTeresa of Avilaoand Catharine of Siena. Where We only a~spire, Madame Brault .has accomplished: -Per-haps the m6st valuable part of this book is the second, in which eighty of her letters are repro'di~ced. There her personality is lumi-nousl~ r .portrayed. 'We see a very human, sensitive, affectionate soul, keenly'~susceptible to pain and humiliation, yet under the strong sup- 130rt of God's grace undergoing unbelievable suffering for her love: Apparently the greatest was the furious cruelty with which the dem6ns visibly afflicted her. They beat her like brutal thugs, flung h~'r.around even in the church of Pointe-Claire, and worked endless mischief within the wails of her home. They were also the agents of untold interior pain. An intimat~ friend of Madame Brault, Father Bouhier is cer-tainly .in possession of the facts. He has related them clearly and well: For making his sim, ply-told story available in English, we are g~eatly indebted to Father Reilly. There is perhaps too little artistry in the.composition. ~ind gt times a tendency so to stress_th~ superlative virttle of MadameBrauh that she seems not one: of our race. This impression, however, is removed by her letters. Her life merits further and more complete biographical presenta-tion. Particularly ~for religious and priests she has many definite messages, and we cannot help thinking that God wants us to know ,well this modern triumph'of His grace. R.D. HUBER,. S.J. LUMEN VITAE: International Review of Religious Education. Vol. I, No. I (January-March, 1946). Pp. 200. Centre International d'Etudes de la Formation Refigieuse, BrusSels. $4.00 per year; this issue, $1.00. ~The International Center for Studies~ in Religious Education launches herewith a challenging hi-lingual review addressed to all who are in any way interested ih religious education. The goal aimed, at is "tb take modern life as a starting point, and give a living religious training suitable to the contemporary, generation, so as to prepare it to fulfill its particular'mission." This envisages a twofold task. The one is to discover in contemporary society its particular mentality, or its "psychology," that may serve as a stepping-stone t6wards-Christ. The other is. thedirect j~b of imparting religious 60 ,lan~,ary, 1947 - ~ instruction at all levels in all milieu. ~BooK REVIEWS It is hoped to coordinaterill- ._ferent spheres of educatiori,' different academic levels; to infl'uence differing media of instruction and diversion. ' .Editorials will" be bi-lingual, French and English'throughout. " Erticles ih French will have an ~English summary; those in English, ~a suha.mary in F.r~ncb: "and articles in other languages will have both F~'e'nch and English resumes. ~Believing that Lumen Vitae will beof ,~iery special interest to hosts of religious teachers, we subjoin.a'survey bf its first issue. " , What precisely out of. all contained .in. seminary courses can.:b~ squeezed into college courses, and in what proportions? Msgr. J. M Cooper argues .for this division: Of the total content of class-hours, dogma should have 25 per cent, moral, 25 per cent, worship, 25 per cent, and the remaini,ng 25. per cent should be about ~evenly. divided among Scripture; apologetics; ritual, Church history/and ascetics. If this statement seems cut and dried, the article is not. woman'~ apprlo,ach to the same basic prdblem is mirrdred in Ma"~leleine Dani~lou's account of the courses.she h~s instituted in the Salute: Marie colleges in France. In instituting her .important work, she. was following ,the diredtion of FatherL. de Grandmai~on, whose :'large spirit lives on in it . , o .- "Catholics in German-speaking countries have been .grappling for - years, under the. heading-Of catechism revisiorl, with the deepyr. ~i.nd more importaht subject of ca.techism cdntent an,d .ar#a-ngement, So as to bring out .more clearly the essentially joyo

Issue 23.5 of the Review for Religious, 1964. ; Constitution on the Liturgy by Vatican Council II 561 About the Constitution on the Liturgy by Paul VI 592 Persons and the Religious Life by Paul J. Bernadicou, S.J. 596 Work: A Becoming Process by Sister M. Judith, O.S.B. 604 Utilizing the Psychologist's Report by Alan F. Greenwald 612 Decision-Making by Richard M. McKeon 616 Positive Examination of Conscience by Daniel L. Araoz, S.J. 621 Examination of Conscience for the Religious Woman by Sisters Vincent Ferrer and M. Elizabeth, S.P. 625 Ancient Abbess and Modern Superior by Sister Marie Estelle, &D.S., 633 The Need to Be Needed by;Sister Teresa Margaret, O.D.C. 644 Survey of Roman Documents 652 Views, News, Previews 657 Questions and Answers 660 Book Reviews 666 VOLUM~ 23 September 1964 VATICAN COUNCIL II Constitution on the Liturgy PAUL, BISHOP THE SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD TOGETHER WITH THE FATHERS OF THE COUNCIL FOR A PERPETUAL RECORD OF THE MATTER 1. This Council,* dedicated as it is to the things that pertain to holiness, has the following aims as its objectives: the steady growth of the Christian life of the faithful; the better adaptation to the needs of our times of those things that are subject to change; the fostering of whatever can contribute to the uniting of all believers in Christ; and the strengthening of whatever conduces to the leading of all men into the Church's fold. It is because of these aims that the Council is convinced that it is also its duty to make special provisions for the renewal and the promotion of the sacred liturgy. 2. For the liturgy, through which, especially in the di-vine Eucharistic sacrifice, "the work of our redemption is continued," 1 is of the highest importance in bringing it about that the faithful by their lives express and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the genuine nature of the true Church. It is characteristic of the Church to be at one and the same time human and divine, visible yet endowed with invisible realities, devoted to action yet dedicated to contemplation, present in the world and yet * The original Latin text of the Constitution appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 56 (1964), pp. 97-138. In this translation, chapter titles, subtitles, and paragraph numbers are taken from the original. x Secret of the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. ÷ ÷ ÷ Vatican Council 11 VOLUME 23, 1964 561 ÷ ÷ ¥ot~:mt o~nci~ I! REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 562 a pilgrim in the world. These aspects of the Church axe so constituted that the human in her is directed and sub-ordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, action to contemplation, the present world to that future city for which we are striving.2 Those who are within the Church are day by day built up by the liturgy into a temple cou-secrated to the Lord, into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit) into the complete development of the fullness of Christ.4 At the same time the liturgy notably strengthens their power to preach Christ, and in this way it shows the Church to those who are outside her as the standard lifted up among the nations5 under which the scattered sons of God may be gathered together into unity0 to the extent that there may be one fold and one shepherd.7 3. Wherefore, this Council judges that it should call attention to the following principles concerning the pro.- motion and the renewal of the liturgy and that it should set forth practical norms in the matter. Among these principles and norms there are some which can and should be applied both to the Roman rite and to all the other rites. The practical norms, however, which are given below are to be understood as applying only to the Roman rite except in the case of those which in the very nature of things affect other rites as well. 4. Finally, this Council, in faithful obedience to tradi-tion, affirms that the Church considers all lawfully recog-nized rites to be of equal right and dignity; that she is determined to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way; and that she desires that, where neces-sary, they be carefully revised in the spirit of sound tradi-tion and given a new vigor to meet the circumstances and the needs of today. CHAPTER I GENERAL PRINCIPLES ON THE RENEWAL AND PROMOTION OF THE SACRED LITURGY I. The Nature o[ the Sacred Liturgy and Its Importance [or the Li[e o[ the Church 5. God who "wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:4) and who "at many times and in different ways formerly spoke to the fathers through the prophets" (Heb 1:1), when the fullness of time came, sent His Son, the Word become flesh, anointed :See Heb 13:14. sSee Eph 2:21-2. ~See Eph 4:13. nSee Is ll:12. nSee Jn 11:52. *See Jn 10:16. by the Holy Spirit, to proclaim the gospel to the poor, to heal the contrite of heart,s to be a "bodily and spiritual physician,''9 and to be the mediator between God and man.xo For His humanity in the unity of the persgn of the Word was the instrument of our salvation. Hence in Christ "there came forth the perfect achievement of our reconciliation and there was given to us the fullness of divine worship." 11 This work of human redemption and of perfect glori-fication of God to which the mighty works of God among the people of the Old Testament were a prelude was achieved by Christ the Lord principally through the pas-chal mystery of His holy Passion, His Resurrection from the dead, and His glorious Ascension whereby "dying He destroyed our death, and rising, he restored our life." 12 For from the side of Christ sleeping on the cross in death there came forth the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church.13 6. Accordingly, just as Christ was sent by the Father, so He Himself sent the Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, not only to preach the gospel to every creature1~ and to proclaim that the Son of God by His resurrection and death had freed us from the power of Satan1~ and from death and that He had brought us into the kingdom of the Father, but also to continue the work of salvation which they proclaimed. This they were to do by means of the sacrifice and the sacraments around which all liturgical life revolves. Thus, by baptism men are grafted on the paschal mystery of Christ;13 they receive the spirit of adop-tion as sons "in which we cry out: Abba, Father" (Rom 8:15), and they thus become those true worshipers whom the Father seeks.1T So also, whenever they eat the Lord's Supper, they proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes,is This was the reason why on that very day of Pentecost when the Church appeared in the world "those who welcomed the preaching" of Peter "were baptized." And they "continued in the teaching of the Apostles, in SSee Is 61:1; Lk 4:18. s St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Ephesios, 7,2; Patres apostolici, F. X. Funk, ed. (Tiibingen: H. Laupp, 1901), v. 1, p. 218. ~°See 1 Tim 2:5. a Sacramentarium Veronerme, C. Mohlberg, ed. (Rome: Herder, 1956), n. 1265, p. 162. ~ Roman Missal, Easter Preface. l~See St. Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 138,2; "Corpus Christianorum," v. 40 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1956), p. 1991; and the Oration after the Second Reading of Holy Saturday in the Roman Missal before the reform of Holy Week. 1'See Mk 16:15. ~See Acts 26:18. l"See Rom 6:4; Eph 2:6; Col $:1; 2 Tim 2:11. ~ See Jn 4:23. ~See 1 Cor 11:26. 4. 4. 4. Liturgy 4. 4, 4. REV[EW FOR RELIG]OUS the sharing of the breaking of bread, and in prayer . They praised God continually, and all the people spected them" (Acts 2:41-7). From that time on, the Church has never failed to meet together in a body to celebrate the paschal mystery by reading those things "in all of Scripture that were about him" (Lk 24:27), by cele-brating the Eucharist in which "the victorious triumph of His death is once more made present," 10 and at the same time by giving thanks "to God for the indescribable gift" (2 Cot 9:15) possessed in Christ Jesus "to the praise of his glory" (Eph 1:12) through the power of the Holy Spirit. 7. For the accomplishment of so great a work, Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgi-cal actions. He is present in the Sacrifice of the Mass not only in the person of His minister ("It is the same [Christ] who now makes the offering through the ministry of His priests and who formerly offered Himself on the cross" 2o) but especially in the Eucharistic species. By His power He is so present in the sacraments that when anyone baptizes, it is Christ Himself who baptizes.21 He is present in His word, for it is He who speaks when the Sacred Scriptures are read in the Church. Finally, He is present when the Church prays and sings; for it was He who made the promise: "When two or three have gathered together. in my name, I am right there among them" (Mr 18:20). It is true to say that Christ always associates the Church with Himself in this immense work whereby God is per-fectly glorified and men are made holy. She is His beloved Bride who calls out to her Lord and through Him offers her worship to the eternal Father. Rightly, then, is the liturgy regarded as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ in which human sanctifi-cation is signified by sensible signs and effected in a way corresponding to those signs and in which public worship in its entirety is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members. Accordingly, every liturgical celebration, since it is a work of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a surpassingly holy action the efficacy of which is equaled by no other action of the Church on the same ground and to the same degree. 19Council o~ Trent, Thi'rteenth Session, October 11, 1551, Decree on the Eucharist, c. 5; Goncilium Tridentinttm: Diariorum, actorttm, epistolarum, tractatuttm nova collectio, ed. by the Gfirres Society, t. 7 (Freiburg: Herder, 1961), p. 202. ~°Council of Trent, Twenty-second Session, September 17, 1562, Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass, c. 2; Concilium Tridentinttm: Diariorttm, actorum, epistolarum, tractatuttrn nova collectio, ed. by the Gfirres Society, t. 8 (Freiburg: Herder, 1919), p. 960. a See St. Augustine, In loannis evangelium tractatus, VI, c. 1, n. 7; P.L., v. 35, col. 1428. 8. In the liturgy of this earth we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem towards which we pilgrims are journeying and where Christ sits at the right hand of God as the minister of the holy things and of the true tabernacle;22 together with all the troops of the heavenly army we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord; when we honor the memory of the saints, we hope for a share in fellowship with them; we wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until He our life will appear and we in turn will appear with Him in glory.:~3 9. The sacred liturgy does not exhaust the entire range of the Church's activity. Before men can come to the lit-urgy, they must be called to faith and conversion: "How can they call on someone in whom they have never be-lieved? And how can they believe in someone of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear unless there is someone to preach? But how can there be preachers unless they are sent?" (Rom 10:14-5). For this reason the Church proclaims the news of salva-tion to unbelievers so that all men may know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent and that they may be converted from their ways by doing penance,z* And to believers also the Church must always preach faith and penance; she must prepare them for the sacraments; she must teach them to obey whatever Christ has com-manded; 2~ and she must draw them to all the works of charity, of piety, and of the apostolate, for it is by these works that it becomes clear that the faithful, though not of this world, are nevertheless the light of the world and are to give glory to the Father before men. 10. Nevertheless, the liturgy is the summit towards which the action of the Church is directed, and at the same time it is the source from which all her power flows. For all apostolic endeavors are ordered to the objective that all men, being made sons of God by baptism and faith, should come together in unity, should praise God in the midst of the Church, should take part in the Sacrifice, and should eat the Lord's Supper. The liturgy, in its turn, urges the faithful who have been filled "with the paschal mysteries" to be "one in holi-ness"; z6 it prays that "they hold fast in their lives what they have grasped by their faith"f7 and the renewal in the Eucharist of the covenant of the Lord with men draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets ~See Ap 21:2; Col 3:1; Heb 8:2. See Phil 3:20; Col $:4. ~See Jn 17:3; Lk 24:27; Acts 2:38. See Mt 28:20. Postcommunion of the Easter Vigil and of Easter Sunday. Collect of the Mass for the third ferial within the octave of Easter. 4- 4" 4" Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 565 them on fire. From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, graces come to us as from a fountain; thereby there is achieved in the most effective way possi-ble that sanctification of men in Christ and that glorifica-tion of God which is the goal towards which all the other activities of the Church are directed. 11. But in order that this effectiveness be achieved in its fullness, it is necessary that the faithful come to the sacred liturgy with the right attitudes of soul, that they attune their minds to its voice, and that they cooperate with its supernatural grace lest they receive it to no purpose.~ Hence, in the celebration of the liturgy pastors of soul:~ must carefully see to it that not only are the laws for a valid and lawful celebration observed but also that the faithful take part in it in an intelligent, active, and en. riching way. 12. The spiritual life, however, is not limited to par-ticipation in the liturgy. Though the Christian is truly called to pray in common with others, yet he must also go into his own room to pray to the Father by himself;2~ in-deed, as the Apostle teaches, he must never cease praying.80 Furthermore, we are taught by the same Apostle to carry about in our bodies the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh,al It is for this reason that in the Sacrifice of the Mass we implore the Lord "to receive the offering of the spiritual victim" and to make out of us "an eternal gift" a2 for Himself. 13. Devotional practices of the Christian people, pro-vided they conform to the laws and norms of the Church, are highly recommended, especially when they are ap-proved by the Apostolic See. Devotional practices of individual churches also have a special value if they are done with the permission of the bishops and in accord~tnce with legitimately approved customs and books. But since the liturgy by its nature is far superior to them, all such practices should be such that they harmo-nize with the liturgical seasons and that they are in ac-cord with the liturgy, are derived from it in some way, and lead the people to it. II. Education in the Liturgy and Active Participation in the Liturgy ÷ 14. It is the earnest desire of the Church that all the ÷ faithful should be led to that full, intelligent, and active ÷ part in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the Vatican Coundl H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 566 See 2 Cor 6:1. ~*See Mt 6:6. ~°See 1 Th 5:17. ~See 2 Cor 4:10-1. The Secret of the second [erial within the octave of Pentecost. very nature of the liturgy and which, by reason of baptism, is the right and obligation of the Christian people, that "chosen race, kingly priesthood, holy nation, and pur-chased people" (1 Pt 2:9; see also 2:4-5). In the matter of the restoral and renewal of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation of the entire people is the most important thing to be taken care of; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful draw a genuinely Christian spirit. Hence, in all their pastoral work pastors of souls must earnestly strive to accomplish this participation. But no real hope of realizing this can exist unless pas-tors of souls themselves are deeply imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy and have become masters of it. For this reason, it is absolutely essential that measures should first of all be taken to ensure the liturgical educa-tion of the clergy. Therefore, this Council has passed the following enactments. 15. Professors who are appointed to teach the course in sacred liturgy in seminaries, in religious houses of study, and in theological faculties must be properly trained in their work at institutions that specialize in this area. 16. In seminaries and religious houses of study the course in the sacred liturgy is to be ranked among the compulsory and major courses, while in theological facul-ties it is to be ranked among the principal courses; and it is to be taught under its theological, historical, spiritual, pastoral, and juridical aspects. Furthermore, the profes-sors of other courses, especially those of dogmatic theology, of Sacred Scripture, and of spiritual and pastoral theology, should take care to expound the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation from the viewpoint of their own sub-jects in such a way that the relationship of these courses with the liturgy can be clearly seen as well as the unity that exists in the training of priests. 17. Clerics in seminaries and religious houses should be given a liturgical formation in their spiritual life. This should be done through an adequate introduction that enables them to understand the sacred rites and to par-ticipate in them wholeheartedly and through the actual celebration of the sacred mysteries together with other de-votional practices that are imbued with the spirit of the liturgy. They must likewise learn the observance of the liturgical laws in such a way that life in seminaries and in institutes of religious is profoundly shaped by the liturgi-cal spirit. 18. Priests, both diocesan and religious, who are al-ready working in the Lord's vineyard, are to be helped in every suitable way to achieve a better understanding of what they do when they perform their sacred functions, ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturg~ VOLUME 23, 1964 567 Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to live a liturgical life, and to communicate such a life to the faithful entrusted to them. 19. Pastors of souls must zealously and patiently pro~ mote the liturgical training of the faithful and their ac-tive participation, both internal and external, in accord-ance with their age, condition, type of life, and degree of religious background. In doing this, pastors will be ful-filling one of the chief duties of a faithful dispenser of the mysteries of God. In this matter, moreover, they must lead their flocks not only by their words but also by their ex-ample. 20. Radio and television transmissions of the sacred functions, especially in the case of Mass, are to be done with discretion and dignity under the direction and super-vision of a qualified person appointed by the bishops for that purpose. IlL The Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy 21. In order that in the sacred liturgy the Christian people may more surely derive an abundance of grace, the Church wishes to give careful attention to the general renewal of that liturgy. The liturgy is composed of un-changeable because divinely instituted elements and of other elements that are subject to change. These latter can vary in the course of time and they even should do so if there has crept in among them things that do not fully correspond to the inner nature of the liturgy or that have become less suited to it. In this renewal, both texts and rites should be so ar-ranged that they give a clearer expression to the holy things signified. As far as possible, these holy things should be able to be easily understood by the Christian people and to be taken part in by an active celebration proper to a community. Wherefore, this Council has set up the following general norms. ,4. General Norms 22. § 1. The regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church; that is, on the Apostolic See and, within the limits of the law, on the bishop. § 2. In virtue of a power granted by law, the regulation of liturgical matters within certain defined limits also be-longs ~o the various kinds of competent and legitimately established territorial groupings of bishops. § 3. Therefore, no other person whatsoever, even if he be a priest, may on his own authority add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy. 23. In order that sound tradition be retained while let-ting the way be open to legitimate progress, revision of individual parts of the liturgy should always be preceded by a careful theological, historical, and pastoral investiga-tion. Moreover, consideration should be given both to the general laws of the structure and spirit of the liturgy as well as to the experience derived from recent liturgical reforms and from the indults granted at various times. Finally, innovations should not be introduced unless the genuine and certain good of the Church demands them; moreover, care should be taken that the new forms should in some way grow organically out of the forms now in existence. Insofar as it is possible, care must also be taken that notable differences in rites should not be used in ad-jacent regions. 24. Sacred Scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. From it Readings are read which are then explained in the homily; its Psalms are sung; from its influence and inspiration come the liturgi-cal prayers, collects, and hymns; and from it the actions and the signs of the liturgy receive their meaning. Hence, in order to achieve the renewal, progress, and adaptation of the sacred liturgy, there must be fostered that warm and living love of Sacred Scripture which is witnessed to by the venerable traditions of both the Eastern and Western rites. 25. As soon as possible, the liturgical books are to be revised with the help of experts and after consultation with bishops from various parts of the world. B. Norms Derived [rom the Hierarchical and Communitarian Nature o[ the Liturgy 26. Liturgical services are not private functions but celebrations of the Church which is the "sacrament of unity," the holy people united and ordered under the bishops.33 Hence, these services pertain to the whole. Body of the Church, both manifesting and influencing it; they affect individual members of the Church in different ways ac-cording to differences in rank, office, and actual participa-tion. 27. Whenever the rites, in accordance with their spe-cific nature, are compatible with community celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, it should be stressed that such a celebration in-sofar as it is possible is preferable to an individual and quasi-private celebration. This is particularly true for the celebration of Mass (although every Mass is public and social in nature) and for the administration of the sacraments. ~St. Cyprian, De catholicae Ecclesiae unitate, 7, G. Hartel, ed., C.Sa~.L., t. 3.1 (Vienna: 1868), pp. 215-6. See also Epistle 66, n. 8, 3 in the same edition, t. 3.2 (Vienna: 1871), pp. 732-3. ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 ,569 ÷ + ÷ Fatican Coundl 11 REVIEW FOR REL~GIOUS 28. In liturgical celebrations each person, whether minister or layman, who has a part to carry out should perform all and only those things which pertain to his function according to the nature of the rite and the liturgi-caJ norms. 29. Servers, readers, commentators, and choir members perform a genuinely liturgical function. Hence, they are to perform their functions with the kind of sincere piety and correctness which befits so important a ministry and which the people of God rightfully expect. Hence, they must be imbued, each in his own way, with the spirit of the liturgy; and they must be trained to carry out their parts in a correct and orderly way. 30. In order to increase active participation, acclama., tions, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and hymns should be encouraged on the part of the people along with bodily actions, movements, and positions. And at its due time, a reverent silence should be observed. 31. In the revision of the liturgical books, care should be taken that the rubrics provide for the parts of the people. 32. In the liturgy, apart from the differences arising from liturgical function and from holy orders and from the honor due to civil authorities according to the norm of liturgical law, no special distinction is to be given in the ceremonies or in the external display to any private person or class of persons. C. Norms Derived [rom the Didactic and Pastoral Nature o[ the Liturgy 33. Although the sacred liturgy is principally the wor-ship of the divine majesty, it also includes a great deal of instruction for the faithful;34 for in the liturgy God speaks to His people and Christ still proclaims His gospel. And the people in turn respond to God in song and prayer. Moreover, the prayers addressed to God by the priest who presides over the assembly in the person of Christ are said in the name of the entire holy people and of all who are present. Finally, the visible signs used by the sacred liturgy to signify invisible divine realities have been chosen by Christ or the Church. Hence, not only when the things are read "which were written for our instruction" (Rom 15:4) but also when the Church prays or sings or acts, the faith of the participants is nourished, and their minds are lifted up to God so that they may give Him their reasonable service and receive His grace in a more abundant way. ~ See the Council of Trent, Twenty-third Session, September 17, 1562, Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass, c. 8; Concilium Tridenti-hum: Diariorum, actorum, epistolarura, tractatuum nova collectio, ed. by the G6rres Society, t. 8 (Freiburg: Herder, 1919), p. 960. Wherefore the following norms are to be observed in the renewal of the liturgy. 34. The rites are to be distinguished by a noble sim-plicity; they should be brief and avoid useless repetitions; they should be within the comprehension of the faithful and, generally speaking, should not need much explana-tion. 35. In order that the intimate relationship between rite and words should be apparent in the liturgy: 1) In sacred services a richer, more varied, and more suitable Reading from Scripture should be brought back. 2) Since it is a part of the liturgical action, a more suit-able place should be given to the sermon as far as the nature of the rite allows; and this should be noted in the rubrics. The ministry of preaching should be responsibly performed with the utmost fidelity. Preaching should be principally derived from the source of Sacred Scripture and the liturgy, since it is a proclamation of the wondrous acts of God in the history of salvation, that mystery of Christ which is always present and operative among us especially in liturgical celebrations. 8) Instruction that is more directly liturgical is to be emphasized as much as possible. And in the rites them-selves, if it is necessary, provision should be made for brief remarks by the priest or the competent minister but only at suitable moments and in prescribed or similar words. 4) On the vigils of the more solemn feasts, on some of the weekdays of Advent and Lent, and on Sundays and feast days, Scripture services are to be encouraged espe-cially in places where there is no priest; in this latter case, a deacon or someone else delegated by the bishop is to direct the service. 36. § 1. The use of the Latin language is to be retained in the Latin rites, exception being made for particular cases provided for by law. § 2. Since, however, in Mass, the administration of the sacraments, and in other parts of the liturgy the use of the vernacular can frequently be of great advantage to the people, a wider use is to be given to it especially in the Readings and the instructional remarks and in some prayers and chants in accord with the norms for the matter to be laid down individually in the following chapters. § 3. These norms being observed, the decision on the use and the extent of the use of the vernacular is a matter for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority men-tioned in article 22, § 2 after consultation, if the case war-rants it, with the bishops of adjacent regions of the same language; what is done in this matter is to be approved or confirmed by the Apostolic See. § 4. The translation of the Latin texts into the vernacu- + + + Liturgy VOLUME 23~ 1964 ¯ 571 lar for liturgical use must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above. Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS D. Some Norms [or Adapting the Liturgy to the Character and Traditions of Peoples 37. Even in the liturgy the Church does not desire to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not involve the faith or the welfare of the entire community; rather she respects and fosters the cultural qualities character-istic of various nations and peoples. She studies with sym-pathy and, if she can, preserves intact the things in a people's way of life that are not indissolubly linked to superstition and error; at times she even admits such things into the liturgy provided they fit in with the quali-ties of a genuine and true liturgical spirit. 38. Provided that the substantial unity of the Roman, rite is preserved, provision should be made in the revision of the-liturgical books for legitimate variations and adap-tations to different groups, regions, and peoples, especially in mission territories; this should be kept in mind as the occasion warrants when the structure of the rites and the rubrics thereof are drawn up. 39. Within the limits set down in the normative edi-tions of the liturgical books, it will pertain to the com-petent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in article 22, § 2 to specify adaptations especially with regard to the administration of the sacraments and to sacra-mentals, processions, liturgical language, and sacred music and art, in accord, however, with the basic norms laid down in this Constitution. 40. In some places and circumstances there may be an urgent need for a profounder adaptation of the liturgy which may involve greater difficulties. Wherefore: 1) The competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in article 22, § 2 should carefully and prudently consider what pertinent elements of the characteristic traditions of individual peoples can be appropriately ad-mitted into divine worship. Adaptations which are judged to be useful or necessary are to be proposed to the Apos-tolic See and introduced with its consent. 2) In order that this adaptation may be done with all the circumspection necessary, the Apostolic See will grant to this same territorial ecclesiastical authority the power, as the case requires, to permit and direct for a determined period of time necessary preliminary experiments among certain groups suitable for that purpose. 3) Since in the matter of adaptation, especially in mis-sion territories, liturgical laws generally involve special difficulties, experts in the matters in question should be used in drawing up such laws. IV. Promotion o] Liturgical Life on the Diocesan and Parish Level 41. The bishop is to be considered as the principal priest of his flock from whom the life in Christ of his faithful is somehow derived and on whom it somehow de-pends. Hence, all should have the greatest esteem for the litur-gical life of the diocese centered around the bishop espe-cially in his cathedral church; they should be convinced that the principal manifestation of the Church is had in the plenary and active participation of the entire holy people of God in these same liturgical celebrations, espe-cially in the same Eucharist in a single prayer at one altar where the bishop presides surrounded by his college of priests and by his ministers.~ 42. Since the bishop cannot always and everywhere preside in person over the entire flock in his church, he is obliged to establish groupings of the faithful; among these groups parishes organized locally under a pastor acting in the place of the bishop hold the preeminent place, for in some way they represent the visible Church as it is con-stituted throughout the world. Hence, the liturgical life of the parish and its relation-ship to the bishop is to be fostered in the thought and practice of laity and clergy; and effort should be made to develop a parish sense of community, especially in the common celebration of Sunday Mass. V. Promotion of Pastoral Liturgical Action 43. Eagerness for the promotion and renewal of the sacred liturgy is rightly regarded as a sign o1~ the provi-dential plans of God for our age, as a movement of the Holy Spirit in His Church; it is a distinguishing mark that characterizes the life of the Church as well as the general religious mood in which our times think and act. Accordingly, to give greater encouragement to this pastoral liturgical action, the Council decrees the follow-ing. 44. It is desirable that the competent territorial ec-clesiastical authority mentioned in article 22, § 2 set up a liturgical commission to be assisted by experts in liturgy, music, sacred art, and pastoral practice. As far as it is possible, this commission should be aided by some kind of institute of pastoral liturgy composed of members eminent in these matters, and not excluding laymen if circum-stances warrant. Under the leadership of the territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above, it will be the ~ See St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magnesianos, 7; Ad Philadelphe-nos, 4; ,4d Smyrnaeos, 8; Patres apostolici, F. X. Funk, ed. (Tiibingen: H. Laupp, 1901), v. 1, pp. 236, 266, 281. ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS duty of this commission to regulate pastoral liturgical action in its territory and to promote the research and the necessary experimentations whenever there is question of adaptations to be proposed to the Apostolic See. 45. In the same way there should be had in each dio-cese a commission of sacred liturgy to promote liturgical action under the direction of the bishop. At times it may be expedient for several dioceses to set: up a single commission to foster liturgical matters by com-mon consultation. 46. In addition to the commission on sacred liturgy, each diocese should also set up, as far as possible, a com-mission on sacred music and one on sacred art. It is necessary that these three commissions work to-gether in close collaboration; indeed it will frequently be best to join the three into a single commission. CHAPTER II THE SACRED MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST 47. At the Last Supper on the night He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood by which He perpetuated the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until He should come again; thereby He entrusted to the Church, His dearly beloved Bride, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacra-ment of holiness, a sign of unity, a bond of charity,3e a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.aT 48. Accordingly, the Church is greatly concerned that the faithful should not be present at this mystery of faith as though they were strangers or mute onlookers; rather, she desires that through a good understanding of the rites and prayers, they take an intelligent, devout, and active part in the sacred action. She wants them to be instructed by the word of God and nourished at the table of the Lord's Body. Her wish is that they give thanks to God and that they learn to offer themselves by offering the spotless Victim not only through the hands of the priest but also together with him. She wishes that through Christ the Mediatoras they should day by day be perfected in union with God and among themselves so that finally God may be all in all. 49. Having in mind the Masses celebrated in the pres-ence of the people especially on Sundays and holydays of ~ See St. Augustine, In loannis evangelium tractatus, XXVI, c. 6, n. 13; P.L., v. 35, col. 1613. ~ Roman Breviary, Magnificat Antiphon of Second Vespers of Corpus Christi. ~ See St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarium in Ioannis evan-gelium, bk. 11, cc. 11-2; P.G., v. 74, col. 557--64. obligation, the Council has enacted the following decrees in order that the Sacrifice of the Mass may attain its full pastoral efficacy even in the form of its ceremonies. 50. The Mass rite is to be revised in such a way that there will be a clearer manifestation of the characteristic nature of its individual parts as well as of their mutual relationship so that a devout and active participation of the faithful will be made easier. Therefore, the ceremonies are to be made simpler, though their substance is to be carefully preserved; parts which have been duplicated in the course of time or were added to no great advantage are to be omitted; and, to the extent that it seems useful or necessary, there should be a restoration in accord with the ancient norms of the holy fathers of elements which fell into disuse through accidents of history. 51. In order that the table of the word of God be spread more plentifully for the faithful, the treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more fully so that during a pre-scribed number of years the more important parts of the Sacred Scriptures are read to the people. 52. Since it is a part of the liturgy, there should be great esteem for the homily by which in the course of the liturgi-cal year the mysteries of faith and the norms of Christian life are expounded from the sacred text. In fact, at con-gregational Masses on Sundays and holydays of obligation, the homily is not to be omitted except for a serious reason. 53. The "common prayer" or the "prayer of the faith-ful" is to be restored after the Gospel and homily, espe-cially on Sundays and holydays of obligation. In this way petitions in which the faithful participate will be made for the Church, for civil authorities, for those oppressed by various needs, and for all men and the salvation of the entire world,ao 54. In Masses celebrated with the people a fitting place should be found for the vernacular, especially in the Readings and the "common prayer" and also, as local conditions allow, for those parts which pertain to the people in accordance with the norm of article 36 of this Constitution. Nevertheless, measures should be taken to see to it that the faithful are able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them. Wherever a greater use of the vernacular seems to be de-sirable, the prescription of article 40 of this Constitution is to be observed. 55. High esteem should be given to that more complete participation in the Mass by which the faithful, after the priest's Communion, receive the Lord's Body from the same sacrifice. "See 1 Tim 2:1-2. ÷ + ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 Though the dogmatic principles enunciated by the Council of Trent remain intact,40 Communion under both species can be given to clerics, religious, and lay people in cases to be specified by the Apostolic See and when the bishops judge it wise. Examples of such cases are: To the ordained at the Mass of their ordination; to the professed at the Mass of their religious profession; to the newly baptized at the Mass which follows their baptism. 56. The two parts of which the Mass in a sense is com-posed, namely, the liturgy of the word and the Eucharistic liturgy, are so closely interrelated that they form but a single act of worship. Hence, this Synod strongly urges pastors of souls, when giving instructions, to be zealous in teaching the faithful to take their part in the entire Mass especially on Sundays and holydays of obligation. 57. § 1. Concelebration, by which the unity of the priest-hood is appropriately manifested, has remained in use even up to the present time in both the East and the West. Hence, the Council has decided to extend the permission to concelebrate to the following cases: 1 ° a) On the Thursday of the Lord's Supper both at the Mass of Chrism and at the evening Mass; b) at Masses during councils, bishops' conferences, and synods; c) at the Mass for the blessing of an abbot. 2° Also, with the permission of the ordinary to whom it belongs to judge of the opportuneness of concelebra-tion: a) at conventual Mass and at the principal Mass in churches when the welfare of the faithful does not require the individual celebration of all the priests present; b) at Masses during any kind of meetings of priests, whether diocesan or regular. § 2, 1 ° It belongs to the bishop to regulate in his diocese the discipline of concelebration. 2° But each priest will always retain his right to cele-brate his Mass individually, but not at the same time and in the same church [of concelebration] nor on the Thurs-day of the Lord's Supper. 58. A new rite for concelebration is to be composed and inserted in the Pontifical and the Roman Missal. CHAPTER Ill THE OTHER SACRAMENTS AND THE ++ SACRAMENTALS ÷ 59. The purpose of the sacraments is to make men holy, to build up the Body of Christ, and finally to give worship Vatican Council REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 576 '*Twenty-first Session, July 16, 1562, Doctrine on Communion under Both Species and on the Communion of Children, cc. 1-3; Conciliura Tridentinum: Diariorum, actorum, epistolarum, tracta-tuum nova collectio, ed. by the G6rres Society, t. 8 (Freiburg: Herder, 1919), pp. 698-9. to God; and because they are signs they also give instruc-tion. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it; hence, they are called sacraments of faith. They confer grace; but in addition the act of celebrating them very effectively disposes the faithful to receive that grace in a fruitful way, to worship God properly, and to practice charity. Hence, it is of the greatest importance that the faithful easily understand the sacramental signs and that they should frequent with the greatest eagerness those sacra-ments which were instituted to nourish the Christian life. 60. The Church, moreover, has instituted sacramentals. These are sacred signs having some resemblance to the sacraments by which effects, especially those of a spiritual nature, are signified and obtained through the Church's impetration. Through the sacramentals men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and the vari-ous occasions of life are sanctified. 61. Accordingly, in the case of the faithful who are well disposed, the liturgy of the sacraments and of the sacra-mentals brings it about that almost every event in life is made holy by the grace flowing from the paschal mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ from whom all the sacraments and the sacramentals derive their power; and there is scarcely no proper use of material things which cannot be directed to the purpose of making men holy and of praising God. 62. In the course of time, however, some things have crept into the rites of the sacraments and of the sacra-mentals by which their nature and purpose are obscured for our times. Hence, it is necessary that some things in them be accommodated to the needs of our age. Accord-ingly, the Council makes the following decrees with regard to their revision. 63. Since it can frequently be very advantageous to use the vernacular in the administration of the sacraments and of the sacramentals, a greater place should be allowed for this in accord with the following norms: a) In the administration o1: the sacraments and of the sacramentals, the vernacular can be used in accord with the norm of article 36. b) As soon as possible, the competent territorial ec-clesiastical authority mentioned in article 22, § 2 should prepare local rituals in accord with the new edition of the Roman Ritual but adapted to the needs of individual re-gions, including language needs; when these have been examined by the Apostolic See, they are to be used in the regions for which they were prepared. In composing these rituals or special collections of rites, there should not be omitted the instructions given in the Roman Ritual at Liturgy VOLUME 2~ 1964 ÷ ÷ ÷ Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the beginning of each rite, whether these be pastoral and rubrical or whether they have a special social import. 64. The catechumenate for adults divided into several distinct steps is to be restored and put into use at the dis-cretion of the local ordinary; in this way, the period of the catechumenate intended as it is to secure proper instruc-tion can be sanctified by sacred rites performed at succes-sive times. 65. In mission territories, to the elements contained in the Christian tradition there may also be added the initia-tion elements in use among each people to the extent that these can be adapted to the Christian rite and are in ac-cord with articles 37-40 of this Constitution. 66. Both rites for the baptism of adults are to be re-vised, not only the simpler one but also the more solemn one because of the restoration of the catechumenate; and a special Mass "For the Conferring of Baptism" is to be inserted in the Roman Missal. 67. The rite for the baptism of infants is to be revised and adapted to the actual condition of infants; the parts of the parents and of the godparents as well as their duties are to be brought out more clearly in the rite itself. 68. In the rite of baptism there should be included adaptations to be used at the discretion of the local ordi-nary when there is a large number to be baptized. There should also be drawn up a shorter Ordo which, in the absence of a priest or a deacon, can be used by catechists, especially in mission territories, and by the faithful gen-eraIIy when there is danger of death. 69. In place of the rite which is called the "Way of Supplying What Was Omitted in the Baptism of an In-fant," a new one should be made in which it is more clearly and suitably indicated that an infant baptized with the short rite has already been admitted into the Church. Similarly, for the case of converts to Catholicism who have already been validly baptized, there should be drawn up a new rite in which it is indicated that they are being admitted to communion with the Church. 70. Outside of paschal time, baptismal water can be blessed in the very rite of baptism by an approved, shorter form. 71. The rite of confirmation is also to be revised so that the intimate relationship of this sacrament with the whole of Christian initiation may appear in a clearer light; ac-cordingly, the renewal of the baptismal promises should fittingly precede the reception of this sacrament. When convenient, confirmation can be conferred during Mass; with regard to the rite outside of Mass, there should be prepared a formula to serve as an introduction. 72. The rite and formulas of penance should be re- vised in such a way that they bring out more clearly the nature and effect of the sacrament. 73. "Extreme unction," which may also and more fit-tingly be called the "anointing of the sick," is not a sacra-ment intended only for those who are at the point of death; hence, the appropriate time for receiving it is al-ready certainly present when anyone of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age. 74. In addition to separate rites for the anointing of the sick and for Viaticum, there should be drawn up a con-tinuous rite in which the anointing is given after confes-sion and before the reception of Viaticum. 75. The number of anointings should be accommo-dated to the occasion; and the prayers belonging to the rite of the anointing of the sick should be revised in such a way that they correspond to the varying conditions of the sick persons who receive the sacrament. 76. Both the ceremonies and the texts of the ordination rites are to be revised. The addresses given by the bishop at the beginning of each ordination or consecration can be made in the vernacular. At the consecration of a bishop the imposition of hands may be done by all the bishops present. 77. The rite for celebrating matrimony as it presently exists in the Roman .Ritual is to be revised and enriched so that the grace of the sacrament is more clearly indicated and the duties of the couple emphasized. "If any regions use other praiseworthy customs and ceremonies in the celebration of the sacrament of matri-mony, this Synod earnestly desires that they be re-tained." 41 Moreover, the competent territorial ecclesiastical au-thority mentioned in article 22, § 2 of this Constitution is free, in accord with the norm of article 63, to compose its own rite adapted to the usages of places and peoples; but the law should remain intact that the assisting priest should ask and obtain the consent of the contracting par-ties. 78. As a rule matrimony is to be celebrated during Mass after the reading of the Gospel and the homily but before the "prayer of the faithful." The prayer for the bride, which should be suitably amended to stress the equal obligation that both spouses have of mutual fidelity, can be said in the vernacular. If, however, the sacrament of matrimony is celebrated outside of Mass, the Epistle and the Gospel of the nuptial ,x Council of Trent, Twenty-fourth Session, November 11, 1563, On Reform, c. 1; Concilium Tridentinum: Diariorum, actorum, episto-larum, tractatuum nova collectio, ed. by the Gbrres Society, t. 9 (Frei-burg: Herder, 1924), p. 969. See also Rituale Romanum, tit. VIII, c. II, n. 6. Liturgy VOLUME 2.~, 1964 579 + ÷ ÷ Vatican Council 11 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 580 Mass are to be read at the beginning of the rite; and the blessing is always to be given to the spouses. 79. The sacramentals are to be revised, regard being had for the primary norm of an intelligent, active, and easy participation of the faithful and for the needs of our time. In the revision of rituals in accord with the norm of article 63, there may also be added new sacramentals as necessity may require. Reserved blessings should be very few in number and be made only in favoi- of bishops and ordinaries. Provision should be made that some sacramentals at least in special circumstances and at the discretion of the ordinary can be administered by qualified lay persons. 80. The rite of the consecration of virgins contained in the Roman Pontifical should be subjected to revision. Moreover, a rite for religious profession and for renewal of vows should be drawn up in order to achieve greater unity, moderation, and dignity; apart from any exception granted by particular law, this rite is to be used by those who make their profession or renewal of vows during Mass. Religious profession will laudably be made during Mass. 81. Funeral rites should give a clearer expression to the paschal quality of Christian death; they should also be better adapted---even from the viewpoint of the liturgical color used--to the circumstances and traditions of indi-vidual regions. 82. The rite for the burial of infants is to be revised and given a special Mass of its own. CHAPTER IV THE DIVINE OFFICE 83. When Christ Jesus, the High Priest of the new and eternal covenant, assumed human nature, He introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung in the heavenly dwelling places throughout all the ages. By joining to Himself the entire human community, He as-sociates it with Himself in the singing of this divine song of praise. He continues this priestly work through His Church which ceaselessly praises the Lord and intercedes for the salvation of the entire world not only by celebrating the Eucharist but also in other ways, especially by praying the Divine Office. 84. As is known from ancient Christian tradition, the Divine Office is so arranged that the entire course of day and night is made holy by the praise of God. When this wonderful .song of praise is fittingly performed by priests and other persons deputed for this purpose by the Church's enactment or by the faithful praying together with the priest according to the approved form, then it is truly the voice of the Bride speaking to her Spouse; what is more, it is the prayer o[ Christ with His Body to the Father. 85. Hence, all those who carry out this work are [ul-filling a duty of the Church and share in the highest honor of the Bride of Christ, because as they offer these praises to God they stand before His throne in the name of the Church. 86. Priests engaged in the pastoral ministry will offer the praises of the Hours with greater [ervor i[ they have a more vivd realization that they must heed the warning of Paul: "Pray without ceasing" (1 Th 5:17); the work in which they are engaged is such that effectiveness and pro-ductiveness can be given it only by the Lord who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). It was for this reason that the Apostles, when instituting the deacons, said: "We shall devote ourselves completely to prayer and the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4). 87. In order that the Divine Office be better and more per[ectly per[ormed by priests and other members of the Church, this Council, continuing the renewal so happily begun by the Apostolic See, has made the following decrees with regard to the Office of the Roman rite. 88. Since the purpose of the Office is to sanctify the day, the traditional sequence of the Hours is to be restored in such a way that as far as possible an actual time of day corresponds to the Hours; at the same time account must be taken of the circumstances of modern life which espe-cially affect those engaged in apostolic work. 89. Hence in the renewal of the Office, the following norms are to be observed: a) Since, according to the venerable tradition of the entire Church, Lauds, the prayer of morning, and Vespers, the prayer of evening, constitute the two hinges o[ the daily Otfice, they are to be regarded and celebrated as the principal Hours; b) Compline is to be so composed that it fits in with the end of the day; c) Matins, although in choir it is to retain the char-acter of night praise, is to be so adapted that it can be recited at any hour of the day; and it is to consist of fewer Psalms and longer Readings; d) The Hour of Prime is to be suppressed. e) In choir the Little Hours of Terce, Sext, and None are to be retained. Outside of choir it is permitted to choose the one of the three which best corresponds to the time o[ the day. 90. Furthermore, since the Divine Office as the public prayer of the Church is a source of holiness and a nourish-ment for personal prayer, priests and all others who take part in the Divine Office are earnestly exhorted in the Lord to attune their minds to the words they utter when ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 581 4. 4. 4. Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~8~ performing it; to achieve this in a better way, they should secure for themselves a better background in the liturgy and the Bible, especially the Psalms. In continuing this renewal, the venerable treasures of the Roman Office are to be so adapted that those to whom it is entrusted can more easily draw greater profit from it. 91. In order that the sequence of Hours mentioned in article 89 can really be observed, the Psalms should no longer be spread throughout a single week but over a longer period of time. The work of revising the Psalter, already happily begun, should be finished as soon as possible and should take into account the style of Christian Latin, the liturgical use of the Psalms (chant included), and the entire tradition of the Latin Church. 92. The following are to be observed with regard to the Readings: a) Readings from Sacred Scripture are to be so ar-ranged that the riches of the divine word may be easily accessible in a more abundant way; b) Readings to be taken from the works of the fathers, doctors, and ecclesiastical writers should be better selected; c) Accounts of martyrdom and the lives of the saints are to be in accord with historical fact. 93. As far as it is useful, the hymns should be restored to their original form; and whatever savors of mythology or is unsuited to Christian attitudes should be removed. As occasion offers, other selections may be made from the treasury of hymns. 94. In order that the day may be truly sanctified and that the Hours themselves be recited to spiritual advan-tage, it is preferable that the Hours be recited at the time which best corresponds to each canonical Hour. 95. Communities obliged to choir, in addition to the conventual Mass, are bound to celebrate the Office each day in choir. In particular: a) Orders of canons, monks and nuns, and of other regulars bound to choir by law or by their constitutions must recite the entire Office; b) Cathedral or collegiate chapters must recite those parts to which they are bound by general or particular law; c) All members of the above communities who are either in major orders or solemnly professed (with the ex-ception of lay brothers) are bound to recite individually those canonical Hours which they do not pray in choir. 96. Clerics in major orders who are not bound to choir are obliged to recite the Office daily either in common or individually according to the norm of article 89. 97. The rubrics should specify those times when a litur-gical service may be fittingly substituted for the Divine Office. In individual cases and for a good reason, ordinaries can dispense their subjects, wholly or in part, from the obligation of reciting the Office or they can commute it. 98. Members of any institute of the state of perfection who recite any part of the Divine Office by reason of their constitutions are performing the public prayer of the Church. The public prayer of the Church is likewise performed by those who by reason of their constitutions recite any Short Office provided it is composed after the pattern of the Divine Office and has been duly approved. 99. Since the Divine Office is the voice of the Church, that is, of the whole Mystical Body, as it publicly praises God, it is recommended that clerics not bound to choir and especially priests who live together or when meeting together should pray in common at least some part of the Divine Office. All who pray the Office either in choir or in common should perform the task entrusted to them as perfectly as possible with regard both to internal devotion of soul and to their external way of acting. Moreover, it is better that the Office when done in choir or in common be sung, according to the possibility o~ the occasion. 100. Pastors of souls are to see toit that the principal Hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in churches on Sundays and the more solemn feast days. It is recommended that lay persons also recite the Divine Office, either with priests or in common by themselves or individually. 101. § 1. According to the age-long tradition of the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the Divine Office. But power is given to the ordinary to allow in individual cases the use of a vernacular trans-lation (made according to the norm 6f article 36) to those clerics [or whom the use of the Latin language is a serious hindrance to a worthy praying o[ the Office. § 2. In the celebration of the Divine Office even in choir, nuns and members (whether non-clerical or women) of institutes of the states of perfection can be granted by the competent superior the use of the vernacular provided that the translation is an approved one. § 3. Provided that the translation is an approved one, any cleric bound to the Divine Office fulfills his obligation if he recites it in the vernacular with a group of the faith-ful or with those mentioned directly above in § 2. + ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 583 + + Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS CHAPTER V THE LITURGICAL YEAR 102. The Church regards it as her duty to celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse by devoutly recalling it on certain days throughout the year. Each week on the day she has called the Lord's Day, she keeps the memory of the Lord's Resurrection which, together with His Pas-sion, she also celebrates once a year by the great solemnity of Easter. Moreover, during the cycle of the year she unfolds the entire mystery of Christ from His incarnation and birth to His ascension and the day of Pentecost and to the awaited day of fulfilled hope and of the coming of the Lord. By thus recalling the mysteries of the redemption, she opens up to the faithful the riches of her Lord's power and merits. In some way they thus become present at all times, and the faithful, by contact with them, are filled with grace. 103. In this annual cycle of the mysteries of Christ, the Church gives special honor and love to Blessed Mary, the Mother of God, who is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of her Son; in her the Church admires and extols the surpassing fruit of the redemption and joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless image, what she herself de-sires and hopes wholly to be. 10a,. In the annual cycle the Church has also inserted commemorations of the martyrs and of other saints who, having been brought to perfection by the multiform grace of God, have already reached everlasting salvation in heaven where they hymn the perfect praise of God and intercede for us. In celebrating the entrance of the saints into eternal salvation, the Church proclaims the paschal mystery as it is achieved in these holy persons who have suffered and been glorified with Christ. She proposes the saints to the faithful as examples who draw all men to come to the .Father through Christ, and through their merits she pleads for God's benefits. 105. Finally, during the different times of the year ac-cording to her traditional discipline, the Church com-pletes the formation of the faithful by means of pious practices for both soul and body and by instruction, prayer, and works of penance and mercy. Wherefore, this Council has decided to make the follow-ing decrees. 106. By an apostolic tradition that took its origin from the very day of the Resurrection of Christ, the paschal mystery is celebrated by the Church on every eighth day. This day is rightly called the Lord's Day or Sunday; for on it the faithful should come together in a body to hear the word of God, to share in the Eucharist, to recall the passion, resurrection, and glory of the Lord Jesus, and to give thanks to God by whom they have been "born again into a life of real hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pt 1:3). Hence, Sunday is the original feast day which is to be proposed and emphasized to the faithful in such a way that it may become in reality a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations, unless they truly be of the greatest importance, are not to have precedence over Sunday, for the latter is the founda-tion and center core of the entire liturgical year. 107. The liturgical year is to be revised so that the tra-ditional customs and discipline of the sacred seasons are preserved or restored in accord with the conditions of our times. Their characteristic quality is to be retained in or-der to give the proper nourishment to the piety of the faithful as they celebrate the mysteries of the Christian redemption, especially the paschal mystery. In cases where adaptations are needed because of local conditions, these should be made according to the norm given in articles 39 and 40. 108. The minds of the faithful should be directed pri-marily to the feast days of our Lord in which the mysteries of salvation are celebrated throughout the year. Accord-ingly, the Proper of the Time is to retain its rightful prece-dence over the feasts of the saints so that the entire cycle of the mysteries of salvation may be duly recalled. 109. Both in the liturgy and in liturgical instructions, greater consideration is to be given to the twofold nature of the season of Lent which, by recalling or preparing for baptism and by penance, disposes the faithful for the cele-bration of the paschal mystery by having them devote themselves more earnestly to the hearing of the word of God to prayer. Accordingly: a) The characteristic baptismal elements of the Lenten liturgy are to be used to a greater degree; certain of these which come from an earlier tradition are to be restored as may seem good. b) The same thing is true with regard to the peni-tential elements. In instructions, besides pointing out the social consequences of sin, there is to be impressed on the minds of the faithful the proper nature of penance which detests sin as an offense against God; the place of the Church in penitential activity is not to be neglected, and prayer for sinners should be insisted on. 110. The penance of the season of Lent should not only be internal and individual but also external and social. The authorities mentioned in article 22 should encourage and recommend penitential practices in accord with what is possible in our times and in different regions and with the circumstances of the faithful. But the paschal fast is to be kept sacred and is to be ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 585 ÷ ÷ ÷ Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 586 celebrated everywhere on Good Friday and extended, where possible, to Holy Saturday so that the joys of Easter Sunday may be attained with an uplifted and clear mind. 111. According to the tradition in the Church the saints are honored and their authentic relics and images are held in veneration. The feasts of the saints proclaim the wonderful works of Christ in His servants, and they pro-vide the faithful with fitting examples for imitation. Lest the feasts of saints take precedence over the feasts which recall the mysteries of salvation, many of them should be left to be celebrated by individual churches, nations, or religious families; and only those feasts should be extended to the entire Church which commemorate saints who can truly be said to be of universal importance. CHAPTER VI SACRED MUSIC 112. The musical tradition of the universal Church con-stitutes a precious treasure which is greater than the ex-pressions of the other arts chiefly because sacred song, since it is joined to words, forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy. Indeed, the greatness of sacred song has been praised by Sacred Scripture42 and by the holy fathers and the Roman Pontiffs who in recent times, beginning with Pius X, have clearly explained the functional role of sacred music in the service of the Lord. Accordingly, the holier will sacred music be, the more closely it is linked with lit.urgical action, whether by adding delight to prayer or by fostering unity of minds or by enriching the sacred rites with a greater solemnity. Moreover, the Church approves all forms of true art which have the required qualities and admits them into divine worship. Hence, keeping in mind the norms and precepts of ec-clesiastical tradition and discipline and considering the purpose of sacred music which is the glory of God and the sanctification of men, this Council has made the following enactments. ll3. Liturgical action receives a nobler form when the divine functions are solemnly celebrated with song and with the assistance of sacred ministers and the active par-ticipation of the faithful. With regard to the language to be used, the provisions of article 36 are to be observed; with regard to Mass, those of article 54; with regard to the sacraments, those of article 63; and with regard to the Divine Office, those of article 101. 114. Great care is to be taken to guard and increase the 4-"See Eph 5:19; Col 3:16. riches of sacred music. Choirs should be tirelessly pro-moted, especially in cathedral churches. Bishops and other pastors of souls should zealously see to it that when a sacred action is to be performed with song the entire con-gregation of the faithful is able to contribute their proper active participation in accord with the norm of articles 28 and 30. 115. Great importance is to be attached to the teaching and practice of music in seminaries, in novitiates and houses of studies of both men and women religious, as well as in other Catholic institutions and schools; to achieve this formation, the teachers in charge of teaching sacred music are to be carefully trained. It is recommended that higher institutes for sacred mu-sic be established as the opportunity offers. Composers and singers, especially boys, are also to be given a truly liturgical formation. llfi. The Church recognizes Gregorian chant as spe-cially suited to the Roman liturgy; accordingly, other things being equal, it should be given the principal place in liturgical ceremonies. However, other kinds of sacred music, especially polyph-ony, are in no way excluded from the celebration of the divine functions so long as they are in harmony with the spirit of liturgical action according to the norm given in article 30. 117. The normative edition of the books of Gregorian chant is to be completed; moreover, there should be pre-pared more critical editions of the books already published since the restoration of St. Pius X. It is also desirable that an edition be prepared consisting of simpler melodies for use in smaller churches. 118. Religious singing by the people is to be encouraged in an intelligent way so that the voices of the faithful can ring out in sacred and devotional services as well as in liturgical actions according to the norms and precepts of the rubrics. 119. Since in certain regions, especially in mission terri-tory, there are people who have their own characteristic musical tradition which is of greatlimportance in their re-ligious and social life, due esteerri is to be given to this musac and a statable place ,s to be g, ven to ~t both m shap-ing their religious outlook as welllas in adapting worship to their native genius as indicatedl!n articles 39 and 40. Hence, diligent care should be t.aken in the musical for-mation of missionaries so that, as far as possible, they will be able to foster the traditions of music of their people both in the schools and in the sacred services. 120. In the Latin church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem as the traditional musical instrument, the music of which is able to add notable distinction to the Liturffy VOLUME ~87 Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Church's ser¢ices and to be a powerful means of raising men's minds to God and higher things. But at the discretion and consent of the competent ter-ritorial authority as stipulated in articles 22, § 2; 37; and 40, others instruments may be permitted in divine worship insofar as they are or can be made suitable for sacred use, are in harmony with the dignity of churches, and really contribute to the edification of the faithful. 121. Musical composers who are imbued with the Christian spirit should regard themselves as called to cul-tivate sacred music and to increase its riches. They should, however, produce compositions which have the qualities of genuine sacred music, which can be sung not only by large choirs but also by smaller ones, and which encourage the active participation of the whole con-gregation of the faithful. The texts intended to be sung are to be conformed to Catholic doctrine and for the most part are to be drawn from Sacred Scripture and from liturgical sources. CHAPTER. VII SACRED ART AND SACRED FURNISHINGS 122. The fine arts are rightly ranked among the noblest activities of human genius; this is especially true with re-gard to religious art and its highest form which is sacred art. These arts of their nature are directed to the infinite divine beauty to he expressed in some way by human works. They are the more closely bound to God and His praise and glory to the extent that their only intent is to achieve the aim of helping men to turn thir minds de-voutly to God. Accordingly, the Church has always been a friend of the fine arts; she has consistently sought their noble service and has trained artists for the special objective that the things pertaining to divine worship, as signs and symbols of supernatural realities, might be truly worthy, becoming, and beautiful. Moreover, the Church has always regarded herself as a judge of the arts, discerning among the works of artists those which were in harmony with faith, devo-tion, and traditional religious norms and were to be con-sidered as suitable for sacred use. The Church has been particularly careful that the sacred furnishings should serve the dignity of worship in a worthy and beautiful way. She has admitted the changes in material, style, and ornamentation which were intro-duced in the course of time by the progress of technical art. Hence it has pleased the fathers to make the following decrees concerning these matters. 123. The Church has not regarded any one style of art as peculiarly its one, but has admitted the styles of all ages according to the natural talents and circumstances of peoples and the needs of various rites; and thus she has created through the course of centuries a treasury of art which must be preserved with great care. The art of our times and of all peoples is also to have free exercise in the Church on condition that it provides the sacred buildings and ceremonies with due reverence and honor. In this way it will be able to add its voice to that admirable chorus of praise sung in honor of the Catholic faith by great men of past ages. 124. Ordinaries should take care that in their fostering and encouragement of a truly sacred art, they seek for noble beauty rather than for sumptuous display. This also holds true with regard to sacred vestments and ornaments. Bishops should take care that the house of God and other holy places are kept free from the works of artists which are contrary to Christian faith, morality, and devo-tion and which offend the religious sense either because of their .depraved forms or because of the insufficiency, me-diocrity, or pretence of their art. When churches are built, diligent care should be taken that they are suitable for the celebration of the liturgical ceremonies and for the active participation of the faithful. 125. The practice should be maintained of placing sa-cred images in churches for the veneration of the faithful; nevertheless, their number should be moderate and they should be positioned in a fitting order so that they do not disturb the faithful nor foster devotion of doubtful ortho-doxy. 126. In judging works of art, local ordinaries should hear the opinion of the diocesan commission for sacred art and, if necessary, that of others who are experts as well as that of the commissions mentioned in articles 44, 45, and 46. Ordinaries should be vigilant to see that the sacred fur-nishings and valuable pieces of work are not alienated or destroyed, for they are the ornaments of the house ol~ God. 127. Bishops, either personally or through suitable priests gifted with a knowledge and love of art, should see to it that artists are imbued with the spirit of sacred art and of the sacred liturgy. It is also recommended that schools or academies of sacred art for the training of artists be established in those regions where it seems practical. All artists who, prompted by their talents, wish to serve the glory of God in the Church should always remember that they are engaged in a kind of sacred imitation of God the Creator for the edification of the faithful, for their piety, and for their religious formation. 128. Along with the revision of the liturgical books ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 589 Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~90 mentioned in article 25, there should also be, as soon as possible, a revision of the canons and ecclesiastical statutes concerned with the external things pertaining to sacred worship, especially those which treat of the fitting and well-pl.anned construction of churches; the form and con-struction of altars; the dignity, placement, and safety of the Eucharistic tabernacle; and the suitability of sacred images, embellishments, and decorations. Whatever fits in less well with the liturgical renewal should be amended or abolished; whatever favors it should be retained or intro-duced. In this matter, especially with regard to the material and form of sacred furnishings and vestments, power is given to territorial conferences of bishops in accord with the norm of article 22 of this Constitution to adapt matters to local necessities and customs. 129. During their philosophical and theological studies clerics are to be given training in the history and evolu-tion of sacred art as well as in the sound principles on which works of sacred art should be based; in this way they will be able to appreciate and preserve the Church's venerable monuments and to give advice to artists who are producing works of art. 130. It is fitting that the use of pontificals be reserved to those ecclesiastics who have episcopal rank or have some special jurisdiction. APPENDIX DECLARATION OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL ON CALENDAR REFORM This, the Second Vatican Council, recognizing the im-portance of the desire that many have to assign the feast of Easter to a fixed Sunday and to have an unchanging calendar, has carefully considered the results which could follow from the introduction of a new calendar and now makes the following declaration: 1. This Council is not opposed to assigning the feast of Easter to a fixed Sunday of the Gregorian calendar pro-vided those whom it concerns give their assent, especially the brethren who are not in communion with the Apos-tolic See. 2. This Council likewise declares that it does not oppose the projects directed toward introducing a perpetual cal-endar into civil society. However, of the various systems which are being elabo-rated for the establishment of a perpetual calendar and its introduction into civil society, only those are unop-posed by the Church which retain and safeguard a seven-day week with Sunday and without the introduction of any days outside the week so that the succession of weeks is kept intact, unless in the judgment of the Apostolic See there are extremely weighty reasons to the contrary. Each and every one ol the matters contained in this Con-stitution was decided by the lathers of this Council. And We, by the apostolic power given to Us by Christ, together with the venerable fathers, approve in the Holy Spirit, decree, enact, and order to be promulgated what has been decided in this Synod for the glory of God. Given at St. Peter's on December 4, 1963. 4- 4- 4- Liturgy VOLUME 23~ 1964 591 PAUL VI .Concerning the Constitu-, tion on the Liturgy ÷ ÷ ÷ Paul VI REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 592 APOSTOLIC LETTER GIVEN ON OUR OWN INITIATIVE DECREEING THAT CERTAIN PRESCRIPTIONS OF THE CONSTI-TUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY APPROVED BY THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL SHOULD BEGIN TO TAKE EFFECT. The* sacred liturgy and its diligent preservation, pro-motion, and, when necessary, renewal have always been a matter of great concern to the supreme pontiffs who have been Our predecessors, to Ourselves, and to the pastors of the Church. This is shown both by the great number of well-known documents that have already been published and by the Constitution on the matter which was unani-mously approved by the Second Vatican Council in a sol-emn session held on December 4 of the previous year and which We have ordered to be promulgated. This concern for the liturgy flows from this considera-tion: "In the liturgy of this earth we share in a foretaste of' that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem towards which we pilgrims are journeying and where Christ sits at the right hand of God as the minister of the holy things and of the true tabernacle; to-gether with all the troops of the heavenly army we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord; when we honor the memory of the saints, we hope for a share in fellowship with them; we wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until He our life will appear and we in turn will appear with Him in glory." 1 And so it happens that as the souls of the faithful give this worship to God, the principle and source of all holi-ness, they are drawn and as it were impelled to acquire ¯ The original Latin text, entitled Sacrara liturgiara, is given in dcta dpostolicae Sedis, v. 56 (1964), pp. 139--44. ¯ Constitution on the Liturgy, article 8. this holiness, thereby becoming during tiffs earthly pil-grimage "emulators of the heavenly Sion." -~ Hence, it is easy to see that in this matter there is noth-ing We desire more than that the faithful and especially priests should first make a profound study of the Consti-tution We have already mentioned and then form a firm resolution to carry out its prescriptions in a fully con-scientious way as soon as they go into effect. Since~ there-fore, from the nature of things the knowledge and divulga-tion of liturgical laws is a matter which should begin at once, We strongly exhort the heads of dioceses together with their sacred ministers, those dispensers of the mys-teries of God,z not to delay in seeing to it that the faithful entrusted to them, each according to his age, state of life, talent, and education, should come to realize the inner strength and power of the sacred liturgy and should de-voutly take part, both internally and externally, in the Church's rites.4 As is evident, there are many prescriptions of the Con-stitution that cannot be put into effect in a short time since before that can be done ceremonies must be revised and new liturgical books prepared. In order that this work may be done with the required intelligence and care, We are establishing a commission whose principal work will be to see to it that the prescriptions of the Co~stitution on the Liturgy are perfectly carried out. Nevertheless, among the norms of the Constitution there are some which can be made effective even now; it is Our wish, therefore, that they be put into execution without delay so that the souls of the faithful may not be further deprived ol~ the fruits of grace to be expected there-from. Therefore, by Our apostolic authority and on Our own initiative, We order and decree that from the coming First Sunday of Lent, that is, from February 16, of this year of 1964, the following matters are effective, the usual suspension period being waived. I) With regard to the prescriptions of articles 15, 16, and 17 concerning liturgical formation in seminaries, in schools of religious communities, and in theological facul-ties, We desire that programs of studies for these institu-tions be drawn up at once so that beginning with the com-ing academic year these prescriptions will be carried out in an orderly and careful way. II) We also decree thatin accord with the prescriptions of articles 45 and 46, there should be set up in each dio-cese a commission which under the supervision of the Hymn for Lauds on the feast of the dedication of a church. aSee 1 Cor 4:1. See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 19, + + ÷ The Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 593 ÷ ÷ ÷ Pbul VI REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 594 bishop will have the task of increasing knowledge of the liturgy and of protnoting it. With regard to this point, it will sometimes be desirable that several dioceses have a common commission. Furthermore, insofar as it is possible, every diocese should have two other commissions, one for sacred music, the other for sacred art. It will frequently be desirable in individual dioceses to unite these three commissions into a single one. III) We also put into effect from the date given above the obligation according to article 52 of having a homily at Mass on Sundays and holydays of obligation. IV) We prescribe that there should be put into immedi-ate effect that part of article 71 according to which the sacrament of confirmation, if desired, can be conferred within Mass after the reading of the Gospel and after the homily. V) With regard to article 78, the sacrament of matri-mony is ordinarily to be celebrated within Mass after the reading of the Gospel and the giving of the homily. If matrimony is celebrated outside of Mass, the follow-ing points are to be observed until a completely new cere-mony has been drawn up: at the beginning of this sacred rite, after a brief exhortation,'~ the Epistle and the Gospel of the nuptial Mass are to be read; then there should be given to the couple the blessing which is found in the Roman Ritual under Title 8, Chapter 3. VI) Although the Divine Office has not yet been re-vised and renewed in accordance with article 89, still to those who are not bound to choir We give permission, ef-fective without the usual waiting period, to omit the Hour of Prime and to choose from the Small Hours the one that best fits the time of day. While granting this, We are fully confident that the ministers of sacred things will not in any way relax their inner devotion; hence, if they diligently carry out the duties of their priestly office out of love for God alone, they can rightly be considered as spending the entire day with their minds joined to Him. VII) Also with regard to the Divine Office, in indi-vidual cases and for an adequate reason, ordinaries can dispense their subjects, wholly or in part, from the ob-ligation of reciting the Office or they can commute the obligation to another.6 VIII)-Once more with regard to the praying of the Di. vine Office, We declare that the members of any institute of religious perfection who .by reason ol~ their laws recite, any part of the Divine Office or a Short Office that is See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 35, § 3. See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 97. modeled on the Divine Office and has been duly approved are to be considered as publicly praying with the Church.~ IX) Since according to article 101 of the Constitution those who are bound to recite the Divine Office may be allowed in various ways permission to use the vernacular instead of Latin, We think it good to specify that the various vernacular translations are to be prepared and approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical au-thority in accord with the norm of article 36, §§ 3 and 4; what is done by this authority must be duly appi'oved or confirmed by the Apostolic See in accord with the same article 36, § 3. And We prescribe that this is always to be observed whenever a liturgical Latin text is translated into the vernacular by the legitimate authority We have already mentioned. X) Since according to the Constitution (article 22, § 2) the supervision of liturgical matters, within established limits, comes under the competency of various kinds of legitimately constituted territorial groupings of bishops, We decree that for the time being these are to be national groupings. In addition to residential bishops, all who are men-tioned in canon 292 of the Code of Canon Law have the right to be present and to vote at these national confer-ences; coadjutors and auxiliary bishops may also be called to them. In these conferences, legitimate passing of decrees re-quires a two-thirds majority of a secret vote. XI) Leaving now the matters pertaining to the liturgy which We have changed in this apostolic letter or have ordered to be done before the usual waiting period, We wish to note in conclusion that the direction of the sacred liturgy is within the competency of the Church alone; that is, within the competency of this Apostolic See, and, in accord with the norm of the law, of the bishops. Hence, no one else, not even a priest, is permitted to add, remove, or change anything with regard to liturgical matters,s We order that everything We have decreed in this motu proprio letter be held as valid and legal, all contrary things notwithstanding. Given in Rome at St. Peter's on January 25, 1964, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, in the first year of Our Pontificate. PAUL VI See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 98. See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 22, § 1, and article 2~,§ ~. The Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 595 PAUL J. BERNADICOU, s.j. Persons and the Religious Life Paul J. Bernadi-cou, S.J., is a mem-ber of Regis Col-lege; 3425 Bayview Avenue; Willow-dale, Ontario; Can-ada. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS If we come to understand the role 6f persons in Chris-tianity, we will be in a position to assess their role in the spirituality which underlies and motivates the religious life. For religious life is basically an intensified living of Christian spirituality. As such, it takes its shape and model--no matter what the varying emphases of the dif-ferent institutes--from the life and teaching of Christ our Lord. From authentic spirituality based on the teaching of Christ, therefore, we derive the charter for the proper place of persons in the life of a religious. The necessity to clarify so central a theme in the Christian life as the role of persons manifests the easy confusion to which man~ falls prey. Even in religious life, a life of the counsels dedi-cated to the closest possible following of Christ's own program ahd pattern of life, we can easily mistake the means for the end; we can forget to love persons in our endeavor to purify our love. Religious can become the victims of their formation and purification and as a result find themselves caught in a multiplicity of detailed rules and in an exactness of observance that deprive them of a clear view of the desired end of their way of life: to love people deeply, truly, and universally. We can too easily substitute our initial concern to apply the means and never arrive at the end. In a life as authority-centered and regulated as is that of a religious, scrupulous care for the disciplinary rules of the institute and a desire to please the ever-present superior may absorb the forefront of attention; we forget to relate and justify these means in the larger context of Christian spirituality: the love of persons. Or perhaps the needed purification by means of the self-imposed suffering of mortification and abnegation--now discovered for the first time--too fully occupies the mind! of a young religious: the stress on what he can and must do here and now to correct and improve his conduct as a professional Christian (that is, a religious). This together with a certain diffidence on the topic of love can become too permanent a state of mind. So a time of reevaluation must occur. The indoctrination in and emphasis on penance and prayer during the formative years are meant to lead one to a fuller and truer Christian love; they interiorize and actualize the life and vision of hith by helping one transcend his thoughtless and selfish fixation. But they are not ends in themselves: we must love persons--actually and genuinely--or cease to be our .vital, integral, devel-oping selves. And so the central role of persons and the topic of love, which in the early stages of one's formation are frequently considered too fraught with the possibility of self-deception and of a casual approach to celibacy, must be reinvestigated, then reintegrated into the domi-nant focus of spirituality. The New Testament, the authoritative document for Christian spirituality, attests the indispensable role of persons in the Christian life. From beginning to end, the New Testament unites the two commandments of the Old Law (love of God and love of neighbor) into the single commandment of the New Law: love for the hu-man person. This in fact is the form of the new command-ment given us by Christ. Thus St. Paul makes love of one's fellowman--bearing "the burdens of one another's fail-ing"-- the fulfillment of the law of Christ (Gal 6:9). And for St. John charity--love one for another--is the unique command given us by the Lord (2 Jn 5). In the Christian scheme of life, "If a man boasts of loving God, while he hates his own brother, he is a liar. He has seen his brother, and has no love for him; what love can he have for the God he has never seen?" (1 Jn 4:20). In the New Law, hu-man persons and interpersonal concern take on an in-estimably richer, supernatural significance for man. When Christ united the two commandments of the Old Law and placed their full realization in our super-natural love for human persons, He did not remove "one jot or flourish" from that law (Mt. 5:18). His new com-mandment is not a deletion or betrayal, it is a fulfillment (Mr 5:7 ft.). For He came as the truth teaching us more surely the way to the more abundant life (Jn 14:6; 10:10). In this respect, He has inaugurated a new age and a new covenant merited for us by His sacrifice on our behalf (2 Cor 5:15 ft.). His sacrificial death has founded the new community foretold by the prophets (Rom 1:2 ft.). This new community born in the Spirit raises the human per-son and human dialogue to a participation in God's own life and supernatural creativity (see 1 Cor 2 and 12). The new, undeserved, incomparably richer dignity ~rso~s VOLUME 2)~ 1964 ÷ ÷ ÷ P. ]. Bemadicou, S. 1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS which Christ has won for the human person was the wofl~ of His love-motivated incarnation (Phil 2:5 ft.). In this mystery of love which we will never fully fathom or sui[i-ciently appreciate, Christ joined both God and man and thus made feasible the fusion in His person of ~the two commandments of the Old Law. For He has told us that if we know Him, we also know and love the Father (Jn 14:7 ft.). And Christ we tome to know and love in our brother. In an unsearchable depth of wisdom and love that is His as the Son of God, Christ has chosen to identify Himself with the human person of our fellowman, par-ticularly if he be in need: "Believe me, when you did it to one of the least of my brethren here, you did it to me" (Mr 25:40). Precisely in this mysterious union of man and God we discover the awesome dignity of the human person: each person mediates Christ to us. This is a focal revelation in the new age founded by Christ. It is, therefore, by loving our fellowman--so Christ has willed-that we respond to the love of the God who has first loved us (1 Jn 3:16; 4:19). Appropriately, we return God's love by loving our neighbor in need. In our empti-ness, in our very non-existence, it was through our fellow, man that God first called us into existence and expressed His intent to love us forever. Through our family and larger social ties, God brought us into life, cared for us, raised us to the stature of men, and even presently in., structs and exercises us in His mysteries of love whicix are the earthly foreshadow of our heavenly glory. In par-ent, teacher, priest, friend, associates, and superior, God. daily expresses His love and leads us to Himself and the happiness of total friendship. By our most intimate hu-man contacts and friendships, God would entice us to the depth and durability of His friendship. We Christians and especially we religious are a chosen people--not of course by our own merit since He chose~ us before ever we chose Him (Jn 15:16). We have received the very best our fellowman could give us--the good news of Jesus Christ in its entirety. However inadequately we may have been taught or loved, we are the undeserving recipients of an insight into the ways of God and into the glorious destiny of the human person. And we have re-ceived these greatest of earthly gifts through the instru-mentality of our fellowman. Fittingly do we make our return of love for this great largess by our recognition of God's presence in the human family which has conveyed it to us. Beyond our most wishful dream or expectation, the human person is the giver of life to us. And so the unique dignity and inmost reality of each person is that he is Christ for us. Our habitual capacity to live this insight--though we cannot hope to fully com-prehend its rich import--is the measure of the Christian conviction within us. It is, in fact, according to this stand-ard that Christ our exemplar will judge us: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit down upon the throne of his glory., and he will divide men one from the other . Then the king will say to those on his right hand, 'Come, you that have received a blessing from my Father, take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food, thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you brought me home, naked, and you clothed me, sick, and you cared for me, a prisoner, and you came to me' (Mt 25:31-6). If we take Christ as seriously and committedly as He means to be taken, we will endeavor to increase our re-spect and reverence for each person since each has the potential to be an unique epiphany of Christ among us. Our hope and effort as representatives of Christ's causeb no matter what the form of our apostolate, whether con-templative or active--will be directed towards encour-aging each person we meet to achieve his full stature and self as a person: to mirror forth his never-to-be-repeated image and trait of Christ. We love each person not merely from a motive of loving Christ or His law, as if the true worth of a human person were found in a consideration extrinsic to his real sell:. No. In each person we love or would love the quality, the mark of his deepest, most genuine self: his capacity to show forth Christ in a way that no other can. In the Christian view of man, this is the authentic self of the hu-man person; for we live in the new age of the Spirit merited for us by Christ in which man has the inestimable call to be a member of His Mystical Body. The effect of our love enters more deeply into another than mutual encouragement and kindness. It is stronger and more curative than any balm we might pour into the wounds of our stricken neighbor, for we do not cause goodness to grow in each other simply by reason of a kindness adminstered and appreciated. Our love is much, much more profound: similar to and more intensive than parenthood in the natural order, our love actually fath-ers forth the Christness in another. Our Lord has told us: "I have a new commandment to give you, that you are to love one another; that your love for one another is to be like the love I have borne you" (Jn 13:34; also Jn 15:12; 17:11; 1 Jn 3:11). He means these words more surely and effectively than we generally allow ourselves to realize. Christ has actually chosen to express His love through that of His disciples: "Believe me when I tell you this; the man who welcomes one whom I send, welcomes me; and the man who welcomes me, welcomes him who sent me" (Jn 13:20; see also Mt 10:40). Our love thus reaches ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 23, 1964 ,599 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 6O0 down into the inmost recesses of each other and-in a way we cannot fully understand---actually causes the very Godlife within another. We are father to the Christ in each other. Our supreme human privilege and responsi-bility as members of Christ's body, the Church, is to bring each other to life in the Spirit. God's people, the com-munity of the faithful, live in and communicate the Spirit to each other. Perhaps we best grasp the nature and function of our supernatural community in the Spirit if we compare it to the natural level of our incorporation into society. At this natural level, it is our association in the society of man that permits us to become real, vibrant, and human. It is only by reason of multiple and diverse interpersonal relations that we come into the world at all, are nourished, trained, and educated in the ways and values of human culture and civilization. We are very much the product of our mutual dependence in the natural sphere; this interdependence is the necessary avenue to our becoming a man and sharing in the goods of man. With the new life in the Spirit which follows upon our baptism into the Church of Christ, the function of inter-personal dependence takes on a new depth and fullness. We are custodians of the Spirit and bear it each to each. Because we live in the new age won by Christ, our human exchange of love prepares and disposes us and actually effects our entry into the life of total happiness in the fullest friendship we are capable of--the love of God Himself. The purpose of human love and friendship in this new community of the Spirit--most especially one would think of a religious community--is to witness and glimpse that complete love which is to come when the Spirit lives fully among us. Our love one for another awakens us to the love of God Himself. Assuredly, the supernatural efficacy of our love is pos-sible only because God works through those who live in His Spirit. If our love is like that of the heavenly Father (Lk fi:3fi), it is because we have learned how to love from God Himself (1 Th 4:9). And we have come to recognize the love of God for us only because the Spirit, sent us by Christ, opened our hearts to God's love (Rom 5:5; 15:30). He loves us because He has taken us as His sons: "Beloved, let us love one another; love springs from God; no one can love without being born of God and knowing God" (I Jn 4:7). And we return our filial love for the Father who has first loved us in our concern for our brother with whom Christ has identified Himself (Mt 25:40); for all of us together form the Body of Christ (Rom 12:5-10; 1 Cot 12:12-27): "And you are Christ's body, organs of it depending upon each other." Since the love of the Father is in us as a result of our new life in the Spirit, we are expected to imitate the works of His love. We may be indifferent to no man; as far as with God's grace we are able, we are to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect (Mr 5:48). With Christian con-viction we acknowledge and revere the potential Christ in each---especially in the needy and distressed who by Christ's own choice are more closely configured to Him. Christ's command of love goes even further: "But I tell you, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute and insult you, that so you may be true sons of your Father in heaven, who makes his sun shine on the evil and equally on the good, his rain fall on the just and equally on the unjust" (Mt 5:43-48). Christ expects our love to go beyond that of good pagans who love those who love them. Because we have faith in Christ's mysterious words, we transcend our superficial impression of another even though we die to self. In fact, our radical capacity to transcend selfish interest and mere natural insight and inclination is the index of the depth of our faith in Christ and His good news. The measure of our love for the human person in need--even though he be our enemy--is the sure yardstick of our love for Christ; it bears absolute testimony to our sincere persuasion of His truth. The central role of human persons, the indispensable role for human love in the life of a Christian must give us pause. Is our religious dedication leading us where we will most surely find Christ? Do we honestly look for Him in an outgoing love and concern for our fellowman in need: in our readiness to help and cheer the less gifted or suffering members of our religious family; in our thirst for racial justice; in our efforts to help those who can most use our apostolic presence; in our prayers and penance for the world's poor and oppressed; in our par-ental concern for the young entrusted to our care; and in all the other multiple contacts with human need and misery that call forth our Christian love for the dignity of the human person. Is ours an authentic witness to Christ in a clear love of and dedication to the world of persons and community? A Christian love for people is the only adequate motive for our use of the means religious life provides. In this perspective, penance and prayer are desirable curbs on selfishness and a needed pruning for a more abundant harvest of love. Each institute and every individual in an institute decides under the guidance of the Spirit and proper authority on the measure of prayer and penance, of action and contemplation appropriate to their form of apostolate. But a clear perception of the goal--a deeper and truer love--acts as a constant corrective to an im-mature or excessive reliance on means. Separation, silence, + + + VOLUME 2.~, 1964 60! + ÷ ÷ P. ]. Bernadicou, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS recollection, and self-denial would be perverted from their function if we were to think we might by reason of. them love God directly in a total isolation from His iden-tity with human persons--as if He were an abstract prin-ciple or remote authority whose only wish is that we serve Him in an exact observance of impersonal rules and o1~ our own scrupulosity. If we esteem the unique value of hu-man persons in our spirituality, we assure a touchstone of orthodoxy and authenticity--more than this, of a healthy balance, sanity, and integration of personality. Suffering surely has a place in the Christian economy. Whether accepted in its received forms or self-imposed: it has value as a means to the end of loving Christ in all, especially the needy. To take up our cross daily and fol-low Christ means sloughing--and it is painful--our worldly views and values in order to love human persons as Christ loves them. This is undeniably difficult; it is a light cross only for those who have made it habitual and who consequently raise it with conviction; then it cer-tainly brings the peace of Christ and the only genuine suc-cess of the human person. Never should suffering take the form of a stop in love-- this is the only pointless suffering and it is the suffering of hell. However unintelligible in its experienced presence, suffering is an aid to greater love, to a love that is deeper, truer, and more universal. It is meaningful because it can force us out of ourselves to a compassion and communion with human persons and on to a total absorption in the person of God, our final and fully satisfying love. The most cloistered religious knows he can find God only by loving mankind. The sequestered life of the contemplative is not a frustrated attempt to escape humanity, much less a guilt-driven attack on self; it is, rather, an intense apostolic life of prayer and penance out of love for one's fellowman. The Church has therefore named St. Teresa of Lisieux as the foremost patroness of the missions be-cause hers was a genuine Christian spirituality of dedi-cated concern for the human person in need. An appreciation of the role of persons and human love is also the essential basis for any adequate theory of a Christian humanism. Our apostolic involvement in the world of the temporal community takes its ground in the realization that Christ has strengthened and elevated man's community to a participation in the very family of God. The Christian apostle cannot overlook the social, cultural, and political substratum which makes it possible for him to forge the interpersonal dialogue by means of which the members of Christ's people communicate the Spirit to each other. Christianity does not set a damp on our natural desire for love and happiness; it is our completion and sublime exaltation into the higher world of community in the Spirit. By our honest and earnest attempt to live and love in the Spirit, we come to share in the hundred-fold and the foretaste of heaven. In this earthly consolation alone--freely given and undeserved--is the hard-won reward of the mature religious and the greatest triumph of the human person. In an active love for the human per-son we already share on earth in the eternity of love and friendship. 4. 4. Persons VOLUME 23, 1964 SISTER M. JUDITH, O.S.B. Work: A Becoming Process Sister Mary Ju-dith, O.S.B., writes from St. Joseph's Convent; 2200 South Lewis; Tulsa, Okla-homa 74114. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 604 Man must become. How many complications, mistakes, frettings could be avoided if man could simply be; it is this business of becoming that touches the mainspring o[ man's set of human problems. Despite some medieval superstition that sisters, by vir-tue of some grace of state, simply and miraculously are, the fact remains that they must suffer their share of becoming. What should they strive to become? Each, according to her unique potential, should become a person, whole and holy. There exists no scarcity of directives for her becom-ing process: writers, preachers, lecturers bombard her with a dizzying abundance o[ books, articles, sermons, and speeches about humility, obedience, maturity, and allied virtues. Development of these traits, however, is not ac-complished in some chaste vacuum or by some mysterious process of intellection; it rather takes place as the sister peels away the days of her life. Unromantic as the fact may seem, over one half of the waking hours of these days is spent in work. Therefore, it is in her work that the virtues take root and grow; it is largely in work that she will become. Other situations of her life--like making vows, forming a meaningful rela-tionship, experiencing the death of a loved one--may pro-duce more highly colored experiences; but the continuity and stability which must underlie the development of ma-turity are found chiefly in her workaday world. And so that part of her life should not be divorced from her "re-ligious" life. Nor is it enough to dismiss it with the pietism: "Make your work a prayer." That part of a sister's life which drains her talents, her physical and psychic energies, which fills most of her waking hours, lays claim to a pene-trating investigation; for "work environment will color a man's thoughts, determine his habits, crystallize his atti-tudes, facilitate or inhibit physical and mental health, and increase or decrease the effectiveness of his general social adjustment." 1 If worka is to be a significant means of becoming, two aspects must be recognized: the bbjective reality and the subjective reality. And two definitive actions must be taken: the initial choice and its accomplishment. The objective reality is that vast block of work to be done, the unceasing needs of society and of the Church: the needs, in other words, of the here-and-now Body of Christ which is ignorant, hurt, sad, lo~t; disfigured. Facing this overwhelming objective reality, the Christian sister (the adjective is employed advisedly) approaches with the subjective reality of her pittance of energy and talent, her temperament, background, and natural interests. With this unique outfit of characteristics, she will advance to teach, cure, comfort, lead, and make beautiful. In this approach is made the first definitive action: choice. Two persons are involved in such choice: the in-dividual person and the moral person or community. First, the individual person. Too often, a sister is re-luctant to make a choice; part of the so-called security of religious life resides in a form of irresponsibility that pa-rades as docility or obedience. Sometimes, too, a sister in misinformed piety subscribes to a yesteryear's theory that misery is the gauge of merit, that the more miserable one is in her work of obedience the more meritorious that work is. In neither case is the sister involved in the action of choosing, which action admittedly includes risk but which is imperative in becoming. The sister who realizes that grace builds on nature chooses. She knows that "each soul is intended to animate a particular body . [that] each soul has or is a substantial relation to a particular body." ~ This sister realizes, then, that she must exercise that faculty of soul called will or choice so that her soul can animate her body. A soul cannot enliven a non-think-ing, non-willing set of fleshed bones. She must determine where God expects her to use His gifts to her, not wait un-til a superior dictates a position for which the sister might or might not have suitable abilities. The sister who wills faces an almost unequaled demand for exercising honesty. Honesty, or humility, hard come by for most persons, is particularly difficult for women, sisters not excepted. Yet is it other than to humbly desire "to serve Him by means of the gifts He has entrusted to 1S. N. Stevens, American Management Association, Prod. Series, No. 119. u Although the principles expressed in this paper may be applica-ble to manual, social, and intellectual work, this study is geared to a consideration of professional or semi-professional work. a Jacques Maritain, The Person and the Common Good (New York: Scribners, 1947), p. 22. ÷ ÷ ÷ Work VOLUME 23, 1964 605 Sister M. Judith, O.S.B. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 60g [her]?" Arid can one serve without a previous admission of those gifts? The tested proof of honesty comes in such evaluation and admission. Ability and interest tests, though possibly an aid in determining one's area of con-tribution, remain impersonal and surface. One may, for example, possess a genius for organization but lack the "toughness" to withstand the censure inevitably laid against one in authority. Tests cannot illustrate this. Or she may love children singly but be unequipped physically to handle them en masse in a six-hour day classroom situ-ation. One thing balances against another. And, too, al-lowance must be made for acquiring traits. For example~ other things being equal, a sister may be able to learn fac. tual content, to perfect a method, to acquire patience. Tests cannot indicate such potential. In the final analysis, then, in the honest act of choosing, the sister must go into her own heart, close the door, and! confer with her Self. No breast-beating or confessing of faults can call forth honesty equal to that demanded in, the inventory experience of admitting and declaring the gifts of God which one bears in one's Self. How painful it can be, say, for a sister to announce that, yes, she does think she is equipped to be a superiorl Or that, no, she really is not suited to administrate the hospital, thank yOU. Willing such as this rescues the sister from anonymity, that menace which currently terrifies the world and which, if anything, is a more urgent threat to sisters whose very routine and habit can become allies to anonymity. While her choice, therefore, establishes her independence as a person with a unique contribution, it at the same time diminishes her "separateness" insofar as it enables her to share the cream of her talents in the total work of the community.4 To feel and to have others feel that one is important and that the traits one possesses are valuable is a basic human need. If such recognition in any group is important, how much more so is acceptance in a religious community. The primary significance of a religious com-munity is that it is an eschatological sign of heaven insofar as it is a group of persons living together in love. Not toleration but acceptance and approval precede love. "No more fiendish punishment could be devised," claimed Wil-liam James, "than that one should be turned loose in so-ciety and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof." ~ In fact, the reasons that a person, as person, ¯ ~ W. W. Marston in Emotions o! Normal People says that one of the nearest things to a person (in the case of consciousness) is his "poor outfit of powers and virtues. In naked isolation, they seem small and cheap. To be idle is to shut these poor powers in; to work is to open them up, to unite them with greater powers' and a cause." * William James, Principles o] Psychology, Vol. 1 (New York: Holt, 18g0), p. 2g~t. seeks to live in community are first that she feels the "inner urge to the communications of knowledge and love which require relationship with other persons," and that, sec-ondly, she needs the help which "she ought to be given to do the work of reason and virtue, which responds to the specific feature of [her] being." 6 Therefore, the exercise in becorning that stems from evaluating one's potential and choosing to some degree its actuation does not result merely in a better-mileage-per- hour program; it also results in a more-love-per-person community. This brings a consideration of the role of the second person, the community. It will produce nothing but frus-tration for an individual sister to decide how she can best serve Christ's Body unless the community provides free-dom for and approval of such action. There must be a free exchange between a community and its individual members. On the one hand, the sister is bound to the com-munity because, in a certain fashion, that whole provides the framework in which she is enabled to become a person. In fact, Maritain maintains that "the person is duty-bound, in justice, to risk its own existence for the salvation of the whole when the whole is imperilled.''7 The sister should not, then, act as a spoiled child, demanding that her ambitions be satisfied at any cost. Between the individ-ual and the community there must be a mutuality of ex-change and benefit. Even in the mathematical order, six is not the same as three and three. One is always part of two; wholes are made up of wholes. So the whole com-munity is made up of whole individuals. "It presupposes the persons and flows back upon them, and, in this sense, is achieved in them." Without this flow, there is no community. If a commu-nity refuses to redistribute human goods (one of which is wholeness) and just "takes in," it will achieve, insists Maritain, no emancipation except that of the "collective man." And that is communism. There must be commu-nity, not communism. There must be individual persons, not a "collective sister." Granted this, what, exactly, is expected of the commu-nity? Basically, to recognize the rights of the individual sister to know and to become herself, and to loosen, if necessary, the structure to permit the sister to make her choice and live it out. Even in communities strictly geared to one specific work like, say, teaching, there is room for the functioning of various sets of talents. Even in that narrow area there may be classroom teaching, supervising, administrating, researching, professional writing, special-ized teaching. e Maritain, The Person, p. 37-8. 7 Maritain, The Person, p, 59. 4- 4- 4" Work VOLUME 221, 1964 607 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister M. ~ludith, O.S.B. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Important as choice making is, however, the test of be. coming inheres in the continuity of the work. If the sister accepts the risky right of choosing, she must also take on the burden of making sure that the accomplishment of the work is also an accomplishment of her Self as a person, as a religious woman. As a person, she must be able to exercise her unique gifts, talents, energies and to make a contribution in gen-eral to society and in particular to her relatively small world of work and love, her community. As a woman, she must be able to bring up to conscious-ness her masculine qualities and to bring to full play her own set of feminine qualities. For if any human being is to reach full maturity, there must be a synthesis of both masculine (animus) and feminine (anima) traits. Who is unacquainted with the woman who is too "fe-male"? Feelings govern her decisions, spontaneous reac-tion supersedes human response, tears come easily as do fits of temper and flights of fancy. And who has not found sisters in this category? On the other hand, as communities of religious women are presently organized, a woman must take on some duties ordinarily staffed by a man. This may wrench the sister's masculine traits into an undisciplined development. Who has not witnessed the woman in whom dependability has turned to scrupulosity, courage to self-martyrdom, impartiality to unfeelingness, justice to cru-elty? Even without statistical support, it would be safe to calculate that the incidence of such virtue-run-amuck is high among sisters. G. G. Jung claims "that no one can evade the fact, that in taking up a masculine calling, studying, and working in a man's way, woman is doing something not wholly in agreement with, if not directly injurious to, her feminine nature." Threats to a woman's anima balance vary, of course, not only according to the work but also according to the per-son involved. In, say, certain administrative jobs, there exists, objectively speaking, a definite threat to the best. part of womanliness. Perhaps a conscious or unconscious realization of this fact is responsible for the growing trend in religious communities of working with men. Men school principals, lay advisory boards, male hospital administra-tors promise to become the rule rather than the exception. Some sisters, however, can function even in these positions without hurt to their feminine natures. No outside force, system, or test can predict the effect of certain jobs on cer-tain personalities; the individual sister must face these threats to mature personality-synthesis. She alone will know if a work is thus suited to her, if it allows for her Self's becoming a person who is a religious woman. On the other hand, most of the work sisters are in-volved in provides ideal situations for combining anima and animus traits. Teaching, nursing, doing social work summon her feminine traits of subjectivity, sympathy, tenderness, and understanding. These same works also require, in "varying degrees, exercise of her masculine traits of objectivity, courage, cooperation, dependability, justice. Therefore, most sisters should be able to discover a work suited to development of self. Only if she is able to accomplish becoming in her work will she be able to withstand the onslaught she opens up upon herself by her initial choice. She approaches her work with a fund of sympathy. She tri~s to relate herself to the sorrows of Christ's Body in the world by her feeling. But suffering, ignorance, ugliness are seemingly endless. She helps cure a patient today, and tomorrow his bed is occupied by another. She teaches English to forty students this year, and the next year forty-one file to replace them. She dismisses one unwed motherand must hold open the door to the next one trudging up the walk with the old story, the old weight. Year after year. It's like seeing one's self poured out into a sieve. In the face of this, a woman whose animus traits remain suppressed will likely resort to various neuroses or con-stantly seek different work in the futile hope that she can some place effect a lasting contribution. A woman whose anima traits are overpowered by the fury of overdeveloped masculine traits will, perhaps, react by developing a pro-tective hardness. It is the woman who has achieved, or is achieving, a personality synthesis who can make a real, conscious adaptation to such realities. It is she who is natu-rally equipped, too, for deep faith; she perceives that God provides, that the Body of Christ will be transformed, that God wills her to spend herself toward this omega point of creation in His plan. This is the faith the sister, in be-coming a whole person, must live by in meeting the ostensi-bly insurmountable suffering in the world,s To assume choice and accomplishment of work is to as-sume a weighty burden. It is, in fact, impossible to carry withottt aid. Evaluatory support comes to the individual in a process known as feedback. Moral aid comes in a system of living together known as community. Developed originally in connection with electronic com-puters and other servomechanisms, feedback has since been applied by psychologists to human beings. The im-portant feedback feature is its loop pattern: it loops back or feeds bacl~ to its starting point. For example, energy, starting from a person, is directed outward to some work. 8 Esther Harding in The Way o! All Women discusses this effec-tively. Although she finds psychological or anthropological answers to most problems, she admits that the overwhelming amount of sor-row a woman meets can be met "only by something which we must call a 'religious attitude.' " ÷ ÷ ÷ Work VOLUME 23, 1964 6O9 + + Sister M. Judith, O.S.B. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 610 Some indication of progress is then fed back to the person. Perception of this progress then increases or diminishes the amount of energy the person can again direct outward to that work. Feedback, if convergent (favorable), increases energy; if divergent (unfavorable), it decreases both psy-chic and physical energy. "Nothing succeeds like success" describes the effect of convergent feedback. If, say, a teaching sister recognizes from student response, peer respect, and principal com-mendation that she is successful in her work, she will in-crease her efforts. The convergent feedback creates more energy. It alleviates anxiety, builds self-confidence, and leads to accelerated effort. This is a simple, psychological fact. To desire to work without recognition is neither natural nor virtuous. There is a difference, however, in the favorable feedback needs of an immature and a ma-ture sister. The immature sister depends too constantly and too heavily on spoken or written approval. Her need becomes insatiable; and, with a pause in

Issue 22.5 of the Review for Religious, 1963. ; THOMAS DUBAY, S.M. Personal Integrity and Intellectual Obedience If only through what we may term'a nebulous feeling of supernatural discomfort, no thoughtful religious long escapes the knotty problems implied in his reasoned re-actions to his superior's directives. Sooner or later he wonders how the perfection of obedience could possibly and honorably require that he judge to be wise and prudent what he may on occasion strongly feel to be un-wise and imprudent. Some of the implications of this complex question we have explored in two previous articles.1 The interest shown in these questions together with the oral and epistolary discussions consequent on them have prompted us to propose several additional problems and to seek suitable solutions to them. The Problems Religious superiors, like the rest of humankind, usu-ally do not know what we may call the content of the divine will. As I type this sentence I cannot be certain that objectively speaking this is what God prefers me to be doing at this moment. When a major superior as-signs a religious to teach the tenth grade, he cannot be sure that such is precisely the divine preference for this particular religious. In both of these cases all we can know is that our action, and our intentions are good. At times we may be reasonably assured that the action we contemplate is in its concrete circumstances better than some other, but even then we do not see how God judges the situation. Does not our inability to know the content of God's will render pointless the whole concept of intellectual obedience? Is the subject supposed to conform his judg- 1"Psychological Possibility of Intellectual Obedience," R~w~w FOR RrLtO~OOS, v. 19 (1960), pp. 67-76, and "The Superior's Precept and God's Will," REVIEW FOR RELmXOOS, v. 20 (1961), pp. 435--41. 4, 4" Thomas Dubay, S.M., is the spiritua director at Notr. Dame Seminary' 2901 South Carroll ton Avenue; Ne~ Orleans 18~ Louisi aria. VOLUME 22, 196~ 49~ ÷ + ÷ Thomas Dubay, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 4:9,1 ment to the superior's judgment because the latter is somehow expressing the thought of God when he com-mands? And if the superior is not expressing the divine mind, why should one try to think as he thinks? Meaning of Intellectual Obedience Before we wrestle with these questions, we should per. haps review the fundamental principles involved. And among them we may recall first of all that intellectual obedience implies the attempt of a subject to see the wisdom of his superior's decision. While it does not re-quire a man to call black white when his superior is manifestly wrong, yet it is more than an assent to the mere proposition that God wills the non-sinful act of compliance. This latter assent plainly is not a conformity to the thought of the superior (as the classical concept of intellectual obedience would have it) or even an at-tempt at conformity (with which the classical concept would be content when more is not possible). Agreeing that God wills execution of a given command is nothing more than an assent to a universally received principle of Catholic theology: God wills obedience to legitimately constituted authority. Intellectual obedience according to the formulation of St. Ignatius .Loyola in his well known letter (from which Pius XII said we may not depart) requires that the subject "think the same, submitting his own judg-ment to the Superior's, so far as a devout will can incline the understanding." And hence in the many matters in which evidence is not coercive, "every obedient man should bring his thought into conformity with the thought of the Superior" (America Press edition, ;~ 9). This doctrine presents no problem when the subject possesses a founded certitude that his superior is either right or wrong. In the first case his judgment is con-formed by the very seein~ that the direction is correct, and in the second there is no need to try to conform to what is obviously false. The problem arises in debatable matters, matters in which an honest and objective man will agree that there may be something to be said for each of two or more opposing views. Since the evidence in these cases.is not coercive, a religious practices in-tellectual obedience when he makes a serious attempt to see reasons ~or the superior's view as well as for his own. We spont.aneously conjure up reasons for our own opinions, and so intellectual honesty hardly requires much effort regarding this half of the situation. But we do not spontaneously think up reasons for an opposing opinion, and so effort is requisite if we are to be co~n-pletely open. While this effort should be made in our disagreements with any man, it is especially needful in the relationship of the subject to his superior. Because of the position the latter holds as a representative of divine authority and because we may presume that this representafive re-ceives divine help in the exercise of his office (not, how-ever, a help that makes him infallible), the ftillriess of religious obedience bespeaks an especial effort to agree with his thought insofar as honesty permits and a devout will can bring it about. When a good religious, therefore, receives an unpalatable directive, this third and highest degree of obedience suggests that he make an earnest at-tempt to see his superior's point of view whenever the matter is important enough to consider motives at all. Man's Knowledge of the Divine Will From the point of view of the divine will, we may re-call to what extent a conformity is possible and in what sense a superior may be said to manifest that will. A man's will is materially conformed to God's when he wills precisely what God wills. If God were to give him a pri-vate revelation indicating exactly what He wished done at a given time and if the recipient of the revelation carried out the command, there would be a material con-formity. In this case the person's activity would corre-spond exactly with what we have called the content of the divine will. On a moment's reflection one can easily see that a material conformity known to be such is usu-ally impossible. A man simply does not know as a ,rule precisely what God knows to be the preferable course of action together with the circumstances that should sur-round the action. A religious superior is no exception to this limitation on our knowledge of the divine intellect and will. Frequently the superior cannot know that this directive or that is exactly what God would like done at this time and in these circumstances. And if the superior cannot know, neither can the subject. Formal conformity, however, is another matter. It re-fers to the motives one has in doing whatever he does. A man conforms his will to God's when he refers what he does to the divine good. Such is the conformity that St. Paul taught when he enunciated the command that we do all for the motive of God's glory: "Whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do all for the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31). While we often cannot know the content of the divine good pleasure and therefore cannot be sure whether or not we possess a material conformity to it, we can always know the motive with which we are to act, and thus we can be sure that we possess a formal con-formity. Hence, even thongh I cannot be sure that my proposal to give ten dollars to this particular poor man is the best thing I could do with the money (God may 4- 4- 4- Intellectual Obedience VOLUME 22, 196.,1 495 ÷ ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 496 well know some other better way in which I could use it) and even though as a consequence I do not know whether my will is materially conformed to His, yet if a~ a matter of fact I do give the gift out of love for God I am sure that my will is formally harmonized with His. And this is all that I am commanded to do in the situa-tion. I am bound to have the right motive for whatever good act I perform. When all this, then, is applied to religious obedience, it means that a superior usually does not know the con-tent of the divine will and consequently may or may not be commanding-, in material accord with it. From the point of view of the subject obeying, this does not matter. God does will that he carry out the precept as long as there is no evil in it. (We must notice that in this prac-tical execution of the command material conformity is always possible and commendable, that is, conformity to that content of the divine will which has revealed that it wants men to obey their superiors.) Furthermore, the subject should possess the formal element, the proper motive for obeying, which proximately is the authority of the superior and ultimately the ordering of his obedi-ence to the divine goodness by charity: Suggested Solutions We are now prepared for the first of our problems. Why should a religious try to make his judgment regard-ing some precept conform to his superior's judgment when he is not even sure that the latter's represents the content of the divine will? How can the constitutions of some religious congregations admonish members that they should make their superior's judgements their own, that they should "obey" even the superior's thought inso-far as such is possible? In answering these questions several principles must be borne in mind. First of all, any man is bound by mere natural honesty to conform his mind to the truth insofar as he is able. No one has a right to entertain error. He may have a right to immunity from attack because he is in error, but this is not to say that he has a right to cling to the error. There can be no right to what is unreal. Secondly, in a'genuine difference of opinion between two persons in which difference the truth is not definitely established with 'an objective certitude, honesty demands that any man make a sincere effort to see the reasons for the other's view. Any man is bound to weigh the other man's reasons as well as his own. Any other procedure is mere prejudice. Hence, the demand of intellectual obedi-ence that a subject try to see that his superior's directive is wise is no intrusion on his human dignity or intel-lectual integrity. On the contrary, this perfection of obedience is protective both of intellectual humility and of integrity since it aids a man in divorcing himself from his often inordinate attachment to his own opinion. It opens his mind to other views and other opinions. Hence, this fundamental honesty by which we give a sympathetic consideration to the intellectual position of another is common both to the subject-superior relationship and to the ordinary man-to-man relationship. Yet there is a difference. There must be a difference. Otherwise, we could hardly speak of the attempt a re-ligious makes to conform his judgment to that of his superior as a distinct degree of obedience. But what is the difference? What is the difference between Brother X and Sister Y trying to look sympathetically upon their superiors' decisions and these same two persons attempt-ing to discuss a question of politics or philosophy in an unprejudiced manner? In both situations there is a pursuance of truth, an effort to maintain intellectual in-tegrity. The solution to this problem is difficult, admittedly difficult. And we frankly confess that we are not at all sure that our solution is adequate. We think that it is correct as far as it goes, but we are not sure that it says all that needs to be said. We believe that there are two reasons why a religious' attempt to see his superior's decision as feasible and cor-rect is something over and above this same religious' ef-fort to see a differing view in an ordinary discussion. The first "something over and above" is the supernatural posi-tion of the superior. While he remains a weak, imperfect, and entirely fallible human being, an ecclesiastical su-perior does occupy in the supernatural society which is the Church a position which is ultimately derived from God Himself. As Pope Pius XII rightly observed, the authority by which religious superiors rule is a participa-tion in the divinely received authority possessed by the Roman Pontiff. Therefore, while the religious superior does remain fallible, and sometimes sadly fallible, yet his dispositions and directions enjoy an ontological rank that other dispositions and directions do not enjoy. This basis and rank are the foundation for a new reason over and above intellectual humility and integrity why a sub-ject should seek to view his superior's disposition sym-pathetically and seek, if possible, to conform his judg-ment to it. A second reason is based on the relationship between the first and second degrees of obedience with the third, that is, the relationship between execution of the com-mand (first degree) and conformity of will (second de-gree) with the submission of intellect (third degree). A mere reflection on the psychology of obedience indicates ÷ + Intellectual Obedience VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ ÷ Thoma~ Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 498 that the perfection with which a man executes a directive and with which he conforms his intention to that of his superior will ordinarily be dependent on his intellecttial agreement or disagreement with the judgment implied in the directive. Our point is not that the typical religious will not execute a command unless he sees its wisdom but that he often will not execute it as per[ectly when he believes it to be unwise or foolish. Our point is also that he will find conformity of the will, that is, really wanting to carry out this command, much more difficult when the precept appears to him unfeasible. A religious priest whose superior directs him to teach a course which he judges to be of flimsy value hardly throws himself ir, to the task of doing an excellent job with it. He teaches the course, yes. But unless he is a man of rare virtue, he cuts at least some minor corners with it. A sister who is asked to organize a testing program that seems to her ineffectual is an unusual person if she does not experi-ence difficulty in wanting to organize it. Because there is a lack of intellectual harmony between these religious and their superiors, harm is done to the first and second degrees of their obedience. This fact affords us another reason over and above mere open-mindedness why a subject should seek to see the wisdom of his superior's decisions and to conform his judgment to them. If our analysis is correct, it seems to follow that intel-lectual obedience is rooted in the will. The conformity on this third level is, of course, found in the intellect; but the force moving the intellect toward it is the will. This observation is not surprising when we consider that the "moving-moved" relationship is the case even with the execution of a command. The actual operation of teach-ing or sweeping is executed by the other faculties, while the moving role is that of the will. We may speak, there-fore, of obedience of the intellect because it is the in-tellect in the third degree of obedience that is harmo-nized with the intellect of the superior, even though it is the will that moves it to the harmony. There remains another facet to this problem, or, if one prefers, another problem. Granted that we have in-dicated two reasons over and above mere intellectual honesty why a subject should attempt to see his superior's view, we must yet discover what guarantee of truth can be offered that will justify the subject's conformity. After all, is not evidence the fundamental criterion of truth; and if we are going to ask a religious to hold a precept as prudent or feasible, do we not have to assure him of its validity on the basis of objective evidence? And if a religious superior has no divine guarantee that his di-rections conform to the objective truth of things, how can one rightly ask another to harmonize his intellect with them? This is no easy problem. In answer to it ~ve must first, remark that no one is asking a subject to extend the value of his intellectual assent beyond available evidence. We do not suggest that a religious ought to make a certain judgment that his superior is correct ~vhen there simply is no irrefragable evidence that he is correct, nor do we feel that the sub-ject should entertain a judgment of higher value than his superior entertains. If the superior only thinks that this course of action is feasible, surely the subject is not re-quired by intellectual obedience to be sure that it is such. As a matter of fact, the latter would be a difformity, not a conformity. We may observe, likewise, that in many of the disposi-tions made in a religious community neither the superior nor the subject can be prudently sure that a particular course of action is the most feasible. An autocratic su-perior may act as though he is certain that his decisions are the only reasonable ones; but this does not, of course, mean that they are. How often can one know with complete certitude that a given sister should teach the third grade rather than the fifth or that a brother should specialize in history rather than in political sci-ence or that a priest should serve on the mission band rather than on a parish staff? Many of us may entertain strong opinions in such matters, but few could offer in most cases objective evidence that one decision alone is reasonable or even the best possible. It would seem, then, that intellectual obedience frequently does not require a certain assent. But we think that it often requires an opinionative assent, that is, an assent that holds a proposition to be probably true because based on one or more solid mo-tives. Two reasons suggest this statement. First, when an intelligent man or woman (we refer to the superior) decides on a course of action, one may usually presume that there is at least one solid motive behind it that would found at least an opinionative judg-ment that the decision is a prudent one. Secondly, the superior himself usually judges his directive as at least probably correct; and so il~ he can find some good reason for it, the subject of good will should frequently be able to find it also. The first reason bears on extrinsic evidence (authority), the second on intrinsic. Is a guarantee required for the objective truth or wis-dom of the command? Must the superior in looking for intellectnal obedience in his subjects offer them some guarantee that he is at least probably if not certainly right in his dispositions? Although the two questions ÷ ÷ ÷ Intellectual Obedience VOLUME 22, 1963 499 4. 4. + Thomas Dubay, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 500 may look equivalent, we would answer yes to the first and no to the second. No man can rightly give an intellectual assent to a proposition unless he has some motive pro-portioned to the quality of his assent. I do not proceed in an orderly fashion when I judge to be certain an as-sertion for which I have only probable evidence or when I hold an opinion with not even probable evidence. Hence, a religious need not judge his superior to be surely correct when he can see only probable reasons in favor of the command. When the subject can see no intrinsic reason in favor of the precept's feasibility (and such is rare, indeed), he should either refrain from judg-ing it altogether or base his opinionative judgment that it is feasible on the mere fact that his superior thinks, it so. In this second case he rests on extrinsic authority or evidence. His intellectual honesty is preserved in that he has not made a certain assent, and his obedience is per-fect in that he has made every reasonable effort to bring his judgment into accord with that of his superior. A superior is not ordinarily bound to offer the guar-antee for the assent his subject is to give to his disposi-tions. It would be unreasonable to expect one in author-ity to explain his reasons every time he decides upon some course of action. And it happens occasionally that natural secrecy prevents him from disclosing why he acts as he does. Yet at the same time we feel that often, if not usually, a superior should spontaneously offer reasons for his directives when they are out of the ordinary or when they are especially susceptible to misunderstanding. would even say that unless secrecy forbids it, a superior ordinarily does well to let the reasons for his commands be known whenever an intelligent subject could not l easily conclude to them and when the matter is impor-tant enough to go into them at all. Otherwise, it is dif-ficult to see how the subject could give an intelligentl assent or bring his judgment into line with that of hisJ superior except perhaps by a sheer act of will. As we have just hinted in the preceding paragraph,, all of our above attempts to give a reasonable account the roots of intellectual obedience as it bears on the ob-jective order of things are directed toward cases in whichl an agreement with the superior's mind is called for. There are many cases in the ordinary living of the re ligious life in which the directions given are not impor tant enough even to concern oneself about a conformity~ of judgment. In these it is rather blind obediertce thai is indicated: the willed execution without any thoughi as to why the command is given. We hardly think tha, a sister who has been asked by her superior to serve a.~ companion for another on a trip to town should bothei about trying to discover the rightness of the request o~ why it was made. Such scrutiny too easily lends itself to pettiness. Our above discussion rather envisions more important matters in which a religious should know his superior's mind that he may all the better carry it out. How, then, may we answer the questions with which we began? Does our inability to know the content of the divine will render meaningless the whole concept of in-tellectual obedience? It the superior is perhaps not ex-pressing the divine mind when he commands, is there any point in the subject trying to conform his judgment to that of his superior? Man's inability to know the divine mind in many of the practical details of human lille does not render mean-ingless the widely received principles of intellectual obe-dience. The religious is not assenting to his superior's direction as though it were an infallible oracle, nor is he judging that it is the only possibly reasonable disposition of the matter. Precisely because we reject the notion that a superior is revealing the content of the divine mind do we dissolve at the same stroke that other mistaken notion that in intellectual obedience the subject is assenting to a certain proposition known as such by God. Rather is the subject merely trying to put his whole being, intellect as well as will and body, into a harmony with his su-perior, a man who takes the place of God for him. And this attempt at harmonization implies no violence to in-tellectual integrity for the simple reason that it rests on evidence, either intrinsic or extrinsic. We may conclude, then, that the religious who prac-tices perfectly all three degrees of obedience integrates rather than disintegrates his personality. He executes di-rectives promptly and wholly, and thus establishes a new contact with God who has parceled out some of His supreme authority to men. He wants to carry out the precept because he sees the divine authority in a human instrument, and thus he places himself in the genuine stream of what is. He attempts to set his intellect in ac-cord with his superior's, and thus he simultaneously maintains intellectual integrity and submits his supreme faculty to the divine order. And all this is done through supernatural charity. This is sanctity because it is reality. ÷ ÷ ÷ In~ellectual Obedience VOLUME 22, 1963 501 PAUL HINNEBUSCH, O.P. Requesting in Charity ÷ ÷ ÷ Paul Hinnebusch, O.P., is the chaplain at Rosaryville; Pon-chatoula, Louisiana. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~02 We are all very conscious that charity inspires us .to give help to others, but have we ever realized that char-ity also inspires us to ask for help? St. Thomas Aquinas was well aware of this. He writes, for example, to a prince: "Your charity has asked me to reply in writing to your question. It is not proper that the requests which charity faithfully offers be refused by a friend.'u Thomas realized so well that charity seeks help as well as gives it, because he knew from experience what unity in lively charity can be. Living in the golden age of the Order of Preachers, when community life was fully synonymous with life in charity, when mutual charity penetrated everything, Thomas daily experienced char- ~ty at its best. Charity was a mutual give and take in per-fect spontaneity. Those early friars knew well the spirit behind St. Augustine's command in their rule: "Call nothing your own, but let all things be held in common among you." In the thinking of Augustine, this statement applied not only to material goods but to whatever the Christian has, whether material or spiritual, whether gifts of grace or talents of nature. Augustine was remarkably conscious of the unity of all Christians in Christ, of how all live one same life together in Him. For example, constrasting his own intensely active life as a bishop with the leisurely contemplation of a monk to whom he is wri(ing, Augustine says: "We are one body under one head, so that you are busy in me, and I am at leisure in you" (PL 33:187). Because I am one with Christ, what Christ is doing in you He is doing for me. And because you are one with Christ, what Christ is do-ing in me He is doing for you. We are one body with many functions of one life. We are one mystical person in Christ. Elsewhere Augustine writes: "Whatever my brother has, is mine, if I do not envy and if I love. I do not have it in myself, but I have it in him. It would not be mine, if we were not in one body under one Head." x Martin Orabmann, The Interior Lile o] St. Thomas Aquinas (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1951), p. 9. In this unity of life in Christ, this one life in love, the mutual sharing of spiritual and material goods is love in action. Love receives as well as gives, love asks as well as grants. If the bond of love makes us consider that our brother's needs are our own and inspires us to supply him with what he needs, that same bond of love does not hesitate in appealing to our brother's love for help. Our appeal is based upon our love for him and his love for us. It is only right that what we expect him to grant in char-itY should be requested in that same charity so that both the asking and the giving are an exercise and a strength-ening of the bond of love. Our blessed Savior sets a beautiful example of these things in dealing with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. In His love for the woman, He desires to do her a service; but good psychologist that He is, He knows that her pride will resent His offer of help. And not merely because in her particular case pride will resent the un-veiling of her sin but because human beings in general like to be independent and do not care to admit that they need others. Their pride instinctively resents anyone who tries to help them. We have all experienced at one time or another the pain of having our charity rebuffed. And therefore when Jesus wishes to do this woman a service, instead of immediately offering help to her, He begins by requesting help from her. He knows how valu-able a request for help can be in establishing good rela-tions among people. Rather than give her pride an op-portunity to resent His help, He appeals to what is best in her human nature. Human nature was made for love. But love's proper act is to give. To win the woman's good will and love, Jesus gives her the opportunity to give to Him. He asks her to do Him a service: "Give me to drink" (Jn 4:10). His humble request and His need immediately wins her sympathy and benevolence. Upon the initial good will which she thus manifests, Jesus proceeds to build an eternal friendship. By humbly accepting the service of her love, He leads her humbly to accept His love in re-turn, His love with its gift of "living water" springing up into a divine love, binding her to Him in an everlast-ing friendship. This is the apostolic technique which Jesus teaches to His apostles. Christian charity has to be mutual, love has to be a response to love. From the prospective convert the apostle must draw forth some sort of love, even if it is only an act of natural benevolence towards him. Grace, seizing upon this, can transform it into some-thing divine. Since man was made for love and love's proper act is to give, if we would set up a bond of love between our-÷ ÷ Requesting in Charity ÷ ÷ Paul Hinnebusch, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 504 selves and our fellow we must give him the opportunity to give to us. We must win his benevolence and sym-pathy by humbling ourselves before him in need. Love knows how to receive as well as give. Is not the recogn:i-tion of another's need a natural incentive to sympathy and love? Is not then the humble recognition of our mu-tual need of one another the best soil for mutual low:? For charity is mutual giving. Almighty God has deliber-ately created us mutually dependent upon one another that we may have an opportunity to love by giving ar, d to love by receiving, that thus the bond of love may 'be perfect. Therefore our blessed Lord instructed His apostles to receive even while they gave: they were to accept the hospitality of those to whom they wished to preach, they were to eat what was placed before them, they were to sleep on what was prepared for them (Lk 10:7-9). They were to be humbly dependent for material things upon the people upon whom they wished to shower super-natural gifts. Thus there would be established a balance and the mutual interchange which is charity in action. St. Paul's words describe the situation well: "There is a just bal-ancing- your abundance at the present time supplying their need, that their abundance may in turn supply your need, thus making for an equality" (2 Cor 8:14). Christ used this same technique with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Though it was getting towards evening and the day was far spent, He acted as though He were going on, giving them the opportunity to urge their hospitality upon Him, so that by their love in giv-ing to Him their hearts would be prepared to receive His greater gifts (Lk 24:28 f.). Christ our Lord sent forth His disciples two by two so that they could mutually give and receive as they trav-elled to their missions, upholding one another in love. For in Christianity there is no room for the proud inde-pendent spirit which rejects others as though he does not need them, spurning their help as though he can get along without them, refusing to accept from others lest a debt of gratitude make him dependent upon them, carefully hoarding his own resources in fear that giving to others will impoverish him and make him dependent. How tremendously more fruitful all of our labors would be if all of us would work together in this humble charity which recognizes our need of one another! True charity is ever humbly aware of our mutual dependence upon one another in Christ and of our solidarity in Him; and therefore it is willing not only to give help but humbly to accept it and to give again in grateful return. For Christians must never give to others with an air of condescending superiority but must always humble them-selves to the level of the needy, in genuine compassion. "Be minded as was Christ Jesus," says st. Paul. "Though he was divine by nature, he did not consider his being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, bi~t on the contrary he emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave, and was made like to men" (Phil 2:5-6). For the gifts of God, whether spiritual or material, are never given to us in order to exalt us above our fellowmen but rather to give us the means of serving Him in humble love. "Freely ~have you received, freely give" (Mr 10:8). If St. Thomas Aquinas always looked upon requests for his help as proceeding from humble charity, in humility he considered himself the servant of all in that same charity. For example, a young Dominican lecturer of Venice once wrote to him a list of thirty-six questions and asked for the answers within four days! Though this may seem to be an inconsiderate abuse of the generosity of an extremely busy man like Thomas, especially since the questions were vaguely phrased, nevertheless in sending back all the answers Thomas gently replied: "Although I h~ave been very busy, I have put aside for a time the things that I should do, and have decided to answer in-dividually the qusetions which you proposed, so as not to be lacking to the request of your charity." We must beware, then, of setting self-sufficient bound-aries about ourselves, saying, as it were, "This is my sphere of influence in the community, this is the work I will do. I can do this and no more, and I will accept no help in doing it, for I am self-sufficient within these lim-its. I want no help, because I wish to be independent of the need of helping another in return. So let us all de-marcate our spheres of influence, let us carefully portion out the common resources of our community life. This portion shall be mine, that portion shall be yours, and let us not trespass upon one anotherl You may not borrow my help or my equipment or my resources even in time of need, for at all costs we must avoid trespassing the 'rights' of one another. In short, let us kill all the spon-taneity of community life in charity." Religious who by vow have renounced everything, even their own wilI, are the last people in the world who should be insisting upon their rights. Is not charity a higher law than rights, does not charity break down the wails of proprietorship? Does not charity concede to others that to which they have no strict right? For whenever we have something and our neighbor is in true need of it, then it is no longer our own but his. It is not his in justice, but in charity. He cannot demand it of us--unless he is in dire necessity--but he can humbly ask it in love, and we grant it in love. We owe it to him + + + Requesting in Charity VOLUME 22, 1963 505 Paul Hinn~bu~ch, O.P. REVIEW FOR REL|G~OU$ in the charity which makes all of us one body under one Head. And yet, there is order in charity. For though what I~ have is given me by God not just for myself but for the service of others in Christ, yet I must use and distribute what I have in an orderly way, using it for the appointed purposes in community life. If I am called upon to de-vote some of my time or my resources in giving emer-geny help to another so that my appointed tasks may seem thereby to suffer, rather than stifle charity's eager-hess to help I entrust my own affairs to divine providence while I attend to the immediate needs of my neighbor. On the other hand, the common ownership of all things in community life, in this one body under one Head in charity, does not justify any one member or group of members o[ the religious community in appro-priating an unjust share of the common resources, taking more than should be alloted when distribution is made to each according to his need. If resources are unjustly appropriated in this way, even the charity of those who are unjustly deprived cannot approve of the injustice, though they may have to endure it in patience. Even charity cannot approve of the injustice, for charity is obliged to love the common good and cannot permit this harmful swelling of one member at the expense of an-other. We cannot appeal, then, to the fact that we are one body under one Head to justify any highhanded appro-priating of the common resources. What my neighbor has is mine, what the community has is mine, but only in the friendship of charity. I have only love's rights to these things. And therefore only in humble charity may !1. re-quest more than is already allotted to me. Only mutual charity makes what is his mine and what is mine his. Charity never demands, charity humbly asks. And when she has received, in due course she makes a grateful re-turn. Everyone who is generous in fulfilling the law of char-ity and is ever eager to be at the service of others sooner or later runs into those who abuse his generosity by mak-ing, in the name of charity, requests which charity has no right to make. There will be those who will use the main point of this article as an excuse for imposing upon others, saying, "I request this in charity, so in charity you may not refuse me." Are there situations when we may refuse requests for help without violating charity? At first sight it would seem not, for our Lord says, "Give to everyone who asks of you" (Lk 6:30). However, our Lord never asks the im-possible. There are times when one is so laden with other duties of justice and charity that he cannot possibly ful-fill a request for help. But in a case like this, charity must know how to say "No." "There is always a way of refus-ing so graciously," says the Little Flower, "that the re-fusal affords as much pleasure as the gift itself would have." Lest we abuse charity's rigl~t to ask help, we must al-ways be very considerate of those of whom we ask help. We should not ask a generous person for his help when we could do the things ourselves easily enough. For if the one we ask is really charitable and generous, then we can be sure he already has more than enough to do, for every-one is asking his help. We must take care never to ask un-necessarily or selfishly. If we really do not need help and the person we ask sees that this is so, then he is not uncharitable in refusing us. In this case a work of charity is not called for, since by definition a work of mercy is aid given to one who has true need. Furthermore, a busy religious has to be dis-criminating in the works of charity he undertakes. Since it is impossible for him to do everything, he does not violate charity if he makes a prudent choice about whom he is to help or about the type of aid he is to give; for as we have said, there is an order of charity. No one is obliged to sacrifice the greater works of charity and jus-tice to aid someone who would abuse his charity. Even in refusing a request which charity has no right to make, we must be charitable in our manner of refus-ing. One must patiently bear with the fault of the one who seeks to impose upon him. Likewise, we must be careful in judging whether or not a person really is abus-ing charity's rights to ask. Ordinarily we ought to pre-sume that the bond of charity lies at the basis of all re-quests for our help. If we may refuse help to those who are uncharitably inconsiderate in the requests they make of us, on the other hand we should anticipate the needs of those whose charity is so considerate of us that they hesitate to ask our help lest they unduly burden us. If, when necessary, charity knows how to refuse help in a gracious way, true charity is also always gracious in its manner of giving help. If our consent to help another is grudging and ungracious, we deal him an uncharitable blow even as we help him, for we humiliate him by our attitude. My son, to your charity add no reproach, nor spoil any gift by harsh words! Like clew that abates a burning so does a word improve a gift. ÷ ÷ + Requesting in Charity VOLUME 22~ 1965 5O7 Sometimes the word means more than the gift; both are offered by a kindly man. Only a fool upbraids before giving: a grudging gift wears out the expectant eyes (Sir 18:14-17). "The word means more than the gift" because the gen-uine charity behind the asking and the giving, the giving and the receiving, is the one thing precious above all else. 4- 4- 4- Paul Hinnebusch, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ANTONIO ROSMINI Three Q estions on the Spiritual Life [Antonio Rosmini, 1797-1855, was one of the great figures of the Church in the nineteenth century. Besides founding the Rosminian Fathers (the Institute of Charity), he also founded the Sisters of Providence (the Rosminian Sisters). As the founder of the sisters, he was naturally solicitous for their spiritual progress and advancement. The Review is happy to present here a translation of a letter :from Father Rosmini to the members of the Sisters of Providence in England on three important matters of the spiritual life. The translation has been made by the Reverend Denis Cleary, I.C.; Saint Mary's; Derrys Wood; Wonersh; Guildford, Surrey; England.] Stresa~ September 24, 1850 Dear Daughters in Christ, I would not wish you to judge my charity towards you by the number of letters which you receive from me. The Lord knows that I have you in my heart and that I offer you to Him every day on the altar. If I write infrequently, attribute this to my weakness and to the fact that I know you have a superior who is full of zeal for your growth in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, now that this superior of yours, and my dear brother in Christ, is returning to you after his journey to Italy, I cannot but send with him a letter which will serve to thank you for the gifts which you have sent me in your charity as a sign of your devo-tion and in which I shall answer those three important questions which you sent to me. I answer these questions because, although I know that you could have the same answers from your immediate superior who is full of wisdom and the spirit of God, I think that hearing the same things from me, as you desire and ask, will give you consolation and strength in doing good because of that affection and obedience which you grant me in Christ Jesus. It is for this reason that I write, not necessarily for your greater instruction. The first question which you ask me is this: "How can one use a spirit of intelligence without falling away from simple and blind obedience?" ÷ Three Questions VOLUME 22, 1963 + 4. ÷ ¯ 4ntonlo Rosmini REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS This question and the other two which follow show your spiritual discernment becau.se they manifest your de-sire for instruction in the most perfect things. Perfec-tion demands that we know how to join and harmonize in our daily actions those virtues which, at first sight., seem opposed and even, perhaps, to exclude one another reciprocally. In fact, although no virtue can ever truly be opposed to another, just as no truth can be opposed to another truth, there is an art in uniting harmoniously those virtues which belong to faculties and passions which have contrary tendencies. When possessed by a per-fect man these faculties and passions come together in an orderly way. Knowing how to bring them together, there-fore, belongs to the study of that perfection to which we are consecrated. The person who seeks for perfection is rather like a composer who knows how to blend the voices of contralto, baritone, and bass. Coming now to your que.,stion, I say that simple and blind obedience can be joined with a spirit of intelli-gence and that this can be done in various ways. The First Way. It must be realised that the higher and the more universal the reason which governs our actions, the greater the use we make of a spirit of intelligence. Acting with a spirit of intelligence only means acting ~c-cording to reason without allowing ourselves to be moved or disturbed by any passion whatsoever. Now the highest and most universal of all reasons for acting is that of doing in everything the will of God (I expect you have seen what I have written on this matter and have also read it). But he who obeys with simplicity and purity is certain of doing the will of God who has said concerning ecclesiastical superiors: "He who hears you hears me." This is a simple but efficacious and sublime reason for acting. It contains so much good in itself that, when it is present, it renders every other reason superfluous. So you see that although obedience is called blind this is not because it is without light but because it has so much light that it does not need to take it from elsewhere. It is as though a man is said to be without light because he does not light candles when the sun shines. The Second Way. Besides this, he who obeys blindly and simply can use his spirit of intelligence in the way in which he carries out what he has been commanded. Two persons carry out a command of their superior: one of them does it without reflection, without attention, without putting his heart into the work, without think-ing of what he has been told, without endeavoring to understand what has been commanded; the other does the same work trying to know, first of all, what his supe-riot's intention was, then endeavoring to carry out that intention in the best way possible as if it were his very own. The former, you see, acts without conviction and almost in spite of himself. The other performs his duty willingly; he desires to succeed; he finds his happiness in this work since he is certain of pleasing God. The latter obeys both with simplicity and with a spirit of intelli-gence, like a living and intelligent person, not like a machine. It is obviously impossible for the superior, when he commands, to mention in detail all those things which concern the way in which the order, is to be carried out. He gives the command and then leaves the subject to carry it out. The subject who has the greater spirit of intelligence can be known immediately through observa-tion of the manner in which he carries out his duty. The Third Way. It often happens that the command is more or less general and that many things are left to the common sense of the one who receives it. In this case, the subject must be careful to note the sphere of action de-termined for him by the command of his stiperior. Within that sphere he is obliged by obedience itself to work in a personal manner, not capriciously, 9[ course, but according to sound judgment, that is to say, with a spirit of intelligence. If you consider the different members of a religious congregation, you will see that they all act through obe-dience, even the general of the order because he is subject to the pope at least. Nevertheless, obedience leaves a more or less free field to the details of their obedience. .Superiors have greater scope in this respect than subjects. According to his position, each one can .and must make use of his spirit of intelligence. In your own house, you begin from the central superior and you go down through all the other offices, each of which is subordinate to the one above and so directed by obedience. Nevertheless, all the work has to be carried out with a spirit of intelli-gence. Everyone has to use this spirit in so far as obedi-ence leaves the matter to her discretion. Take another example, a teacher or a nurse, for in-stance. Obedience imposes this work, and so the merit of obedience is present. But what a great deal of intelligent application is needed to carry it out perfectlyl And if you consider even particular commands, you will find that the greater part of them leaves some liberty where one's own intelligence can be used. For instance, you have to write a letter and have even been told in general what to write. Is it not still necessary to think carefully about the way in which the matter is to be expressed? Obedience, therefore, never determines all the actions which a person does--that would be impossible. Many commands give scope, and great scope, to the exercise of personal initia-tive. + + + Three Questions VOLUME 22~ 196~ ~ntonlo Rosmini REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The Fourth Way. This concerns the observations which we make respectfully to our superiors about the commands they give us. These observations are perfectly lawful, but in order to make them with a true spirit of intelligence three conditions are required: first, that these observations spring simply from zeal for good and t.he glory of God, not from any self-interest; second, that they are not made lightly--in a word, that we do not say the first thing that comes into our head without having re-flected upon the matter; third, that they are made in spirit of submission so that if the superior insists upon his command the subject does not sulk but does what he is told with alacrity and joy. If the matter has great importance for the glory of God and it seems that what is commanded by the superior is not the right course, one can have recourse to a higher superior. This is not contrary to the simplicity of obedi-ence provided that the three conditions mentioned are put Jr;to practice. Superiors like to hear the observations of their subjects provided that these are offered in a spirit of charity and humility. If after all this it happens that what has to be done and what is done for obedience leads to some harmful effect (provided, of course, one is not treating of sin), the one who obeys has lost nothing. On the contrary, he gains because his act of obedience con-tains a mortification which is most pleasing to God. The man who mortifies himself in order to obey has taken great step forward on the road to sanctity both because he has denied his own will and because he has sacrificed his selblove and submitted his reason to a greater reason, God's very own, from which the command comes. That is suflacient for the first question. The second question is this: "How can one unite prac-tically the spirit of contemplation to an active life en-gaged in works of charity?" Since the union of holy contemplation with the exer-cise of works of charity is the aim of our congregation, follows that we must not be satisfied until we have ob-tained from God the light to join these two things in our-selves. I say that we must obtain from God the power of uniting contemplation and action in our life because the' only master who can teach us such a sublime science is, Jesus Christ Himself who gave us a most perfect example' of it. You see, this science consists in nothing else but' union, and the closest possible union, with Jesus Christ. In His mercy He has already prepared in His Church the' means necessary for this union. Even before we were born or knew how to desire them, these means were made' ready for us. What are these means, then, which enablel us to obtain this intimate and continually actuated union~ with Jesus Christ, this union which does not distract us from works of external charity but, on the contrary, im-pels us towards them and helps us to implement them? The first among them is the pure and simple intention of seeking Jesus Christ alone in all our thoughts, works, and actions. This uprightness of intention is harmed to a greater or less degree by any other affection which influ-ences our actions. It follows that our intention of seeking in everything Jesus Christ alone is not perfect if we have not given up self-love and sensuality entirely. I said, how-ever, that that intention which seeks Jesus Christ alone in everything is hurt by every affection which influences our internal or external actions because an affection or sensation which has no influence on our voluntary thoughts or words or actions (in which case the affection or sensation is entirely opposed by our will) in no way diminishes the purity of our intention. On the contrary, it gives it scope and increases it according to those words of God to St. Paul: "Virtue is made perfect in tribula-tion." The second means, which serves to help the first, con-sists in carrying out all our exercises of piety, and espe-cially our reception of the sacraments and our assistance at Mass, with the greatest possible fervor, tenderness, gratitude, sincerity, and intelligence. It is especially in these two acts of devotion that there is loving union be-tween Jesus Christ and the devout soul. The third means is that of endeavoring continually to keep alive the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts by hold-ing Him present, painted, as it were, before the eyes of the soul. We have to hear His words as they are recorded in the Gospel; we have to consider the actions which He performed during His mortal life and at the moment of His precious death (all these actions should be familiar to a spiritual person); we must apply His words and His example to ourselves and to all that we have to do; we must ask how He would act in our case and how He wishes us to act; when we are in doubt we should take advice, desiring sincerely to know and to do what is most perfect and is most pleasing to Him; we must listen to His voice with reverence and love when He speaks within US. The fourth means is that of beholding Jesus Christ in our neighbor. Whenever we have contact with our neigh-bor, we must endeavor to be of use to him in Jesus Christ and receive from him edification for ourselves. If we have a great zeal for the salvation of souls, we shall do every-thing in our power to win them and to bringlthem close to Jesus Christ. At the same time, we will wage war on useless and idle words and upon superfluous conversa-tioHnso awnedv vear,i nin c uorridoesrit yto. direct our every wo|rd/and work + 4. 4. Three Questions VOLUME 22, 1963 Antonio Rosrnini REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to the betterment of others and of ourselves, and so to bring forth fruits of eternal life, two things are necessary: primarily and principally, charity should always be ou.r guiding star; secondly, we must ask from Jesus Christ the light of His prudence which multiplies the fruits of charity. A soul that always proposes to itself the good of souls in everything that it says or does will always be recollected even in the midst of many external works be-cause its spirit is always intent on charity; and he who thinks always of the charity of Jesus Christ and has noth-ing else in his heart is always recollected in Jesus Christ and in God because the Scripture says: "God is charity." To acquire the habit which enables these four means to fructify in a constant recollection of spirit even in the midst of external occupations, it is necessary to make great efforts in the beginning and mortify oneself reso-lutely with regard to everything that distracts the mind and is opposed" to this state of recollection and of the presence of God. We must ask this grace of Jesus Christ with great constancy. Only by persevering in intense prayer can the soul be established in that permanent con-dition of quiet in God which is never lost through any' external action provided the will does not give itself to evil. Here you must realise that the power which communi-cates with God and is joined to God is different from those other powers with which we work externally. When, therefore, man has come to a certain state of con-templation and union, he works with those powers which regard external actions without placing any obstacle to that supreme power which gives him quiet and rest in God. So it is that we read of certain holy persons who, while they seemed completely taken up externally, were speaking internally with their God and Creator. And this conversation of theirs, instead of impeding them, helped them to do their external works better, just as outward actions did not turn them away from their interior~ union with God. Such a desirable state is usually obtained by those faithful and constant souls who, at the beginning, suffer much and mortify themselves greatly and pray with in-tensity and wholeheartedness. This is the state which the Sisters of Providence must strive to obtain during the time of the novitiate when they have every opportunity, if only they will use it, of binding themselves indissolubly to God, the spouse of their souls. The union begt, n then must last for the whole of their life. Those sisters who have not obtained it completely during their novitiate must strive to gain it as soon as possible, But let us pass to the third question. The third question was, then: "How can one unite per- fect zeal and an ardent desire for the perfection of charity with perfect detachment from the esteem~ of others and a sincere desire for contempt and ill use." This question is no less difficult to dea,1 with than the preceding two--to answer in practice, ,I mean, not in words. But what is difficult to Jesus Christ and to those who hope in Him and pray to Him . ?~t In order to reply to this last question~of yours, I say that it is necessary to suppose in a person h foundation of solid humility. This consists in not attributing to oneself that which belongs to God alone or to other men. Humil-ity, in fact, is only justice. It is just that m~{n should think himself nothing (because he really is such) and that he should think God everything; it is just tl~at man should recognise that glory does not appertain to !nothing but to that which is everything. Therefore he should wish for no glory for himself but the greatest possible ~glory for God. When a man knows these things, it is just ~hat he should feel a certain uneasiness when he is praised by men be-cause he who is nothing cannot desire to b~ praised with-out usurping what is not proper to him. IOn the other hand, he should be joyful when he sees that men glorify God. Man however is not only nothing. He is something worse: he is a sinner (not only because of the sins which he has committed but also because of th~se which he could have committed and would commit con. tinually if God did not have compassion on him). It lis just there-fore that he should desire to be despised[and that he should rejoice when he is ill treated by mefl. Sentiments of this nature must be unshakeable and deeply implanted in the soul of a religious person. Nevertheless, this per-son must realise also that although man is a, lnothing and moreover subject to every sin, Jesus Christ lias redeemed him through His mercy freely given; He h~s saved him and clothed him with Himself in such a maqner that the Christian bears the adornments of Jesus Christ. These are more or less rich and precious according io the abun-dance of virtues, of merits, and of grace poss,essed by the Christian. A man who finds himself adorned in this man-ner is indeed mad if this causes pride in him. On the other hand, if he realises that all these treasures are given to him freely and through no merit of his own, he will humble himself and attribute to God alone dhe glory of them without usurping for himself even the sdaallest part of that glory. Yet, just as God has given to man theset'reasures of v~rtue and of grace through a wholly gratmtous love, so also He makes h~m a paruc~pator of H~s own glory. Once more, though, man must not consider this glo',ry which is g~ven to him as his own but as belonging to Jisus Christ 4, Three Questions VOLUMF 22~ 1963 4. 4. ÷ Antonio Rosmini REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS who, through His mercy, has wished to pour it out upon those who believe in Him, and to allow them a share it. With all this well understood, we can formulate certain rules which enable us to unite a desire of perfecting onr works of charity with detachment from self-esteem and, moreover, with a sincere desire of contempt (a most pre-cious thing). The rules are the following. First Rule. Generally speaking we must not give any occasion for contempt, at least through our own fault. When, despite this, we are belittled~ we must receive our humiliation with joy as something precious; we must thank God for it without fearing that it will damage our works of charity because, even if some damage does re-sult from it, this is desired by the Lord for His own ends. We ought not to turn away from it but trust in Provi-dence which will know how to obtain greater good h'om the immediate evil. Second Rule. We must never do anything whatever to gain praise from men. To do so is a most despicable act. When praise doescome of its own accord, we must at-tribute it to Jesus Christ to whom alone it belongs; we must, for our part, fear it as a danger and take precau-tions against it by internal acts of humility and contempt of ourselves; we must protest that we do not want to re-ceive it as a part of our reward. After this, if we find that praise is useful towards the perfection of our works of charity, we can take pleasure in it provided that this pleasure concerns the perfection of charity. We must not refer it simply to ourselves and we must be careful that no feeling of vanity or pride arise from it. On the con-trary, after we have received praise we should prepare ourselves for greater humiliation, persuaded that praise has made us no better than we were before. Third Rule. When we realise that the praise has been exaggerated, we should be displeased because this is con-trary to truth and justice. We should attribute it to the large heart of the one who gives it. Fourth Rule. In order to know whether we are really detached ourselves, we must see if we are glad when others are praised. You especially must ask yourselves whether you rejoice when praise is given to your sisters. Even the very smallest dislike or jealousy on this account would be a very great defect. You must be generous with others but especially with your sisters; you must consider their virtues far more than their vices; and you must try to maintain, by just means always, the esteem which others give them. Everyone must be ready to turn praise away from herself and see that it goes instead to her sis-ters. Each one must wish to be first with the work in hand and the last to be praised. This is not a dit~icult thing when a person considers his own defects and the virtues of others; when he no longer judges or condemns the defects of others; when he leaves ~ll judgment to God to whom alone it belongs; when he puts into prac-tice the lesson which Jes.us Christ tau :ht with these words: "Do not judge and you will not be judged. In fact, exposing oneself to the danger of j, " " one's brethern is the same as doing tlztdging wrongly ¯Therefore, in order not to be in danger o~ em an injury. lnj"us ¯uce against them, one must abstain [croom mevitetrinyg d aen-finitive judgment which may harm them. tions as the answers occurred to me. I hope that, if you meditate and do all this, you ever more dear to God and assure for your mortal crown. Your most affectionate fat~ Filth Rule. We must never speak of th ings for which we can be praised-~even the world considers this wrong. Moreover, although we ought not to bl'ame ourselves without good motives, nevertheless we ought to strive to cover up our virtues as far as we can andI to speak con-temptuously of ourselves sometimes provided so with sincerity This i . ¯ ~ .we can do you are speaking with yo~u rp rsaislsteewrso orrm wy iethspl et~cmerlsloyn ws h"en wh.om you are friendly, provided, once mo~, that itwl~tahs a s~ncere foundation. My dear sisters in Christ, I have replied t.o your ques- ,n our Lord will become seives an lin-er in Christ, A.R. ÷ Three Questions VOLU~ ~:,, SISTER JEAN DE MILAN, S.G.C. Toward Greater Maturity ÷ ÷ Sister Jean de Mi-lan, S.G.C., teaches psychology at Rivier College; Nashua, New Hampshire. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 518 The compatibility of neurosis and religion has re-ceived considerable attention in the psychological litera-ture of the last. thirty years. It is argued that sanctity re-quires a certain integrity in the psychic order,1 that man's struggle for perfection is directly proportionate to his mental equilibrium.2 There is no doubt, then, as to the importance of mental health in religious life where men and women consecrate themselves to God by vows to practice the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Religious commit themselves to community living and they depend mostly on one another for the works of the community and for companionship. It takes only elemental charity to prompt one to look into the dynamics of a neurosis in search of the elements incom-patible with a religious life. It is now an accepted fact that without being diagnosed psychoneurotics everyone exhibits neurotic symptoms at irregular intervals. It will be the purpose of this paper to identify these neurotic traits and to suggest measures within the framework of a religious life which can help to attenuate if not to eradicate the troublesome symptoms. The paper will be developed along twelve characteris-tics listed by Schneiders as typical of neurotic person-alities: immaturity and sensitivity, self-centeredness, un-realistic ego ideal, rigidity and anxiety, isolation, ag-gression against self, mental conflict, lack of control, sug-gestibility, irresponsibility, lack of sense of humor, and emotional instability,s These traits can be found in many people including religious; it is only when they become x Jordan Aumann, "Can Neurotics Be Saints?" Cross and Crown, v. 5 (1953), pp. 458-59. s Robert Meskunas, "Sanity and Sanctity: An Inquiry into the Compatibility of Neurosis and Sanctity," Bulletin o] the Guild o] Catholic Psychiatrists, v. 7 (October, 1960), p. 248. s Alexander A. Schneiders, Personal Adjustment and Mental Health (New York: Rinehart, 1955), pp. 390-95. a consistent and persistent pattern that/one speaks of a neurotic personality. As a type of adjustment, it is in-adequate and it represents an meffioent and unwhole-some effort to meet the demands and rdsponsibilities of daily living. / 1. Immaturity,and Sensitivity The neurotics immaturity makes allI problems and frustrations loom large and menacing, IThis tendency, often paired with regression, connotes not only loss mature habits of behavior but a consequ~ent progressive inadequacy of response. The neurotic be.comes decreas-ingly able to meet the ordinary demands for social living and begins to withdraw from acuve part~opauon, m group acuwty. He does not master hfe ~ut expects life to look after him. He is unusually sensitive to comments concerning himself and cannot tolerate/any form criticism. His sensitivity makes the stresses~ and threats of reality almost unbearable¯ Religious life favors the cultivation of a/Christianper-sonality through the development of a perfect life---~ne exquisitely balanced, of noble service to ohe's neighbor, a life most happily modeled on Christ Hi~aself. In lead-ing to spiritual maturity, religious life de~aands of one constant and close personal contacts in theI common life which comprises factors capable of actualizing the po-tentialities of the individual. To be a constructive and mature power, the individual personality ]nust exercise itself through activity upon others. Religious who can be characterized by "immaturity and sensitivity" are likely to be living in a sElf-contained world. They have refused to walk through the doors swinging outward where the self can be ektended and actualized. 2. Self-Centeredness Neuroticism is characterized by a life which is, in some respects, self-centered. It is ~mmatunty s firs.t ally. The neurotic makes his ego the center of the universe; good is what is good for the ego, bad only what unpleasant to it. Menninger, a renowned psychiatrist, b~lieves that Christ Himself laid down one of the pnnople~s of mental health that is now recognized as of paramo,unt impor-tance. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all quoted Christ when they said: "For whosoever will save his life s~all lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake will save it." What better can condense the attributes of a mature per-sonality? "Some men can love others enough~ to derive ¯ more satisfaction from that than from being lo~ved them-selves. It is still a magnificent precept. If you can follow VOLUME 22, 1963 ,519 it, you will never have to make a date with a psychia-trist." 4 Religious life, because of its theocentric plan, teaches a person to surmount his egocentricity. It also provides a basis for satisfactory interpersonal relations and cha:r-ity toward fellow men in the fatherhood of God instead of in changing human sentiments.5 The spirit of self-abnegation and self-denial is fundamental to the re-ligious life. Religious are called to share one mind, one heart, one life, one love in Christ. Their social service is motivated by the love of God in the neighbor. Self-love, then, tends to decrease as a function of one's love. for others. The paradox of a self-centered religious be-comes a serious indictment. + + + Sister Jean de Milan, S.G.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 3. Unrealistic Ego Ideal The neurotic harbors an almost pathological ego ideal which prevents him from achieving a realistic attitude toward the issues and problems of daily life. His goal is a purely idealized and often artificial one. The ego ideal, the self one wants to become, may take the form of an ideal of personal conduct or it may be identified with certain desired accomplishments. The purpose of the ideal is to bring about identification with it in view of self-actualization. It emphasizes the forward movement or activity that is characteristic of living or-ganisms. The personal pattern of tendencies is projected into the future. This orientation toward future goals is commonly accepted by psychologists as a mark of matu-rity. Obviously, it reaches its highest perfection in re-ligion where man is oriented toward his ultimate goal.e Religion aims primarily at bringing persons closer to God, and by doing so it may secondarily promote their mental health. When a person believes that God assists him in a very personal way, life's perplexities and emo-tional crises become relatively unimportant. With such a clear-eyed notion of God, of His claims on the indi-vidual and His plans for him, the religious has a reliable and stable framework upon which to build a plan of life. Religion is the supreme moral virtue dominating his interior life and his relations to other human beings, and the religious view of life becomes the philosophy which dominates both thought and conduct.7 Such a man is strengthened by the sense of his own personal dignity. ' Schneiders, Personal Adjustment, p. 160. ~ James H. VanderVeldt and Robert P. Odenwald, Psychiatry and Catholicism (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952), p. 185. e James E. Royce, Personality and Mental Health (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1955), p. 277. ~ Thomas Verner Moore, Personal Mental Hygiene (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1944), p. 236. A religious has only to gauge his serentty to evaluate himself on this trait. 4. Rigidity and Anxiety The neurotic's rigidity and anxiety d, not allow ~him to adapt to changing situations. Flexibility, suppleness, and malleability are the signs of life. I Rigidity, rigor mortis, is the sign of death. Such is the sta'te of the person who lacks malleability, whose personali~,y is excessively rigid'S Fear and anxiety, the very core of neurosis, are emo-tions which generally assume a rather egoistic character. It is well known and readily accepted thatldiffuasnexiety is reduced in the neurotic by the development of somatic symptomatology, exther phys~ogentc or psychogemc ~n nature. The physical symptoms then bdcome ways of structuring the anxiety¯ Anxiety may result from dejection flowing from one's inabilityto realize his ambitions; it maylbe due to in-jured vanity. There are surprisingly few neurotics' among people who are genuinely humble. Real Ihumil!ty is a prophylaxis against the anxieties one encounters ~n every day human interaction, for the truly huml~le person not only recognizes his own weaknesses and limperfections but he remains peaceful when his deficiencies are recog-nized by others also.9 One who has consecrated himself to God by religious vows is officially the spouse of Christ. Bu~ one can be officially the bride of Christ without having made in reality a complete sacrifice of himself in which his will is identified with and absorbed in the will of God, or without having attained to that psychologtcal state that St. John of the Cross designates as "spiritual ,matrimony." This state results in a cessation of all anxiety and a men-tal state of peace and delightA0 It is quitd remarkable how religious experiences tend to the moral perfectton of the one who has them. They give him a be~ter mode of adjustment in his relations to other humanl beings and a spiritualized conception of the nature of t~ials. 5. Isolation There is a certain amount of hostility in .he neurotic make-up coupled wtth tnabthty to get along w~th others. The psychoneurotm ts essenually a maladjusted personal- 8 Charles J. D. Corcoran, "Types Suited or Unsuited for Religious Vocation," Proceedings o] the Eighth Annual Convocation o[ the Vocation Institute (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1955), p. 33. 0 Raphael C. McCarthy, Sa]eguarding Mental Health! (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1937), p. 253. lOThomas Verner Moore, The Driving Forces o[ H~man Nature (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1948), pp. 421-22. ÷ ÷ ÷ Maturity VOLUME 22, 1963 521 4. Sister lean de Milan, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ity and the victim of a bad system of mental habits. isolation results from a group of defense reactions, in-cluding primarily the fundamental biological reactions of defense and avoidance. The neurotic withdraws from his social group and becomes a nuisance even unto him-self. Man is a social being whose ultimate destiny is bound up with his observance of the great commandment dual charity. His perfection as a person is analogous to that of a seed which, to bear fruit, must grow outside of of itself. Religious growth in perfection can be measured in terms of one's serviceability to and influence on others. A life in the service of God and man, a wholehearted de-votion to the ideal of religious life, appears as the realiza-tion of our friendship with God. The profound feeling of loneliness and sense of isolation one experiences oc-casionally can be cured by a sincere trust in God, our friend. 6. Aggression Against Sell Neurotics are characterized by a great deal of petulance, annoyance with others, sensitivity to their at-titudes and behavior, readiness to quarrel and to find fault, and so on. Self-hatred as well as hatred of reality underlies both the spiritual and emotional disturbance. Aggression against self flows from conceited pride which has a twofold weakening effect: one of walling up its victim from reality and the other of making him super-sensitive to anything that might be construed to indicate a belittling attitude on the part of others,ix Running through all these neurotic ups and downs is a thread of chronic dissatisfaction and hopelessness which pre:;ents the eternal problem of "to be or not to be." The neurotic tries to evade the problem but no evasion is possible. He goes on unhappy and feeling offended and disregarded while it is within his power to modify, change, develop, and perfect his attitudes of mind, his emotional reac-tions, and the habits that fall under the competence of the will. It may call for the adoption of a new plan of life. Religious life, by having one strive towards the per-fection of a Christian personality, calls for a conscious development along the lines of private and social con-duct. Weekly confession is productive of a healthy ac-ceptance of one's shortcomings without introspective brooding. One is helped to come to a realistic acknowl-edgement of one's place, one's assets and liabilities, and one's dignity and dependence on God. Meditation is also a great promoter of insight. n James A. Magner, Personality and $uccessIul Living (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1945), p. 44. Mental Conflict Since it is the nature of conflict to pull the organism in different directions at the same time, deep-seated neurotic conflict is bound to disrupt the organization of personality. In the concept of. conflictI the conscience principle is of supreme importance; for it often happens that there is no real conflict between desire and its mere physical fulfillment, or between desire a~d one's sense of expediency, but that it is mainly and al~ove all between desire and the sense of duty. When impulse and fear are in conflict, the neurotic tries to resolve the conflict not by cont.trolling the im-pulse but instead by evasion and decep, uon. The fear results in behavior which seeks grauficauon while trying to keep punishment from occurring; thits strategy com-monly involves secrecy and falsehood. Th~ neurotic seeks to avoid social disapproval, but his conscle, nce hurts him. Attempts at repression may be unsuccessful and the in-dividual may resort to neurotic symptoms. Rehg~on, by reason of its experiences, behefs, and prac-uces, ~s eminently stated to the reducuon of damagxng conflict, feelings, and frustrations. It constantly reminds one of the intrinsic value and dignity of man, and of the fact that he is created to the image and likeness of God; there is no better way to offset the traumatic effects of in-feriority and the feeling of personal worthl~essness. There can be no more solid anchor than trust in! divine provi-dence and in the belief of His personal interest in each of His creatures. Conformity to the will of th~ all-wise God makes life's sorrows and fears bearable. Whlen a religious weakens under the burden of mental conflitcts, it will be wise for him to work out the debits and credits of his conduct in terms of self-will and will of G~d. 8. Lack of Control When the emotions are chronically ou~[ of control, some degree of neurosis exists. There is no neurosis with-out some evidence of failure in control an~t integrative functions. Integration presupposes wisdom ~in the intel-lect and character in the will--a scale of lvalues, self-knowledge, and habits of self-control. Most o,[ the neurot-ics are recruited among those whose will power is undeveloped. Stability amid the ups and downs of emotional moods is essential to both physical and mental heal~.h. Here the virtues of fortitude and temperance play their part. Re-ligion gives moral principles with a bac,king which makes them easier to hold onto when the going is hard. Meditation, a daily spiritual exercise for all religious, Moore, Mental Hygiene, p. 306. 4. Maturity VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ $i~tet lean d~ Milan, $.G.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 524 readjusts their thinking to a proper sense of values. Be-sides, one is not allowed to elude the dynamics of grace for any considerable time when one truly lives his re. ligious life. 9. Suggestibility Suggestibility is closely linked with emotional im-maturity and harmful dependency. The suggestible neu-rotic is controlled by an idea or by someone else rather than by himself. His want of self-confidence makes him dependent upon others so that he leans on their judg-ments and readily yields to suggestion. He is vacillating in his purposes, uncertain in his opinions, fearful of re-sponsibility, and reluctant to assume the initiative in any activity. Such feelings batter at a person's mental in-tegrity until it is weakened or destroyed.13 Suggestibility resembles "lack of control" inasmuch as it implies lack of integration. The greater one's erno-tional vulnerability, the greater will be the predisposition to neurotic reactions. No doubt the neurotic is happier with his neurosis than he would be without it in view of all the circumstances external and internal as he per-ceives them; however, he lacks the happiness of an inte-grated personality. What VanderVeldt said of religion can be said of re-ligious life: "The condition for the mental health value of religion is that people truly live their religion.TM Perhaps not all people who are supposed to be religious and become neurotic have made their religious convic-tions an integral part of their lives. 10. Irresponsibility Sense of responsibility is the realization that one has certain duties and obligations to fulfill and the deter-mination to fulfill them to the best of one's abilities. Sense of responsibility and the willingness to accept obli-gations are dependent to a great extent on maturity. The comparison is often made of a neurosis being a closed door that bars dyn~imic development for the neu-rotic. If the doors of the neurotic hell are locked from the inside, the psychotherapist can only help the patient find the key. This is not an easy task as the neurotic pa-tient clings to his symptoms even though he is disturbed by them and seeks psychiatric help. The neurosis is a way of life that is pleasant to the neurotic, especially when he is able to manipulate the environment to meet his selfish needs. The ability to assume responsibility is in large part a McCarthy, SaIeguarding Mental Health, p. 266. VanderVeldt and Odenwald. Psychiatry and Catholicism, p. 193. matter of moral courage¯ One who has honest religious convicuons feels obhged to do something worthwhile for God and for man. He turns aside from the unwholesome pursuit of selfish pleasures. Religious Iprinciples direct his mind to the purpose of life, and in/so doing they do not deprive him of pleasure but' give it i~ abundance and permanence as he attains the great purp, ose of life in the service of God and man. If he has adopted the religious ideal with enthusiasm, then it become~ a powerful in-hibitory force against the development of unwholesome mental conditions.15 11. Lack ol Sense of Humor A good sense of humor is one of the c iteria of mental health and adjustment. It is not found in the neurotic whose life is humorless, a drab affair d~ minated by ill-ness, conflict, frustration, dissatisfaction, ~and discourage-ment. Humor is based on the perception of incongruities; it is a feeling of surprise, the joyous shock Iof discovery in our appreciation of life's incongruities. To find these con-trasts we must be self-detached,.account ourselves of little ¯ importance, look outwards and not rewards, feel drawn to people and to th~ngs ~n thanksgxwng; for humor ~s the reward o1: a wxll-to-commumty. "Wlll-to-cornmumty ~s not to be understood as a fixed determ~nauon to hve with the community but rather the will td live in a com-munity as a grateful member of a crowd,°r group. Hu-mor should be the natural endowment oflall thowsheo seek to live in religion. The test of a true sense of humor is the capacity to laugh with others at one's self; but that i~ not all. One must discover the reason for such laughter. One must learn to discover in the laughter of others s~omething like a comphment. True humor ~s akin to brotlierly love and sympathy; ~t brads us closer together and relaxes all un- ! due tensions. There is nothing so effecuve in checking the ingrowing pains of pride as a sense of h~umor. People who take themselves too seriously need the ~antidote of a good laugh to reduce values to their true llevel and to declare a permanent moratorium on manyI of their pet grievances and frustrated ambitions.17 A sense of humor combats anxiety, which is a blight on the ~ehg~ous life, by exercising the mind in a way which develops a living, vibrant suppleness. Cheerfulness is the siga which ac-companies sacrifices made out of true love, the love of God. Gloom and sadness are the signs of s~lcrifice made ~ Moore, Mental Hygiene, pp. 244-45. xo Ferdinand Valentine, The Apostolate o[ Chastity (Westminster: Newman, 1954), p. 15. x7 Magner, Personality and Success]ul Living, p. 48. ÷ Maturity VOLUME 22~ 1963 out of self-love, out of vainglory. A" sense of humor enables one to behd without breaking under the weight: of the cross, to see the proportion between the suffering,; of this life and the glory of the next, and to see oneself in the humble relationship of creature to Creator. 12. Emotional Instability Emotional instability is a dominant feature of the neurotic personality and a primary determinant of the neurotic's difficulties. Along with his emotional change-ability and high general emotionality, he exhibits be-havior that is characteristic of a spoiled child. There is an intimate connection between mental and moral health. Wholesome effective living and mental stability require an adequate scale of values, or philos-ophy of life, and a set of worthwhile attitudes and habits. These qualities can be provided more efficaciously and more abundantly by religion than anything else in one's life. Only moral virtue can give a healthy, integrated personality. The virtues moderate one's emotions and temperament, bringing them into balance. A virtuous life will result in unity and integration of personality. Summary and Conclusion Religious are not immune to neurotic behavior; at one time or another, a religious is likely to exhibit neu-rotic traits. But by its very nature, the religious life can help one counteract the possible neurotic tendencies. A brief discussion of the positive contributions of religious life to mental health was introduced with the discussion of each neurotic trait. The religious man or woman of humble faith in God, of daily prayer and consultation with God, of devotion to his or her religious duties as God has given light to see them has the assurance of a full perspective on life, health of mind, peace of soul, and a view of time in the light of eternity,is ~s James A. Magner, Mental Health in a Mad World (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1953), p. 298. 4. Sister Jean de Milan, S.G.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 526 ROBERT j. KRUSE, C.S.C. Au in Religio 'From a supernatural point of view, th, exercise of re-ligious authority and the practice of ehg~ous obedience are meaningful only when conceived as~ participations in the authority and in the obedience of Christ our Lord. eAd::a°~n:r~ ~Vreo~tern~p. t to understand authority and obedi- . ~ a ~nrist-centered way of ~ife, we become gud~ of gloss misunderstanding In such }a situ . - gardless ot the reasonableness "a n d t h et ingenudittlyO oIlf~ oreu-r solutions to the problems which religiouslauthority and religious obedience pose, such solutions remain void of genuine supernatural worth. In discussing authority and obedience, therefore, our first and constant care must be to associate them with our life in Christ. ~therwise our discussion will remain purely human and natural and a ~. consequence sterile Attempts ,~ ~-~ - ~-,. ¯ s. hfe~as ~,s Christian a"nd relig~io tu~s x lcifaett~ ~m Uu~lvt lbnee wanaal~zffd in divine terms. To confront supernatural reality with purely natural reflections betokens a wand of reverence ~r~he g~dly way of life with which we ~re ~a . ~st our Lord. ~ ceu ~n In this article we will speak of authority in the r - ligious life. In a subsequent article we will ~er some r~ flections on religious obedience. Of the t~o topics the latter is the more all,cult. Both are intimately connected. Afith~rity and obedience are relative terms so that what-ever ,s said o~ the one necessarily contains implications for the other. In our discussion of authority ~e ~ill group our considerations about three focal poiqts: first, re-ligious authority and the mystery o[ the ~ncarnation; second, religious authority and the imitation of Christ our Lord; and third, religious authority and] the mystery o~ the Redemption. Divine life flows to the souI through many channels. Ultimately, however, all of those channels drink at a sole spring and that spring is Christ. It is He who gives ÷ ÷ Robert J. Kruse, C.S.C;, is a faculty member ot? Holy Cross Fathers Semi-nary; North Easton, Massachusetts. VOLUME 22, 1965 Robert CK,~.Ce., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 528 to the soul living water, "a fountain of water, springing up unto life everlasting" (Jn 4:14). What is it that the Christian and that the religious seeks? He seeks a share in the life of God. For without a share in the life of the eternal God, man is deprived of all eternal significance. Unless a man looks outside of himself to a higher order, to the transcendent order, to God, in search of an ex-planation for his own existence, unless a man looks be-yond self to Another for the fulfillment of his own noblest hopes, he remains imprisoned without hope in the finite, in the created, in the temporal order--with no more persona/significance than that of any other transi-tory phenomenon. Ultimately, all religious questions re-duce themselves to this sole question: the nature of man's relationship to God, the possibility of man's sharing in the life of God. For apart from such a possibility man becomes merely a moment in time. And self is incapable, totally incompetent to satisfy its own profoundest aspira-tions. So that man seeks a way out of the maze of human, created, and limited reality, finite love, imperfect good-ness and truth, a way which will lead him to the enjoy-ment eternally of unlimited reality, infinite love, perfect truth. That way is Christ. Christ is the sole way. There is no other way. Among all communications of divine life, none re-motely approaches that enjoyed by the holy humanity of Christ our Lord. For in all truth the human intellect, the human will, and the human body of our Savior are the intellect, will, and body of a divine person. No created being save the holy humanity of Christ, that hu-manity f.ull of grace and of truth, enjoys this personal union with God. Truly in the womb of the Virgin Mary are celebrated the nuptials of God and of man. In the mystery of the Incarnation, we witness the wedding of the divine and the human in the person of the Word made flesh. And in virtue of His holy humanity, the Son may be said to render perfect obedience to His Father and our Father. "Therefore in coming into the world, he says., a body thou hast fitted to me .B.ehold, I come., to do thy will, O God" (Heb 10:5-7). It is indeed significant that because of His obedience our Savior is glorified and exalted. "Appearing in the form of man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross. Therefore God also has exalted him" (Phil 2:7-9). It is equally significant that because of His obedience our Savior lays claim to His Mystical Body, the Church, and wins authority over that Body. "Christ is head of the Church, being himself savior of the body," so that, "the Church is subject to Christ" (Eph 5:23-24). God has made all things "subject under hwihsi cfhe eint,d eaendd i sh hiims b hodey ""a (vEepn hea a2so: 2 'o2-v--e2 r-~ ,a) . r/t t,h, e_ C h u r c h., indeed would onlyY g uruhdrigsitn. gOlyn athssee ontth teor lhthaen dw, imll aon y." sup.eriors. The obvious explanatiofi is a~t hand: ~h:uir. Perxor" ,s not Chtr. iIsn d e e d , t h e s u p e./rior ma n be conspicuously Christlike T~;o ~.2, .y ot. even. course, irrelevant. For the. s.u. p,~er-i~olras naauttlhoonr iat s", .ot authority of Christ even if tbo . ¯ ,~ - y as the --- ~uperaor § conauct is far t~oro gmr ~asnpr itshtlei kper.o Tfohuen rdo osti gonf itfhicea pnrcoeb olefm.~/tihiees I innc aa rfnaailtuioren. God has willed to use human channels fo~" the communi-cation of divine life. First and foremost, t~e holy human-ity of the Word Incarnate. That humani,ty is, of course, "tried as we are in all things except sin" ~Heb 4:15). But in His Mystical Body the Incarnation ~1of the eternal Word is extended through all the centuries of man's pilgrimage in exile. And to His Body C~rist has com-municated His authority. In the Church~.~which is the prolongation through history of the mystery of th c,.,arn.auo.n--davme life is communicated ;,,! ,.~" .~__ t, oa. lhe Church can do this only becaus~ Christ is her Head; and in Christ human nature has lald claim on the divine, on the life of God. So that in th~ Church, the Body of Christ, the perfection and humanity receives truly divine gifts, fduilflfneess of Chri.~t's There is, of course, this crucial our Savior's fence between is --' r-. ,., r~.er ~s holy, perfectly sinl,~ss; the latter str~lYesP:~t~ut~iYn "fer~n'wnghi21.y. In the lmeantime it ~vL~.rot~uide of the holiness of its Hena ~dt. sBeuetk ws rite.~h:daelm Cphtriiosnt oin r - h.as c,o,.mmumcate.d to His Mystical B.bdy a arti~i- ~m,~e, ~sni.n ~f.un ltnaless osw on[ a tuhttaato Mrit"ys, tai c~aa]r-t i_cri, ~.,.;.~ i ~soay cann~o, ~t msucbnv eevretn. t~r,~a, ~,~,,.e~ m_t_ynstee.rry l nofta t}hlie. bIlnec naronra itmm.np ercecmabalien si m~ plliivciirt~lyg aty today and everyday. Such religious are ~unwilling to admit that divine life can be communicated to them through human channels---channels ¯ frailties which the very term "humans"u ibmjepclite tso. Talhlu tsh ien our treatment of authority, perhaps our basic need is to emphasize more the "humanness" of it~that it is the ex- ÷ tension and continuation of the mystery of ~he Incarna-tion, the m)stery of God's making His own a human ÷ nature in order thereby to redeem human nature. y our Loro resid " ~mperfect and sinful human bein¢~. . I , ~ an --~, we mUSt also alIlrm ~ut~i~y VOLUME 22t 1963 5,?,9 4" 4" Robert Kru~e, C£.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 53O that it is a duty incumbent upon those in authority to become increasingly perfect and sinless. In this effort those in authority have a sure guide: our Lord's exercise of authority. We have here a question not of what author-ity might be but of what authority must be. That is to say, there is an obligation for those in authority to ad-minister their trust in a Christlike manner. It is not, therefore, a question of some vague, elusive ideal but rather a question of serious moral obligation. Of cour:;e, as in every creaturely .undertaking, perfection is never totally realized. That does not, however, render its quest any less imperative. What, in more concrete .terms, does the Christlike exercise of authority involve? Fundamental, it seems to us, is the sense of service. "But Jesus called them (the apostles) to him and said, 'You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. Not so is it .among you. On the contrary, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you, shall be your slave; even as the Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' " (Mt 20:25-28). In the last analysis it is the functidn of those in authority in the religious life to contribute by their direction to "building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the deep knowledge of the Son of God, to perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:12--13). Religious authority, then, stands in service of Christ's Mystical Body. The superior must never forget that his commands are addressed to a subject in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells. Let those commands never grieve that Spirit. Authority's commands must come from Christ: and be directed to Christ. That is, the superior must speak words which are sensitive to the Spirit of Christ within himself--words which the Spirit of Christ within the subject recognizes as springing from a kindred Spirit. It is the same Christ who both commands and obeys. Con-siderations of a purely human kind, attitudes which re-flect a purely natural assessment of the nature of author-ity-- these are entirely out of place and constitute a degradation of religious authority. Fundamentally, the superior's role is to act as an instrument for the more per-fect rule of the Spirit of Christ over the hearts and over the conduct of those vowed to religious obedience. In the fulfillment of this role, external trappings de-signed to enhance authority's position are of dubious value. One of the most gifted theoIogians in the Church today writes in connection with this point: In the life of the cloister there are still to be found age-old rituals governing the etiquette of superiors, involving demands of respect from subjects, secretiveness, ma ifestations of su-periority, appeals of superiors to a hi her wi ¯ 5°.? escens,o etc. All hould m' ,hs?lay . or w.Juter away. ~UDerlors s .,~a o ~ ~ permitted to me worm aroudd ,~.~ cast a long ~nd quiet lance at fluential, who re~e~'L~ff?c, . w~o ~re truly ]powerfu~ and in- ¯ ~ a ~reat ~ea/ ot unquestioning obedience pompous front. Superiors should oyu, inetflly i andsmeciut trhitayt ibne cheirntadi na Circumstances their subjecu know ~ore than ' matter at hand? ~ey do about displays of condescension "ro~w st o:- these ourel x , . y e 3ernal competence of the superi8or m proDort~on to ¯ . The truly l~r--- the ~n recognizes spontaneously the 7 ~ cat superior speaking, of all these trappings.i nInsi gthniisf ircea~nacred, ist pisir situuraelllyy salutary to read and meditate upon our Eord's r " . sh~p w~th H~s apostles. Nowhere in the ,ospelse~a~'°~e find our Lord making a fuss over SUch trivia, "You me Master and Lord, and you say well, fqr so call therefore, I the Lord and Master have wasOed yIo aumr f~e eIft,, you also ought to wash the feet of one a,nother. ~i~ ~u ]~ ~x~le, that as I hav~ done t~J ~ ~ ~noum oo (in 13:13-15). Regarding the matter of superiors' see~I i'ng coun~s e' l, some reflections are in order. Today, perha~ps more than at any time in the past, given 'the comolekit o tieth-cent . t Y f twen- . ury apostohc activity, it ~s'urgent ~hat superiors tsheeek i nadspviicrae.t iHonolsy o Mf oththee Hr tohle. ,C ch~ur:c_h:, .e v e ~ .s-e ~ns .i t~"ve to necessity in th~ ~-:-~'o- u s y r ~uVle-s- tw~,h picrohw sohees dd oto~tr tohvise ~ve ~rv 5nao-tt -t.hueg amd- vo¯rice es eorniol ubsu -ot uestions t-h.~ ~,k,u .~. .~ o tfLter n r~e" ulres y the consent of councId.ors asq well. Superiors should gladly reco~ize the Chu ~ch's w" -~d-~ta_g ~ersd taoi nojne gg aai~nde dw firlolimng sleye akvina~il ctohue-m~s :e1l~v,e_s7 o.~'-t~sff~ any reason w ,, the., .k_. ,. ,o . ,,o~,. l~or is there sistance and ehn~l i,g~hyt e~n-mouelnat ctoo nthnonsee t /o~eciria sl~l,a arpcpho fionrt eads-for this task. To put the matter very frankl ~: the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of inspiring eact and every religious in a community with both a supern ttural view-point and useful practical suggestions re. arding the apostolic work entrusted to the communit, blu.n gtin the s " ' . , Far from + we!gh carefullyu tbhjee cstusp mernmaatut~ravl em, ethrieto s u- e~-'m--r sh,ou!d courage the religious to appropriate ~aoc otit oa n~ wtophoesnal ,p eon-s-sible, and in every case welcome the subject's interest and enthusiasm. It is false to suppose that ;vorthwhile l0 t0 K9~ar0l )R, aph,n 3e~r,4 S. .J . , " R e f l e c t i o n s o n O b c, dience," Crc Currents v. Authority VOLUM~ 22, 1963 Robert K~,r~u.~se,., REVIEW FOR REL)GIOUS ideas can emanate exclusively from those in authority. Such an attitude is an affront to the Holy Spirit. Related to the matter of seeking counsel is the matter of openness. Some superiors, regrettably, are excessively secretive even regarding insignificant daily directives. Many of their undertakings are shrouded with an aura.of mystery. The real mystery is what advantage they think derives from such a procedure. It is small wonder that subjects fail to display much enthusiasm for the su-perior's proposals when they are rarely invited to share in the superior's confidence. We would recommend to such superiors prayerful reflection on the words of our Lord spoken in the intimacy of the Last Supper. "No longer do I call you servants, because the servant does not know what his master does. But I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from my Father I have made.known to you" On 15:15). What a contrast between the conduct of our Lord towards iHis apostles and the conduct of some superiors towards their religious. In this connection it is most helpful for supe-riors to cultivate within their communities a family spirit and that holy familiarity which the term "family" suggests. Nothing is to be gained by remaining aloof and distant. How can one who is aloof and distant touch and quicken the hearts of his subjects with the Spirit.of Christ? We might consider many other practical questions re-garding the Christlike exercise of authority. More im-portant, though, than coming to grips with parti(:ular problems is grasping the ideal which will serve as a guide for the resolution of every problem. That ideal is at once easy to understand and difficult to practice. What would our Lord do if He were in my place? How would He handle this problem? How would He win to Himself this person? To be a good superior demands intimate knowl-edge of our Lord and constant docility to the inspirations of His Spirit. Finally, some comments regarding authority and the mystery of the Redemption. The religious life, as all Christian life, is at the same time both incarnational and eschatological in character. It looks beyond the temporal order to the creation of new hea,~ens and a new earth. Indeed, the mystery of the Incarnation is itself the prin-ciple of this transformation. God makes Himself a sharer in our humanity only that we in turn might: share in His divinity. And ultimately our divinization will be accomplished solely by our personal sharing in the mys-tery of the Redemption. We must make our own the mys-tery of Christ's passover from death to life. With Christ, the great wayfarer, we journey each day through ter-restrial exile and affliction to our celestial dwelling and resurrection. "Wherefore we do not los! heart. On the contrary, even though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by d~y. For our pres-ent light affliction, which is for the moment, prepares for us an eternal weight of glory that is beyond all measure (2 Cor 4:16-17). Every Christian in the fulfillment of h, is vocation en-counters the cross of Christ. Justly does Saint Paul declare that we are ' always beanng about ~n our Ibody the dying of Jesus, so that the life also of Jesus maylbe made mani-fest in our bodily frame" (2 Cor 4:10). Certainly the re-hg~ ous superior ~s no exception to th~s rule. The exercise of authority is a cross. The superior shoul~l willingly em-brace that cross recognizing that only by Isharing in the mystery of the cross is self-love subject to passion and to death and the love of God to renewal and ~o resurrection. "This saying is true: If we have died withI him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall rilso reign with him" (2 Tim 2:11-12). To exercise authority with anxious care is the supe-riot's cross. It requires no small self-sacnfic,e. On the con-trary, thanks to the constant demands of all kinds made ¯ upon his time, his energies, and his interest, the superior is truly "poured out in sacrifice" (2 Tim 4:8). A continu-ing death to self-love attends the wgflant superior s com-mitment to his holy trust. In this context welmust address ourselves to one problem in particular--a problem which occasions the deepest suffering for the conscientious su-perior. Stated in the broadest possible term~s, that prob-lem is one simply of remaining faithful t~o the super-natural order m the face of the pressures wli~ch a purely natural wewpo~nt bnngs to bear on rehgmus hfe and the apostolate. How many superiors are d~str, essed by the disintegration of spiritual values with which they are periodically confronted? How are they to res~pond to this challenge? Doubtless, the question is a vexifi~.g one. In such cases what is clear is that the super!or must re-main faithful to supernatural values. Spec~ous as the temptation to compromise may be, such compromise un-dermines. the very structure of religious life. S~metimes it may appear that only by making concessions to man's innate self-indulgence can harmony be maintained. Are not such concessions a mistake? Has not our ILord Him-self declared: "Do not think that I have come to send peace upon the earth; I have come to bring alsword, not peace., and a man's enemies will be those of his own household" (Mr 10:34-36). Obviously we are not sug-gesung that the superior pounce upon every trifling de-parture from regular &sc~phne. Shortcomings of this kind are usually nothing more than manifestations of our common frailty in persons of genuine goo~,d will. To ÷ ÷ ÷ Authority VOLUME 22, 1963 533 ÷ Robert Krt~e, .S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 534 tax the subject's good will over every peccadillo is hardly a Christlike manner of exercising authority. The situ;t-tion we envisage is far different. We have in mind the case of the religious who deliberately and systematically by his actions and attitudes exhibits practical contempt for the religious life. Cost what it may the superior mtlst courageously resist such a betrayal of religious values. To permit flagrant disregard for the supernatural order to go unchecked is intolerable. It proves demoralizing for those religious honestly striving to fulfill their vows and scan-dalizing for the faithful who almost inevitably become acquainted with such a state of affairs. Certainly in all such cases those in authority must dis-play arl exquisite kindness and sympathy, tempering the rmness of their decisions with tangible benevolence, t,ut I firm tliey must be--for the sake of the religious life it-self. Let St. Paul's exercise of authority be their model: "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not make war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful before God to the demolishing of strongholds, the destroying of reasonings--yes, of every lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every mind into captivity to the .obedience of Christ" (2 Cor 10:3-6). Surely no cross burdens the zeal-ous superior with more anguish than the recalcitrant subject. It taxes both his prudence and his courage to the utmost. Only let him recognize in tiffs cross an instrument for his personal sanctification. For the realization of God's will let him sacrifice his own popularity. To act with firmness and decision seems temperamentally almost impossible for many superiors. Nevertheless, their voca-tion demands just such firmness. In their weakness let them surrender to the Spirit of Christ their Lord, the Spirit of fortitude, who has been poured forth in their hearts. By so doing they will purify their own souls and will contribute significantly to the sanctification of their subjects. For their course of action is self-crucifying and so redeeming. Regarding positive steps to be taken in such situations, it is extremely difficult to generalize. Two suggestions come to mind which may prove of some utility. First, when dealing with such cases it would seem particularly desirable for the superior to work in close harmony with his councilors. Such collaboration contributes signifi-cantly to an objective evaluation of the problem at hand, minimizing the danger of the superior's being prompted by merely human considerations in his analysis of the situation. In addition, one or another councilor may be in a much more advantageous position to cope with the problem than the superior himself. Second, it would seem a duty incumbent upon the superior to neutralize and even to turn to the spiritual advantage of the corn .any d!sedification or scandal ar;~;n~ t_AJ_ ,mun"l.ty ject's behavior Cann~, -~-- .o,,:~ ~,ul~ an unruly sun- ,,L L.c superior exploit this oppor- ~t~rn2~aYn~n~?Cf~lrC~etaer:nnce~hn:ne~ elli:k,gelo,u as s~ ;wttiteuldle sa osf tuon- encourage prayer and sacrifice 'both for dheir delino confrere and for their own . : ¯ v,--o~vc,ance ~n noeiity. This ~uh~ULnb7 odn°noe;~of_ co,urse: ,m. a spirit of h~mility. Passinl~ tiit-~rS snoulo. I~e SCFU U ' " violatioofn - - . e rChh ri.s.t.h. kpe sIpoiruit swlhyi cahv ~ohoiduled dan aimsa ate ! the entire community. Rather, a sense of cornorate re-sponsibility and an awareness of man's Inborn weakness should be developed. In some such anner as this can the superior offset the harm done y th problem reli-b ! gtous in his community. In this article we have attempted to relate the exercise of religious authorit,, to the fun-'- our faith¯ the Incar~nation a--~ -u~a-m- e,~n t-a tt m. ysteries ot ¯ .tt ttte l~eclemDtlon A from such a vision of .~-^-: . t : 2 part dn~,.~.~u ,.~.,. ,~.~. . -,,~:,~,tLty mere e, XlStS tlae real ,at purely natural attitudes will invade our minds and shape our thinking along lihes devoid supernatural dimensio¯ns Such in~r,,o:~-- l_ . - of dured. That is why, practically "s -n~e,a~k,-isn c,~an .nt.o_t _o e, en- ,- ~,,I t,e sole tr .bmee Cashurrt.set s0 ,of wthne eCxherirsctiisaen oe¯xf eirtc ~ioo^,~-- u^-t', -a.".u.[ni o, r¯ltv can onu.e devoted some attention to ¯ xoi tHIS reason we also ¯ authori"ty and ~th e ~¯m~¯ tation of Christ. In closing, we would recommend to all who seek more knowled,,e on the su~-:- - -- ,~ d- ivine Lord¯ For l~ove of Him iosj cbcotr nm oatf t~,~kenyo wstuleadyg oeu orf Him,. and out of love shall grow likeness. And ultimate that ~s all Christian authority needs: to be ~hristlike. ly + + ÷ Authority VOLUME 22~ 196~ BROTHER PHILIP HARRIS, O.S.F. The Parent's Role in Guidance 4. Brother Philip Harris, O.S.F., is the vice president of development of St. Francis College; Brooklyn, New York. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS One area of formal guidance1 in the schools today which has been most neglected but which holds the great-est promise for the future is parent guidance. Although extensive training is now provided for a profession or an occupation, little assistance is offered to the newly-mar-ried couple facing one of the most challenging human responsibilities--the rearing and education of children. The average parents want to do a good job of raising their offspring as useful citizens. But they need the~ as-sistance of educators who are willing to share the fruit of their own special knowledge and experience. Such a partnership with parents can be a.great aid to the over-burdened and under-staffed guidance department as it seeks to help a maximum number of youth in adjusting to a confusing and complex twentieth-century world. By right, and in fact, the parent is the child's principal counselor. Jusot as parents have the primary duty to edu-cate their children, so they have the basic obligation of providing sound guidance to them. Any guidance en-deavors of the school should be based on this premise, for educators only supplement the counsel given to students by their parents. The influence of parents on a child's life decisions is formidable. It is the task of the school also to aid the parent so that the young person makes the correct decisions and attains optimum personal development. It is understandable that in this age of rapid techno-logical changes, vocational opportunity, and personal challenge parents would look to the guidance specialist to help them discover, develop, and direct all of the God-given potentialities of the child. The theme of this con-ference is "The Adjustment of Young People to a World in Accelerated Technical and Economic Evolution." Par-ents possess the opportunity to assist today's youth to be- 1 This is the text of a paper delivered to the International Con-ference on School and Vocational Guidance, Paris, July 16-22, 1962. come tomorrow's successful adults. Ho!ever, the faculty in general and the guidance worker in[particular must help parents to understand the child of tl~ television and the space age, to project themselves into the future so as to determine educational and vocational possibilities for their children in the decades ahead, to appreciate the school and the guidance department's objectives and practices, to utilize good principles of met tal hygiene and right living in their families. Such a plan for cooperative and compiementary child formation by parents and educators must be~in with the pre-school youngster and continue throul~h ~aigher stud-ies. How to accomplish this will be the Isubject of this paper. Before examining the methods for peiping parents to fulfill their natural role as guides, it is ~seful to realize the advantages of such emphasis through t ae student per. sonnel services of the school. Values o[ Parent Guidance A parental guidance program strengthms a schooI's guidance efforts in the following ways: l) Teachers are limited in the amoun~ of time and energy they can devote to helping pupils so~ve their prob-lems and meet life's challenges. Trained counselors, even on the high school level, are few in nurhber and can guide only a fraction of the student bod~. Any sound guidance practices, therefore, that parents can utilize with their offspring will lessen the educator's load and permit school counselors to do more effectiv~ worL 2) Prevention of more serious problems ~hould be the aim of .any. paren.tal gu¯idance effort. If p~rents can be alerted to signs ot emotional disturbances, .to the effects of broken homes or rejection, to their children,s needs especially psychological), to the acceptance Iof their chil- ~tgi~srd.less ,of speci.a.1 talent or limitation~, then many 3) Througinh stchheoiro cl ownitlalc bt ew riethd upcaerden otsr ,a evdouicdaetdo.rs may gain insight into the family background ofttheir pupils and are better able to understand each child! 4) Parents gain a greater appreciation of]the school's program and the teacher's efforts. As a resuh, they may give increased support to school activities, fcr they truly appreciate every endeavor made for their chil ~l's improve-ment. Some of the means for translating these calues into realities through the school's guidance effor follow: Parent Clubs Teachers are familiar with various home-sc/~ ol groups, such as the Parent Teacher Association and Fathers' or Mothers' Guild approach. Such or~anization~. o ]. however, ÷ ÷ ~Pmarde Gntusidance VOLUME 22, 1963 4" 4" 4" Phili~ HaOr.Sr.iFs,. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS should have a two-way effect. The parents may raise funds for special school projects and assist in other ways; the school should provide, in turn, programs that help the members do a better job in their role as parents. Par-ents with exceptional training and skills may be willilxg to aid pupils and other parents with special knowledge and experience. For example, speakers for a career day can be recruited from a parents' guild; or parents who are doctors, nurses, or psychologists, can be called upon to address the parent group. Volunteer workers of all types from among the pupils' parents may offer free service to the school. A well-functioning parent club can be a deterrent to juvenile delinquency and offer good leisure time activ-ities for both parents and children. It not only will bring the school and home into closer cooperation but also may promote greater harmony and understanding between parent and child. Parent Forums Any aspect of child development or improvement serves as a good topic for a parent forum. It is best ithat parents be invited together who represent children of distinct grade or age levels, such as the upper, middle, or primary grades, or the pre-adolescent or adolescent pe-riod. Thus, there will be some common meeting ground for discussion. The student's intellectual, vocational, so-cial, or moral development can serve as the basis for a number of group conferences. This type of affair can be conducted in various ways. One is to have a guest or faculty speaker whose address is followed by questions from the floor. Another procedure brings in a specialist whose talk is discussed by a panel of parents with a faculty member as moderator. Parents of the graduating or senior class often profit from an educational forum to which representatives of high schools (or colleges) which the graduates will likely attend are invited for individual questioning or group discussion. These general meetings of parents are most effective when they do not take more than two hours for the total program. They may be preceded by some type of audio-visual aid while the assembly hall is slowly filling up. Sometimes films on adolescence or family mental hygiene may be projected and then followed by a discussion led by one of the faculty. Usually parent forums are held in the evening, but a week end or holiday afternoon may prove appropriate. Refreshments served after such events help teachers to meet the parents in a relaxed, social atmosphere. Parent Group Conferences These conferences are small group me~etings of parents and a teacher. If a guidance counselor or~ school l~sychol-ogist is available, these conferences may be arranged with him. These group interviews run'from ~fteen to twenty ~tin.utes and ,gi.ve the parents an. opport,~nity to present ae~r parental ~mpressions and experiences and to hear the educator's evaluation of their child. ~uch interviews have great potential for "preventive" ~ ¯ cational, vocational, or social areas. Tclo{uen tseechhn~n iinq ueed uis, most effecti.ve when these conferences a~e arranged parents a common problem, rot ex!mple, ents of students failing the sam~ two school subjects or the parents of pupils who are truant or.l.the parents of students who are withdrawn and antisocial or the parents of "exceptional" children--such natural groupings will permit the process of multiple counselin~ to take place. The teache~-counselor must prepare for ~he conferences by studying the family background anbdeI t¯horoughly fwahmosilei apra rwenitths mthaek ec uump tuhlea tgirvoeu pre. cords of the studbnts ,u. oSno motm tet~ i.sn p.terorecsetidnugr ree sbeya rPcrho hfaess sboeresn Sreapwo r~tnedd Mona ah vlearr iaa-t Chico State College in the United States. Their gr0ut~ counseling approach included botfi parents and student~. It centered a~0und underachieving pupils and involved a series of eight sessions where freedom of e~xpression was uppermost. First, students were asked to sit in a circle of six with a counselor, while the parents Isat off to the side as observers. Then, after personal introductions stu-dents were asked to express their feelings a~s to why ,they were ,u.nderach.ieving. The sessions were structured aproos.tut~.moan sK weye rteo ps,w cist cohre qdu, ewstiitohn tsh. eA pfaterre nthtsir itn3 ~th mei ncuirtcesle the and the youth as observers. Prior to such meetings~, it is helpful if both parents and students fill out an inventory of their attitudes toward each other and sc[ ool. Gradually, parent and offspring will gain insight into their own personal relationships and uriders~ anding as to why the child is not obtaining better grade.,. A plan for improvement can be developed, and a gap of time be-tween the fifth and the last two sessions will )ermit them to try out these ideas in practice. Then, th~ final guid-ance periods can be devoted to reports of success or fail-ure as well as a realistic review with implications for the future. The initial results of this technique i adicate that such family counseling can become a useful part of the school guidance program. Parents and Guidance + + ÷ Philip Harris, O .S.F. REVIEW FOR REL]G|OUS 540 Individual Parent Guidance Teachers and administrators have long met with par-ents on an individual basis to discuss their mutual con.- cern--the student. Frequently, such meetings were con-cerned with an analysis of the pupil's problems, abilitiet~, potential, and plans. However, this old technique can be made more effective by the use of some modern ap-proaches. For example, with the student's permission, his autobiography, anecdotal records, test results and ventories may be interpreted and discussed with parents. Another useful procedure is role-playing--the teacher switching to the role of the parent or the child and pos-sibly the parent switching to the role of the student. Or, the youth may be invited to attend the session to explain his feelings or position, or to "role-play" his parents. Parent Bulletins and Reports In addition to the written reports commonly given to parents by schools, bulletins which interpret standard-ized test results may be prepared to help parents gain greater insight into their child's abilities, aptitudes, and interests. A newsletter can be issued by the guidance de-partment, principal, or parent organization on: com-munity guidance and psychological resources; suggested means of helping a child with specific physical, psycho-logical, or social problems; a bibliography of free or in-expensive publications useful in the guidance of youth, of use to parents; scholarship or student aid opportuni-ties; entrance requirements of local institutions of higher education; projects for family group recreation; adoles-cent needs and conflicts; and principles of good human relations in the home. In working with modern parents, it is wise to consider the changes that have taken place in parental attitudes toward education and their goals as parents. The Chang-ing American Parent by Daniel R. Miller and Guy E. Swanson (New York: Wiley, 1959) is but one example of published reports that provide much light on the sub-ject. Many guidance books for teachers contain a chapter or two on working with parents. A recent volume, for example, Guidance in the Elementary Classroom by Gerald and Norma Kowitz (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959) devotes the last chapter to "Counseling with Par-ents." Another recommended work is Adlerian Family Counseling edited by Dreikurs-Corsini-Lowe-Sonstegard (University of Oregon Press). The school's attempt to aid the parents to fulfill their God-given responsibilities as guides to their own children will undoubtedly prove fruitful in the good accomplished attaining the objectives of the school guidance service, in saving on teacher time and energy, and in the, good public relations thus promoted. SISTER TERESA MARY, C.S.CI Religious 0 ce and Critical Thinking It is often said that we are living in a critical t.he people of the present tim . L . a.ge,. T, hat mose of the ,~, o,~L- _, ~- ,~-,: naor,e critical t~aa consc.musne~s s. .o.f. t~h,e,, ~co, mat pteIeaxstl tmy opfa rtth, efr uon~i tvheerisre g. eMateenr recognize that they must constantly adapt [their thinking to manifold new discoveries being made.~ While it is not necessary to doubt the existence of absolutes as some of I our contemporaries do, the need. to recq~ze relative aspects of man's being and knowledge o~ the world is much more apparent today than ever b~fore A new manifestation of the evolutionary ~rocess in th ha,s . ~coe ab?y~ largely because ot t~he ~e~t ro e world ~twy esncthioetlhar cs einnt uthreiesse Mpeoriroedosv eisr, bethe ~ i"nng o cw o¯~m ~em,~ u g -ne i c a a a.te c~ea~ath m content and method to large masses of or " ~eople. The spread of scientifi- -~ . ,-- , dreary the development of the crit~ic ~a-lu supginrti tn eacmespsnargil ym menea. nIss this critical spirit a good or an evil for them? than e a s g ~re Although the wordc .n.t~.osm,, often e a to break down some existing structurec ownintohtoeus ta desire apprec~atmn of facts~ ~t need not have th:~ 1 . ~rop~r meamng As a genuine intellectual effort, ~,t~s ure-sfuolrttsu nmaatye more often be presupposed as good and ~onstructive. Criticism is usually offered out o~ a sincere ~ntent'on to better the existing structure, not to destroy i~, and~is the m~ural product o~ a creative mind. Without seein~ the ~ ly as the values which he holds have been critically examined, Sister Teresa ra~"mnally acceet~d,.an~ then u~e Mary, 5 as general guides to behavior is in-ra~ her than as ng~d mvmlable principles can the perso~ be character- structor in theolo~ ~zed ~ liberally educated." Paul L. Dressel, "'The Role of Critical at St. Mary's Col-Thinking in Acquiring Enduring Attitudes and lege; Notre Dame, w~th Revolutionary Chan~es ~ . Know'ledge to Deal Indiana. National Con er~ . ~. ?~.u, a paper presente~ to a. 19 .~ f . u n~gner Education in Ch'cz£. ~ ~' v0~v~ ~, ÷ + ÷ Sister Teresa Mary, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS deficiencies in the current state of our existence, individ-ually and within a group, we cannot even maintain our present good, much less acquire all the good that is po:~- sible for us.2 The tendency of the modern age to be critical can, if rightly exercised, open up wider oppo:r-tunities for full human existence. Having recognized the value of the critical process in human activity, we come to the problem of this article, to consider the relationship of criticism to the virtue o[ obedience in the religious life. While attachment to per-sonal judgment has always been the crucial issue in the question of obedience, this matter takes on added dimen-sions in an age which emphasizes the value of a good, free, critical personal judgment. When a subject has been educated to think for himself, there is bound to be a se-vere adjustment for his personality if he is obliged to give this up in the interest of religious obedience. Part of our problem will be to determine whether the subject of obe-dience is obliged to give up personal judgment in any way and, if not, how he is to coordinate a conflicting judgment with the will of the superior. The following examples from current articles should suffice to show that there are a variety of answers to the problem of obedience. These answers have seldom been compared so that some sharp differences among them could be properly noted. It will be well to look at them first before trying to answer whether religious obedience and critical thinking are compatible. All authors, of course, agree on two points: the supe-rior's will is to be obeyed in all commands which are not sinful, and this obedience must be more than a mere external execution of the command; as a genuine human act it must flow from self-determination to the goodness of the act of obedience. The religious subject recognizes in the light of faith that the superior has been invested with authority in a congregation estab

Issue 12.4 of the Review for Religious, 1953. ; The Spiril: ot: SI:, Clare and I-ler Order Sister M. Immaculata, P.C: CEVEN centuries'ago, on August 11, 1253, the shadows of death ~ were lengthening around a group of sorrowing nuns whose ~ foundress and Mother lay dying. In ecstatic joy, she clasped to her heart a roll of parchment sealed with the Fisherman's seal. Clare Sceffi, a. noble lady of Assisi, had fled from her castle home when she was eighteen to follow Francis Bernardone. Francis had dreamed of adventure for. Christ, and no one had caught~ the flame of love that burned in his heart more ardently than Clare. Fran~is's course had now been run a full quarter of a century, and he was already b.eing venerated as the great saint whose popularity would grow even to our own day. pope Innocent IV had ascended the throne of Peter but the year before. His keen vision scanned the lower!rig storm clouds over a Europe ever beset by the Moslem threat. Could he but make the rulers of the Christian countries bestir themselves out of their com-fortable and only too often lustful letha/gy, to heed his call "God wills it !" With the burdens of ~his exalted, office heavy upon him, he, the Vicar of Christ thought of one little virgin, hidden behind cloister walls in Assisi. He knew Clare, heard she was dying; and he remem-bered the intrepid courage with which she had pleaded with him and some of his predecessors for approval Of her Rule, and of the Seraphic poverty to which she and her Daughters aspired. Innocent, like several Pontiffs before him, had,hesitated to approve a rule of life requiring such poverty as Saint Francis had bequea.thed to Saint Clare and her Daughters. Men, they thought, might oblige themselves to observe it,-but what of cloistered nuns? What would become of a community thus deprived of all revenue and financial security? Innocent was thinking of Clare, thinking of how she lay dying, her one wish and desire unfulfilled. He did not send her a message of comfort and his blessing. Under the inspiration, no doubt of~ the Holy Spirit, he grasped his pen, signed the Bull of approval con-taining her Rule; and then, with his retinue, turned his face toward Assisi. There at San Damiano he entered tl~e lowly cell of Clare and placed in her hands the approval for which she had prayed and 169 SISTER M. IMMACULATA Re~evo :or Religious ~)leaded and suffered for over f.orty years. We can imagine" the astonishment of Clare and her Sisters when the Holy Father himself stood at the convent portals. How she must have pre,ssed that docu-ment to her heart and sung her last hymn of love to Christ her Spouse. Clare had imbibed th.e spirit of Francis at its source, .cher-ishing it firmly and wholly, and bequeathing it to her Daughters as they knelt at her death bed. And they have cherished, loved, and guarded it. They have preserved it unchanged since 1253. Through 700 years the Rule of Saint Clar~ has often been buffeted by storms, and has been wounded at times by the infidelity of her children, but it has always emerged in its first freshness and .strength. It still lives in 1953, and today there.are 19 houses of Poor Clares in the United Stat~s. Our modern age has not been able to undermine the observance of the Rule nor destroy its spirit. The order has grown silently, spreading its branches in neaily every country of the world. No nationality but has found the Rule and its spirit congenial, so that the daughters of Saint Clare scattered throughout the countries of the world have always been able to adapt themselves to her Rule, which .has proved .independent of time or place. Today our American girls still observe the Rule Innocent IV placed in the hands 0f the dying foundress. " What is the spirit, contained in the Rule of Saint Clare? As. in ¯ her own time, her Daughters live a contemplative life in strict en-closure. The spirit, one of poverty, love of prayer leading to closest union with God, is joyous, and their personal sanctification is as much for the efficacious gaining of gra~e for"soul~ as for the strength-ening of the bond of love in the order. It is a life of joyful giving, closing the doors to what the world calls pleasure by the vow of en-closure, thus finding the treasure which is worth more than all pos-sessions. Though it embraces the deprivation of "the things the world de-sires and cherishes, this seclusion with its penance does not entail a sad, bleak; and joyless existence. It is not the thing~ that are barred from the cloister which bring peace and joy to the soul, but those that are found within, of which the world knows nothing. There is song in the heart of the cloistered nun. for she is not burdened with the superfluous gadgets and noises which fill so many hours of our com-plex modern life. Saint Francis has been coi~sidered a model of penance and self-abnegation, but was ever saint more joyous? Hadever a saint a heart 170 ,July, 1953 SPIRIT OF ST. CLARE more full of music? His seemed to be an overflowing fountain of happiness, and he communicated it to those around him. In this, as in all else, Saint Clare was his faithful follower. Penance for her was not practiced for penance's sake. It was an outlet for the love burning in her heart ,and reaching out for more adequate fuel to feed its flame. This joyous spirit still pervades the cloisters where the Daughters of Saint Clare follow in her footsteps and observe her Rule. Their hearts are the cups that still hold the happiness of which the world has now so little, because their lives are still spent in genuine love and wholehearted giving. The worlff today is filled with sorrow and suffering,, and count: less hearts.are bearing a burden they could well consider supreme penance, did they but think of accepting all in a spirit of penance. The heart's most loving, if inarticulate, acceptance of penance is the willing b~aring of the unwelcome burdens so often placed on it by God. To be silent and lovingly resigned is always, to practice pen-ance in a very perfect form. The Daughters of Saint Clare vowing a Rule which imposes manypenances are but reaching out for greater love, ~vhich is warded With greater joy in God's service. Penance is not ugly, harsh, and fearsome. The bell which call~ one to ri~e from welcome sleep to seek the light of the sanctuary in the dead of night may sound un-welcome to a tired body: but is theie anything rfiore beautifuf_than the religious wending their silent 'way to the choir to make their first act of adoration before their Lord in the taberf.acle when the day has just begun? Standing in their stalls, they offer the praise of virgins before the face of~God, a prayer with the Son of God, ",bhile the world sleeps or sins. Does anyone know the joy in the hearts of those who give Him this homage? So it is with all the penances.prac7 ticed by the Daughters 6f Saint Clare. Penance for penance's sake is repugnant, meaningless, and very often food- for pride and phari-saism, so entirely alien to the spirit of Saint Clare. Penance for "love's sake is sweet. If there are still hearts in the world today which know unalloyed joy, they are undoubtedly those whose lives are being poured out in the most unselfish and wholehearted giving. Their joy is most full because their lives are most full of giving. The transition from the life of our modern girl to a postu!a~nt the cloister is not so drastic as some would suppose. Young, eager, lighthearted, with a soul attuned to God's grace, she assumes by slow degrees the duties and customs to which she adapts herself. She learns 171 SISTER M. IMMACULATA Review for Religious to love the hours of prayer, the Divine Office, the silence and regu-larity, The joyous acceptance of the sacrifices imposed by the Rule creatds a deep happiness and peace, which is found" especially in the hours of prayer. Prayer is not a ready-made gift in anyone. It en-tails mortification, is often itself mortification, but a mortification that decreases as the spirit of prayer and union with God increases There are no secrets of rapid progress over the rough path that leads to union with God, except the secret of persistent self-abnegation and striving for that wlsich obliterates self, and builds up in us the Christlikeness which alone makes us one with Him. But God does not lure us into the wilderness of. the contemplative life to forsake us and l'eave us to our own helplessness. True, we seem to take a leap in the dark When we embrace the contemplative life, but our Lover is not a human being whom we fear to trust. Like Clare who left her castle home in the dead of night, her Daughters follow where their Divine Spouse leads, and the path. is ever to union with God and the embrace of the Holy Spirit. While the enclosed life of contemplation should not be glamor-ized, neither should it be made a fearful existence df joyless sacrifice and penance. Too often is either mistake made. Those who look for a thrill rush to embrace what they do not understand, looking for something occult, dxpecting tangible thrills of gra.ce or ecstatic prayer before they have hid anything like the foundations of the spiritual life. On the other hand, ferszent though timid souls are often over-come by fear of what may be expected of them once they step behind the cloister walls. Neither is the correct attitude. Those to whom God gives a vocation to the contemplative life, have, nearly always, a natural yearning for God. They want Him, are looking for means of. union with~Him, "have a certain joy in prayer, and, with the light affd guidance of the Holy" Spirit, find pehce of soul in the difficult stretchds of the way as well as happiness in His tornforts. Union with God is a growing state, and though it often advances in dark-ness there are times when it comes into the light, and a light that does not fade entirely even when the way is again through dryness. There is too much emphasis put on the trials, sufferings, and dark-ness of the interior life and not enough on the joy in God and peace Of soul found therein. It has been said that Saint Clare, had she lived in our day, would have founded a missionary order. No Daughter of hers would ever consent to this opinion. Clare knew without a doubt to what she 172 dulg, 1953 SPIRIT OF ST. CLARE was called and she never wavered. She did not simply follow a pat-tern of her time. Indeed, we know that a number of:Benedictine houses, especially the large one at Florence, took the Rule of Saint Clare. It was Agnes, her sister, who was sent there to be the abbess under the new Rule. Francis knew Clare was a contemplative, as he was himself, and the hearts of both were so much the missionary's that no field of labor would ever satisfy' their zeal. Nothing less than the entire world would be Clare's mission field, as it was that of Francis and his Order. Italy and Assisi were no closer to her than the farthest-flung mission. No contempla.tive is one indeed if she has not' the heart of a missionary. Francis's was the call to go out and preach,. Clare's the outstretched arms of a Moses on the mount of contemplation. Clare would give to Christ, her Spouse, not only herself, but all the world. She'knew the fields were white for the harvest and she would obey the words of Christ and pray that the Master send laborers into it. He did not bid her go out and gather it in, bu~ strengthen the arms of the workers. She knew the limita-tions of her own weakness, but prayer and sacrifice, united with the prayer of Christ in the Divine Office, in in~erior love and union, were and are the all-powerful weapons which can reach the opposite ends of the earth at one and the same time. It was the spirit of Clare. as it was the spirit of Francis, to be daring enough to wish to support the Church, on her own weak shoulders, knowing that the Hands and Heart of her Divine Spouse were supporting her. The Spirit of Saint Clare, the foundress of the "Poor Clares, is still living and burning brightly after seven centuries. It calls to the heart cJf the modern girl of our cities as it did t6 those of the middle ages. The life she and Francis instituted for her Daughters is not outmoded in the 20th century, but instead is as living, warm, and joyous in the hearts of the novices of ~oday as in the days of Saint Clare in the little monastery of San Dami~no in 1253. ST. CLARE PLAY BY A POOR CLARE Candle in Umbria is the story of Saint Clare of /~ssisi told in a verse play by a Poor Clare Nun. The play of four acts, eight scenes is suitable for production by college :students or by high schools with special direction. The play was written to honor the foundress of the Poor Clares on the seventh centenary (1953) of her death. The authi~r is a regular contributor to Spirit magazine. ~$1.00 per copy, including the music for the "Canticle of the Sun" which is embodied in the play. Those interested in obtaining a copy of this productior~ should write to: Poor Clare Monastery, Route 1, Box 285 C, Roswell, New Mexico. 173 News and Views Yocational Institute at Fordl~am The Third Annual Institute on Religious and Sacerdotal Voca-tions will be held by. the School of Education, Fordham University, Wednesday, July 29, and Thursday, July 30, on the Fordham. campus. Ways of encouraging, fostering, and guiding vocations~.to the diocesan priesthood an/d to the religious life will be~ discussed by outstanding experts. For further information write to Rev. John F. Gilson,.S.J.,' Fordham Univ. Sch6ol of Education, 302 Broad-way, New York 7, N.Y. ,~ Institute of Spirituality At the National Congress of Religious, held last summer at the .University of Notre Dame, it ,was suggested that the University offer summer school courses in spiritual theology and an institute of spir-ituality each year for the Sisterhoods. This suggestion was favorably received by the representati(,es of the Sacred Congrdgation of Reli-gious and by th.e religious superiors who attended the congress. To carry the suggestion into effe~0 the Notre Dame Department of Religion is inaugurating this summer a program of courses in spir-itual- theology as part of its graduate work in view of a Master's De-gree in Religion. Moreover, since many superiors and mistresses of novices are unable to be present for the summer school, courses, the University is offering a distinct. Institute of Spirituality for them. This is also sponsored by the Department of Religion. The Institute is not a part of the academic program and offers no credits towards a degree. All the lectures and discussions are specially arranged for Sisters superior and novice mistresses. A~ the formal opening of the Institute, on the evening of July 31, His Excellency,. the Most Reverend John F. O'Hara, C.S.C., D.D., will deliver the address. From August I to 7, there will be three lectures each morning. Topics and speakers for these series of lectures are: "'The Role of the Sister Superior and Novice Mistress," by Rev. Paul Philippe, O.P.; "The Theology of the Religious Life and the Vows," by Rev. Joseph Buckley, S.M.; and "Ascetical and Mystical Theology," by Rev. Charles Corcoran, C.S.C. Each after~ noon, August 1-6, the three lecturers will cbnduct workshops on their subject-matter. On four evenings, August I-4, there will be 174 Julg, 1953 NEws AND VIEWS special lectures, running simultaneously, as follows: "The Liturgy and the R~ligious Life," by Rt. Rev. Martin Hellriegel; "Canon Law for Religious," by Rev. Romaeus O'Brien, O.Carm.; and "Psycho-physiology and Religious Sisterhoods," by Rev. Gerald Kelly, S.J. The Institute will close on the morning of August 7 with an address by Very Rev. Theodore M. He.sbargh, C:S.C., President of the Uni-versity of Notre Dame. Morol Theology ond Love There was a day when the science of Christian moralit~r included everything that is now partitioned into moral theology, ascetical the-ology, and mystical theology: in othei~'words, it included the entire Christian life, in all its degreesof perfection. Bdt the very growth of the su,bject-matter made some kin~i of division necessary, at least for teaching purposes. This division more or less limited moral the-ology to the sphere of what is obli~Tator(/: tb the study of laws, of the exact limits of the obligations imposed by the laws, to the.conditions which might constitute exemptions from these laws. and so foith. There is one great advantage of this ~partiti0n: it makes a dear distinction between what is obli~Tator~l and what is superero~lator~t; and this distinction is ext~rbmely important for the preservation of peace of soul. Nevertheless, from the point of view of moral the-ology, there is also a decided disadvantage: the science is made to ap-. pear too negative. Perhaps every student and professor of moral the-ology has been conscious of this disadgantage, and perhaps many of them h:~ve tried to find some way of introducing a more.positive and inspirational dement into moral theology without, of course, scaring its basic clarity. Father G. Gilleman, S.J., a Belgian Jesuit who teaches theology in India, suggests that moral theology can gain its necessary inspira-tional note by emphasizing charity as the very soul of the Christian life--which it truly is, whether in the sphere of obligation or' of supererogation. Those who ire'intdr~sted in improving.the method of moral theology should nbt fail to read Father Gilleman's book. The title is, Le primat de la charitd en thdologlie morale. It is pob-lished by E. Nauwelaerts, Louvain, Belgium. The price is 225 Bel-gian fr'ancs. $t. Joseph Research Center A St. Joseph" Research and Documentation Center has been estab-lished at St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal 26, Quebec. The constitu- 7.5 NEWS AND VIEWS tions of this organization have the approval of His Eminence, Paul Cardinal Lel~er, Archbishop of Montreal. The purpose of the so-ciety is to encourage a more profound study of the position of St. 2o-seph, and eventually to subsidize works published on the saint. It will sponsor research in fields such as church history, liturgy, and the arts, as well asin theology. Membership is open to' all interested in-dividuals or groups. Inquiries can be sent directly to St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal or to Rev. F. L. Filas, S.J., at Loyola Univer-sity, Chicago 26, Illinois. Scholarships at Catholic University" The Catholic University of America has made provision for. 160 half-tuition scholarships for post graduate studies for the next aca-demic year. Open to lay men and women, priests, Brothers, and Sisters, the grants/ worth $300 towards 'tuition, will be awarded on the basis of scholastic excellence and financial need of the applicant who is entering on post graduate work. Grants are available in all studies except philosophy, engineering, and architecture. Appli-cants should write to the Registrar, Department G, Catholic Univer- ¯ sity of America, Washington, D.C., for additional details on the program. Office of the Passion in English The Confraternity of the Passion, in answer to many requests, has had The Little Ofl$ce of the Passion of Our Lord desus Christ translated into English and made available in Small booklet form. The booklet may be obtained for 25 cents from the Confraternity of the Passion, Sacred Heart Retreat, 1924 Newburg Road', Louisville, Kentucky', or from any Passionist Monastery. ~ Layos Catholic Records Layos Records is a Hollywood recording company devoted ex-clusively to the production of Catholic records. The first record, " "Act of Contrition," is already in circulation. Original music was composed by Peter; Jona Korn, and the piece is performed by the Roger Wagner Chorale. The company plans to sell the recordings through advertisements in the Catholic press. A five-year schedule calls for the production of a new Catholic record, at six-week inter-vals. The firm is being advised in its musical program by Father John Cremins, head of the music depastment of the Los Angele~s Archdiocese. The record company is anxious to ha~,e suggestions from Catholic music and audio-visual departments regarding the type of material to be recorded. 176 On !:he Particular i:::xamen [EDITORS' NOTE: The first two articles on the particulmr examen .arrive~l almost simultaneously. The fact that the first is from an American Brother studying in Switzerland and the second from a Belgian missionary in India would seem" to indicate, universal interest in this practice of asceticism. The third contribution to this "sytfiposium"'is .from a member of the Jesuit Mission Band of the New Yot;k province. Communications from Our readers that may bring some more hdpful ideas to the practice of the particular examen are: welcome.] William T. Anderson, S.M. UMAN nature is prone tO falling into a rut. Those who lead very ordered lives often become slaves to routine. Religious sometimes feel the deadening effe~ct of routine and.habit: in fact, if we ark not car~eful, we find ourselves going to chapel without any preparation and without ~any aim. Day after day slips by and, before we know it, a year is gone. When .we 'take inventory at the annual-retreat, the shelves of our spiritual warehouse look" bare indeed. Perhaps we ought once in a while to ask ourselves a few embar-rassing questions on our religious duties. The reflections listed below are the result of just such a scrubbing of the~ soul. What effect has particular examen had on me? What is my attitude towards this ex-ercise? What importance has this exercise ir~ the spiritual life? Is there any direct ratio between successful zeal and progress in particu-lar examen? After .asking yourself these questions, try to answer them honestly. Then read on and see whetheroyou agree with the ideas given below. 1. A written record is a "'must" for examen. A record book for examen was insisted on in the novitiate. Over and over we heard how necessary this was. Yetsome 'religious perhapscast their examen book out the window of the car carrying them from the novitiate to the train station. Some of us used it for a while, but then discarded it. And that ~ras the beginning of the end. Perhaps most religious who do not make examen with a record as a help do not make exa-men. I~ this a rash statement? Do .you make examen faithfully without a iecord? Does your personal experience agree with this observation ? 177 "~,VILLIAM T, ./~NDERSON Re~iea2 for Religious 2. The subject for~ examen must be specific. If the subject is not limited to definite occasions during the day, or to specific'times scat-tered oxier the usual schedule, after a time the examen, period becomes' " 6nd during which 6u~ Stomach continually reminds us "that a meal is not,far off, or it is a p~eriod of planning unconsciously our work for the rest of the day or the morrow. Vagueness here is the deadly ene-my of progress. 3. Our apostolic influence is in direct ratio to our efforts at par-ticular examen. We learned in the scholasticate that while knowl-edge is very necessary for a teacher, the more important ingredient for a successful teacher and religious educator was the hbility to get along with people and to attract souls. Anyone who has taught fora few years will attest to the authenticity of this statement. Any one will also agree that teaching boys, especially adolescent b.oys,.can be a very nerve-racking job. Nervous tension may ruin any influence which we might have with students when we use sarcasm or unjust punishments, show favoritism or laxity on some occa-sions, or exercise undue ~ever!ty on others. Examen is the means which we have at our disposal to develop in us that self=control which is so necessary for the teacher. To be kind when words of sarcasm rise to outlips, to be exacting ~h~n we fed sluggish and lazy, to give words of correction which yet, do not cut, to be patient when we have had little sleep or food (as on fast days), ~o work steadily despite the fact that "results" are not forthcoming--is M1 this.poisible without examen? Most prob-ably not. As soon as we stop working at examen, we find ourselves difficult to get along with, harsh, lazy, or sarcastic. The weeds of our defects spring up rapidly'bnce we lay down the hoe of particular exam'en. 4. Particular examen is a sine qua non for communit~l life. All of the.foregoing can be just as well applied to community life. Com-munity life sometimes causes a lot of friction, some heat, and at times, even fire. Examen is the~exercise we need to mold our charac-ters so that we learn to avoid occasions which.cause arguments' or to cement, fraternal relations, once they are broken.~ Community life is sometimes a big cross; there is no need to make Jrbigger for a fellow r~ligious. 5. Examen is one of the best means we have of attaining our ideal, desus,'Son of Marv. Putting off the old man and putting on the new man is quite a job for us weak mortals, afflicted as we.are by 1"78 953 PARTICULAR EXAMEN the effects of original sin. It seems impossible that a religious can be sincere and continue hi~ striving for perfection in religious life with-out keeping up with the daily examen. Progress tgward making ourselves like to Jesus, Son of Mary, is made only by the grace of God and constant striving on,our part. Much of oar progress in the spiritual life proceeds, ex opere operantis. And examen is an excel-lent measuring rod for our own effort. 6. Examen is one of our most poten~t means of recruitment. Stu-dents join our ranks, not because of what we say or what we write. but because o~ what we are. If we are real religious, if we are. happy in the knowledge that we are striving to perfect ourselves,, if we show the acquired virtues of patience, charity, humility, and piety, it is ~mpossible that recruits will not come to us. Is there a. better adver, tisement for the religious life than a real religious, one who is daily advancing in virtue? Holiness attracts. Examen is a potent means of holiness. . Perhaps you do not agree with all or even any of the foregoing reflections. 'Be that as it may, you must admit that, granted that particular examen is necessary, we often negl.ect this important reli-gious exercise. Not only must we strive to be present for the examen each day, but we must make it fruitful by daily striving.~ Growth. in" virtue seems to demand the daily examen. As his particular examen goes, so goes the religious. P. De Letter, S.J. The particular examen i~ a common practice of modern spiritual-ity, As every canonical fiovice knows, it consists in direct.ing atten-tion to a particular point, either a fault to be corrected or some practice of virtue, to be fostered. Popularized if not originated by St. Ignatius~ of Loyola, this has become a common tactic in the spir-itual life. All have a passing acquaintance with it. As proposed in the Spiritual ExWcises, attention is to be focused on the particular examen three times every day: at the morning oblation, in theexam-ination of conscience at noon, and again 'during the evening exam-ination. Through this practice gifferent defects, are "gradually elim-inated and needed virtues acquired. 179 ~ P DE LETTER Remeto for Rehgtous A Fact from Experience Yet some religious do not succeed with the particular examen. They apparently fail to see its use 6r grasp its meaning: At any rate, they draw little, profit from it even whrn they do not drop it alto-gether as a useless formality. This is true even among religious who in no way neglect their interior life. Their failure is not due to wil-ful neglect or to tepidity. They simply do not' see their way to making a success of the practice. . Since sound spiritual writers speak so highly of the worth of the particular examen, it seems desirable to examine some apparent neglect and to revalue._.this spiritual exercise. We may sum up its importance by saying it is a sign of spiritual vitality, especially for those who have spent some years in religion. It may not be all-important m itself, at least when it is thought of and practiced in too narrow a manner. Generally its practice is a good indication that.the interior life is thriving. More often than not, its neglect means alack of spiritual vitality. In a limited sense, fidelity to" the practice of the examen can serve as a barometer reading of spiriti~al fervor. A Restricted Conception of the. Exarnen The formal idea of the particular examen can be applied in two different ways regarding both the choice of the subject matter and the manner of conceiving its pragtice. One way is very concrete and definite, perhaps too mechanical and artificial at least for life-span practice. For instance, we decide on rooting out a habitual fault such as the neglect of silence, resolve to avoid transgressions, and keep a record of the eventually-decreasing faults. Or we concentrate our attention on a specific practice of virtue such as kind interpretation of the actions of others and endeavor to. increase the number of these acts throughout the day, checking at noon and night to see how we have succeeded. This method is very rightly advised in the beginning of the religious life. It is an effective means of correcting exterior faults and defects and of gradually developing a religious way of thinking, speaking, and acting. It is also useful at other periods in life when it is necessary to remedy some faulty way of speaking'or acting that has crept in unnoticed. Another Approach If the particular examen is to measure up to what writers say about it and be a really powerful means of progress, there ought to be another way of conceiving its practice which does justice to its 180 1953 PARTICULAR EXAMEN importance. A number of religious have given the assurance that the following approach "works." Instead of taking just any particular fault or practice of virtue, we should fix on some central interest or need of our spiritual life. If the subiect is important it will less easily be forgotten. Then its !~ractlce, oreferably positive rather than nega-tive, should be conceived in a broad and inclusive manner. By means of the resolve made and renewdd at the three times--morning, noon, and night--we work at gradually penetrating our working day with an ideal or conviction rather than at c.ounting a number of particular acts 6r ,defects. To be more specific, the most suitable ;sub.iect matter for our par-ticul~ r examen is the main resolution or resolutions of our annual re- " treat. When this subiect is properly" chosen, it answers a real need and generMly our great~st one. It may crystallize into some maxim or mqtto. Then the oractice will consist in keeping this before our mind or recalling it when needed and pbssible. We thus slowly come to live in the atmost)here or disposition which our watchword con-veys. ¯ We begin to think, speak, and act accordingly. Some examples are: "The LordIoves a cheerful giver": "Ndt for me, Lord, but for Thee": "To have that mind in you which is in Christ." The prac-tice of framing our resolution in a driving maxim or a quotation from Scripture can be very helpful 'though it is not essential. What is essential is to keep before our mind a definite objective, sufficiently central and important for our personal interior life, such as cannot be lost sight of as long as our effort for spiritual "progress is kept alive. In this method our faithfulness and success in the,practice of the par-ticular examen are the criterion of our vitality and fervor. This will create a .congenial interior climate in which our souls can thrive. The importance of tEis concep~ion of the examen is evident at once. Nor is there any danger that we shall overlook and forget it throughout a busy day. If our work is permeated with a driving spiritual ideal, as it should be if it is to be different from mere secular work, a particular examen that looks after 6ur present main spiritual need will help sustain this retreat-clear inspiration. It is only in moments of forgetfulness when we neglect grace and allow natural-ism to guide our thought or conduct that the particular examen will also suffer from this spiritual thoughtlessness, But the examen itself, by reason of the resolve and the effort it implies, helps to forestall or exclude and .certainly to dimi6ish these "secular moments" in our days. 181 P. DE LETTER Review [or Religious Room [or Varietg We need not fear that this method will leave no room for a helpful variety that will maintain interest. When our particular examen aims at our central, yet definite, spiritual interest or need, its subject, matter can and naturally will take on many different aspects according to the variations of that interest or need, directed both by grace and by our psychology. As a matter of fact, our spiritual needs and interests evolve gradhally according to seasons and circumstances and to the inspirations of grace. These will reveal now one,e, ~now another side which before remained more or less hidden or unnoficed. Moreover, when our retreat resolutio.n, as is gener~ally the case, is not restricted to one but foresees several particular needs, we can alternate the practice and change from one to the other when the 'one seems to have worn out and lost its grip. Later, we can often return to the first with a refreshed outlook and new ardor. ( Dispositions and/or Acts Does this manner of practicing the examen require specific acts as does the first, or may we dispense with these? It may require them and generally does. That depends on the subject matter and on in-dividual dispositions. Some people can maintain a habitual disposi-tion of recollectedness or selflessness without insis(ing on or multiply- , ing definite acts. Others are in need of such acts, which arise spon-taneously from their resolve to be recollected or self-forgetful. spirit of praye.r normally demands some explicit acts of formal prayer; habitual or virtual prayer alone would not be sufficient. Self-lessness, trust, apostolic zeal can be habitual dispositions, but some explicit acts, whether exterior or interior, would not do any harm but would help very much even if they were not altogether necessary. The marking in a book after the noon "and evening check-up, which is generally a real help to our dodging human nature,'is not to be overlooked in this second way. But it need not be done in numer-als. Some people are congenitally poor in.arithmetic. Instead of marking the number of acts or df faults, a gener~al notation may suf-fice, for instance: good, average, poor; or A, B, C; or any way one prefers. When we mean business with our particular examen and make use of all the means to succeed, we still must expect times when our effort will have little success. Some days everything goes well spir-itually; other days it does not. These ups and downs need not be 182 July, 1953 PARTICULAR EXAMEN ; magnified; even in0 the "downs:' our effort can and generally does remain substantially faithful and successful to an extent. This should not be oveHooked: otherwise unwarranted and naive optim-ism may flounder during low moods, Provided our desire and effort .does not flag, even this partly unsuccessful particular examen still marks a steady progress. - The second way of conceiving and. practicing the particular exa-men makes the exercise not just a small device for casual use if it suits but rather an important ~nd obligatory factor in every serious effort for progress. Without it. spiritual life~.slackens if it does not die down. Perhaps we should say that every, fervent life actually keeps this practice of the particular examen, though possibly without giving it that name. Every fervent spirituality is practically boun,d to aim at and concentrate on some definite objective required by the present need. Fervent sduls do so spontaneously. It can only make for better ~esults if they are aware of this law of spiritual vitality and resolve to follow it. Seen in this light, the particular examen-is an essential unit inthe structureof spiritual progress. It is, not just a decorative trifle. We need not fear that this determined and steady effort at lJrog-ress in one particular direction will result in a state of uneasy t~nslon and nervousness. As in the whole spiritual life, so also here, ti~e-de-sire and endeavor for advancement must combine ardor and peace,, earnestness and patience, genuine'effort and disinterested acceptance of the results. For is it not grace that makes our effort possible and suc-cessful? Human endeavor is a subordinate factor. It is no doubt, necessary: grace does ndt replaceit. But it is trust in grace combined with sincerity in not sparing ourselves unduly that makes a burning, yet peaceful ardor possible. The particular examen, understood in this grand and realistic way,, repays, th~ effort we make in a measure which it is impossible,to anticipate. Fidelity to grace is often re-warded beyond human expectation. Gabriel A. Zema, S.J. 1. Let us take, for example, the habit of passing on to a friend or acquaintance our low opinion of the fault or sin 0f another. De-pending on circumstances, the thing may be no sin at all, a.venial, or a mortal sin. Even if no actual sin, it is a habit that belongs to no 183 GABRIEL A. ZEMA lady or gentleman; and it can lead to a lot of trouble. 2. On rising, or after morning prayer, write a figure, say "3," some place where you can again see it at the end of the day. (Even nosey people will never know what "3" stands for.) For you "Y' means you are determined to control your tongue three times that day on the habit you set ouk to break. 3. When you look at the figure at the end of the day while examining your conscience as every sincere re!igious.should--it is pos- Sible you won't know what it stands for yourself. You may even have forgotten you put it there. ,But a little reflection will bring back the breaking-that-habit idea. 4. Very well, begin all over again. On the second day you may find that you have not controlled your tongue even once. Go to the third day more determined than ever. 5. I~eep'up the practice for ten or twelve days. You will find a definite improvement if you are at all serious about it. 6. At the end of ten or twelve days take tip another fault and give it ~he same treatment. Follow the same procedure. After you have worked on three or four faults.--never forgetting to keep im-' proving on them--go back to the first one and see how the patient looks! 7. In morning and evening prayers ask Our Lady to come to your aid. BOOK NOTICE THE INTERIOR CARMEL: THE THREEFOLD WAY OF LOVE, by John C. H. Wu, a very brilliant Chinese. convert, diplomat, and scholar, "wi'll help highly intellectual.lay men and women to raise their spiritual lives of contemplation and divine love td an equal height and to give them something of the lofty mysticism that char-acterized St. John of the Cross. It will also aid very busy religious or priests to make their exterior activities conducive to a ,higher and more intense internal spirit. Interestingly and inspiringly Dr. Wu quotes the ancient Cbiriese sages, Confucius and Mencius, to rein-force the lessons of modern Catholic and Spanish Carmelite mysti-cism. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1953. Pp. xii + 257. $3.25.) 184 Child Mo!:her: r cious ynt:hesis Mother Winifred Corrigan, r.c. AT HOLY COMMUNION, the soul authentically in love with ~ God, is sometimes conscious of itself as a banq~ethall in which the memorable gospel of the anointing of the Lord's feet by "a sinner" is being reenacted. This soul becomes aware in itself of two sep.arate impulses. One is the generous spirit of the Magdalen, utterly expending self for the beloved Master, freely offering to spend its best years in obscurity or lovingly giving its body to be burned. The other impulse, also within .the soul, is viewing, rea-soning, even objecting: "To what purpose is this waste?" It is the soul speaking in terms of the apostle 3udas, not yet the traitor, who prudently considers the extravagance of broken alabaster."For this might have been sold for much, and given to the poor." That Our Blessed Lord openly favored and approved the sym-bolic self-surrender ~f Mary Magdalen, the sinner, we know. "The poor you have always with you but me you have not.always." We have experienced, too, bow the logic of Divine Wisdom reconciles our opposing desires and restores equilibrium. "Thy. sins are for-given thee. Thy faith hath'made thee safe, go in peace." Devotion to Mary performs a similar function. It tends to unify two spiritual realities sometimes thought to be at variance: the doctrines of spir-itual" cbildbood and spir!tual motherhood. Why are these doctrines ever considered incomigatible? In the natural order, it is plain that the two states, childhood and mother-hood, are not in opposition. Obviously, the same person can be both child and mother. The basic concept, mother, one who merci-fully sustains the life of her offspring ("do not kill it"), is unfor-gettably presented to us as illustrating the wisdom of Solomon. "Give the living Child to this woman.for she is the mother there-of." This concept of mother ~choes the first woman's name, Eve, mother of the living. The concept of child, in the Divine Mind, is expressed for us in the Fourth Commandment. In the Book of Ec-clesiasticus (Chapter 3) the blessings of fruitfulness and long life are promised in detail to the loving, obedient child. Writing to his dear Ephesians, St. Paul confirms this divine revelation for New Testa- 185 MOTHER WINIFRED CORRIGAN Review for Religious merit times.- "Children, obey your parents in. the Lord, for this is just. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first command-ment with a prorriise: that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be long lived upon earth." Thus, for the Christian, it is natural for the faithful child to become fruitful, nor would the sacrifice of mar- ¯ riage and family usually be required in order to keep the Fourth Commandment. In the supernatural order, the harmonious' sequence between the roles of child and mother is less apparent. In making ready to lighten up the mists by reference to M.ary, it may be well to clarify the meaning of the terms, spiritual childhood and spiritual mother-hood, according to Scripture and the lives of the saints. Spiritual Childhood Our Lord has strongly set forth the reality, even. the necessity of spiritual childhood. "Amen, I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little, children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." He then counsels the humility of a little child for his disciples, and for all who would be "greater in the kingdom of heaven." The reality of spiritual motherhood is presented for us in the forceful language of St. Paul. "My little dhildren," he wrote to the Galatians, "of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you." His apostolic cry for souls re-echoes the appeal of the Divine Lover, heard in the Old Testament (Isaias 49:15). There it tran-scends rather than distinguishes itself from the pangs of .natural motherhood. "Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her wombs. And if she should forget, y.et will I not forget thee/' Amid the miracles of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we find this divine, motherly concern for human needs manifesting itself in a sweet, considerate way. He took the hand of Jairus' 12"-year-old daughter and raised her from the dead. Then, having counselled her parents to secrecy, he "commanded that something should be given her to eat." Some of tl'Je saints have discovdred the .beautiful qualities of spir-itual childhood and spiritual motherhood.contained in the above and similar passages. At Holy Communion, they have explored the mystery of their Eucharistic Lord .entering the human body, resting there like a helpless, unborn child, in order to nourish the life of the soul. The Divine Word, repeating the mother's cry: "Do not kill 186 Jul~,1953 GRACIOUS SYNTHESIS it!" 'daily fulfills His own promise: "The bread that I will give. is my flesh, for the life of the world." The saints have understood how, by their very self-effacement, by being belittled and becoming as little children, they too can maternally assis~ in the birth, growth, and' development of the Mystical Body. St. Th~r~se of the Ch'ild Jesus (1873-1897) has renewed the interest of the modern world in the doctrine Of spiritual.childhood: Her position as youngest child of the Martin family and her early entrance into religious life preserved in her soul the true attitude of a child. How this spirit of utter dependence on her heavenly Father helped her to fulfill her maternal duties as nox}ice mistress to the souls "who came to me asking for food," she tells with unique charm in her Autobiographgt (p. 213). Her present title of patroness of the missions suggests the breadth of her spiritual moFherh0od, hidden deep in her youth and Carmel. No discordant contrast is the spirituality of Blessed Th~r~se Couderc (1805-1885), foundress of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Retreat in the Cenacl~. As the oldest girl in a large family and as young superior of a religious community, sloe early developed the valiant traits characteristi(of spiritual motherhood. Then. con-sequent upon bet consecration to Our Lady, shesaw her responsibili-ties removed and she went down willingly into years of oblivion. In her 60th year, Blessed Th~r~se or, as we know her better, Mother Th~r~se, had emerged from the darkness of humiliation and failure, to find herself a humble, cherished adorer confronted with the holi-ness of God. "He treats me always." she wrote at this time, "like a child who would not have the strength to bear trials, Also the sweetness He makes me feel in His service makes me forget and bear all." This is the stage at which she detailed her doctrine of self-surrender. While it graduall~ led her into the thicket of unitive suffering and reparation, she continued to call it an easy means of sanctification, noting that there is "nothing so sweet to practice.': Marg, the Ideal The ideal of self-surrender is Our Lady of the Cenacle. It is Our- Blessed Mother in th~ last. perhaps 15-year, epoch of her earthly life. She has already received her Divine son's formal commission for the motherhood of mankind, on Calvary. In the Cenacle or "upper room," by a mother's persevering prayer and a claild's anonymity- ("who when she was first of all became-the last" St. Bernard), 187 COMMUNICATIONS ReotetO [or Reltgtot~s Mary continues to attract us to the sublime by the gracious synthesis of her life. In religious life, Mary's spirit is learned and gained in a'variety o.f ways: perhaps in the shared intimacy of Holy Communion, perhaps in the fragrant solitude of a retreat. Our Lady is ever the, true child ,and the true mother. Her spirit, '!meek and strong, zealous and prudent, humble and courageous, pure and fruitful," imparts to us our own proper measure of both these roles. When we have reverently analyzed ~and appreciated the doctrines of spiritual childhood and spiritual motherhood, we may be allowed to accommodate an angel's words as our simple directive,. "Take the Child and His mother." Thus, sincere, day to day imitatio'n of Our Blessed Mother. gradually becomes our meaningful response to an ever more imRerative invitation. We then find that we have tended to integrate in our spiritual .life the two ways'of which Mary, our model, is the gracious synthesis. Reverend Fathers: I agree with Sr. Ma~y Jude', 0.P., in her articl~, "The Summa for Sisters" (March, 1953), that a study of the works of St. Thomas would help our Sisters become better religious and better teachers However, I do not agree with Sister regarding "the distinctive phe-nomenon of the active orders today." Professed religious who are seeking admission to contemplative orders are a growing concern of the Church, but they are not a phe-nomenon. They are the logical result of the transition that has been taking place within active orders. Truly "their final profession is far enough behind," but a glance at those former days may illuminate the darkness, mistrust, and mis-understanding that surrounds them. When ~hey entered religious life the goal was one--it was clear-cut, that is, perfection which would I, mean intimate union with God. During their novitiate and perhaps I' for the first ten years of their religious life their concentrated all their it efforts to attain this end. Then stress was not on education, nursing, i! or Catholic Action, but on the presence of God and the pursuit of I virtue; however, because of pressure from without, the change of l 188 duly, 1953 COMMUNICATIONS standards, and the requirements by the St'ate, professional knowledge, ability, and skill became a necessity. Therefore. higher education with Saturday and weekday classes was added to teaching, plus parent-teacher m~etings, sodalities, public relation groups, discussion clubs and first~id courses. These religious lack neither intelligence nor good will. They readily admit with St. Thomas the greatness of the charity of the apostolate. Theylive, for the most part, lives of self-renunciation and sacrific6. Other,wise they would not be seeking admission to the cloister.- Nor are they seeking only the joys of contemplation. Most of them would gladly spend themselves and be spent in the apostdlate if they could still be c~rtain that their union with God was increasing not decreasing. But the signs point in the opposite direction. Let us look at one of these Sisters of fifteen y~ars ago. Today, instead of the one goal of 'union with God, she has another, that of professional competence. What has happened to her.as a result? First, the intensity of her desires and her efforts in the spir~itual life has naturally been weakened by her concentration on her work. Second!y, the virtues of the interior life, silence, and recollection do not have the opportunity for development they had in fdrmer days. Distractions in one form or another and activity hinder their growth. Thirdly, the virtues of the hiddefi life have become watery. They lack the positive yirility that so characterizes interior souls. She is in the world and does not wish to be of the world, yet its spirit of ac-tivity and distraction are now hers. ~ Viewing these results, she finds a growing conviction that her. spiritual life is deprived of the degree of vitality that once was hers and thai the culprit is activity. From this conviction flows the fear that her work and its accessories are separating her from Christ. It is not the fear of a neurotic; it is a well:founded fear that demands recognition and attention. No zealous religious desires to go to heaven alone; no thinking religious denies the value of the apostolic life,, but there is much ac-tivity in the life of the religious today that could not conceivably be put in the category of Apostolic. Those who strive to unite prayer and action as St. Paul and St. Thomas, St. Catherine and St, Teresa of Avila did, find they fall short of the ideal, in fact they fail. Tl~is is not just subjective thinking. It can be proven without much spiritual examination. As in nations, so in groups, and so with the individual, the pe- 189 COMMUNICATIONS ~" riod of adjustment is 'fraught with dangers. These must not be spurned. They should be recognized and analyzed. It is the chal- . lenge of our age. , The desire for contemplation is rapidly growing in America, not o~ly.in orders of women but also among men. We have a Father Moore, a Father Raymond, and a Father Merton, to name only a few outstanding ones, to prove this. Not only is contemplation sought by' religious in active orders, but so many young, eager Americans have sought admission to the Trappist Monastery in Kentucky that they .have had to build five new foundations in a short time, The Carthusians, stiil in their infancy in America, have a waiting list. All. this is significant. ¯ Would Sr. Mary Jude say all these people were exceptions, or that they lack the ability to find the delicate balance between prayer and work. I doubt it. Looking at it from this' broader .point of view, we see that this cbndition of which~ Sister M, Jude speaks i~ only a branch of a much larger river that is sweeping America from coast to coast. If we wish to insure the vitality and growth of our active orders, we must see that. the desire for intimate union 'with Christ is given outlets and opportunities for development, .even if it means the curtailment of many activities. We can do without the latter, but without the for-mer all action is but sounding brass and tinklilag cymbals. --A SYMPATHIZER. "BLESSED BE HER GLORIOUS ASSUMPTION" .On December 23, 1952, Our Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, decreed that the in-vocation printed above is.to be added, to'the Divine Praises whenever they are re-cited after Mass or'after Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.' In the official publi-cation of this decree, which appeared in the Acti~ Apostolica Sed~'s under date of March 21, 1953, vol. 45, p. 194, it was stated that this new invocation should be inserted after the invocation "!Blessed be~ th~ Name of Mary Virgin and Mother." However, L'Osseroatore Romano for April 9 contained a correction, issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on Apr!l 8, to the effect that it should be inserted im-mediately after the other invocation: ',',Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate C.oncep, tion." ,. The ob'.i~ati0n of inserting this new. invocation into the Divine Praises begins on dune 21, 1953, that date being three months from the date of the ACtu Apos-tolicae Sedis in which the decree appeared, in conformity with canon 9 of the Code of Canon Law. We take this occasion to remind our readers that on Oc~0ber 31-, 1950, in con-nection with the formal definition, Pope Pius XII decreed that the invocation Queen assumed into f-leaven should be added to the Litany of Loretto after the ~'oCation "Queen conceived without original :sin." At the same time he also up-, proved a new Mass which is to replace the Mass formerly said on the Feast of the Assumption. 190 I Spiri :ual Progress and Regress Charles A. Nash, S.J. AN IDEA as old as St, Augustine, and. rebbrn in Rodriguez, pic-tures the spiritual life "as a ,b~all of string you are carefully winding up. IL once you drop it, it readily unwinds, and it takes a long time and much effort to .wind it up again. This same idea, on a natural plane, permeates the business day of six thousand psychiatrists in the United States who have become profoundly, interested in what happens once the ball of life is dropped and starts to unwind. Their technical name for it is regression or the reversal of t~ae normal steps Of growth. Regression is of such paramount im-portance in psychiatry that it is often .defined as "the science of re-gressive phenomena." The aim of this article is to picture regression in the spiritual life and.to use psychiatric data in order to empha.size certain psychological factbrs that underlie spiritual progress. " Because it is their.daily, business, psychiatrists today are fast be-coming experts in the delicate art of character change or the forward step to maturity, As modern scientific.innovators in an ancient field. these medical specialists have made many valuable scientific investi-gations and acquired much practical experience in the last twenty-five years. Religious ark wise to profit by some of their ideas on regress and pr,og~ess toward maturity 'which have a direct practical bearing on the religiou~ life. Like the psychiatrist, a religious, too, practices daily the delicate art of character change, but be aims at a greater spiritual maturity. The forward progress at which a psy-chiatrist aims in treating his patient strikes a close parallel to the for-ward progress of a religious in the spiritual life. Both involve a gradual change of character. Psychiatrists must know character change in two directions, both Zegre~s and progress. The classic exampl,e of regression or unwinding in human life is old age. We are often a casual witness when time, by its slow process, lays its fingeron a man. We have watched elderly PerSons gradually drop things most cherished in !ife, one by one. first a man b~gins to lose the wide ifiterests he once had. Sports no longer interest him; he stops traveling is much as he used to; his friendships narrow dow.n; interest in his daily, work begins to lag. All gradually culminate in his retirement.1 If he.k~eps his mind open '~Leland El Hinsie?Concepts and Problems of Ps~ychotherapg, p. 124: Understand-able Psgchiatrg, chapter on "Regression." * 191 ¯ CHARLES A. NA~H Reoietu for Religious and pliant and is ready to welcome whatever the future may bring, the elderly pers.on often mqves gracefully through his last years. Often enough, however, his mind closes up and he loses track of the day and the hour. He becomes hostile to what is new, to change, to innovation, closing off hislmind to the future. In the ,course of time he may become self-centered and petulant, and fall back upon the 'manners of his childhood, then of his infancy. He may have to be bathed, fed, dressed, assisted in walking. For him it is a haven of repose, a citadel of safety. He has reverted to his "second child-hood" and regressed to the activities of an infant. Besides the com-plete unwinding of habits of maturity in "second childhood," there are many pictures of partially unwound habits which are but-smaller portraits on a much reduced scale. Unwinding Spiritual Life Complete spiritual regression can be 'seen in-the nominal of "fallen-away" Catholic of any age who knows his religion but drops. its practice entirely. The unwinding spiritual, life runs down a path more or_ less parallel to "old age and ~econd childhood." The ¯"fallen-away" .Catholic's practical interest in religion slowly wanes, and he gradually closes off his mind to religion, becoming spiritually self-centered. One by one he drops the religious practices he once cher-ished. -Sunday is like any other day; the churchdoor remains ever .i:los~d. He stops going to Mass; he falls away from the Sacraments: his prayer life diminishes to a minimum or none at all. Gradually, his acquired spiritual habits Unwind until he is back to "childhood," where spiritual obligations and.moral responsibilities are at a mini-mum. He has traded away God for careless, vacant ioaming. As far as religion is concerned, he is once' again like a small boy, sans reason and his seventh birthday. Instead of progressing to an ever greater possession of God, he has gone backwards. Here, too, miniature por-traits of regression are quite common in the spiritual life where a spiritual habit or two may start to unwind. Progress and regress follow definite patterns. .One is a dynamic, forward-moving pattern toward maturity; the other moves back-ward down the path a man has come up, Life experience normally present~ the picture of a continuum of, forward growth along a life-line which falls into natural periods: birth, childhood,, adolescence, young manhood, adulthood, change of life, and decline. It is the common lot of mortal man to :crown his numberless daily experi- 192 Jul~j, 1953 PROGRESS AND REGRESS ences with.an ever greater maturity. This growing maturity is dearly won through countless small successes. In sharp contrast, the re-gression pattern, at any age and at any level of development, is a're-versal of the' normal steps of growth along', this life-line. Read the life-line forward and you have progress; read it backward and you have regression. Psychiatrists'~tell us that every man takes a backward step now and then. No one, save Christ our Lord and His Blessed Mother, is co,mple.te master of his every action. For religious, the single back-ward step may occur in problems of obedience,' the daily order, pov-erty, t~he practice of virtue, the daily rosary, spiritual reading--to name but a few possibilities. The single backward step is not. so significant. When this backward step becomes a definite pattern, then real spiritual regression is beginning. But despite" occasional backward steps, psychiatrists say the nor-real person is about ninety per cent adjusted to life.~ About ten per "cent of life he cannot quite master and he dodges it in one way or another. In other words, man's daily batting average is about .900; the ratio of small successes in life to small failures is about ninety to ten. Whether saint or sinner, some failure pursues him every day, but success (forward progress) definitely predominates in his actions. Dgnamic Equilibrium Because he is fundamentally successful but always carries some failure in tow, the average person strikes a balance with life. He reacts in terms of an equilibrium--a dynamic, forward-moving equilibrium in which progressive factors predominate, ,but regressive ones are also present. This equilibrium ,is built into the very struc-ture of his mind through the years. It is his own practical system of reacting to life, his working method of dealing with experience de-rived ,from his past.psychological history. Psychiatrists have learned~ to investigate this equilibrium scientifically and now actually measure it,.with~scientific formulas,a When it breaks down, regression begins. If it does not break down, progress continues. ~This figure refers to the over-all or.comprehensive picture of all man's actions in meeting life. Personal success in one particular action, however, may vary from mastery, to littleor no control. Leland E. Hinsie, Concepts and Problems of Pay-. chotherapt./, p. 77. Edward A. Strecker, Fundamentals of Ps~/chiatr~/, graph on p. 231, 3E~lward A. Strecker, Fundamentals of Psv. chiatr~t, p. 51. Franz Alexander and H~len Ross, Dgnamic Psgchiatrg, p. 140. CHARLES A. NASH Reoieto for Religious This dynamic equilibrium produces manifold effects. It gives an even tenor to, man's ways and stability to his character. It embeds past success in the human system for'future successful operation. As a result, whatever a man does in his normal day leaves most of his old order standing. A singld act, forward or backward, leaves most of his autobiography of character largely unchanged. Occasional back-ward steps are readily tolerated and absorbed without throwing the forward motion offstride. Because of it, a major change of character. occurs slowly. A spiritual character change requires many actions over a considerable period of time. In many aspects of life this equilibrium acts as a shock-absorber, an internal ,resistance built right into the structure of personality for resisting the "blows of outrageous foitune." For instance, a death in the family may score a temporary psychological and emotional knockout in other members of the family~. But soon the pendulum swings back to normal and old habits take over once again. Gradu-ally, the appreciation of life built up through the years prevails, and life goes forward once more. Because of his equilibrium, a man does not deteriorate psychologically at one major blow, nor can ,he turn himself'inside out, for better or worse, overnight. Role o~ Failure After much failure or long-enduring stress, this same personal balance or equiliblium can wear thin or even "break down." When this occurs, the backward pattern of regression slowly begins. Then, a religious falls back upon lower and lower levels of his spiritual life, and becomes beset by earlier and earlier habits of his career. The first failure is easy to take, but not a series of them. Failtire is hard on morale, and daily failure has a numbing effect on our effort. The effect of failure is to close off the mind to the difficulty and 0fall back upon.earlier habits. After repeated failure, for instance, a religious may gradually close off his mind to formal mental prayer, and fall back upon his earlier habits when mental prayer was not part of the daily schedule. All spiritual regression has one point in common: it is a back-ward step to an earlier and easiei adjustment to the difficulties of the spiritual life. At the, same time, unfortunately, spiritual progress either slows down or stops. Part of the goal drops out of the picture "for the present," and there is a partial farewell to hopes of greater things. Instead of the "new man in Cl~rist," it is a return to the 194 PROGRESS AND REGRESS "old man" of self when spiritually less mature. The significance of regression in the spiritual life is that it sounds the knell of forward progress. Continued progress requires that a religious take failure~ in stride. Often small successes in life become so integrated into a religious per-sonality that they almost go unnoticed. We only see and take note of our failures, and they can come to loom large on the daily hori-zon. After repeated failure, therd is danger that a religious will close his mind and chart his future course by past failure. The true measure of the future, bower(r, is past success. There is no small touch of humility and wisdom in expecting some daily failure and not charting our future course by it. Man normally moves forward in a dynamic equilibrium with a ninety per-cent rate of success. American Stgiritualitg The pace or tempo of character chahge is a slow one. Being' American-minded, we naturally expe.~t rapid results. The very at- . mosphere of our times--an era of modern machine .efficiency, high- 13ressure business methods, production miracles, and high-speed travel--promotes an ingrained bent toward immediate success. Rightly' or wrongly, we feel there should be a twentieth-century ¯ masterkey to the spiritual life, a foolproof device as dependable ?s the multiplication table. Yet strangely enough, our spiritual life seems to move at the tempo of the first centuiy in a twentieth-century World. True character change may be hard to see. We Americans see the, entrancing picture of industrial production, but we look upon spiritual progress in our own lives as a vague or blank picture. Sanc-tifying grace and internal actual grace are both intangible and invis-ible. We sow the representative crops, the seeds of humility, love of God, obedience, and the other virtues, yet always wonder2--when's the harvest? To see results, we often make one good resolution suc-ceed another in rapid succession, turning our spiritual life into a series of short-term cycles, partly for variety, partly to convince ourselves that we are getting somewhere and making progress. But after six months of short-term cycles we are ready to doubt whether we are changed an iota. That old spiritual problem which we settled once, and for all two weeks ago somehow surges back to life again today. A series of .these experiences can readily warp ore: spiritual judgment or ~lgrudence and lead to loss of effort and discouragement. Then 195 CHARLES A. NASH Review for Religious failure charts our course. Being constitutiOnall~y successful, we shift our effort to some more promising line of_ endeavor, and the spirit of' spiritual progress becomes like a ghost on the outermost rim of the real business of daily living. 200-300 Hours Psychiatrists have much this same time-problem. How much time is required to make a permanent change in a patient's character~ How long to turn a man around and start him forward again on the life-line to maturity? A considerable body of evidence indicates that it takes two hundred to three hundred hours, roughly speaking; to make a permanent character change.4 This means one hour a day, seven days a week for about nine months devoted to making the change, whate;cer that change may be. No matter how un-American it may sound, there seems to be normally no substitute for time in a 'permanent character change. Even if our minds thunder and rever-berate in syllogisms, it still takes from two to three hundred hours to drive' the lesson home permanently and to relate it in experience to the concrete parts of life. A religious may profitably add a bit of timing to his spiritual motor; Permanent growth is not like reading through a spiritual book in three or four days ~nd expecting the result; it is more l,!ke the slow, nine-months' nurturing of the child in the mother's womb. It is not the work of a day or a week, but it finds a closer parallel in the one hour a day for nine months thata student devotes, say, to mathe-matics ~r history or language in school. Putting on a facet of Christ's personality is not done in one meditation; it slowly develops like the b.aby slowly developing back and neck muscles, balancin'g on his feet at six months, and finally learning to walk near the end of a year. Permanent character change, is more in the image of St.,Peter and the Apostles learning confidence in Christ over a period of several years, and still being a bit shaky at His death when confronted with actual life experience. But worth noting is the ever-recurring fact of suc-cess. After nine months in the womb the baby actually is born; a year later he walks; in nine months the student knows his history, mathematics, and language. In time the Apostles did attain cona-dence in Christ. Actual success is the constant experience of the hu-man race if timk and energy are dev6ted to the task. 4Leland E. Hinsie, Concepts and Problems of Psychotherapy, 11-12. 169. John Knight, S~o'ry oI My Psychoanalysis, 2-3. 196 155, 166- Ju~,~, ! 953 PROGRESS AND REGRESS ¥~rhat l~appens in two or three hundred hours? In that time our perso.nal equilibrium changes. Through ~ur mind and emotions there slowly winds a new track of virtue all its own. Character change invoIyes a rather thoroughgoing shift in our habitual reaction to life. It requires a new appreciation of life as a permanent part of the m~nd, a' new emotional pattern, a new reaction to a vast number of concrete situations. Suppose, for example, a close friend dies with whom you have associated night and day for ten years. In all the old situations which constantly remind you of this lost friend you m~lst make clear to yourself that you have this friend no longer, and that a renunciation is necessary. He is Vividly represented {n many personal memories and experiences. You will have to correct your reactions for many a day, and detachment must t~ke place separately in each instance. Similarly in character chan, ge. "The single action, the passing thought hardly dents the human system: it remains more like a feeble echo in the soul. A single action leaves one's equilibr!uin for meeting life largely unchanged. In two or three hundred" hours, however, the new reaction "works through" and permeates our mind and our thinking~ In that time it develops its own emotional pat-tern and becomes permanently related in experience to most of the concrete parts of life. Factors in Adult Progress As adults, we tend to sell human nature short. We frequently forget what a long way we have come since childhood, the countless number of small successes involved in our present degree of maturity. Starting out as a helpless babe, man slowly learns t6 walk, to speak, to run, to master language, to enjoy countless new experiences,, to cope with school life, to earn a living, to marry and support a fam-ily. Any one of thesehas practical difficulties of time and energy and personal ability somewhat like those in the spiritual life: Yet by the common experience of mankind, their attainment ih practically cer-~ rain if sufficient time and energy is devoted to the task. As adults we tend to forget the countless milestones we have already passed, and even come to expect no new milestones in the future. Often as adults we cut down on spiritual time and energy, and act in the practical order as if religious experience had been exhausted. If a religious tries to compress thirty hours int6 twenty-four, it is inevitable that he will have to scalp time from his spiritual life to ac-complish this feat. In this regard it would seem that all of us are endowed with a certain native shrewdness of the horse-trading vari- 197 CHARLES A. NASH ety. But little time means little progress. Sometimes we run our spiritual life like a carburetor with too thin a mixture of energy to operate the machine. Life's fast teinpo drains away energy. The more our limited daily energy is channeled to other things, the less remains available for character change or spiritual growth. ~ If there is no time and energy, there is no progress. As we grow older, our ideas of spiritual experience tend to become mote and more .rigid. Spiritual progress is difficult in a rigid mind, like mov, ement in a. straitjacket. Progress demands an open and pliant mifid with the door ever open to wider spiritual experience. Often in order to pro-gress we first have to unstiffen our spiritual ideas and keep them lim-ber. Age is not a true limit to spiritual growth. Remai'ning ever an experiencing being, man normally moves ever forward irma dynamic equilibrium toward an ever greater maturity in God. If the human mind closes to the future, it falls back upon the past. Not age but the man himself puts a stop to progress, by refusing new spiritual ex-perience. The Divine Plan Time, energy, and an open mind docile to the Holy Spirit fit into God's design for human experience on earth. In His divine plan as the Creator of human nature and every human experience, God has an eminently skilful regard for bo~h the strength and the weakness of the earthly pilgrim in his slow daily progress. He assists the slo~v, three-hundred-hour pace by the superior motivation of divine reve-lation, by countless actual graces, by the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity. When only a miracle can be substituted for time, when our very best efforts are always attended by some failure, we catch no small glimmer of the "divinity that shape~ our ends" in the gift of-the three theological virtues. For without hope progress stops; without faith the path grows dim: without love the heart grows faint along the way. But in God's design for religious ex-perience ,the pilgrim is fortified by God Himself. Faith illumines our mind along the road to God; hop~ keeps effort alive and the goal be-fore our eyes; and love is even now a participation of the goal itself while progressing along the way: Divine assistanc~ and a ready w~l-come ever await the pilgrim at every step of his journey. "Come to Me all you that'labor and are heavily burdened and I will refresh you." The lq.ng-run trend of spiritual growth, in God's design, is a quickening triumphal march. ~ 198 The Unseen World Jerom~ Breunig, S.J. THE telescope and microscope have extended our horizons im- | measurably. They have opened up unseen worlds for us. "How mean is earth when I look to heaven," said St. Ignatius one night in Rome more than 400 years ago. Hbw much more mean-ingful this remark is today when the giant eye at Mt. Palomar, California, a 200 inch telescope, helps us penetrate into the sky to the staggering limits of more than one billion light years" and reveals millions of suns like our own moving at the incredible .speed of 500,000 miles, per hour. .~Apart from the findings of the great ob-servatories, even a good telescope on a clear night can reveal wonders hidden to the eye. We can see the pock marks that craters ma~ke on our next ~lo~r neighbor, the moon, which is a scant 238,000 miles fr6m our planet. We. can see the nine moons that cluster about Jupiter, the'ring of light about Saturn, as well as the fiery masses said to be billions of stars. ~The inicroscope opens another unseen world. To the unaided eye what is on the glass slide lo6ks like'a drop of water. Under the microscope we see many protozoa of all kinds. We can see scores of little slipper-shaped animals called paramecia caromin~ about in the water. Perhaps a sluggish, slow-moving amoeba can be sighted or a green euglena of the mastigophora (whip-bearing) family, propel-ling itself by its whiplike tail. After human vision gtopped, the zo-ologist has pushe,d on with his microscdpe to discover 30,000 kinds of protozoa in an unseen world. But there is another world still more 'marvelous and far more important than the worlds that the magnifying glass reveals. It is the unseen world of spiritual realities. Higher visual aid is required to penetrate far into this invisible but real world. We are blind and helpless without the eyes of faith. St. Paul speaks right to the point. "What is faith? It is that which'gives substance to our hopes, which convinces, us of things we cannot see." What are some of the realities in this unseen world? What are some of the "things we cannot see" except with the eyes of fai'th? No one has ever seen a soul at the moment God created it,'when it.left the body, or at any other time. Nor has anyone seen the re-birth of a soul at Baptism when the higher life of grace is infused and the human clay is made immortal diamond, when the bap'tized 199 ,In I JEROME BREUNIG Reoieto for Religious is made a son of God and heir of heaven, when the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity come and make their home in the soul, trans-forming it into a temple of God. "Blessed are those who have not .seen and have believed." Faith convinces us of things we cannot see. No one has seen a soul red as scarlet washed whiter than snow by the absolution of a priest. Nor has anyone seen the bread of heaven restoring the waning strength of the soul. No one has seen the inexpressible joy of the elect in the mansion,s of heaven, the chastening anguish of the souls in the prison of purgatory, or the black despair of the damned 'in hell. "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." Faith convinces us of things we can-not see. Opposition of the Sense-World It is essential to salvation to stay aware of the unseen world but it is not easy. We live in a world of sense. Our very mode of learning is rboted in sense impressions. There is nothing in the mind / that was not first in the senses. Even faith comes by hearing. Our convictions about what we cannot see are constantly being challenged by things we can see. It is a losing battle, naturally. For instance, we will ordinarily be more vividly impressed by paging through a national picture magazine for a few minutes than we will by reading the Imitation of Christ for the same length of time. Unless we con, stan.tly cultivate supra-sensible reality by reading, reflection, and prayer, we will not be able to offset the ever-present attraction of the sensible. We.are also at the m'ercy of our less immediate environment. We are influenced by what we see, hear, feel; and much of this is secular. It is not informed with respect for the sacred unseen realities. There are also abundant examples of godlessness. To claim there are no atheists in foxholes, on the operating tables in our hospitals, among the alumni of our schools; Or ("there but for the grace of God go I") among ex-religious is to close one's eyes to the facts. The lack of respect for God's creative co-operation in h.uman generation is widespread and appalling. There are hardened, blinded men who look on death like the fallen-away who "assured" the hos-pital chaplain: "If I die on the operating table, there will not b'e any-one to take me away." Many non-believers patronize our "naivete" in accepting the sacramental system. A Catholic mayor was openly ridiculed in the public press: "How can he be fit to manage the city goverttment when he is foolish enough to believe a little wafer is his 200 duly, 1953 THE UNSEEN WORLD God." Communists use brutal methods.to eradicate, "to wash away," a sense of the supernatural, but secularism has a smooth ap-proach that sometimes is even more effective in uprooting faith, hope, and charity. The recent ~u.rvey of religion in the United States has produced some startlin~ data. The first report that 99% of the people be-lieved in the existence of G~od was heartening, but the subsequent studies revealed the shallowness of much of this belief. Thd eighth" of the series, "What Americans Think of Heaven and Hell," reported the following statistics in the March number of the Catholic Digest. "Do you think there is any real possibility of your going to.hell? Yes, answered .I 2 %; No, 29 % : Don't know, 17 %; Do not beh.eve in hell, 42 %." In other words, 88 % of those questioned were not greatly concerned with .a truth that Christ underlined clearly, in His teaching. And this is the. environment, through the press, radio, television(?), and a thousand other contacts, we live in. The un-seen world of faith has competition. Witnesses to the Unseen The greatest Witness to the reality of the unseen world was" Christ, God2s Son, who clothed Himself with flesh and blood, a true human nature, worked miracl~s, and founded a ,visible Church to bear witness to the invisible grandeur of divine realities. He invites religious in a special way to continue to bear witness. He has invited them to prove the eternal value of.a better world to a money-mingled, sex-sick, rugged-individual generation by being poor, chaste, and obedieht as He was in the wor'ld. "But if religious are not inhabi-tants of this unseen world they will never impart the irresistible con-viction that the unseen world exists." The recent communication from a Poor Clare (REVIEW, No-vember~ 1952, 312-14) contained the eloquent witness to the un-seen world that is afforded by contemplatives. "There is an unseen world which to her (a Poor Clare) is very real. The incidents of daily lilt'are mere accidentals which are of value so far as they pur-chase for her more perfect union with God. This unseen world is as real to her as the things she can reach out and touch, and touching it she can make every action of hers prayer. I am speaking of prayer,mnot prayers," Until the unseen world is as real to us as the things we can reach out and touch, we will not convey the conviction so badly needed. 201 C. A. HERBST Reuieto for Religious, There is on~ way to make this world that real. It is by living in it. I remember a retreat master's remark on tills point. "You have to have darkness to find a picture on the sensitive plate, and you ha~e to have prayer to bring out the invisible presence of God." Again, it is ' prayer and not prayers that will enable us to live the convictions of our faith. Chari!:y C. A. Herbst, S.J. W~HEN a learned man among the Jews asked Our Lord: "Which is the great commandment in the law?" Christ answered: "Thou shalt love the' Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, andwith thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment." (Mt. 22: 37, 38). This was not new with Christ. It is the burden not only of the New but als0 of the Old Testament. written, as St. Paul says, "with the Spirit 6f the living God.in the fleshly tables of the heart" (II Cot. 3:3). The theological virtues are the greatest of all the virtues. Thdre are three of them: faith, hope, and charity. "And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three." Of these three, love of God' for His own sake is the queen: "But the greatest of these is charity" (I Cot. 13:13). Its object is God Himself, and our motive for loving Him,. too, is His own dear Self, "because Thou are all good and worthy of all love." "I call charity that virtue which moves the soul to love God 'for His own sake and oneself and the neighbor for God's ~ake," said St. Augustine. Charity makes all the virtues live. It is the soul even of faith, without which it is impossible to please God. "The life. of the body is the soul. By it the body moves and feels. Even so the life of faith is charity, because it works through charity, as you read in the Apostle: 'faith that worketh by charity' (Gal. 5:6). When charity grows cold, f~ith dies, just as the body does when the soul leaves it." (St. Bernard, Serrn. "2 In Resurr.) "O my God, ,I love Thee above all things." How can I truth-fully say this when I prove many times every day by committing venial sins that I love even tiny creatures more than I love God? Or why is it that I do not cry for love of God wheaa I lqse Him by mor-tal sin but I do cry when I lose my mother by death? Although ¯ 202 drain, 1953 CHARITY these actions seem to be contradicting my words "0 my God, I love Thee above all things," they, really do not. I can weep over my mother's death and commit venial sins and" still love God objectively above all things. That is, I can, and do, go on sincerely and earnest-ly wishing Him the l~reatest good, .that He will continue to be the supreme object of all love and receive divine honors. I can commit venial sins and weep over temporal ld~s and still love God above all things appreciative4 , too. by preferring God with an efficacious will to all created things, by esteeming Him as thehighest good. I can so value and esteem Him ak to be r~eady to lose all else rather than abandon God. We canndt recall too often that true love is in the will, not in the fe~!ings or ~motions. A mother's instinctive and spontaneous feelings and enfotions may draw her to love her child more ir~rensel~, with greater ease, tenderness, and alacrity, than she does God, yet she is ~eady to lose her child rather than offend God seriously. Her love for God is greater and deeper, and influences her soul more p[ofoundly. She loves God objectively and appreciatively more, and intensively and emotionally less. Thihgs of sense appeal more directly and affec-tively than spiritual things do. That in the supreme test, love for God is greater and stronger than any natural love is wonderfully shown in the death of St. Perpetua, martyr. "Neither the tears and oft-repeated prayers of her. aged father, nor the mother-love for the baby boy at her breast, nor the ferocity of her tormentors could move Perpetua from her faith in 3esus Christ." This is brought out, too. by the incidents in the daily lives of the "little people" in Christ's Church' in this living present, so well presented by Father Trese. " 'We've a good pastor,' my.people say --and I am ashamed. Ashamed as I stand beside Katie Connelly at the bed of her just-dead son, and hear her say, 'It's God's will. isn't it, Father?' while she clutches my. hand. Ashamed as I stand beside Ed Fetter at his wife's bier, and hear him say, with three little tykes hanging to his pants-legs, 'If this is what God wants,, we've got to take it, Father.' Ashamed as I ride with the Martins to the Stat~ Hospital where they are taking their son, and hear the mother say, as she bites her lip, 'Well, we've all got to have our cross, Father.' " (Leo Tress, Vessel of Clapt, 24.) Love has various degrees. - In the love of concupiscence there is something of self. I love another because I will get something out of it for myself. This is love of God for my own sake, with selfishness, 203 C. A. HERBST but a very good selfishness. This is the great virtue of hope. Then there is the love of complacency, in which I am glad and rejoice, take pleasure in, another's good, just~ because it ishis good. By it I re-joice in ~the divine perfections~ "Thus approving the good which we see in God, and rejoicing in it, we make the act of l~ve which is called complace-ncy; for we please ourselves in the divine pleasure infinitely more than in our own,' (St. Francis de Sales, Looe of God, V, i). A third and higher'degree of love is~ the love of benevolence, By it we wish another well, want good to come to him. This love we express in the Our Father when we pray: "Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom ~ome, Thy will be done!" Love consists more in deeds than in words. "If you love me, keep my commandments," Our Lord said (John 14: 15). Every-body knows that "talk is che~p,'° but actions filled with love are purest gold. A fine expression of love is a gift. That is why we give gifts on birthdays and on other joyous occasions. Gifts are the language of love. This is shown most strikingly at Christmas time. It is ~ the . feast of giving, of the Gift. Men give then because God taught them to show love that way. He gave the first Christmas Gift by giving Jesus Christ, His son. "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten son" (John 3:16). That was Bethlehem. That was Calvary, too. "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten son." The .lesson ChriSt taught from the crib and from the cross is the same lesson; love in deed, in giving. The soul that loves God cannot miss that. It is convinced that love consists in a mutual exchange of gifts. "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I do for cnrlst. The answer leaps forth: "Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding~ and my whole will." One gives oneself whole and entire. We cannot do more. But we can do it more solemnly and more specifically, and we have. Religious surrender to God the goods of the world by the vow of poverty. They surrender to .God the goods of the body and of family, life by the vow of chastity. They surrender to God the goods of the soul, especially that most precious thing, their will, by ~he vow of obedience. "Almighty and Eternal God, I vow to Thee perpetual poverty: chastity, and obedience." This is our answer to the divine challenge: "Thou shalt love'the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy .whole soul, and with all thy strength, and wi'th all thy mind . This do, and thou shalt live." 204 The Moral Code Cat:holic I-lospit:als Gerald Kelly, S.J. SOME years ago there was a colorful basketball official who used to delight (and sometime~ enrage) spectators by his dramatic way of telling players, "You can't do that[" Again and again his whistle would be heard and he would be seen speeding across the floor, an accusing finger' pointed at some offending player, as his piercing voice insisted," "You can't do that!" ¯ For all too many people, I fear, this officialmminus his pleasing dramatics--might represent the Catholic hospital and its moral code. Engraven in the minds of these people is the picture Of a devoted non- Catholic physician bending over his patient in the operating or de-livery room, yearning to do something to save the patient's life, but frustrated in this salutary design by the Church, which, through the Sister superior or supervisor or chaplain, raises its restraining hand 'and says unsympathetically, "You can't do that!" Certainly much of the publicity given to v~arious events that take place in our hos-pitals caters to this impression. For example, a few years ago, in Brownsville, Texas, a physician who had sterilized a woman in defiance of the hospital code was dis-missed from the staff. The incident received nation-wide publicity in the daily'papers; and the correspondent of one widely-read weekly devoted to it considerable space and ev?n more emotion. The Sisters of Mercy had closed the doors of mercy to the doctor whose only purpose was mercy~ Follow-up letters from doctors, including one from the vice-chief'-of-staff of their hospital, favored the Sisters and showed little sympathy for the expelled physician. Other letters, however, showed marked sympathy for the doctor and for his emo-tional reporter. One letter in particular expressed great !mpatience with this.Church which insists on projecting the taboos .(a favorite epithet for commandments, divine and human) of the Dark Ages into the twentieth-century operating and delivery rooms. In this and similar incidents We have examples of the old prob-lem of misunderstanding.' The critics usually do not understand our hospital code. Even Catholics, I think, seldom realize what goes into a code. In fact, many seem to have the impression that a Cath- 205 GERALD KELLY Review fur Religious olic hospital moral code consists in ond supreme principle (which, incidentally, is "best-seller" nonsense at its best) that mothers must die fortheir babies. These people ought ko have more accurate in-formation, and it seems logical that they might expect to get it from religious because the Catholic hospital, is one of the most distinctive and extensive achievements of our religious institutes. The following paragraphs p~ovide at least the minimum essentials for giving correct information. ~ Why a Code? Since.the administrators of Catholic hospitals are men and women whose lives are consecrated to God, they can conscientiously conduct these hospitals only when they have a reasonable assurance that the law of God will be observed in the treatment of the sick. One way of obtaining this assurance is to formulate the pertinent moral prin-ciples and their applications into a code and to have the staff-members guarantee that they will observe this code. The first reason for having a code, therefore, is to satisfy the conscience of the admin-istrators. This is aptly stated in the introduction to the present code of the Catholic Hospital Association: "Catholic hospitals exist to render medical and spiritual care to the sick. The .patient adequately considered, and inclusive of his spiritual status and his claim to the helps of the Catholic religion, is the primary concern of those entrusted with the management of Catholic hospitals. Trustees and administrators of Catholic hos-pitals understand this responsibility tbwards each patient whom they accept, to be seriously binding in conscience. "A partial statement of this basic obligation is contained in the present Code of Ethical and Religious Directives. All who associate themselves with a Catholic hospital, and particularly the members of the medical and nursing staffs, must understand the moral and reli-gious obligations binding on those responsible for the management and operation of the hospital, and must realize that they are allowed to perform only such acts and to carry out only such procedures as will enable the owners and administrators to fulfill their obligations." What was .lust said might be construed as meaning that the sole or primary purpose for having a moral code is to protect administra-tor~ against doctors who might perform illicit opera.tions in their hospitals. This" is not true. Generally speaking, doctors and nurses, both Catholic and to a large extent the non-Catholics, want clear 206 July, 1953 ~ HOSPITAL CODE guidance in the ethical problems of their profession. And they want it because they are conscious of a need. As members of a. profession ithat deals constantly with life and death, with mutilation of the hu-man body, with expensive and sometimes dangerous remedies, they are faced again and again With acute ethical problems. Yet large numbers of them, even among tl~e Catholics, have never had the op-portunity of taking~a course in medical ethics. Others who have had such a course have grown "rusty" and need some convenient way of refreshing their memories. For all of these a moral code, which con-tains concisely-stated principles and practical applications to the field of medicine, satisfies a definite need. Making a Code What have our Catholi~ hospitals done to provide the needed guidance through a moral code? For many years the hospitals of the United States and Canada used a very brief ~ode which was excellent at the time it was formulated but which became more and mor~ in-adequate as the progress of medicine introduced new problems and threw new light on old ones. A new and more complete code was needed, and many dioceses prepared such a cod~ for their own use. It was not until 1947 that work was begun on a revised code for the Catholic Hospital Association of the United States and Canada. The work done by the committee on this revised code may be of interest., The committee first made a careful examinationof all the recently-composed diocesan codes, selected what seemed the best material from them. and arranged this material plus their own contributions in a manner that seemed best for handy reference. When this was done, a preliminary draft of a new code was sent for criticism to a large number of doctors and moralists in various parts of the United States and Canada. The doctors consulted included both Catholics and non-Catholics. They were chosen for eminence in their profession and not for ~hei~'religion. These consultants, doctors and moralists;: submitted criticisms some of them. very detailed---of the prelim-inary formula. The criticisms were carefully weighed by the com-mittee and a new formula was drafted. , This was referred again to the original critics; more suggestions were offered; and the code was finally formulated in a manner that met"with universal apprbval. This code was publ!shed in 1949 by the Catholic Hospital Associa-tion of the United States arid Cahada, and it is used today in most o'f the dioceses of these two countries. Some dioceses which had gone~ 207 GERALD KELLY Review [ur Religious to great trouble to prepak-e their own codes still use these in preference to the revised code of the C~tholic Hospital Association. Two observations are in place here in order to ~0revent misunder-standings. First, there is a question pertinent to revising a code: does this mean that morM principles change, or, as some people would put it, does it mean that the Church has changed its moral ~tandards? Obviously, the revision of a hospital code should have no such im-plications. Moral principles do not change: and, from the stand-point of ~principles, the only'reasons for revising an approved code might be to include some principle not beret0fore included, or to ex-press more clearly and simply one of the principles already included. But the application of moral principles to medicine can change be-cause this application depends on the medical facts, which can change with the progress of.science. For example, there was a time when the only way of successfully treating certain infections was' by surgical operation, but tod~ay many of these infections can be arrested by the use of recently-discovered drugs. A fact like this can be the basis for declaring that an operation which was permissible several years ago because necessary for the patient's welfare is no longer permissible. This is but one example of how the application of principles to con-crete cases can change. The revision of a code is largely concerned with these concrete cases. A second observation concerns ~he fact that different codes are fol-lowed in various dioceses. Does this mean that what is morally good in one place is immoral in another? Again the answer is in the nega-tive. The differences in the codes concern neither the moral prin-ciples nor the licitness of specific operations and treatments. They concern rather the selection and arrangement of materi.al, with per-haps the addition of some purely disciplinary regulation .which may be thought necessary in one place but not in another: for example, on the need of consultation before some operation is allowed. Content of Code .: At this point, if not before, someone might well ask just wh~it, is a code, and what goes into it. I can best answer this question by're-ferring specifically to the revised code of the Cat.holic Hospital As-sociation, which is entitled Ethical and Religious .Directives/~or Cath-oti~ Hospitals. As the title implies, this code contains two sections. The second section contains directives of a religious nature which concern the reception and administration of the ~acraments and the 208 dulg, 1953 HOSPITAL CODE reverent disposal of.amputated members and immature babies. For the most part, this sectibn of the code would directly concern only Catholics or those who wish to become Catholics. The first section contains ethical directives, that is, principles of the natural law with applications to medicine. Since the natural law binds all men, the provisions of this section apply to all patients, doctors, nurses, and other hospital personnel, regardless of their religion. This is really the moral code of our hospitals. My subsequent remarks app.ly to this section. Basic Principles The,baslc moral principles which are ~ formulated and applied in ¯ our ethical directive~ can be reduced to these six: (a) the .need of the / patient's consent; (b) the inviolability of innocent human life: the intrinsic.evil 'of contraceptive practices: (d) the principle~.of the "double effect"; (e) the principle of "liberty" and (f) the principle of "totality." Perhaps a few words about each of these principles will .be informative without being unduly soporific. ~) The patient's consent. Each individual human being has bqth ~the right and the duty to care for his health. When a doctor treats a patient, he is simply exercising the patient's own right of self-preservation for him, and he may not perform even legitimate operations without the consent of the patient.,. This Consent may be' given explicitly, as would be the case if an operation would be ex-plained to the patient and he ~would then agree to it. Or it may.be implicit, as would be the case if the patient asl~ed for a cure, with the understanding that he is.willingto Submit to all the necessary pro-ce. dures, even without .explanation. Or it may be reasonabtg pre-sumed, as is the case when a doctor gives emergency treatment to an unconscious man. Sound morality requires consent in one of these forms and l~oth civil law and medical associations recognize ~his. For infants and others who are incapable of acting rationally, the parents or guardians have the right to give the consent., b) The inviolabilitg of innocent human life. The meaning bf this principle is strongly and clearly explained in a memorable pas-sage of our present Holy Father's Allocution on the moral problems of married life (October 29, 195 I). This.passage Should be f~imiliar, not 0nly to religigus in hospital work, but to educators as well. "Now the.child, ~ven the unborn child," said the Pope, "is a hu-man being, a human being in .the same degree and by ~he same title as 209 ,,It GERALD KELLY Review for Religious is its mother. Moreover, every human being, even the child¯ in its mother's womb, receives its right to life directly from God, not frdm its parents, nor from any human society or authority. Therefore there is no man, no human authority, no science, no 'indication,,' whether medical, eugenical, social, economic/or moral, that can show or give a valid juridical title for a deliberate and direct disposing of an innocent human life, that is to say, for an action which aims at its destruction, whether such destruction be intended as an end or as a means towards some other end which may "itself be in no way illicit. So, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the cl~ild as a means to that end is not law-ful. The direct destruction of the 'so-called 'valueless life,' whether born or unborn, which was practised a few years ago in numerous in-stances, can in no way be justified. And therefore when this i~ractice began the Church formally declared that it is contrary to the natural law and to the positive law of God, and consequently" illicit--even under instruction from the public authority to kill those who, al: though innocent, are nevertheless by reason of some physical or-ps3;- chical taint useless to the nation and even become a burden on the ¯ community. The life of an innocent human being is inviolable, .and any direct assault or. attack on it violates one of those fundamental laws without which it is impossible for human beings to live safely in society. We have no need to teach you the particular significance of this fundamental law and its bearing upon your profession. But do not forget it: above any human law, above any 'indication' whatso-ever, there stands the indefectible law¯ of God." The Pope's words are obviously directed against doctbrs and others who think that in certain situations there are good reasons (they call them "indications") for the direct killing of an unborn child. Against these men he defends the right of the child. But he does not limit his words to the child; he defends all innocent human life. The direct (i.e., the intentional) taking of such life is never permissible. Any procedure which'would result in death for either the mother or the child (or for any other innocent person) can be justi-fied only when the death is an unintended and unavoidable by-product of the procedure. Incidentally, this principle of the inviola-bility of human life also condemns the so-called mercy-~killing (the taking of a patient's life to relieve him of suffering), whether it is done with or without the patient's consent. c) The intrinsic evil of contraception. The Church, especially in 210 July, 1953 HOSPITAL CODE the oi~cial t~aching,of the two last Popes, has'constantly branded artificial birth control as contrary to the law of nature, and therefore intrinsically evil. The most ~adical form of this evil is direct steri-lization, which means the intentional destruction of the procreative power. Doctors have many ways of accomplishing this, and all of of them.are forbidden by our code. .d) The principle oF the "'double effect.'" Students of ethics are familiar with this principle and know that it contains the solution to many of the practical,~problems of life. Conscientious people often use it without knowing it exists. The aviator who bombs an im-portant military target, foreseeing but not desiring the deaths of some civilians, is perhaps unwittingly using this principle. The student who must read a treatise on sex, foreseeing but not wanting tempta-tions against chastity, is using perhaps also unwittingly the p~inciple of the double effect. And all of us. whether we realize it or not, are following this same principle when we perform some good and neces-sary action, realizing that, despite our best intentions, certain others will misunderstand and will be'led to rash judgments and to criti-cism. The deaths of the civilians, the sexual temptations, and the harsh thoughts and criticism, are all simply unavoidable and un-wanted by-products of actions that are good in themselves and of sufficient importance to be performed despite the evil effects that at-company them. The principle of the double effect has many applications in medicine, especially as regards surgical operations on diseased repro-ductive organs with the unavoidable destruction of the procreative power and as regards treatment of a pregnant mother with some un-intentional but unavoidable risk either to herself or to her child. This last point was clearly explained by. Pope Plus XII in his Allodution to the "Family Front" (November 26, 1951): "On purpose," he said, "We have always used the expression "direct attempt on the life of an innocent person,' "direct killing.' Be-cause if, for example,-the saving of the life of the future mother, in-dependently of her pregnant state, should urgently require a surgical act or other therapeutic treatment which would~have as an accessory consequence, in no way desired or intended but inevitable, the death of the fetus, such an act could no longer be called a direct attempt on innocent life. Under these conditions the operation can be licit, like other similar medical interventions, granted always that a good of high worth is concerned, such as life, and that it is not possible to 211 GERALD KELLY Review fur Religious postpone the operation until after the birth of the child, or to 'have recourse to other efficacious remedies." e) The principle of ."libertt.t." Physicians do. not always see eye-to-eye on the value of certain treatments or operations. For ex-a.~ ple, take the much-discussed and too-much-popularized operation called Idbotomy. Thisoperation consists essentially in severing cer-tain fibers in the brain, and its general purpose seems to be to reduce emotional tension and thus help in the cure of some mental illnesses and in relieving otherwise unbearable pain. The sharpest kind of con-troversy exists among reputable physicians as to the good produced by the operation, the risks it involves, the types of patients that might benefit from it, and so forth. And this is but one example of many decidedly controversial questions in the sphere of medicine: Theologians, too, have their differences of opinion; and this is especially true when they are faced with a new problem. "There are pros and cons to many of these problems, and it may take a long time before the issues are sufficiently clarified to have a ffnanimous opinion for either side or until the teaching authority of the Church inter-venes to settle the matter. Sound morality supplies this practical principle that may be fol-lowed in these legitimately debated matters: obligations (i.e., pre-cepts and prohibitions) are not to be imposed unless they are certain. This is what I mean by the principle of "liberty." For the doctor, this means that, with the consent of the patient, he and his consult-ants may follow what they sincerely judge to be the proper medical procedure as long as this procedure is not certainly wrong. I f) The principle of "totality." I have taken this woful from Pope Pius XII, who said in his address on the moral limits of medical research a~ad treatment (September 14, 1952): "By virtue of the principle of totality, by virtue of his right to use the services of his organism as a whole, the patient can allow individual parts to be destroyed or mutilated when and to the extent~necessary for the good of his being as a whole." Obviously, this is an extremely important principle in medi'cal practice. Every time a doctor, acting according to the principles of sound medicine, and with the consent of his pa-tient, removes an eye, a hand, a gall-bladder, etc., he is following this principle of totality. He removes the member, which is a part of the whole, because it has become in some way.a threat to the survival or the well-being of the whole. 212 Jul~, 1953 HOSPITAL CODE Conclusion The foregoing are. the main, if not the only, principle~ that form the core of an~] sound medico-moral code. Perhaps I have giventhem too much space: yet it seems to me that one really appreciates our hos-pital codes only when he sees these basic principles grouped together and briefly explained. It may be taken for granted that an~ doctor who conscientiously follows these principles will act, not ~nly ac-cording to sound morality, but also according to sound medicine. Earlier in this article I suggested that in the minds of many people the supreme moral principle of Catholic hospitals seems to be that mothers must die for their babies. This, as I said, is best-seller non-sense at its best, and perhaps I should have said at its worst. Implicit in this attitude is the idea that in a critical situation a Catholic mother must always prefer her baby's life to her own. The idea is erroneous. Obviously, no mother may allow the direct taking of her life in order to save her baby, because, as Plus XlI declared, the direct destruction of any innocent life is morally wrong. And even a~ regards the risking of her life, e.g., by submitting to a dangerous operation, for thd sake of her baby, we must be very careful about making universal state-ments. We would have to consider many concrete factors before we could decide whether such a risk is obligatory or even permissible. Closely related to this erroneous notion that in our hospitals mothers must die for their babies is the idea that, since Catholic hos-pitals do not permit thereapeutic abortion (a "gentle" expression for the practice of killing babies to "save" mothers), they lose more mothers than do other hospitals. Not only is there no statistical basis for this, but what statistics we have indicate the very opposite. /~or example, two Boston doctors, Roy J. Heffernan and William "A. Lynch, recently obtained information about maternal deaths from 171 hospitals in various paris of our country. This information covers a period of eleven years, 1940-1950. In these hospitals, during this long period, there were more than ~hree million deliveries, about evenly di~iided, between hospitals that permit therapeutic abortions and hospitals that exclude this practice. The maternal death rate in the hospitals that do not allow therapeutic abortions was .87 .per thousand deli~ceries, whereas in the hospitals that do allow therapeu-tic abortion the maternal death rate was .98 per .thousand deliverles. According to these and similar statistics', the keeping of God's law saves not only babies but their mothers, as well. This is a too-littld-known aspect of the apostolate of Catholic hospitals. 213 .ues!: ons and AnSwers ~18m What can be done to counteract some Iong-sfandincj practlce, s en-gaged in during time of retreat by Sister-retreatants, for example, re-hearslng daily for one or two hours the Mass and hymns to be used ,for the reception ceremony; embroidering and crocheting between conferences2 The Sisters who participate in these works find that it interferes with thei~ recollection. ¯ Some work ab.out the house, some choir practice, and other little jobs (like needlework) would not seem to interfere ,too much with retreat recollection if indulged in only for about aft hour or so a day. That would still allow the retreatants a fair amount of time for un-disturbed private reflection an~l personal duties. If, however, the re-treat schedule were already extraordinarily crowded (which is usually not the case), there might be little time left for such tasks as indi-cated in our question. In any case, it is important that retreatants h~ve a fair amount of leisure time for private reflection, for jotting down. spirittlal "lights," for additional rest, and the like. ml9m At times it is necessary to post items pertinent to religious' in various departments of an establishment in regard to keeping rooms in order, having greater care of furniture, and the like. Would it not further a bet-ter ~om;nunity spirit if such directions were posted in the community room rather than on the doors of the different departments where outsiders may read them and make comments? Yes, it would be better to post items of a personal or private na-ture, whether they pertain to the community as a whole or to indi-vidual members of the community, in some place reserved to the reli-gious family .in preference to other more or less public places. Thus criticism might be lessened. It is possible, :though, that sometimes superiors ihtend such notices not merely nor primarily for religious who are in charge of or are working in a department, but especially for the outside help. Then such notices would be posted where those for whom they a~e intended would see them. In these cases, however, care should be taken that the wording of the notice does not occasion criticism of the religious. 214 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS In a religious congregation (in which simple vows are taken) may a ~ell-glous who is subiect fo a provincial superior have a right of appeal to the superior general when the religlous wants a farad or extra permission? To begin with, religious have the right of communicating with higher superio.rs: such correspondence is sealed. Religidus could. therefore, ask for various permissions from higher superiors. Some extraordinary permissions are usually asked of higher superiors ra~ber than of the immediate superior. Ordinary permissions, however, as a general rule are to be sought from the immediate superior. If that superior refuses the permission, one should not request the same per-mission from a higher superior without informing him that the per-mission was refused by the lower superior." Good government dic-tates that procedure, as ~ell as courtesy ahd possibly the rules of the institute. Before asking for any extra permissions or "favors," religious should remember .that superiors are to help their subjects observe common life; hence superior~ may not readily grant extra permission.s to a subject unless the Circumstances of the case warrant it. Likewise superiors must then be willing, and able, to grant the same permission to any other, subject in the same circuhastances. Subjects should try to lighten° the superior's burden' of of~ce by not requesting permis-sions which superiors should not grant either because they are not consonant with religious life, or because they would violate or harm common life, or because of some other good reason. Besides being a violation of common life, "favoritism" in a community is always odious. The cause of our Venerable Founder has been in progress at Rome for thirty years. In order to help Stimulate popular devotion to our Founderu particularly among ou~ students and their parents--our Order is in the habit of prlntlng, from time to time pictures and devotional pamphlets about him. Up to now. printed matter of that type only bore the nlhll obsfaf of the ordinary of the diocese where our motherhouse is located. It was brough~t to our attention lately that we need the approbation of the Holy See ~or an~ printed material about our Fo, under who has been de-clared Venerable. Is that observation correct? Canon 1387, of the, Code of Canon Law states that what per-tains in any way to the causes of beatification and canonization of 215. QUESTIONS ~ND ~NSWERS Servants of God may not be published without the permission of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. @his restriction applies only~to causes which are pending before the Sacred. Congregation; not to those which are finished (person b~s been canonized), or are pending be-fore some other body "than the Sacred'Congregation of Rites. During the time permission must be obtained from the Sacred Congregation, no further permission of the local ordinary is necessary for publica-tion of matter approved by the Sacred Congregation. The Codex pro Postulatoribus Causarum Beatiffcationis et Can-onizationis i4th edition, 1929, page 26, nos. 21 and 22) repeats the abo~ce and includes pictures (imagines) under the provision of can-on 1387. Several author~ who comment on canon. 1387 say that it seems to refer only t6 documents and. acts connected with the prosecution of th~ cause, such as summaries and proofs proposed for furthering the cause, opinions of consultors; comments of. the prornotor tidei, and the like. These authors rely on a Monitum of the Sacred Congrega-tion of Rites of February 12, 1909, which required previous' permis-sion of the Sacred Congregation for the publication of accounts,of the llfe, virtues, and "wonders" of Servants of God. Consequently it seems probable that the devotional pamphlets and pictures mentioned in our question need not be submitted to the Sacred Congregation for approval. m22-., Postulants are being sent out to the missions to hel'p with the teaching in schools*. They return to the motherhouse fop the week-ends. Are supe-riors justified in extending the postulancy for,three or four months, because the number of novices to be 'professed is not sufficient to fill the places of Fhe postulants? The Normae of 1901 (which have been used as a model for the constitgtions of rehgzous ,congregations) allowed a period of pos-tulancy ranging between gik--and twelve months. They permitted the superior general f~ a ~just cause to prolong the postulancy up to three additional months i~ particular cases (n. 65). A just cause was considered to exist if superiors remained uncertain about the vocation of the candidate, about his qualifications Or defects, or about his ad, justment to the life of the institute. ¯ The Code of Canon Law speaks of a postulancy of at least six entire months which must. be made by all women in religious insti- 216 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS tutes with perpetual vows and by the lay brothers in the.institutes of men. It permits the major superior ,to prolong the postulancy, but not beyond another six months (canon 539). This may be done in particular cases. The purpose of the prolongation is again to allow superiors more time to size up the applicant's vocation and more pre-cisely. his aptitude or fitnes~ for their religious institute. In the light of the above, it is rather difficult to see how superiors wbuld be justified in extending the postulancy for three or four months in the case under consideration. It might be well to add that the Apostolic Delegate has special .faculties to shorten or prolong the postulancy pre~scribed by the Code of Canon Law. Relatives of a relig;ous send money to a mutual friend with the under-standing that the religious will let that friend knowwhat he wants the friend to buy for him on the occasion of his blrfhday, Christmas, Easter, and the like. Is such procedure in keeping with poverty, or would the religious be considered as having a reserved fund of money? In the final .analysis the practice outlined' in the question reduces itself to a private fund of money at the disposal of the religious, a form of peculium generally contrary t~o the poverty professed by most. religious institutes, At best, this is contrary to cohamon life and the spirit of povert, y. A religious who countenanced such a practice could very well profit from reading Father Gallen's excellent article on "The Spirit of Poverty'" (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, VIII .[1949], 35-43), not to me.ntion various other articles on common life arid the vow of poverty. As a practical solution, the religious could advise his relatives, who wish to give him a present, to send the money.to 'him rather than to the mutual friend. It would be understood that the reli-gious will turn in the money to his superiors to be added to the com-munity funds; then, when the religious needs something, the superior will provide it from the community funds. In that way both the vow and the spirit of poverty, as well as commott life, will be safe-guarded. A Sister acts as organist for the children's choir and for the adult choir during Mass and other services. Does canon law forbid this? A similar questi6n about a Sister organist was answered in the 217 Review ?or Religious BOOK REVIEWS pages of this REVIEW, VIII (1949), 325. Attention was called to possible diocesan regulations on the matter, even though the Code of Canon Law says nothing about it. In genera~ it seems that there would riot be much objection to a Sister acting as organist for a chil-dren's choir. In case of reai need this might also be stretched to in-clude an adult Choir of women only. But for a mixed adult choir:. "In practice,no Sister should undertake to play the organ for amixed choir of men and women without the express permission of the local ordinary and of her ownhigher superior" ibid.). / Book Reviews .~IRACLES. By Jean Hell~. Translated by Lancelot CL Sheppard. Pp. v~ -h. 288. David McKa¥ (~omp~ny, Inc., New York, 1952. $3.~0. This work is not a philosophical or tbeo16gical treatise on mir-acle. s. Rather, by a fairly detailed historical presentation of selec.ted cases, it is designed to give the reader a fairly general knowledge of, them. It is "a synthesis, or more modestly perhaps, an attempt at a synthesis" (p. 14). The whole story is built around persons, and l~eferably persons Who are not very remote from us in time. The language is not technical, but adapted to all intelligent readers. ,, The first chapter is an account of "miracles of humility": it: pre-sents the "stories of the Cur{ .of ~Ars and of Bernadette Soubi~ous; Then there follows, "Fatima, or the Age of Mary." Therese Neu-mann does not measure up to the author's standards and require-ments. But--surprisingly enough--"Catberine Emmerich, 'Narra, tot' of .the Gospels" and her writir~gs touched up by Clement Bren-tano meet with his full approval. The apparitions at Beauraing, BelgiUm, 1932-1933, are judged t6 be "childish fiction.'" Neverthe~ less' this is one of the few among recent cases that have received epis-copal approbatton. A particularly interesting feature of th~s book is the final chapter: "imitators and Fakers of Miracles." By contrast it serves especially well to bring out the great differences that obtain be-tween, genuine supernatural signs and others that are ~fraudulent, and how the pretended marvelous can be detected and distinguished from whaTt his~ a wuthhoelnet iwc.ork emphasizes the prudent reserve and critical spirb of the Church toward whatever is proposed as surpassing the limiv 218 duly, 1953 BOOK REVIEWS of nature, and tends to,bring about in the mind of the reader a simi-lar wise attitude.---AUGUSTINE G. ELLARD. ., A LIFE OF CHRIST. By Aloys Dirksen, C.PP.S. Dryden Press, New York, 1952. Pp. 340. $3.75. This book is unique in two respects: first, it has the '.'split-p~ge format." that is to say, in the upper part we find the Confraternity text of' the Gospels, and entirely separated from this section, a com-mentary on the Gospel text. One can turn the pages of the upper section without disturbing those below. Secondly, the Commentary and its Introduction are models of intelligent compression. Eight introd_uctory chapters furnish,,~i background for a better understanding of the actual commentary. These include a brief dis-cussion of the sources for a life of Christ, an outline of the geography of Palestine, a survey of the l~revious history of the Jews. the politi-cal and social conditions and prevalent religious beliefs of the period when our Lord was onearth. Such a comprehensive introduction can treat these matters only in barest outline, and if a few inaccuracies have crept in, this can readily be excused. The commentary, too, is suggestive rather thar~ exhaustive: but it is usually very much to the point. The ordinary reader will find there what he wants to know about the Gospel text he is reading. At the end of the commentary, by way of appendix, is a list of messi-anic prophecies found in the-Old Testainent. and of the Old Testa-ment quotations found in the four Gospels. Since the author uses many tec