Suchergebnisse

MOST American forecasters in the first half of 1955 were optimistic about the United States economy, but many were gloomy about the prospects for Asia. The head-shaking over Indonesia was particularly grave.1 Such a pessimistic outlook was perhaps a natural reaction to the sanguine attitude that followed the Indonesian achievement of freedom from the Dutch on December 27, 1949. In Indonesia itself, a battle raged in 1955—culminating in the overthrow of the Ali cabinet—between those out of power who blamed the cabinet for inflation, insecurity, and corruption, and those in power who tried to place the onus on previous cabinets, the Dutch, and remnants of colonialism. Indonesian newspapers played up these disputes with perhaps even more vigor than the American press handles party differences within the United States.Indonesia is a classic example of a recently freed, former colony. Winning sovereignty from the Netherlands ended the first and basically the simpler phase of the revolution. The second phase, more difficult and much more gradual, must evolve new institutions to make the country a truly independent power and ensure economic development with a rising standard of living for her people. She is struggling with the usual boom-and-bust cycle that characterizes araw-material producing country. In the 1930's, she suffered through the sugar depression. Since she gained her freedom, rubber, tin, and copra, comprising over 70 per cent of her exports, have give hera hectic ride on the roller coaster of world prices.

The Need for Income and Employment Security. In modern times insecurity of income has been the lot of many workers in most countries. This income insecurity is the result of the effects of seasonal variations, cyclical fluctuations, secular changes, and random fluctuations upon production in individual plants and businesses. Production in industries such as meat packing, fruit canning, or clothing manufacturing is typically seasonal because of the nature of their raw materials, or of the demand for their products. Cyclical fluctuations in economic activity affect the economy as a whole but hit particularly severely durable goods industries such as the building and construction industry, or the automobile industry. Further, the economy is subject to secular changes owing to such causes as changes in the size and age structure of the population, technological advance, or changes in the buying habits of consumers. In addition, economic phenomena exhibit chance or random fluctuations.The security of income and employment of the working population is affected by all these different types of economic variations but it is with cyclical and seasonal unemployment that we are concerned chiefly here. It is difficult to determine whether a worker is suffering as a result of either cyclical or seasonal unemployment as there is generally a combination of both in most industries. In many cases, however, unemployment is markedly cyclical or seasonal in character although it is little consolation to the worker to know the kind of unemployment of which he is the victim.

From the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, as absolutism emerged in its classic development, the lower classes of western Europe experienced great insecurity and hardship. The Hundred Years' War, the end of serfdom, the quickening of economic activity, the secular price advance, and the explosion of religious conflict shattered traditional social bonds, produced widespread destitution, and uprooted large numbers of peasants who took to the roads in a desperate nomadism. These vagrant populations, existing on theft, brigandage and, mainly, begging, evoked severe governmental repression which was to prove generally unpopular and, in the long run, ineffective. In seventeenth-century France certain private groups also were to take up the cause of repressing vagabondage through a systematic program of confinement in workhouses – a program which, while complementing royal policy, would draw its main inspiration from the ascetic spirituality of the French Counter Reformation. These hôpitaux généraux are of interest as concrete expressions of the convergence of social problems, absolutist political tendencies, and religious attitudes.

The period starting November 5, 1952 has been called "The Time of the Jitters" for the middle and upper levels of the federal bureaucracy. Political change is usually disruptive and always accompanied by uncertainty and insecurity. Intellectual acceptance of this truism does not insulate one from the effects any more than death and taxes, for all their recognized inevitability, cease to be sources of distress.There were many reasons to anticipate that the 1952 election might result in a greater than usual degree of change, or at least of uncertainty. In many ways there were no real American precedents for the situation. The period of executive control by the outgoing party had been characterized by the unusual duration of 20 years, by highly controversial political policy, and by profound social change. This was the first change of administration under conditions of modern Big Government—the first since the American government found itself with accepted broad welfare and economic responsibility on the domestic scene and with major power responsibilities in a divided and warring world. Since the last full change, the size of the federal civil service had increased over 400 per cent, governmental expenditures over 16 fold. This was also to be the first full change of administration to show the effects of the 20th Amendment.

Issue 9.3 of the Review for Religious, 1950. ; Review for Religious MAY 15, 1950 E~es Right? ~ ~ichard Leo Heppler~ C:onformity wffh Christ C;.A. Herbst the Holy Ghost ° '" Leo A. Coressel Psychometrics and R.~ligious I~i~e ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ Sister M. Digne Lay Religious and Laws of Bishops Jose ph F. Gallen ~ue~s÷ions and Answers. Book Reviews Summer Sessions Report to Rome RI::¥11:::W FOR Ri::LI IOUS VOLUME IX MAY, 1950 NUMBER CONTENTS EYES RIGHT?--Richard Leo Heppler, O.F.M .1.1.3 SUMMER SESSIONS . 118 CONFORMITY WITH CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERING-- C. A. Herbst, S.2 . 119 ATOMIC BROTHERHOOD CAMPAIGN . ~ . 124 OF THE HOLY GHOST, WHO PROCEEDS AS LOVE-- Leo A. Coressel, S.J . 125 PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOMETRICS TO RELIGIOUS LIFE--~Sister M. Digna, O.S.B . 131 LAY RELIGIOUS AND THE LAWS OF BISHOPS ON CONFESSION-- 2oseph F. Gallen, S.J . 140 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 152 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 13. About the Little Office . 153 14. "Happy Death" Crucifixes . . . 1"54 15. Lay Superiors find Excuses from Fasting .154 16. Blessing by Mother Superior . 157 17. "'Sacrament of the Present Moment" . . 157 BOOK NOTICES . 158 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . . ' . 163 THE EYMARD LIBRARY . 165 . REPORT TO ROME '. . 166 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1950. Vol. IX, No. 3. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Streef, 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.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Copyright, 1950, 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 writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. 'Eyes Right:? Richard Leo Heppler, O.F.M.' ALL IN ALL. over the years, Noah Webster's work has been givin~ satisfactory service. Timeand again many of us have turned-to it in our difficu!ties and.have.come away not only with knowledge but also with] a: more 13rofound appreciation of the man's ability to be neat, exacL and brief. Now, it would be mani-festly unfair to accuse Mr. Webster of 1~eing unromantic in his defini-tions. He has no more title to be chivalrous with his words than Dr. Einstein has to be amateurish with his theories. Consequently, a love-smitten collegian might throw his dictionary away in disgust when he reads that the eye is "the organ of sight: esp., the nearly spherical mass, the eyeball, . in the bony cavity of the skull, or the orbit including eyelids, eyelashes, eyebrow." The yo,uth would avow that the great Noah Webster had never seen the eyes of his Hazel. And he might even be tempted to dare the venerable Mr. Webster--or anyone else--to try to describe the elusive laughter lurking in his Hazel's eyes. Naturally, we religious do not expect Mr. Webster to go'beyond his definitions; we do not expect him to try to describe the eyes we would most desire to have looked into. What words could ever describe the human eyes of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? For that.matter, who could ever describe the maternal eyes of Our Blessed Lady, the adoring eyes of St. Jose'ph, thd discerning eyes of the Magi, the patient eyes of Simeon, the priestly eyes 0t: St. Jdhn, the sympa-thetic eyes of VeronicL the contrite eyes of Mary Magdalene, the tdar-dimmed eyes of St. Peter, the purified eyes of St. Paul? And what about the eyes we would-not like to have seen? Isn't it just as well that Noah Webster did not attempt to describe the treacherous eyes of Judas, the murderous eyes of Barabbas, the stony eyes of Annas, the crafty eyes of Caiphas,the sneering eyes oi: the Pharisees, the wavering eyes of Pilate, the carnal eyes of Herod, the cold eyes of the Roman soldiers? That God gave us two ey.es to be used for His glory, religious readily admit. That it is possible for us to misuse them for our own greed, glory, and indulgence, no one will deny. To use our eyes th~ way God would have us use them and not the way our lower nature would incline us must be our constant effort. To aid us in this 113 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER Reoieu) [or Religious undertaking are countless 'angels and saints, and not the least among the latter is one who put his eyes to excellent advantage as long as he bad sight and then made proper use of blindness when God sent that. Some of the great artists and poets at times permitted themselves long, full, intoxicating gazes upon the teasing loveliness of nature so as to feed their minds with matter for masterpieces. And, in direct opposition, some of the severest saintly ascetics refused to allow their eyes to regard the beauties of creation lest their souls be disturbed in the contemplation of Beauty Uncreated. But St. Francis of Assisi, the poet, artist, and ascetic, was granted the gift of seeing the true beauty of this universe with unclouded vision while recognizing the unmistakable reflections of God's beauty everywhere he looked. He was poet and artist enough to appreciate all the moods and mani-festations of nature; he was saint enough to trace instinctively all loveliness back to its source. He could gaze for prayerful hours at sunlight and shadow and storm, at castle and cave and cathedral, at tomb and tent and tabernacle. He never tired thanking God for the moon and the stars and the rivers and the fields. He readily saw brothers' and sisters in birds and beasts and rain and fire and wind. It was part of his vocation to be an eye-opener for the rest of us. But it was his spiritual vision that saved him from being some-thing of a masculine, thirteenth-century Alice in Wonderland. All his life he saw very. repulsive beggars, but, as G. K. Chesterton says, he alway.s managed to see through the beggars and recognize Christ. There is no way of measuring the number of lepers he saw, but it is safe to say that he never looked upon one "of them without l~eing instantly reminded of the suffering Son of Man. That he never saw a lamb without thinking of the Lamb of God, and that children could walk away with his heart because Christ had favored them, and that a wounded bird could move him to tears, reveal a very deli-cate sensitiveness, But there was also a definitely virile spirituality in his view of things: he saw at close range rough bandits and tr'eated them like princely envoys; he looked upon Christian and Moslem soldiers ("murderers" might be more exact) and respected them as if they were martyrs of old; each condemned criminal was another Good Thief. Was he. unrealistic? Well, one day Brother Juniper told him that God had granted him a vision of h~ll and that he had seen no Friars there. To this St. Francis replied, "Brother Juniper, you did not look deep enough." A religious vocation is a calling to be a supernatural detective. 114 May, 1950 EYES RIGHT? God has generously scattered clues about Himself all arohnd us and He wants us to put them together and find out more about him. We have to try to see the hand of God and the love of God in every per-son we meet, in every place me go, in everyevent that happens to us. If we really try to be spiritual sleuths we shall be delighted with all the p6ssibilities around us. The bill-collector may be another St. Matthew, the doctor another St. Cosmas, the salesman another St. Peter of SienL the beggar another St. Benedict Joseph, the lawyer another St. Fidelis, the police captain another St. Sebastian, the sailor another St. Brendan, the altar, boy another St. John Berchmans, the taxi driver another St. Christopher, the farmer another St. Paschal Baylon. The same thing very easily could be continued in the fem-inine gender by one who knows the patronesses of girls who sell jewelry in the Five and Ten, girls who run elevators in Gimbel's, girls who serve aspirins in soaring airplanes, girls who daily pound their way towards heaven on typewriters, girls who slave at prosaic switch-boards, girls who teach nominative absolutes to bored high school seniors, girls who ease patients into dentists' chairs and money out of their pockets, and so on even to the girls who ride on motor-cycles, and the girls who engage in roller derbies. Everybody in the world is either an actual or a potential saint and should be viewed ¯ as such. If we are sharp detectives we shail discern the true dignity of the children who sit in front of us, the patients who lie upon our hospital beds, the employees who trim our lawns, run our errands, and mimeograph our notes. It is true that at meal time you may be tempted to say, "Young Jackson has big ears just like his father, and he is just as dumb." But you will know that God dearly loves both young Jackson and his father, even though He may have been lavish when he fashioned their ears and not when He doled out their brains. But it would be fatal to conclude that one can become an expert supernatural detective without practicing mortification of the eyes. Pretending that custody of the eyes is stupid is as absurd as pre-tending that Central Park is the Garden of Eden. If we really want "to trace I~he manifestations of God around us we must be willing to impose restraint upon gazing at anything and everything. If we sincerely desire to gaze forever upon the Beatific Vision we hav~ to restrict our gazing here below. The need of custody of the eyes as a bulwark for chastity is amply demonstrated by Sacred Scripture. Joseph was unjustly 115 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER Reoieu~ [or Religious thrown into prison because the wife of.Putiphar did not controi her eyes. King David, the boas~ of the chosen people, fell into a terrible sin because he permitted his eyes too much license. Here is what the Bible says of Holofernes when his soldidrs brought Judith to his tent: "And when she came into his presence forthwith Holofernes . was caught by his eyes." The sad story of the two evil ancients is but another proof that the eyes of young and old must be guarded. These two men were hel_,d in honor because of their age and their office. But they gazed immodestly upon' the chaste Susanna, and they were inflamed with lust for her. God saved Susanna arid con-founded the ancients and gave us the story as a concrete example of the meaning of the words of His Prophet Jeremias, "Death is come ,up through our Windows." But it is not into temptations against chastity alone that unre-strained liberty of the eyes can lead religious. If a Sister gazes with possessive eye, s at a statue or a book she sees in a store and determines to procure it without permission she can violate the vow of poverty. If a Brother gazes with undue complacency upon the saws, hatchets, or tractor permitted for his use, assured that he must have the latest and the best he may be guilty of faiIing in the virtue of poverty. If a priest, with satisfied superiority gazes upon his diplomas, citations, or signs of office he may be guilty of pride. That a religious might gaze upon the money in the community safe with avaricious eyes is not as likely as that he might gaze with eyes that are bigger than his stomach upon the steaks or lobsters in a choice restaurant. A Sister who with green eyes gazes upon .the new habit of another reveals tendencies towards envy. If to the detriment of his work and of his spiritual life a religious spends long periods of time looking over all the vacation-plan literature he can amass he may be guilty of sloth. One who watches the conduct of others with a view to censure them has not yet arrived at the perfection of charity. All religious can gaze upon holy water without any temptations whatsoever, but the same cannot be said of gazing upon fire-water. This could be continued in a figurative vein. To fail to see the hand of God in all the happenings of the day is to fail in the fullness of faith. To fail to see a friend of Christ in each member of the community is to bd weak in charity. To fail to see thewill of God in the commands of the superior is to be lacking in th~ complete spirit of obedience. To look only at the "dismal side of things is to reveal the absence of full trust and confidence in God. To look down 116 Ma~/, 1950 EYES RIGHT? upon others is a sign of pride, and to look up to others for recogni-tion and praise is an indication of human respect. St. Teresa tells us that she lost twelve years of spiritual growth because of her attachment to needless conversations. Who can measure the detriment to the interior life that is caused by unmorti- . fied eyes? The spirit of prayer may. be weakened, recollection destroyed, silence dissipated, andthe desire for perfection blighted by overindulgence in the reading of secular newspapers, magazines, and novels. Too much looking at television may not only drive a reli-gious to'an oculist; it may blind him to the importance of daily spir-itual reading. Too many movies, shows, and spectacles may per-manently stunt the growth of souls. But to walk around all day with our eyes closed or constantly cast down is to become something of a public menace. We might upset community life (if not a member of the community) if we were to fail to look where we were going. We might land in a hos-pital or a morgue if we refused to keep our eyes open while we were crossing city streets. Custody of the eyes does not mean that a reli-gious does not see the children in the classroom, the drugs in the pharmacy, the cows in the shed, or the fire in the boiler; it means that we do not allow dangerous images to remain in focus and that we do not lose sight of God no matter where we are. We can certainly better our spiritual vitality by using our eyes pr?perly. In every classroom, ward, shop, and corridor are cruci-fixes, statues, or holy pictures. What is the purpose of placing these pious objects in such obvious places?. Who but a novice "could ask that question? For who btit a novice could suspect that these objects have been placed where they can accumulate invisible dust and thus furnish the master or the mistress with ammunition for a daily cor-rection? On the other hand, some religious might be embarrassed if they were suddenly asked what picture hangs in the classroom they daily use or upon which wall in the tailor' shop does the crucifix hang. It should be easy for us to look long and lovingly at the crucifix, to see every detail of Christ's death, to read every line of the story of our redemption. St. Thomas Aquinas once asked St. Bona-venture whence he derived all his knowledge. Pointing to his cruci-fix, the Seraphic Doctor replied that from "this well-spring.of light and love"he drew whatever could be found in his lectures or writings. Armies of saints have learned the lessons of poverty, chastity, obedi-ence, humility, charity, patience, fortitude, self-denial, contrition, 117 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER zeal, gratitude, and confidence by spending long hours in the prayer-ful study of the crucifix. And it is comforting to know that we shall spend all eternity as the friends and companions of the saints upon whose pictures or statues we now look each day. Some people have strange vocations, and Mary Ann O'Donnell had one of the strangest. She was a blind girl who attended a Cath-olic college in the East. Each day, led by her seeing-eye dog, she came to class and took her notes in Braille and waited to be called on. The other students (they could see) resented the fact that the priest called on Mary Ann; they thought it was'unfair. But Mary Ann wanted to recite; she wanted to learn, and she did not want pity. MaryAnn stayed in college only two years; then she went away to recite the eternal praises of the Triune God and to gaze in rapture upon the Father of Lights. Probably she did not know that she was an apostle, but she did teach many of the collegians and the professors to thank God for the gift of sight. She could even have taught reli-gious who daily gaze upon the Eucharistic Lord as He is elevated at Mass or raised on high during Benediction to consecrate their eyes to God so that they may be sure to see Him face to face. SUMMER SESSIONS The Institute for Re.ligious at College Misericordia, Dallas, Penn-sylvania (a three-year summer course of twelve days in Canon Law and Ascetical Theology for Sisters), will be held this year August 19-30. This is the first year in the triennial course. The coubse in Canon Law is given by the Reverend 3oseph F. Gallen, S.3. that in Ascetical Theology by the Reverend Daniel ~1. M. Callahan, SJ., both of Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. The registra-tion is restricted to higher superiors, their councilors, mistresses of novices, and those in similar positions. Applications are to be addressed to Rev. ~loseph F. Gallen, SJ., Woodstock College, Wood-stock, Md. The seventh annual Psychological Institute will be conducted at the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children, ~lefferson, Wiscon-sin, from ,luly 19 to August 27. The Cardinal Stritch College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sponsors this workship course for teachers who are interested in special education of handicapped children, and who wish to understand and help slow-learning children in the nor-mal classroom situation. Bulletin available upon request from the (Continued on P. 130) 118 Conl:ormi!:y wi!:h Christ: in His Suffering C. A. Herbst, S.J. 44~ND I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things myself" (John 12:32). All things, especially lov.e, the greatest of all things, and the hearts of men. Love longs to be united with its object, to be assimilated to it, to be identified with it as much as possible. A worthy return love to Christ should be measured by the lengths to which His love has gone in loving me. "He loved me and delivered himself 'for me" (Gal. 2:20). One deeply in love with Our Lord has written: "Imagining Christ our Lord present and placed on the Cross, let me make a colloquy with Him: how from Creator He is come to making Himself man, and from eternal life is come to temporal death, and so to die for my sins. Likewise, looking at myself, what have I done for Christ, what I am doing for Christ, what I ought to do for Christ. And so, seeing Him such, and so nailed to the Cross, to go over that which will present itself to me." (Spiritual Exercises, Colloquy to the First Exercise.) What, according to the norm of worthy return love, will pyesent itself to me? St. Paul, a model for all who love Christ crucified, answered for all Christians for all time: "With Christ I am nailed to the cross" (Gal. 2:19). Christ was eager to suffer for me "hnto death, even to the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:8). He longed for that. "I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished?" (Luke 12:50). He was so eager to get to His pas-sion that the disciples could scarcely keep up with Him. "And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem: and they were astonished, and following were afraid" (Mark 10:32). And why not? Was He not born for this? .The angel told the shepherds the night He was born: "This day is born to you a Saviour" (Luke 2:11), and in the infinitely loving designs of God salvation would come through His passion and death. In contemplating the persons present at the beginning of His suffering life we are urged "to look and consider what they are doing, as making a journey and laboring, that the Lord may be born in the greatest poverty; and as a termination of so many labors--of hunger, of thirst, of heat and of cold, of injuries and 1i9 C. A. HERBST Review for Religious affronts--that He may die on the Cross; and all this for me." (Spiritual Exercises: The Nativity.) The shadow of the cross was already falling on the Child in the manger. In fact, it is hard to explain Bethlehem without Calvary. Christmas points to Good Friday. When Mary "brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and /aid him in a manger" (Luke 2:7), she presented the victim for the cross. Christ came "to give his life a redemption for many" (Mr. 20:28), and although, as His agony drew near, He naturally recoiled from it, He knew it must be so. "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause I came unto this hour." (John 12:27.) "Jesus' began to do and to teach" (Acts 1 : 1). He taught first by example, then by word. "I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also" (John 13:15). This is true also of His sufferings. "Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps" (I Pet. 2:21). No one of experience has to be told that life is full of suffering. We pray to Mary after Mass every morning: "To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping, in this vale of tears." We must unite our sufferings with Christ's sufferings and offer them with Him to God togethe~ with His own if they are to be precious in His sight. We realize this and do it every morning when we pray: "O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer Thee my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day." Even from the point of view of a good selfishness this is the wise thing to do. An old retreat master of wide experience told the priests making the thirty-day retreat: "Offer your miseries to God and they cease at once to hurt." Our Lord Himself then becomes our consolation. "For as the suf-ferings of Christ abound in us: so also by Christ doth our comfort abound" (II Cor. 1:5). Blessed shall we be if we are allowed to suffer something for Christ. The eighth and last and perhaps, judging from His own life, the greatest of the benedictions He spoke over His beloved fol-lowers was: "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven." (Matt. 5:I0-12.) The apostles understood this well, and after they had been scourged "went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer 120 Ma~ , 1950 CONFORMITY WITH CHRIST reproach for the name'of Jesus" (Acts 5:41). It is most logical and correct that the members of the true Church of Christ from then till now should take the cross as their emblem and rally around it as the battle flag of their religion. From Constantine to the High Middle Ages Christ crucified was the victorious king: "'Regna~it a. li~lr~o Deus'" ("God hath reigned from the Cross"). Then came the spir-itual giants and moulders of affective prayer like Bernard and Francis and Bonaventure, with their ecstatic love for the Crucified. The mystics who followed them and the men and women in modern times who were in love with Christ crucified are almost count-less. The prophecy is fulfilled: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself." All things, especially lobe, the greatest of all things, and the hearts of men. Conformity with Christ in His suffering, a longing to suffer with Him, to suffer because He suffered, to be identified as far as possible with Christ in His suffering life, to be crucified with Him--this is the aim of those who love Christ perfectly. Union with Christ in His suffering is the finest expression of love for God here on this earth. This is the perfect way to tear ourselves away from sin. "Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer" (Rom. 6:6). What with all his knowledge and ability Paul said: "I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:2). Nor was this a theoretical knowledge only nor a pious boast. It was St. Paul's glory to put into practice this knowl-edge. "God forbid that I should glory, save in .the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6: 14). Crucified and dead and risen to a new life: "And I live, now not I: but Christ liveth in me. And that I live in' the flesh: I live in the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and deliv~red himself for me." (Gal. 2:20.) This is to be a fool for Christ and with Christ. But "the fool-ishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men . But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise, and the weak things of. the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong. And the base.things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are." (I Cor. 1:25, 27, 28). The author of the Spiritual Exercises caught this spirit perfectly and put it into his Third Degree of Humility. "In order to imitate and be more actually 121 C. A. HERBST like Christ our Lord, I want and choose poverty with Christ poor rather than riches, opprobrium with Cbrlst replete with it rather than honors: and to desire to be rated as worthless and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world." He explains a little more at Iength in another place, "For as worldly men who follow the things of the world, love and with great diligence seek honors, reputation and the credit of a great name upon earth, as the world teaches them, so those who are advancing in spirit and seriously follow Christ our Lord, love and earnestly desire things which are altogether the contrary; that is, to be clothed with the same garment and with the livery of their Lord for His love and reverence; insomuch that if it could be without offense of the divine Majesty and without sin on the part of their' neighbor, they would wish td suffer [eproaches, slanders and injuries, and to be treated and accounted as fools (without at the same time giving any occasion for it), because they desire to imitate and resemble in some sort their Creator and Lord Jesus Christ, and to be clothed with His garments and livery, since He clothed HimseIf with the same for our greater spiritual good, and gave us an example that, in all things, as far as by the assistance of God's grace we can, we may seek to imitate and follow Him, seeing He is the true way that leads men to life." (Examen Generale, IV, 4.) A woman saint, too, of modern times, St. Margaret Mary, caught, lived, and expressed in her own simple but powerful and almost rapturous way the necessity of being conformed to Christ in His suffering life if one is to love Him perfectly. "Ah! I assure you," she writes, "that without the Blessed Sacrament and the cross I could not live, nor could I bear the length of my exile in this valley of tears, where I have never wished to see my sufferings diminish. The more overwhelmed my body was, the more my spirit rejoiced and was at liberty to be occupied with and united to my suffering Jesus, for I had no greater desire than to make of myself a true and perfect copy and representation of my Jesus Crucified." (.Autobiography, No. 86.) "He also inspired me with so ardent a desire to conform myself to His suffering life, that all I endured seemed to me as nothing. This made me redouble my penances, and, prostrating myself at times at the foot of my crucifix, I said: 'How happy should I be, O. my dear Saviour, if Thou wouldst imprint on me the likeness of Thy suf-ferings!' " (Ibid., No. 29.) He did notdo this, but "He asked me for my heart, which I begged Him to take. He did so and placed it in His own Adorable Heart where He showed it to me as a little atom 122 1950 CONFORMITY WITH CHRIST which was being consumed in this great furnace, and withdrawing it thence as a burning flame in the form of a heart, He restored it to the place whence He had taken it, saying to me: 'See, My well-beloved, I give thee a precious token of My love, having enclosed within thy side a little spark of its glowing flames, that it may serve thee for a heart and consume thee to the last moment of thy life . Although I have dosed the wound in thy side, the pain will always remain'." (Ibid., No. 53.) His very next words crowned this Cal-vary with glory: "If hithertO; thou hast taken only the name of My slave, I now give thee that of the beloved disciple of My Sacred Heart." Calvary must be crowned with glory. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him" (II Tim. 2:12) ; "If we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him" (Rom. 8: 17). "If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when his glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding great joy" (I Pet. 4: 13), "knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall you be also of the consolation" (II Cot. 1:7). Therefore I ought to count all things to be but loss "that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death" (Phil. 3:10). "For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us" (Rom. 8 : 18). For "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor bath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him" (I Cor. 2:9) by carrying the Cross and being fixed to it with Him. We should wish to be conformed with Christ in His suffering life out of worthy return love, because "He loved me and delivered Himself for me." Seeing Christ our Lord present and placed on the cross I ask myself: "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I do for Christ?" Th~ least I ought to do is offer lovingly to Him "my sufferings of this day" that they may console Him in His and be made precious' by union with His. We can make no mistake in accepting and offering patiently, lovingly, joyfully even to God whatever He permits to come or sends into our life. To want to have the sufferings and hard things that coffee our way because we then have what Christ had is to practice the third degree of humility and high virtue. We give clearer expression to tl~e "I want what You had" by inflicting physical pain on our body for love of Christ, by practicing corporal penances. This is a posi-tive, courageous, and "energetic ,approach towards conformity with 123 C. A. HERBST my suffering Savior, who first chose to suffer physical pain for love of me. "He loved me, and delivered Himself for me." To be wretched and miserable when we are not suffering with our blessed Lord, to pray with St. Theresa of Avila "to suffer or to die," is to have reached the heights. Conformity with Christ in His suffering has been the great aim and end of the Saints because His passion and death were the great aim and end of Christ. From Paul nineteen hundred years ago, who exclaimed, "With Christ I am nailed to the cross," to our own day when Th~r~se of Lisieux offered her life a sacrifice of love and repara-tion to God, this has been true. It must be true for. me, too, now, today, in a little way, finally in the full measure of the saints when we have grown to their stature. Yes, this is for me, too. After twenty, or thirty, or forty years, perhaps, but still for me. Mean-while I can pray: "I beseech Thee, most sweet Lord Jesus Christ, grant that Thy passion may be to me a power by which I may be strengthened, protected, and defended. May Thy wounds be to me food and drink, by which I may be nourished, inebriated, and over-joyed. May the sprinkling of Thy Blood be to me an ablution for all my sins. May Thy death prove to me life everlasting, and Thy cross be to me an eternal glory. In these be my refreshment, my joy, my preservation, and sweetness of heart. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen." (Roman Missal.) ATOMIC BROTHERHOOD CAMPAIGN The purpose ot: the Atomic Brotherhood Campaign, organized by the Franciscan Teaching Brothers of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is to secure the prayers of youth for the increase of vocations to the teaching Brotherhoods. Schools receive posters and pledge cards on which the boy or girl checks off a spiritual contribution. Prayers and devotions already common to Catholics are used. In return for this offering, each member is enrolled in the club membership and receives a card signed by the director of the movement and a card containing a prayer for one's choice of a state of life. Already some ~/0,000 children in elementary and high schools, as well as some college students, have made a spiritual contribution. Full particulars and supplies necessary to take part in the Atomic Brotherhood Cam-paign may be secured from: Brother Linus, O.S.F., St. Francis Mon-astery, 41 Butler St., Brooklyn 2, N.Y. 124 0t: :he I-loly Ghost: Who Proceeds As love Leo. A. Coressel, S.J. IN THE MASS of Pentecost Sunday we pray: "Come, 0 Holy Spirit, fill the hearts oi~ Thy faithful and kindle in them the fires of Tby love." In the sequence of the same Mass we salute the Holy Ghost under various titles: as Father of the poor, as Comforter, as the soul's delightful Guest, as Relief of us pilgrims, as Light of life. Tbis song o~ praise ends with the petition: Grant us in life The grace that In peace rnag die and ether be in jog before The face AlT2en.1 These truths recall to mind matters that we all too easily forget. We forget who the HoIy Ghost is and what we owe to Him, that He is God, that He is our sanctifier, our strength and joy in life and our reward after death. If once these realities were deeply embedded in our consciousness and appreciated they would give timely stimulation to spiritual progress and to zeal for souls. One way to quicken such a realization is to broaden the horizons of our knowledge of the Holy Ghost. This can be done by consid-ering the names by which He is known, Their meaning will unfold to us something of His nature and point to reasons for His activity as proposed to us in the Mass of Pentecost Sunday. The names by which the Third Person of the' Blessed Trinity is designated are many. Chief among them are the following: Holy, Spirit or Ghost, Love, Gift, Paraclete, Spirit of Truth. Less com-mon are: Bond or Union of the Father and Son, Living Fountain, Power of God, Seal, Ointment, Fire. We want to concern ourselves here with the names by which the Third Person is chiefly known. These names tell us of His nature and office. In this way they differ greatly from ordinary human names. For example, names like John, Elizabeth, and Mary have an entirely proper meaning, but as desig-nating definite, individual men and women, they tell us nothing of their personality traits and human qualities. It is far otherwise with the names of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. They not 1The Saint Andrew Daily Missal. 125 LEO A. CORESSEL Review/:or Religious only identify Him but also tell us much about Him. We have, perhaps, taken for granted the names by which the Third Person is known. As part of our Catholic inheritance they have been familiar to us since childhood. But we may quite frankly ask ourselves just why the Holy Ghost is so called, why He is called Love, Gift, and so on. Reverently done such a questioning attitude of mind will prove exceedingly fruitful. The First and Second Persons are called Father and Son because of their mutual relationship. The First Person is really and truly Father and the Second Person just. as really and truly is Son. The First Person begets the Second. The Father begets the Son in an eternal generation. This divine generation is more than a figure of speech. The Father truly begets. The Son is truly begotten. We should not regard earthly fatherhood as the real thing and the divine fatherhood as but the shadow of the great reality. The fullness of generation is predicated of God and only secondarily of creatures. As St. Paul says: "For this cause, then, I bend my knees to the Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." (Eph. 3:14-15, Westminster Version. This version is also used in other Scripture quotations in this article.) We see now the reason why the Father and Son are so called. But why is the Third Person called Holy, Spirit, Love, Gift? We already recognize fatherhood and sonship from our own observa-tions. We know of human persons who are fathers and sons. But when we consider the Third Person we have no such guide to lead the way. We have, indeed, experienced love. We know the meaning of holiness and of spirit. The giving and the receiving of gifts are sources of joy. But we are not prepared beforehand for a person who is himself love, holiness, spirit, and gift. Such a person is out-side the range of our widest observhtions. He is beyond the realm of our natural knowledge. For these reasons the person of the Holy Ghost is more deeply obscure in the mysteries of faith than are the Father and the Son. The name by which the Third Person is most generally known is Holy Ghost. We may, then, begin with aft inquiry into the appropriateness of these two words as applied to the Third Person. The Father, as also the Son, is a spirit and is holy. Why, then, are these two words united and applied to the Third Person? St. Augus-tine tells us a reason: "Since the Holy Ghost is common to both, He Himself is called that properly which both are called in. common. For the Father is a spirit and the Son is a spirit: and the Father is 126 Ma~, 1950 OF THE HOLY GHOST holy .and the Son is holy." In other words, the Third Person is called Holy Spirit from the fact that proceeding from both Father and Son, He is called that which both have in common, namely, that they are holy and spirit. Another and a deeper reason why the Third Person is called Holy Spirit is found in the fact that He proceds from the Father and Son as Love. As this love, He is, first of all, rightly called Spirit, since the property of love is to move and impel; for example, love moves and impels the lover towards the beloved. But the word spirit also implies a certain impulse and movement. Hence He who proceeds as Love is rightly called Spirit. This is the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. He says: "The name spirit in things cor-poreal seems to signify impulse and motion: for we call the breath and the wind by the term spirit. Now it is a property of love to move and impel the will of the lover toward the object loved.''2 The procession of the Third Person may be further illustrated from our own everyday experience. We.are conscious of breathing as a movement of air into and out of the lungs. We know, too, that the word breathing is used of vehement acts of the will. We say that a man breathes out' love or hatred. Think of expressions like lovers sighing like a furnace, Saul breathing out threats. If we apply this to God, we can readily see why the Third person is called Spirit. Proceeding as Love from the Father and Son the Third Per-son is breathed forth by them. The Father and Son breathe forth a Breath, a Spirit, a Divine Person, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus as Spirit, as Breath of the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit proceeds from them. This last illustration may be stated in another way. The love which one feels inwardly for a person or object is oftentimes extern-alized by a deep breathing or sigh, which is expressed in Latin by the word spiritus. The Father and Son express their infinite, eternal love for each other in a profound sigh' or breath, as it were. This breath is Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Third Person, God, coequal with the Father and Son. As is true of spirit so als0 holiness has a relation to love. The Third Person proceeds as Love. But love makes one holy; it orders one rightly to God. Hence the Third Person is called Holy. This reasoning will appear "weightier if we recall that holiness in God is 2Surnma Theologica 1,, q.36, a.1. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 127 LEO A. CORESSEL Review for Religious love of His own infinite being. The Third Person, then, who is possessed of infinite being, as are the Father and Son, and who is the expression of the infinite love of the Father and Son, is peculiarly called the Holy. The names by which the Third Person is most familiar to us are Holy and Spirit. But He is also called Gift. In the Acts of the Apostles (2:.38) we read: "Repent ye, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The Third Person is not just a gift. He is the Gift, just as He is the Holy and the Spirit. When a gift is given, love is the impelling force. In fact, love itself is the greatest gift one can give another. Now the Third Person proceeds as Love from the Father and 'Son and has an apti-tude to be given to men. He is, then, rightly and properly called the Gift. In this sense He is spoken of in the Veni Creator Spiritus: Thou who art called the Paraclete Best gift of God above The living spring, the living fire Sweet unction and true love.z It will be noted that the three names of the Third Person examined so far, Holy, Spirit, Gift, all have a relation to love. It is by this title, Love, that He is especially distinguished from the Second Person. The Son proceeds by generation from the intellect of the Father.' The Holy Ghost proceeds in a mysterious way as Love from Father and Son. The word love is somewhat abstract, although its action and personification are very concrete to us. St. Paul personifies love when he says: "charity is patient, is kind; charity envieth not" (-I 'Cor. 13:4). But we are not now speaking of such a love. The Third Person is not love personified. He is Love personalized, a Divine Person. " All this is very strange to us. But we have an aid in our own mental processes to help us along the way. When one loves another, He has within himself love, an act of the will, frequently called an affection of the will. This affection may endure over a long period of time. But it also may be lost because of neglect. It may even be replaced by hatred. But when the Father and Son love each other there results a substantial love, one who is Love, a Person, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. We know this because each of the 3Translation from Roman Breviary, Benziger Brothers. 128 Ma~, 1950 OF THE HOLY GHOST Three Persons is God, because the Holy Ghost proceeds as a Person from the will of the Father and Son, and because the Fathers of the Church call the Third Person Love inasmuch as works of love are attributed to Him in Sacred Scripture. "And hope does not prove false, for the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom. 5:5). Another important name of the Third Person is Spirit ot: Truth. He is so called in the Gospel of St. John: "And I will ask the Father and he shall give you another Advocate . the Spirit of Truth" (I4:16-17). The Holy Ghost is called Spirit of Truth for several reasons; because He proceeds from Truth, that is to say, the Word, the Second Person; because He is sent to announce the truth; and lastly because He is the substantial love of truth and leads men to love the truth. This title should make us more aware of the neces-sity of daily invoking the Holy Spirit. We stand in danger of falling victims to the deceits of the world. We are in need of having divine truths brought home to us. Our heaven-given guide can and will enlighten us. He will also inspire us with a love of the truth that we may be able clearly to discern the wisdom of God in the midst of all modern deceits. , Finally the Holy Ghost is called Paraclete or Advocate. An advocate is one who defends his client, who pleads for him. He is an intercessor, a helper, a counselor. The Holy Ghost is our Para-clete, our Advocate. He aids us in our weakness, He pleads for us, He intercedes for us. St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (8:26- 27) says: "And in like manner the Spirit also beareth up our weak-ness. For we know not how we are to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself pleadeth in our behalf with unutterable groanings. And he. who searcheth hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, how he pleadeth before God in behalf of the saints." The Holy Ghost is also our helper: "And no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' save in the Holy Spirit" (I Cor. 12:3). The Holy Ghost is our counselor. He calls us to good and aids us in our endeavors. He gives joy in accomplishment. We have seen how the Third Person is revealed to us as Love, Holy, Spirit, Gift, Spirit of Truth, and Paraclete. These names give us a glimpse of His sublime personality. They disclose reasons for the various offices attributed to Him. Proceeding as Love, He is the Holy Ghost, intent on our sanctification, a work of very great love. As Love he is comforter, Father of the poor. As Love He is Gift, the soul's most delightful Guest. He is Spirit of Truth and Para- 129 LEO A. CORESSEL clete, guiding us along the paths ot: truth and holiness. For all these reasons we should love the Holy Ghost. We should try to bring Him more and more into our everyday conscious-nest, since we owe Him so much in life, in death, and in eternity. Since He is Holy, should we not strive to be holy? Since He is Spirit, should we not daily seekthe things of the spirit? Since He is Love, should we not ask Him to inflame our hearts with the purest love? He gives Himself to us as a Gift; then we should in return give our-selves entirely to him. He guides us in the ways of truth and grace; we should, therefore, be most grateful to him. We may w~ll try to have continually in our minds and hearts one of the thoughts of the sequence of the Mass of Pentecost Sunday: To Tb~ sweet ~toke our stiff necks bow, Warm with Tbq loue our hearts of snow, Our wandering feet recall.4 Summer Sessions (Continued from P. 118) Sisters of St. Francis, St.o Coletta School, Jefferson, Wisconsin. The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine will offer a special training course at the Catholic University of America from June 26 to August 5. The aim of the course is to prepare Sisters, Brothers, and seminarians for the various fields of the Confraternity program. ¯ The courses of study will be conducted by the Very Reverend Fran-cis 3. Connell, C.SS.R. ; Sister M. Rosalia, M.H.S.H. : and Miss Mir-iam Marks. The first course concerns doctrine; the second, methods of teaching; the third, the apostolate. Students must register for all three courses. For further information write to: The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Wash-ington 5, D.C. The Department of Education of Marquette University offers courses in moral and ascetical guidance. The ascetical course will be conducted by G. Augustine Ellard, S.J.; the moral course, by Gerald Kelly, S.J. These are graduate courses; enrollment is limited to Sis-ters. June 26 to August 4. For further information write to: The Registrar, Marquette University, 615 N. 1 l th St., Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin. The Religion Department of The Creight0n University offers: (Continued on P. 139) 4The Saint Andrew Daily Missal 130 Prac!:ical Applical:ion ot: Psychome!:rics Religious Lit:e Sister M. Digna, O.S.B. THE principles underlying the use of psychometrics in appraising applicants to religious life were discussed in a recent article.1 Although many communities do not hesitate to use the findings of the physician in determining the physical fitness of applicants to their congregations or orders, some religious are startled at the thought of utilizing the findings of psychological research in reference to religious vocations. Two recent studies2,3 indicate a new trend in the direction of establishing testing programs as one of the prelim-inary procedures for admission into the seminary and religious life. As communities employ testing techniques for diagnosing and asses-sing such factors as the intelligence, the personality, the interests, and the aptitudes of their candidates, they will discover that methods of therapy, amelioration, or control will bring about greater spiritual progress in their young religious. If the candidate enters religion from. purely supernatural motives, an objective ~self-analysis will eliminate much of the time often spent on self-scrutiny in trying to eradicate an overt fault that is rooted in a personality defect. With a better understanding of her own weaknesses and strengths, a young religious may approach the entire problem of self-improvement more intelligently. She will devote less time to self and more to God. Test results may be helpful in hastening the development of the super-natural life of the candidate, if admitted, and in screening out those who may be unfit for religious life. This report attempts to illus-trate in a concrete manner some of the predictive aspects of tests for ascertaining the possible adjustment or non-adjustment of applicants to religious life. Ordinarily the adjusted person is one who can adapt reasonably 1Sister M. Digna. "That God's Will Be Known." REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, VIII, (,July 15, 1949), 201-207. -°Thomas J. McCarthy, "Personality Traits of Seminarians." Studies in Psycholoog and Psgchiatrg from the Catholic Unioersitg of America, V, (June, 1942), 1-46. 3Sister Richarda Peters, O.S.B., "A Study of the Intercorrelations of Personality Traits among a Group of Novices in Religious Communities," Studies in Psgchol-ogg and Psgchiatrg from the Catholic Uniuersitg of America, V, (December, 1942) 1-38. 131 SISTER M. Review t'or Religlous well to any reasonably adequate situation. Father Curran,4 who supports or at least bases his interpretation of adjustment on St. Thomas, says, in part, that adjustment does not mean merely compromising or coming to terms with problems but delving into the nature of reality. In other words, adjustment implies self-knowledge. To support the proposition that psychometrics can be used in detecting factors that will predict the future adjustment to life in religion, a group of high school and college records of individuals who later entered religion were examined. The results of intelli-gence tests and personality ratings were used to classify these young women into three groups: those who could be predicted to adjust well to religious life; those who could be predicted to adjust but with some difficulty: and those who would very likely not adjust. Later, the major superiors who were well acquainted with the subjects sub-stantiated the classification in all but one instance. The American Council on Education Psychological Examina-tion (ACE) had been administered to all these high school seniors and college freshmen. The American Council on Education Psycho-logical Examination is designed to measure the type of ability required for most college curricula. Although not all prospective subjects for religious life must necessarily be mentally equipped to do college work, the scores do show roughly more about the mental alertness of the individual than could be ascertained in a personal interview; and a low ranking percentile score would indicate that the mental ability of the individual should be appraised more specifically by administrating some general mental ability test. However, since the American Council Examination is considered by most authorities as a reliable index of intelligence, these scores were used to study the correlation between in.telligence and adjustment to religious life. While the correlation was reasonably high, it was not perfect, for several young women who were evidently very intelligent had failed later to make satisfactory adjustments. In these cases personality factors entered the picture. Sister Richarda Peters, O.S.B.,5 came to the same conclusion in her analysis of a group of novices in religious communities. She writes that cognitive ability (intelligence) showed no consistent relationship with the absence of undesirable traits. Evidently, high intelligence is no guarantee that the individual has no 4Charles A. Curran. Personality Factors in Counseling. (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1945), pp. 260-264. 50p. cir., p. 28. 132 May, 1950 PSYCHOMETRICS undesirable personality traits. Whether high, average, or low intelligence plays an important or a not too important part in the adjustment of individuals to life in religion, personality factors do explain many of the maladjustments in that state. Frequently, several factors contribute in precipitating a certain disorder of personality or behavior, any one of which can be credited as the last straw that broke the cameI's back. After all, it is the combination of several elements--familial, physical, psychological, and social--that relates to behavior disturbances' and influences adjustment to life and particularly to religious life. The four methods of evaluating or measuring personality charac-teristics generally employed are rating scales, intensive inter'iiewing,. anecdotal records, and paper and pencil tests. The paper and pencil tests will yield surprisingly good results, for many of the questions: on the test could have been asked in a long oral interview. Common' sense should operate in determining the purpose of the ratings, for no single test can be diagnostic of the total personality. Certain. inconsistencies of scores should be checked by retesting, preferably with a comparable form or another valid personality test. That personality tests are useful for discovering maladjustments in religious life has been noted in a research conducted by Thomas J. McCarthy~ on "Personality Traits of Seminarians." His study was not inter-preted in a predictive sense for screening or counseling, but was carried on with the hope "that such an investigation would be of help later on in developing an effective personality testing program.''r In the present report, the results of the Minnesota Personality Scale were used in studying the personalities of those Who later entered religious life. The Minnesota Personality Scale, while not so well-known nor so highly recommended as the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory, the Bernreuter Personality Inventory, or the Bell Adjustment Inventory, is easily administered and is not too difficult to interpret. The scale is subdivided into five categories: morale, social adjustment, home and family relations, emotionality, and economic conservatism. Typical cases will be used here to indi-cate some of the possibilities of personality scales as a means of better understanding the individuals who desire to enter religious life. Where results of Strong's "Vocational Interests Blank" were avail-able, these findings were also included. The data on Student I who became Sister I was appraised. Every- 6Op. cit. rlbid., p. 1. 133 SISTER M. DIGNA thing pointed to an excellent adjustment in community life. The student ranked in the upper one-third of all college students who took the American Council on Education Psychological Test (ACE) throughout the countr)L The information from a questionnaire that Student I filled out as a freshman showed that. she was one of a large family in a good Catholic home. The other children in the.family had attended colleges and universities. Her schooling had been entirely Catholic. Her percentile score for morale on the Minnesota Personality Scale" indicated a wholesome attitude toward the Church, school, and government. Her social adjustment .percentile showed her to be reasonably gregarious and socially mature. The percentile score in the area of family relations was just on the borderline between good and bad: hence it needed interpretation. Here the data on the freshman questionnaire supplemented the results of the tests. From this data it was obvious that Student I had been wisely helped by her parents and older brothers and sisters to achieve a rather early emancipation from overdependence on her home and family. The student has no feelings of .rejection or insecurity, for her autobiogra-phy showed that her family life was contented, co-operative, and very happy. Her emotionality score indicated that she was emo-tionally stable and self-possessed. Her economic attitude was con-servative. Since this' student had taken the Strong's "Vocational Interest Blank," the data on her vocational interests were in the files. The basic interest types for Strong's Blank for women are five: (1) tech-nical, including interests paralleling those of dentist, physician, teacher of mathematics, and teacher of the physical sciences; (2) verbal or linguistic, embracing author, librarian, and artist: (3) business contacts, with interests in fields patterning those of life insurance saleswomen; (4) welfare, including the interests of those successful in teaching social sciences, lawydr, personnel worker, social worker; and (5) non-professional interests, as general office worker, nurse, stenographer-secretary, and housewife. The interests are further divided into primary pattern where the interest type shows a pre-ponderance of A- and B-plus scores on the specific occupat.ional keys: the secondary pattern is the interest type within which there are more B-plus and B-minus scores. Student I's primary interest pattern was in the area of authorship and teaching of English and social work. She possessed a high score in femininity, indicating that her interests were largely feminine in nature. It may be argued that much of this information about a well- 134 May, 1950 PSYCHOMETRICS adjusted girl would be self-evident and that tests, personality scales, questionnaires, and interest blanl~s were simply a waste of time. This example is used to illustrate that tests do have predictive value whether for reinforcing evidence at hand, or for detecting qualities. not so obvious. Student II, now Sister 2, was characterized also by her major superiors as "well-adjusted." Her intelligence score placed her in the lower third of the college freshmen group. Her profile on the Min-nesota Personality Scale showed her morale to be exceptionally high. One may predict, however, that an individual with a score as high as 'hers would likely take a naive and unquestioning attitude toward life; consequently, for her, obedience rarely will be ditScult. Her problem and that of her superiors will be to raise to a supernatural level her purely natural inclination to do what others command. Her social adjustment indicated a fair degree of socialization. This score, too, needs further interpretation. As an only child she was largely dependent upon her father for companionship, her social contacts with those of her own age were limited. Her high score in the area of family relations suggests overdependence on her family; in this case, on her father. In the area of emotionality, a score placing her in the "upper third of the group reveals that she. is emotionally stable a.nd self-poss~ssed. The results of the Strong's Interest Blank were available. A summary of the ratings demonstrates that Student II had primary patterns in three fields; namely, welfare work including social work, social science teaching, personnel, and law; the technical field as den-tistry, teaching of mathematics, and physician; and a third area, business. She had ~/ very low femininity score, signifying that her interests approximated those generally ascribed to men. Here the influence of close association with her father is observed. One of her expressed interests was that of music, but music fell into a ter-tiary pattern. In vocational guidance work, the counselor would encourage her to use music as a hobby and enter some other field more closely related to her primary interests. With her natural tendency to acquiesce to the wishes of her superiors, she may be able to adjust without resulting tensions to any work for. which she has aptitude. For Sister 2, if one were interested in test findings as a means of assisting young religious to adjust to the active part of their life, it might be advisable to retest her to ascertain whether or not any change of interests has occurred because of her close association with women. 135 SISTER M. DIGNA Review for Religious Sister 3, who was formerly Student III, is an example of how high intelligence and wise direction has resulted in a well-adjusted religious who definitely was faced with a serious fam!ly problem. With an ACE score that ranked her very high among college fresh-men, Sister 3 had both the spiritual outlook and the necessary in-sight tO give her a clear understanding of her problem. The Min-nesota Personality Scale indicated that her total score in the area of home and family relations placed her in the lower fourth percentile. This was very low. However, her other scores showed that she was socially apt and rather emotionally stable. She had developed spir-itual insights rather rare in students because she had spent her high school years under the guidance of a good spiritual director. With her natural qualifications and her confidence in God, Sister 3 is a good example of an individual who overcomes obstacles to the serenity and peace so essential to religious life. To illustrate further th'e possibilities of test results as one means for insuring a better adjustment, the records of Student IV, now Sister 4, were evaluated. This student had an unusually high score on the American Council Psychological Examination. She belonged. to a good Catholic family of five or six children. Her profile per-centiles on the personality test were: morale, very high; social rela-tions, low; family and home relations, high; and emotionality, very low. Her emotionality score in this profile may indicate that Sister 4 will need wise guidance and warm understanding. Her low average in social relations coupled with a low score in emotionality demon-strates inner tensions which may be due to a sense of inferiority or to an inclination to scrupulosity. An adequate analysis of the problem, the conflict, or the complex (be it a sense of inferiority, scrupulosity, or work dissatisfaction) will often ~eveal satisfactory courses of action for dealing with it. In young religious, it is important that faulty emotional s'tates do not become fixed. Usually such fac-tors are not rectified easily in middle life, but ordinarily these prob-lems can be corrected in young people. Hence in the case of this Sister some definite follow-up testing may be required, unless supe-riors have considerable time to devote to Sister 4 in order to help her overcome some rather dangerous natural tendencies and to supplant them with the supernatural motives of humility, confidence in God, and obedience" to spiritual directors. How do test results aid in such instances? They point out emotional states that .perhaps a gay exterior hides very successfully, and this very attempt to inhibit worries and anxieties should be avoided. 136 Mag, 1950 PSYCHOMETRICS Student V, or Sister 5, ranked in the lower one-third of the psy-chological examination. The personality profile would lead one to predict that this young woman would have considerable difficulty in adjusting as her score in the area of social relations was very low, implying that she is socially inept and is undersocialized with feelings of inferiority. In religion, she may be characterized as "unworldly" whereas she is definitely anti-social. Undoubtedly, religious life will be a decided asset in helping this Sister to overcome her sense of inferiority and social ineptness if she is helped to under-stand that her attitude toward externs is not necessarily a virtue but a personality defect. By working with this young woman, a supe-rior or another Sister may help her to see the introverted tendencies, not as commendable virtues, but as personality defects. Unworldli-hess should be based upon the supernatural life and not upon per-sonality disorders. The next four sets of records concern young women who entered religious life, but either withdrew or were asked to withdraw. The test results, if these had been used in a predictive manner, might have been means of guarding communities against accepting applicants who were very likely unable to adjust. Two of these young women might have been directed into other communities where their adjust-ment might have been more easily made. The profiles of Students VI and VII might have been interpreted to predict a poor adjustment or none at all. The score on the psychological examination of Student VI placed her in the lower five per cent of the high-school graduates who were going to college. This student would have had a difficult task in getting admitted into any college. Her scores on the Minnesota Personality Scale were as follows: morale, zero; social relations, low; home and family relations, very low; emotionality, very low; and economic conservatism, exceptionally low. Her low morale pre-dicted that superiors would have a difficult time to help her achieve a spiritual outlook on obedience. The fact that her intelligence was low would explain an additional difficulty--she would be incapable of any deep insight into her own personal limitations. The score in the area of family relations suggests that her home life had been unhappy. Superiors will need to scrutinize and to watch the motives of any candidate whose home life has been entirely unhappy, as the applicant, though totally unconscious of it herself, may be using religious life as an escape mechanism. The emotionality score would predict that this young woman will need the help of a psychiatrist in 137 SISTER M. DIGNA Reoieu~ ~or Religious adapting herself to normal living in the world let alone within con-ventual wails. Her low score in the area of economic conservatism indicates that she has pronounced tendencies toward a radical way of life. One may say that since this student was not very intelligent, she was unable to understand the test questions and, consequently, the results may be spurious. Even were that true, then the objection could be raised that that in itself would be sufficient reason for rejecting her since she would be unable to comprehend the duties and responsibilities of religious life. Her test score, however, indicated that sloe would fall among the low average of the total population, which is not an indication that she was a moron. Low average intelligence is no barrier to getting along in the world, and it may not be so for the convent; but supplemented by her personality traits, it would be a poor hazard for religious communities to accept an applicant whose intelligenc.e and personality traits were similar to that of Student VI's. Student VII entered the candidature of a community, but she remained there only a short time. From her personality test, one might have predicted a difficult adjustment because of her person-ality traits. Although her intelligence score ranked her in the upper fifty per cent of college students, or average, her personality profile showed that she would have difficulty. Both the scores attained in morale and social adjustment were very low: her family relations were average; her emotionality was also very low, and her economic conservatism was low. The prediction based on these results would be that the probability of Student VII adjusting to any community life is very slight. Two students who entered religious life without persevering might be representative of applicants seeking admission into the wrong type of community. Both young women had intelligence scores which ranked them in the upper third of the college freshmen in the country. The personality profile of one followed this pattern: morale, very high; social adjustment, average; family relations, very low; and emotionality, very high. This applicant may have had potentialities for developing into a good religious if her motives for entrance were 'supernatural, but the low score in family relations stresses the fact that unhappy home conditions may have exerted ~ressure in sending this girl into the convent. Apparently, she never revealed the home conflict to any one, but instead compensated by creating a fantastic family life for herself. Her overdrawn picture of her home led superiors and companions to question the honesty of 138 Mar , 1950 PSYCHOMETRICS the girl. She was asked to withdraw. The other student also ranked in the upper third of those tested throughout the country on ¯ the ACE. Her personality profile pointed to very high scores in all are'as; morale, social adjustment, family relations, emotionality, and economic conservatism. One may conclude that her high social score suggests that she does not like to be alone, or, more serious in its implications for religious life, that she may be flighty and unstable. ¯ If she is one who is definitely the extrovert type and wishes to con-secrate herself to God, she might be directed to an active order rather than to a community that emphasizes the contemplative life. This student, who withdrew from religious life of her own accord, still feels she has a vocation. This attempt to illustrate the predictive possibilities of psy-chometrics in a program for the recruitment and training of subjects for religious life is necessarily only exploratory in nature. If com-munities would develop even. a very simple testing program and exchange their findings, it might be possible at some future date to devise a definite type of measuring instrument to assess personalities, attitudes, and interests in terms of fitness for religious life. First, however, a certain antagonism which exists against the use of tests needs to be broken down. " Then communities may need to train one or more of their personnel in the construction and use of tests. The barrier is not insurmountable, for'a simple in-service program for those who are now responsible for the admission, retention, and training of young religious can be established. In a short time com-munities may discover further possibilities in the use of psycho-metrics, not as an only means, but as one aid for screening and devel-oping religious. A thorough understanding of the factors that make for better adjustment in religious life may pay off spiritual dividends that will insure better adjusted religious seeking God through self-purification and through work and prayer. "Summer Sessions (Continued from P. 130) Divine Revelation, by Leo A. Coressel, S.3.; and The Church of Christ, by Ph'ilip T. Derrig, S.3. Session will also include institutes on: Remedial Reading, Guidance Program, and Communication Skills. ,June 9 to August 3. For further information write to: Director of Summer Session, The Creighton University, Omaha 2, Nebraska. 139 Lay Religious and !:he Laws ot: Bishops on Cont:ession Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. ALL RELIGIOUS realize that they are subject to the universal laws of the Church enacted for religious. These laws are found in the Code of Canon Law and also in the instructions, decrees, and replies that have emanated from the Holy See since the promulgation of the Code.1 Religious are also subject to the local Ordinaries to the extent determined by canon law (canon 500, § 1). The local Ordinaries may exercise their authority over religious not only by particular directions or precepts but also by law. Subjection to a law creates also an obligation of acquiring a knowledge of the law, and this obligation is especially incumbent on religious superiors. The laws of the local Ordinaries are called particular laws, since their obligation is usually restricted to a partic.ular territory. The universal laws of the Code are of obligation everywhere for the Latin Church. These particular laws may be enacted by the individual Ordinary for his diocese or by many Ordinaries united in a council. In the United States the laws of the Second and Third Plenary Councils of Baltimore are of obligation in the entire country.2 The bishops of a particular ecclesiastical province may also unite in a provincial council and legislate for all the dioceses of the province. In a diocese the sole legislator is the bishop, who may make his laws in a synod or outside the time of a synod. About eighty dioceses of the United States have modern and printed diocesan legis-lation, published in book form and "obtainable from the respective chanceries. These diocesan statutes are almost universally in Latin, but an English translation, at least of the principal articles, is some-times appended. The purpose of this article is. to give Brothers, nuns, and Sisters an idea of the types of laws concerning confession of 1The practical way of studying such documents published to the end of 1948 is from T. L. Bouscaren, S.J., The Canon Law Digest, 2 vols. and 1948 Supplement (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company). Later documents can be found in ecclesiastical periodicals. 2Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis II. (Baltimore: John Murphy, 1868). Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis III. (Baltimore: John Murphy, 1886). 140 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF I~ISHOP£ the various dioceses and councils of this country that have been estab-lished for them or are of practical interest to them. I. General Norms Bishops promulgate their laws in the diocesan synod, the diocesan newspaper, at the conferences or retreats of priests, in pastoral letters, in the diocesan ordo, and in circular letters. From the very nature of law, the bishop wills that religious obtain a knowledge of any law that he has enacted for them. This is the reason for the common precept of diocesan statutes that the faithful are to be instructed in all diocesan laws that affect the laity. Some diocesan statutes explic-itly command all religious of both sexes to acquire a satisfactory knowledge of both the universal and the particular law concerning religious.3 It has also been established in a few dioceses that supe-riors are to have the laws and letters of the Ordinary that affect religious read publicly4 or explaineds in the religious houses. Reli-gious houses should thus possess either the complete diocesan statutes: or a list of at least the statutes that affect religious. Every religious house should also have a file under the beading of the diocese or the. local Ordinary. In this file all letters of the Ordinary that are in any way legislative in character should be preserved. Precepts or instruc-tions of a permanent nature given orally by the Ordinary should be reduced to writing and enclosed in the same file. This will help to. prevent the misunderstanding that is always a danger in. a mere oral expression of law, precept, or instruction, and it will also place this necessary knowledge at the disposal of future superiors. One or two. dioceses have commanded that all public documents concerning the relations between the diocese and the religious should be shown to the local Ordinary at the quinquennial visitation.6 II. Ordinar~t Confessors (canon 520, § I) Canon 520, § 1 commands that an ordinary confessor be appointed for.every house of religious women. Relying on a reply of the Holy See given before the Code of Canon Law, some authors have held that there is no obligation of appointing an ordinary con-fessor for small houses that number less than six Sisters. This is 3Fargo 158; Acta et Decreta Concilii Provincialis Portlandensis in Oregon Quarti 171. The councils and dioceses cited in this and the following footnotes are in-tended as examples, not as a complete enumeration. Unless otherwise indicated the numbers with regard to councils and dioceses always refer to paragraph numbers. 4Fargo 155; Port. Ore. Prov. 169; Trenton 108. SPort. Ore. Prov. 7: Richmond 69. 6port. Ore. Prov. 170: Trenton 109. 141 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reuiew [or Religious contrary to the better interpretation of the canon, since it is not in accord with the general wording of the canon nor with private inter-pretations given by the Holy See. The consequences of such a doctrine are also not desirable. Such small convents constitute a sizable fraction of the communities of a diocese. These convents are at least very frequently located in small and isolated towns, wh~re the only priest is the pastor. The pastor, since he exercises authority over the parish school and is well known to the Sisters, is not a desirable priest as confessor. The isolated location of so many of these communities would make the approach to another confessor most difficult. The evident intent of the Code is to give Sisters as much liberty and facility for confession as possible, but the opinion stated above would give many communities of Sisters almost no liberty or facility for confession. The Bishop of Belleville explic-itly states in his law that ordinary confessors must also be appointed for small houses.7 III. Obligations of Ordinary and Extraordinary Confessors (canons 520, § 1 and 521, § I) Diocesan law universally and insistently inculcates the obliga-tions of ordinary and extraordinary confessors of Brothers, nuns, and Sisters. The bishops demand that all ordinary confessors hear the confessions of tbelr communities once a week, on a suitable day and hour, agreed upon with the superior. One diocese has enacted that the ordinary confessor must never allow a second week to pass with-out hearing the confessions of the community to which be has been assigned,s The laws of another diocese oblige the ordinary confessor of religious women to report to the Ordinary if, for any cause, he has not fulfilled his duties for one month.9 At least two bishops state that wilful neglect of this duty can constitute serious matter.1° The following law is especially practical and opportune: "The ordinaries [i. e. ordinary confessors] of the Sisters are exhorted to be most zealous and self-sacrificing in giving ample opportunity to the Sis-ters, especially to those in isolated localities, of going to confes-sion.' ul The failure of the ordinary confessor to appear in convents in isolated localities causes an almost insoluble difficulty. The canonical solution is that the superioress should summon one of the supplementary confessors, but very few dioceses either in their statutes 7Belleville 34. 8Des Moines 81. 9Toledo 79. 10Davenport 32; Nashville 92. 11Davenport 32: Nashville 92: Owensboro 47. The italics in this and subsequent citations are mine. 142 Ma~t, 1950 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS or diocesan faculties have appointed supplementary confessors. The extraordinary confessor may reside at a great distance, and the reli-gious are rightfully hesitant to call on him constantly. The next effort at a solution is for the superioress to make the use of occa-sional confessors as easy as possible, but the very nature of an iso-lated community reduces this solution to legal theory. The pastor is at least very frequently the only priest in the place,.and the work of the Sisters and the isolation of the town may make travel to another town a practical impossibility. It is also true that places at no great distance from large cities can be practically isolated. Equal fidelity is imposed by diocesan law on the extraordinary confessors, who are to perform their duties four times a year, prefer-ably during the Ember weeks. The bishops emphasize that confessors of religious are to fulfill their duties with a conscientious regard for the direction of souls towards the higher life of christian perfection. As means to this end diocesan law quite generally commands the ordinary and extraordi-nary confessors of religious to devote themselves intensively to the study of moral, ascetical, and mystical theology, of the common law of the Code concerning religious, and of the constitutions of the par-ticular institute.12 A careful reading of the canons on religious will show that very few of them directly affect the daily lives of religious. The obligation of these laws is usually incumbent on stiperiors. Modern constitutions also do not give many norms of the spiritual life. In the present practice of the Holy See constitutions are com-posed in great part of canons and other legal articles that the Sacred Congregation of Religious demands. It will, therefore, be oftentimes much more practical for the confessor to study the spiritual directory, ~scetical summary, or custom book of the institute rather than its constitutions. An exaggerated idea of secrecy must not prevent the superior from giving these books to the confessor. IV. Special Ordinary Confessors (canons 520, § 2; 528) The Bishop of Wheeiing states very clearly the sane norm of 12Confessors will find the following books helpful for a study of the laws that gov-ern lay institutes: IDom Pierre Bastien, O.S.B., Directoire Canoniqt~e a l'usage des Congregations ~ Voeux Simples (Bruges: Ch. Beyaert, 4th edition, 1933): Creu-sen- Ellis, Religious Men and Women in the Code (Milwaukee: The Bruce Pub-lishing Company, 3rd English edition, 1940); Rev. Fintan Geser, O.S.B., The Canon Law Governim3 Communities of Sisters (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1938) : Rev. Bernard Acken, S.3., A Handbook for Sisters (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1931). Bastien is especially helpful, since he also treats the legal articles that originate from the practice of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. 143 ,JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reoiew ~Cor Religious conduct in this respect: "All Religious are admonished to use this privilege of requesting a special confessor only for their spiritual good and greater progress in religious virtues, apart from all human con-siderations. Should a special confessor perceive that there is no need of him, let him dismiss the Religious prudently."'13 The special con-fessor himself 'is in the best position to judge whether his work is necessary or proportionately useful. He should observe the prudent norm of the law quoted above also at the time that the religious asks him to be a special confessor. It is frequently possible for a priest to realize at the time of the petition that the particular religious will not profit by having a special confessor. It is even possible to encounter a religious who asks for a special confessor and yet has no idea of the purpose of such a confessor. It is not unknown for a reli-gious to be under the impression that all religious should have a spe-cial director. Even priests can be imbued with the same principle. Spiritual books and maxims can be misunderstood in this matter. V. Supplementarg Confessors (canon 521, § 2) Canon 521, § 2 commands the local Ordinaries to appoint at least two supplementary confessors available for each convent of reli-gious v~omen in their dioceses. These confessors may be summoned in particular cases for one or more Sisters or even for the entire com-munity, for example, in the absence of the ordinary confessor. The extraordinary confessor of the commuhity is always to be considered also a supplementary confessor. As has been stated above, very few dioceses mention the supplementary confessors either in their statutes or diocesan faculties, but their appointment can be and oftentimes is made by other means.In some dioceses all the pastors as well as all ordinary and extraordinary confessors of religious women are the supplementaries for all convents of the diocese.14 Harrisburg assigns this office to all pastors of the episcopal city and of each deanery for the religious women of that particular district.~s Other dioceses men-tion that the supplementaries will be announced in opportune time by the 10ca1 Ordinary.~6 VI. Occasional Confessors of Religious Women (canon 522) Sisters are well aware that, for peace of conscience, they may go to confession in any legitimately designated place to any confessor ~3Wheeling p. 52. ~4Buffalo, Dubuque, Peoria, Pueblo. The diocese of Des Moines has the same but excludes the pastor. 15Harrisburg 27. 16port. Ore. Prov. 188: Trenton 112. 144 ' Ma~ , 1950 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS approved for women. Diocesan law usually merely reaffirms the canon in this matter. However, there is a reminder that the right given by canon 522 does not free anyone from the observance of. religious discipline.17 VII. Place for the Confessions of Religious Women (canons 522, 909-910) The Code of Canon Law prescribes that the confessional for Sisters should ordinarily be placed in their chapel and that their con-fessions are not to be heard outside the confessional, except in case of sickness or real necessity, and with the observance of the precimtions prescribed by the local Ordinary. It is admitted that there can more readily be a justifying cause for placing the confessional of Sisters outside the chapel, for example, in the sacristy, a room adjoining the chapel, or some other convenient room. It is forbidden to hear the confessions of women and also of religious women outside of the con-fessional except for reason of sickness, weakness of old age, deafness, the probable danger of a sacrilegious confession or of seriou~ infamy, and for other reasons of like import. When a place is to be destined habitually for the confessions of Sisters, it should be designated by the authority of the local Ordinary or according to the norms that he has established. Diocesan law may command that it be designated by the local Ordinary.18 At such times as retreats it is frequently necessary to erect additional movable confessionals in the convents of Sisters, and practically always these confessionals are outside the chapel. " The designation of such temporary places of confession may be made by the superioress or the confessor. The Second Plenar~ Council of Baltimore~9 and diocesan law in general in the United States rigidly enforce the canonical prescriptions on the place for the confessions of women. One diocese has enacted a reserved suspension against confessors who violate these norms,2° and in some other dio-ceses a confessor is liable to a suspension for the same violation3~ For hearing confessions within the papal cloister of nuns of sol-emn vows the Holy See has prescribed the following precautions: "Two nuns shall accompany the confessor to the cell of the sick nun and shall wait there before the open door of the cell while the priest hears the confession, and accompany him again when he returns to IZ'Port. Ore. Prov. 183. ISSavannah-Atlanta 51. WConc. Plen. Bait. II, 295-296. 20Cheyenne I, 109, 115. 21Philadelphia 31: Pittsburgh 119, 1: Scranton 52, 2. 22Sacred Congregation of Religious, February 6, 1924. Cf. Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest, I, p. 318. 145 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review/or Religious the monastery gate.''22 Some diocesan statutes also prescribe that the door is to be left op.en while the .confession of any sick woman is being heard,va It is evident that the door is to be closed if there is any danger whatever of the confession being overheard. This excep-tion is also stated in diocesan law. The emphasis on place with regard to the occasional confessor of religious women has caused at times the error that the legitimate place is required for the oaliditg of any confession of women or at least of religious women. Place as such is required only for the liceity of the confession. Therefore, the legitimate place is not required for valid-ity in the case of the ordinary, special ordinary, extraordinary, or supplementary confessors of religious women. The same is true of any confessor wbb already possesses special jurisdiction over the reli-gious woman whose confession be is to bear, for example, a retreat master. It is certain from a reply of the Code Commission that the legitimate place is required for the validity of confession to an occa-sional confessor of religious women, not by reason of ~itself, but simply because the Code has made it one of the two essential condi-tions for gi~;ing him jurisdiction over the religious woman whose confession be is to hear and which be otherwise lacks. Even in this case there will be little fear in practice of an invalid confession. If the confessor has even probably and according to his prudent judg-ment any of the reasons listed above that justify the hearing of the confessions of women outside of the place of the confessional, the confession will be certainly valid. VIII. Opportunitg [or Confession (canon 892) Diocesan law in general reaffirms canon 892, which obliges pas-tors and all priests who have the care of souls to hear the confessions of the faithful in their charge whenever they reasonably ask to be beard. The bishops state that there are to be fixed days for confes-sion, which are not necessarily to be confined to Saturday but are to include as many days as are necessary for the particular church.24 Other fixed days are the vigils of feasts and the day before First Fri-day. Several dioceses command that confessions be heard before Mass on Sundays, holydays, and First Fridays, but these confessions must not be permitted to delay the beginning of Mass. Confessions are also to be beard at the reasonable petition of the faithful outside of tbes~ fixed times. 23Buffalo 73; Pueblo 148. 24Cf. Conc. Plen. Balt. II, 291. 146 May, 1950 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS A second and sufficiently large class of diocesan statutes prescribes that confessions are to be heard before and even after daily Mass in the parish churches.2s It seems strange that diocesan law, which has granted the daily opportunity of confession t6 the very pious faithful who attend daily Mass, has not extended a similar facility to reli-gious. One diocese has given the daily opportunity of confession to religious.2~ This singularity is intensified by the fact that the basic reason for the greater opportunity of confession could ~not have been unknown to diocesan legislators. Cardinal Glennon stated in his statutes of 1929: "It is clearer than the noonday sun that our Holy Mother Church, in favoring the frequent reception of Holy Com-munion, by that very fact demands that the faithful be given a fre-quent opportunity of confession even on weekdays.''27 It will be of interest to study the documents of the Holy See con-cerning the greater opportunity to be giv.en to religious for confes-sion. The first pertinent document is the Code of Canon Law itself, which in canon 595, § 1, 3° does not say that religious are to be given the opportunity of confession once a week but at least once a weeh. Th~ second document is the Reserved Instruction on Daily Communion and Precautions to be taken against Abuses.2s The instruction opens with a general section, which applies also to reli-gious. In this section the Sacred Congregation first reaffirms the principle of Cardinal Glennon: "Together with frequent Commun-ion, frequent confession also must be promoted.''29 The Sacred Con-gregation then speaks of the daily opportunity of confession before Mass: " . . but that the faithful who live in communities should not only go to confession on stated days but should be free to go, without any remarks from their Superior, to a confessor of their own choice, and, what is especially important, that they should have the opportunity to mahe a confession also shortly before the time of Communion.''~° The text of these words shows evidently that they apply also to religious. In the very next paragraph the Holy See reaffirms the same principles: "Accordingly Pastors of souls must make every effort to provide in each community, according to the 25Belleville 111; Boston 75; Brooklyn 175: Charleston 95; Evansville 71; Gal-veston p. 34; Indianapolis 69: Lincoln p. 35; Natchez 128: Paterson 155: Trenton 173. 26Raleigh 54. 27St. Louis 75. 28Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, December 8, 1938. The complete English translation can be found in Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest, II, pp. 208-215. 29Instruction II~ 2: Bouscaren II, p. 210. 30Instruction, ibid.: Bouscaren, ibid. 147 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious number of members, one or two confessors to whom each one may freely go. They must keep in mind the rule that, where frequent and dail~l Communion is in vogue, frequent and dail~l opportunitg for sacramental confession as far as that is possible, must also be afforded."zl The last pertinent document is the new list of questions for the quinquennial report to the Holy See, where we find the question: "'Do Superiors diligentlq see to it that confessors be easil~l available before Communion . . . ?32 This question refers to all classes of reli-giotis institutes approved by the Holy See. The Sacred Congregation of Religious could not reasonably ask religious superiors whether they were providing confessors before Communion unless, in some sense at least, it was incumbent upon superiors to make such provision. The do.ctrine of more frequent opportunity for confession, con, sequent upon the instruction quoted above, is not unknown in can-onical commentaries. Thus one author states universally: "Wherever frequent or daily Communion is practiced, adequate opportunity for sacramental confession must be provided frequently, i. e. at least two or three times a week.''3~ This opinion was written before the pub-lication of the new questions of the quinquennial report added greater weight to the doctrine on frequent opportunity for confes-sion, at least with regard to religious. The following conclusions appear to be evident: 1) It is at least the desire of the Holy See that local Ordinaries and religious supe-riors provide, as far as they can conveniently do so, an opportunity for confession before daily Mass to religious, and especially to Brothers, nuns, and Sisters. The greater necessity with regard to lay institutes arises from the fact that confessors reside in the houses of clerical institutes. 2) As a general norm, the priest who says the daily Mass in houses of Brothers, nuns, and Sisters is the one to give this opportunity. It would be incredible that the Holy See did not realize that this priest is ordinarily the only confessor who can be in the religious house, with any convenience, at the time of daily Mass. 3) The instruction quoted above warrants a wide interpretation of canon 522, which treats of the occasional confessor of religious women. Such a confessor may not only enter the confessional before 31Instruction II, 2, a); Bouscaren, ibid. 32The List of Questions for Religious Institutes and Societies of Pontifical Right (Rome: Polyglot Printing Press, 1949), q. 85. 33J. N. Stadler, Frequent Holg Communion (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, Inc., 1947), p. 134. 148 May, 1950 by the confessor. 4) should provide at least tunity of confession. able. 5) The time of confessions. LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS daily Mass when he is requested to do so by the superior or one or more of the religious but he may himself spontaneously enter the confessional at this time.34 The daily opportunity of confession is at least a directive of the Holy See and may thus be licitly introduced The designation of the place for confession one place that is suitable for the daily oppor- The chapel will very frequently not be suit-the daily Mass should not be delayed by such The practice of the daily opportunity of confession must also be commended because of its intrinsic merit. Many religious will occa-sionally take advantage of the opportunity and there will be no rea-son whatever to notice the religious who believes that he must go to confession before Communion. Some very highly esteemed authors have advised eliminationof precedence in receiving Communion, that the abstention from Communion by a particular religious might not be noticedP5 If the daily opportunity of confession is given, there will be no need of abstention from Communion. Furthermore, the efficacy of the elimination of precedence for this purpose, at least in the United States, can be very seriousl3) doubted. A glance at the Catholic Directory reveals at once that by far the greatest number of " religious houses is composed of convents of Sisters. I believe it also safe to assert that about two-thirds of these convents contain fifteen or less Sisters. A study of the number in the convents of four large Eastern dioceses grouped together reveals that 68 per cent of the con-vents contain 15 or less Sisters, 50 per cent have less than 12, and 41 per cent have less than 10. Convent chapels are also usually small. The consequence is that no matter what place the Sister takes in chapel or what order is followed in receiving Communion, her abstention will be very noticeable in the greater number of convents. IX. Mone~ Offerings in the Confessional All confessors in the United States are forbidden by the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore to receive even voluntary money offerings of any nature and for any purpose, including Mass stipends, in the confessional.36 This law is quite generally reaffirmed in dio- 34Cf. Regatillo, lnstitutiones luris Canonici. I, n. 670 to the contrary with re~ard to liceity. ssCf. Bergh, Review for Religious, III (1944) 262-263: Creusen, ibid., VIII (1949) 89-90. ~r'Conc. Plen. Balt. II, 289. 149 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious cesan statutes, which in some dioceses extend the prohibition to offerings made on the occasion of confession. The severity with which the Baltimbre law is urged is manifested by the fact that the" confessor who violates it is punished with a suspension in several dioceses.37 Religious, therefore, should not offer Mass stipends to a priest in the confessional. X. Interference in the Internal and External Government of an Institute of Religious Women (canon 524, §. 3) The prohibition of this interference by canon 524, § 3 directly affects only the ordinary and extraordinary confessors of nuns and Sisters. However, no one, unless properly delegated to do so, may assume or obstruct authority that is legitimately possessed by another. Therefore, from the very nature of the matter, this interference is forbidden to all, clergy or laity. Greater vigilance will be required from those whose office or duties render the transgressions of this pre-cept more possible, such as pastors, chaplains, the special ordinary and supplementary confessors, and retreat masters. The internal government is the authority proper to the superiors of a religious institute.Its object is the order of the day, community and spiritual exercises, the transfer and employments of subjects, permissions, dispensations in disciplinary matters, penances given by superiors, the observance of religious discipline, the admission to the postulancy, novitiate, professions, etc. By external government is meant the relation of the community to external superiors, that is, the Holy See, the local Ordinaries, and regular superiors in the case of nuns subject to regulars. This authority includes such matters as the erection and suppression of religious houses and tbe external activity of the institute. No priest or confessor should intrude his ;:lirections, counsels, and much less his commands in such matters. When asked he may give for the particular case the sense of the obligations of divine or ecclesi-astical law and he may also state what he thinks is the better, the more practical and prudent policy in a particular matter. He may not, however, authoritatively impose his will in these matters. For example, he may not command that the employment of a Sister be changed but he may advise her to ask the superior for such a chfinge. He may recommend a candidate for admission into an institute but he may not command that she be admitted. 37Altoona 41; Harrisburg 40, 1"; Philadelphia 32; Pittsburgh 118, 1"; Wheeling p. 32. 150 May, 1950 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS The laws of the bishops of the United States manifest great interest in the protection of the internal government of religious institutes. The bishops adopt primarily a positive attitude by pre-scribing that all priests and especially pastors are, as far as possible, to aid religious in spiritual and temporal necessities and so to arrange matters that the religious may be able to live according to their rule.38 The bishops extend the' prohibition of the Code to all con-lessors, 39 priests?° and especially to chaplains41 and pastors.42 In some dioceses chaplains are-explicitly commanded to abstain scrupu-lously from all public judgment or criticism of the religious or of their actions.43 The avoidance of the appearance of interfering in internal, gov-ernment will oftentimes demand a very delicate and sensitive pru-dence from the confessor and especially from the chaplain. Sisters should aid and not obstruct priests in the fulfillment, of their obli-gation. It would be profitable for some religious to recall that they are obliged to fulfill not merely the directions of superiors of which they approve, that the directions of which they do not approve do not by that very fact constitute matter for appeal to the confessor or chaplain, that in the presentation of any grievance to a priest they use care to give not only the facts and arguments for themselves but also those against themselves, and, finally, if they repeat to others the advice of a priest, they are to use scrupulous care to repeat his advice accurately and completely. The priest in these matters is in a defenceless position. It is possible for a confessor or a priest to have some false prin-ciples in this matter. He should never verify the plaint of one mother general: "You would think that all confessors believed that all superioresses were always wrong." The presumption of the con-fessor should be that the superior is right; the contrary is to be proven. Otherwise he brings to the confessional a principle that is at least obstructive of authority. Sympathy for penitents is a most laudable and Christlike virtue in a confessor but it should not blind ¯ 38Fargo 160, 1; Lincoln p. 23; Natchez 275; New Orleans 275, 310; St. 30- seph 33. 39Fargo 160, 1; Indianapolis 46, 2: Los Angeles 64: Salt. Lake 47: San Fran-cisco 115; Savannah-Atlanta 50; Wheeling p. 53. 40Fort Wayne 158: Harrisburg 26: Los Angeles 64: Port. Ore. Prov. 179. 41Dubuque 68; Evansville 45: Fargo 137; Indianapolis 44: Nashville 68 (b); Omaha 104, 1"; Pueblo 68; San Francisco 108: Toledo 71. 42Fargo 160, 1: Nashville 68 (a) ; Salt Lake 47: San Francisco 115. 43Fargo 137; Omaha 104, 1". 151 ~OSEPH F. GALLEN him to the truth that a great many people are not good witnesses in a matter of self-interest. A very brief experience in the priesthood, if thoughtful, will reveal that personal difficulties have at least the tendency to focus the light on favorable facts and arguments and to leave in shadow and darkness the contrary facts and arguments. It is also to be presumed in matters of external conduct that superiors have a much more complete and accurate knowledge of the subject than the confessor. It is likewise to be realized that the discontented, insubordinate, and factious religious very frequently and eagerly seeks to ally priests to her cause. She does not always fail, and the accurate measure of her success is all too often and lamentably the consequent loss in religious discipline, unity, and obedience. Finally, the confessor must never forget that his primary norm is to direct a religious penitent to Christian perfection. If we take the example 6f a difficulty with a superior and suppose the confessor is certain that the superior is in error or even bad faith, the advice of the confessor should not always be to stand up for one's rights or to appeal the matter to a higher superior. The norm of perfection will very fre- quently be to submit to such an action of a superior at least with resignation; the higher degrees of perfection are to submit with glad-ness and joy, and even with desire. XI. Chaplains as Confessors (canon 522) Four or five dioceses forbid a chaplain to hear the confessions of the Sisters of the convent, unless he has the special jurisdiction requi-site for religious women. The sense of this prohibition must be that the chaplain is not to obt.rude on the duties and rights of the ordinary confessor, siiace canon law gives to any priest approved for the con-fessions of women the right of being validly and licitly the occa-sional confessor of any religious woman. Such a prohibition will also in practice not be in conformity with the daily opportunity for confession explained above. our CONTRIBUTORS RICHARD LEO HEPPLER is chaplain at the Novitiate of the Franciscan Broth-ers of Brooklyn. C. A. HERBST and LEO A. CORESSEL are members of the faculty of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. SISTER M. DIGNA is professor of psy-chology at the College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota. ,JOSEPH F. GALLEN is professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. 152 .uesUons and Answers .~13~ Our constitutions prescribe that the Little Office of the Blessed Virgln be recited in common every day. (I) Must the common recitation be in Latin7 (2) If one is absent from the common recitation, is one obliged to recite that part of the office privately? (3) May one who is obliged to recite the Little Office privately do so in English? (4) Must the external rubrics (lowering of the sleeves, prostrations, and the like) be observed when one says the Office by oneself? (1) Unless the constitutions prescribe otherwise, religious who are bound to the recitation 0f the Little Office by reason" of their con-stitutions only, may recite or chant the Little Office in common in the vernacular, provided an approved translation be used. (2) The obligation of reciting or chanting the Little Office imposed by the Constitutions per se rests on the community, not on the individual. Hence if a religious is absent from the common reci-tation of the Little Office he is not obliged to recite it privately unless the constitutions or custom require him to do so. (3) When the constitutions prescribe that the Little Office must be recited in common in Latin, those who are excused from the com-mon recitation but still obliged by the constitutions to recite it pri-vately may recite it in the vernacular unless the constitutions pre-scribe otherwise. (4) In the private recitation of the Little Office the rubrics (kneeling, st'anding, and the like) need not be observed--much less such customs as are mentioned by way of example in this question. We may add a word here about the requirements for gaining the indulgences attached to the recitation of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. (a) When the Little Office is recited publicly it must be recited in Latin in order to gain the indulgences. But when it is recited privately the indulgence may be gained for the recitation in th~ vernacular (S. Cong., Indulg., 28 aug., 1903). (b) The recitation of the Little 'Office of the Blessed Virgin is considered private (as far as indulgences are concerned) even though it is recited in common by a religious community, provided that it is recited within the walls of the religious house, or even in the church or public oratory with the doors closed (S. Cong. Indulg. 18 dec., 1906). Additional informa-tion regarding the Little Office may be found in an article entitled "The Little Office of Our Lady" in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Jallu-ary 1947, p. 18. 153 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religiohs 14 In order to obtain the plenary indulcjence at the moment of death attached to the so-called "happy death" crucifixes, is it necessary that the dylncj person hold the crucifix in his hand, or is it sufficient that it be attached to his person in some other way? The answer to this question is contained in a declaration of the Sacred Penitentiary given June 23, 1929, in the following words: "Anyone of the faithful being at the point of death, who shall kiss such a blessed crucifix, even if it does not belong to him, or who shall touch it in any way, provided that having gone to confession and received Holy Communion, or if unable to do so, being at least con-trite, he shall have invoked the Most Holy Name of Jesus by pro-nouncing it if he could, or if not, by devoutly invoking it in his heart, and who shall patienffy accept death from the hand of God as the wages of sin, shall be able to gain a plenary indulgence." [Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 21 (1929), 510]. It may be helpful to our readers to recall that this indulgence for the dying is one of the few that may be gained ?or oneseff outside of Rome during the Holy Year of 1950. IS What is to be said of the policy of lay rellcjious superiors (Brothers and Sisters) who forbid their subjects to fast durincj Lent and at other times when the law of the Church prescribes fastincj? Several points need to be recalled before this question can be clearly and satisfactorily answered. 1. Theologians and canonists speak of tWoodifferent standards of fasting, absolute and relative. Both standards allow only one full meal a day (dinner), which may be taken about noon or in the eve-ning. This is the only meal at which meat is allowed. The differences between the two standards concern the other two meals, breakfast and lunch (supper). These differences are described as follows in Theological Studies, March, 1949, pp. 93-94: "According to the absolute norm, there is a fixed limit for these repasts, which limit applies to everyone. This limit has been tradi-tionally phrased in terms of two and eight ounces, but these are merely moral estimates, and it is certainly safe to describe the abso-lute norm as allowing 'two or three' ounces for breakfast and 'eight or ten' ounces for lunch. "The essence of the relative norm is that it allows to some.ektent for varying individual needs." Each one is allowed what he needs at 154 Mag, 1950 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS breakfast and lunch in order to preserve his health and do his work. However, even the most ardent proponents of this norm agree that it has some limit. They agree that the combined quantity of the two minor repasts must not equal a second full meal; and they usually agree that it should fall notably short of this quantity, for example, sixteen to twenty ounces. But it should be noted that they allow this quantity to be divided, according to individual needs, between the breakfast and supper; they do not set a hard and fast rule that allows only a meager breakfast. "Quantity is the primary difference between the absolute and relative norms, but not the only difference, particularly as regards breakfast. Though some explanations of the absolute norm are ~ather vague as to quality, it is rather commonly said that the break-fast is limited to 'bread and coffee or some other drink.' According to the relative standard, the only universal qualitative limit is that meat may not be taken at breakfast or lunch." 2. The law of fasting applies to all the faithful who have com-pleted their twenty-first year and who have not yet begun their six-tieth year. However, the law is not intended to impose an extra-ordinary hardship or to defeat a greater good; hence those who can-not fast without extraordinary hardship for themselves or others or without interfering with the duties of their state of life are excused from fasting. The very first number of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (I, 42-46) contained a full explanation of these excusing causes, especially as they might apply to religious. .The canon law gives the power of dispensing from fasting to local ordinaries, pastors, and superiors of exempt clerical orders. Many other priests obtain the same power by delegation from one of these or from the Holy See. A dispensation may be given for any of the reasons usually assigned as excusing causes, and even for a less serious reason. But it may not be given without some good reason. Other priests besides those mentioned in the preceding paragraph cannot give a dispensation from fasting. But when they see that a person is really excused from fasting they may certainly tell him he is not obliged to fast. This may be done also by a prudent layman who knows both the law and the excusing causes. Hence lay reli-gious superiors (Brothers and Sisters) may certainly tell their sub-jects they are not bound to fast when they know that the subjects are excused. This is not an exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; it is simply an unofficial declaration of an existing fact: namely, that an excusing cause is present. 155 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Retffeto for Religious Strictly speaking, there is no obligation to ask for a dispensation when one has a reasonable assurance, based on one's own judgment or on the decision of a competent adviser, that one is excused from fasting. It seems that some religious institutes have a rule or custom to the effect that subjects must always consult their confessors about fasting; but, apart from such special provisions, there seems to be no reason why the confessor must be consulted when one. has a clear excusing cause. 3. It should be obvious from what has been said that the abso-lute standard more readily admits of excuse than does the relative standard. For instance, it seems that comparatively few religious engaged in the active apostolate could fast regularly during Lent according to the absolute standard without hurting their health or their work; whereas a much larger number could safely fast according to the relative standard. Until a few years ago the dioceses of our country consistently enjoined the absolute standard; lately there has been a noticeably growing tendency to establish the relative standard. We presume that the question we have been asked to answer refers to conditions existing under the absolute standard of fasting; and our answer is based on that supposition. Now, to answer the question: A lay superior may make a pru-dent judgment that a subject is excused from fasting; and, granted this prudent judgment, he may counsel the subject not to fast. Moreover, the superior may even order the subject n~t to fast if an order is necessary. In this case the superior does not command the subject to.disobey the law of the Church; for in the supposition that an excusing cause exists the subject is not bound by the law. The superior may exercise this power of discretion and authority with regard to any subject who is excused from the law of fasting. Ordinarily, however, he should be content with counseling the sub-ject not to fast; the use of a command would seldom be advisable. Moreover, the superior should not act arbit[arily. It may be true that under the absolute standard of fasting the greater part of a com-munity would be excused from fasting, but this would not justify a policy of telling the whole community they are excused from fasting. Some religious can fast without harm to themselves or their work, and the superior has no right to tell them not to do so. The fact that the rigor of the absolute standard made it impos-sible for large numbers of religious to fast seems to have brought about a very undesirable condition in.some pla'ces. There is a ten-dency to look upon religious who do fast as "singular." This is a 156 May, 1950 sorry state of affairs in a religious house. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 16 I have read somewhere that laymen are forbidden to bless. Yet we d6 meet religious groups of nuns where the mother superior imparts a blessing fo her religious, e.cj. after an instruction or after giving a permission to cjo out. Would you kindly explain the nature and value of such a blessing? A distinction must be made between a public blessing, that is, ~ne given in the name of the Church by a duly authorized minister, and a prit, ate blessing, given in the name of the person who does the blessing. -Obviously only one who is a cleric is empowered to bless in the name of the Church. On the other hand there is nothing to forbid a parent to call down God's blessing on his child. That is what a lay religious, superior does when he blesses his subjects according to the directions of the constitutions or by custom. --17-- I have often come across a reference to Caussade, "Sacrament of the Present Moment." Could you tell me where I can find this treatise or book? Perhaps your readers would be interested in the substance of the idea, if it can be put in a few words. Caussade's idea of the "Sacrament of the Present Moment" is thus briefly explained by him in his Abandonment to Divine Provi-dence in Book I, Chapter I, Section II, p. 3: "There are remarkably few extraordinary characteristics in the outward events of the life,of the most holy Virgin, at least there are none recorded in holy Scripture. Her exterior life is represented as very ordinary and simple. She did and suffered the same things that anyone in a similar state of life might do or suffer. She goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth as her other relatives did. She took shelter in a stable in consequence of her poverty. She returned to Nazareth from whence she had been driven by the persecution of Herod, and lived there with Jesus and Joseph, supporting themselves by the work of their hands. It was in this way that the holy family gained their daily bread. But what a divine nourishment Mary and Joseph received from this daily bread for the strengthening of their faith! It is like a sacrament to sanctify all their moments. What treasures of grace lie concealed in these moments filled, apparently, by the most ordinary events. That which is visible might happen to anyone, but the invisible, discerned by faith is no less than God operating very great things. O bread of angels! heavenly manna! pearl of the 157 BOOK NOTICES Review [or Religious Gospel! Sacrament of the present moment! thou givest God under a~ lowly a form as the manger, the hay, or the straw. And to whom dost thou give him? 'esurientes implevit bonis' (Luke 1, 53). God reveals himself to the humble under the most lowly forms, but the proud, attaching themselves entirely to that which is extrinsic, do not discover Him hidden beneath, and are sen.t empty away.'.' (English translation from tenth French Edition, by E. J. Strickland, The Catholic Records Press, Exeter, England, 1921). BOOK NOTICES LIFE AND MIRACLES OF ST. BENEDICT, by St. Gregory the Great, is now published in a new translation by Odo J. Zimmer-mann, O.S.B., and Benedict R. Avery, O.S.B. This excellent trans-lation of a little spiritual classic is the first to appear in twenty-five years. It is the second of the four books of Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church; and, apart from the famous Rule of St. Benedict, it is the only source we have for the life and character of the founder of Western monasticism. Tile trans-lators have succeeded in preserving the charming simplicity of St. Gregory's account, and the dialogue form gives the author an opportunity of making moral and doctrinal reflections on the miracu-lous events of Benedict's life. Gregory puts into the mouth of Peter, his deacon, questions we all would like to ask: "What an astounding miracle! . , . How is it possible for anyone to see the whole universe at a single glan.ce?" Then Gregory explains the wonderful vision of St. Benedict. This little treasure of spirituality, written primarily to encourage the Italian people in a time of war and devastation, contains an excellent and timely mess~ige for the world today. (Col-legeville, Minn.: St. John's Abbey Press, 1949. Pp, xv q- 87. $2.00 [cloth]; $.90 [paper].) I1qIGO DE LOYOLA, by Pedro Leturia, S.J., portrays the early life of Ifiigo, before he was wounded and converted and set on the jour-ney that led to his using the name of Ignatius and founding th~ Society of Jesus. The work is scholarly and scientific, not popular. The translator is A. J. Owen, S.J. (Syracuse, N. Y.: LeMoyn~ College Press, 1949. Pp, xiii ÷ 209. $4.50.) THE SPII~ITUAL LIFE OF THE PRIEST, by Father M. Eugene Boylan, O.C.R., is a collection of articles which originally appeared 158 May, 1950 BOOK NOTICES in The Priest. Purposely dir.ecting his essays to the American clergy, with American conditions in mind, and with his usual pru-dent and fearless approach, Father Boylan discusses several aspects of a priest's spiritual life in an unmistakably practical way. His pur-pose is to help the priest form an attitude of mind rather than to map out a program. "If that attitude is correct and sincere, and has its roots in a man's heart and in his convictions, he should not have over-much difficulty in planning his own spiritual life with the help of a competent adviser, and adapting his plan, without destroying it, to each set of circumstances." Worthy of special mention is the chapter on clerical celibacy. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1949. Pp. 161. $2.50.) SCALE THE HEIGHTS, by Canon Paul Marc (translated by Rev. Joseph A. Fredette), is a collection of brief, meditative essays written to inspire lay persons to seek for perfection. The subjects treated include the Mass, prayer, the use of time, the Blessed Virgin, the value of life. The simplicity and fervor with which the book is written cannot fail to impress the reader; at times, however, an over-charge of emotion mars the effectiveness of some of the chapters. Though written originally for the laity, religious will find the book helpful in appreciating the motives thatshould direct their lives. (New York: Frederick Pustet Co., 1949. Pp. xii + 236. $3.00.) The Church wants Catholics everywhere, even in mission areas, to study the history of the Church in their own locality. Up to now, the lack of a suitable textbook has been a hindrance to such study in the seminaries of the United States. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES, by Theodore Roemer, O.F.M.Cap., fills this need. At first sight, one would think the organization of the book most artificial, as each chapter covers a ten-year period. But the story r'eads with a sweep and without ever losing sight of the fact that Catholic history in the United States is just a tiny part of the larger story of the Church universal. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Com-pany, 1950. Pp. viii + 444. $5.00.) FAIR AS THE MOON, by Father M. Oliver, O.Cist.R., is intended to portray "the sweet humanity of our mother." The author makes Our Lady imitable in every respect: as child, as young maiden, as a real mother. He reveals the too often neglected human side of Mary in such a way that it inspires a truly warm, personal love, and com-plements reverential love. (Dublin: M. H. Gill U Son, 1949. Pp. xi q- 235. 12s. 6d.) 159 BOOK NOTICES Reoieto /:or Religious Another book on Our Lady is MARY THE BLESSED THE BE-LOVED, by Father Timothy Harris. It presents in a succinct and readily understandable way the Church's teaching on the Blessed Virgin. A thorough reading of this book will help the ordinary person to grasp the dogmatic foundations of devotion to Our Lady and to disl~inguish what is of faith from what is mere opinion. Each chapter refers to some definite feast or liturgical season. For this reason the book should be useful for special readings about Mary, as well as for sermons and conferences on the occasion of Mary's feasts. (Dublin: Clonmore ~ Reynolds, Ltd., 1949. Pp. 119. 7s. 6d.) Among the latest competent and well-documented volumes that describe the development of individual religious congregations of women are Sister Mary Borromeo Brown's HISTORY OF THE SISTERS OF PROVIDENCE OF ST. MARY-OF-THE-WOODS, Volume I (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1949. Pp. xiii + 826. $6.00), and two volumes on the history of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Monroe, Michigan, by Sister M. Rosalita: No GREATER SERVICE and ACHIEVEMENT OF A CENTURY (Detroit: Evans-Winter-Hebb, Inc., 1948. Pp. xx ÷ 863, and xiii + 299. $15.00 per set). Both congregations are responsible for part of the magnificent development of the Church around the Great Lakes region. All three volumes are decidedly readable and valuable addi-tions to the history of the Church in North America. Those interested in theology for the layman will welcome the publication of GOD AND THE WORLD OF MAN (Pp. viii ÷ 318), by Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., and THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES (Pp. xi -k 361), by Charles E. Sheedy, C.S.C. They are the first two volumes of the University of Notre Dame Press religion series. The first volume includes a chapter defining theology and explaining its sources and another chapter on the nature, obligation, rule, and subject matter of faith; and the remainder of the book is given to these tracts of theolbgy: The One God, The Holy Trinity, Creation, The Elevation and Fall, The End of the World'and of Man. The second volume contains the course on Christian morals that has been given to students at the University of Notre Dame during the past several years. It includes the moral theology treatises on Principles and Precepts. In general, both volumes seem excellent for their pur-pose and should make good texts for college and university classes, as well as for summer sessions in theology for Sisters. For the most part, both texts avoid disputed questions, and the treatise on moral 160 May, 1950 BOOK NOTICES " theology contains no "problems for discussion." There is much to be said for these methods, but they have disadvantages, too. Avoidance of disputed questions helps to avoid confusion, but it also tends to undermine confidence when the students later find out that there are different opinions. And the avoidance of the discussion prob-lems, besides keeping the book from becoming too large, also prevents an unwholesome "casuistic" attitude. However, without working problems the students will hardly learn moral theology; hence teachers will have to supply them. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University

Issue 16.6 of the Review for Religious, 1957. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious NOVEMBER 15, 1957 Current Spiritual Writing . Thomas G. O'Callaghan The Intellectual Life of Religious Sister Emily Joseph Survey of Roman Documents . R. I:. Smith Persevering in Prayer . Mother Marie Vandenbergh Book Reviews Communications Questions and Answers I:::or Your Information Index for 1957 VOLUME 16 NUMBER 6 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS \7o~,~.~E 16 NOVEMBER, 1957 NUMBER CONTENTS FOR YOUR INFORMATION . SOME BOOKS RECEIVED . OUR CONTRIBUTORS . CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING-- Thomas G. O'Callaghan, S.J . THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE RELIGIOUS: PRACTICAL ASPECTS--Sister Emily Joseph, c.s.J . FATHER GALLEN'S ABSENCE . BOUSCAREN-ELLIS . COMMUNICATIONS . SURVEY OF ROMAN DOCUMENTS--R. F. Smith, S.J . PERSEVERING IN PRAYER-- Mother Marie Vandenbergh, R.C . BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS: Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: 34. Simplification of the Habit . 35. Bibliography on Renovation and Adaptation . 36. Minimizing the Religious Exercises . 37. Anticipation of Perpetual Profession Not Permitted . 38. Using Personal Gifts for Masses . 39. Reciting the Formula of the Vows Collectively . INDEX FOR VOLUME 16 . 321 ¯323 323 324 337 341 341 342 343 350 366 375 377 378 379 ¯ 380 380 381 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, November, 1957. Vol. 16, No. 6. Published bi-monthly by The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Blvd., St. Louis 18, Mo. Edited by the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approval. Second class mail privilege authorized at St. Louis, Mo. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J.; Gerald Kelly, S.J., Henry Willmering, S.J. Literary Editor: Robert F. Weiss, S.J. Copyright, 1957, by The Queen's Work. Subscription price in U.S.A. and Canada: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U.S.A. Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to: Review for Religious, 3115 South Grand Boulevard. St. Louis 18o Missouri. I:or Your Inl:ormat:ion Regarding Summer Sessions For many years we have been publishing announcements of sum-mer sessions. Our purpose in doing this is to help our readers to know where they may attend courses or institutes of special per-tinence to religious. Directors and deans of summer sessions who wish to avail themselves of this service should carefully observe the following points: 1) Only courses of special pertinence to religious should be listed. 2) The announcement should be limited to a single paragraph. The length of this paragraph is irrelevant, provided it contains only matters of special pertinence to religious. 3) The paragraph should be triple-spaced and prepared in such a manner that it can be sent to the printer without re-typing or editing. 4) There should be a reasonable minimum of capital letters, and no words should be typed entirely in capital letters. 5) The dates of the summer sessions or institutes should be clearly specified. 6) The best time for publishing these announcements is our March number. The deadline for this number is January 5. The next best time is the May number. The deadline for this number is March I. Plus XII on Self-love We receive many articles that refer to self-love as something opposed to love of God and love of neighbor, as something that must be stifled at all costs. No doubt, similar statements can be found in the writings of saints and in classical spiritual books. The basic mistake in such writings seems to be an unjustifiable identifica-tion of self-love with selfishness, or inordinate self-love. According to sound theology, self-love itself is good and a matter of divine precept. This was emphatically taught by Pope Plus XII in his address to psychotherapists (April 13, 1953), when he said: "From certain psychological explanations, the thesis is formulated that the unconditional extroversion of the ego constitutes the funda-mental law of congenital altruism and of its dynamic tendencies. This 321 FOR YOUR INFORMATION Review for Religious is a logical, psychological, and ethical error. There exists in fact a defense, an esteem, a love, and a service of one's personal self which is not only justified but demanded by psychology and morality. Nature makes this plain, and it is also a lesson of the Christian Faith. Our Lord taught, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Christ, then, proposes as the rule of love of neighbor, charity towards onself, not the contrary." The Religious Habit In our January number (pp. 3-9), we published an article by Father Lee Teufel, S.J., which gave the results of a questionnaire on adapting the religious garb of sisters. Our May number (pp. 176-79) contained a lengthy communication from a sister, who criticized the attitude of those religious who had answered Father Teufel's ques-tionnaire. This sister also expressed the fear that seculars who read this article would be shocked. We have received four more communications on the same topic. All these communications are from sisters. Two defend Father Teufel and those who answered his questionnaire; and two defend the view expressed in the May communication. We should like to publish ali these letters, but we cannot do so for two reasons: (1) the communications are too long; and (2) the letters on both sides manifest too many misunderstandings of others' views and actions. Unless all write about the same thing, and do so briefly, there seems to be little use in continuing the discussion. Although we cannot publish the communications themselves, we believe we should mention, and comment on, some of the points brought out in them. One sister, for instance, protests that we showed poor taste in publishing Father Teufel's article--in fact, she thinks the Communists should feel happy about it. We leave it to others to judge our taste. It seems appropriate, however, to call attention to the fact that one of our purposes in founding this magazine was to have a medium through which religious could discuss their common problems. And since the change of garb advocated by the Holy See has many aspects that are common to numerous religious in-stitutes, we think this an appropriate topic for discussion in our pages and that those who take part in such a discussion are not showing any disloyalty to their own institutes. Perhaps the basic difficulty is really expressed in the other letter against Father Teufel's article, as well as in the communication 322 November, 1957 FOR YOUR INFORMATION published in May: namely, the fear that public discussion of this topic will disedify seculars. On this point, we should like to inform our readers that we try to limit the circulation of this periodical to religious and diocesan priests. We do not encourage other sub-scriptions, and we have very few of them. It is true that in some institutions the REVIEW is placed in the library where it is available to students and others. We are not responsible for this custom, and we should like to have it changed. SOME BOOKS RECEIVED [Only books sent directly to the Book Review Editor, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana, are included in our Reviews and Announcements. The following books were sent to St. Marys.] Lutero en EspaF~a yen la Am6~rica espahola. By Ricardo V. Feliu. Protestant Founders, 15 Whitehall Street, New York 4, New York. 90 pesetas (paper cover). Priestly and Religious Formation. By Edmund T. Dunne, C.SS.R. Clonmore and Reynolds Ltd., 29 Kildare Street, Dublin. 18/-. The Art of Teaching Christian Doctrine. By Johannes Hofinger, S.J. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana. $3.50. Ontologia. By Salvator Cuesta, S.J. Sal Terrae, Santander, Spain. 60 pesetas (paper cover~. People's Participation and Holy Week. Seventeenth North Ameri-can Liturgical Week, London, Canada, 1956. The Liturgical Confer-ence, Elsberry, Missouri. $2.08 (paper cover). The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria. By Walter J. Burghardt, S.J. The Catholic University of America Press, 620 Michigan Avenue, N.E., Washington 17, D. C. $3.00 (paper cover). Praelectiones theologicoomorales Comillenses. Tomus IV. Trac-tatus de conscientia morali. Pars altera. Theoria de conscientia morali reflexa. By Lucius Rodrigo, S.a!. Sal Terrae, Santander, Spain. L'Apostolat. Probl~mes de la Religieuse d'aujourd'hui. Les edi-tions du cerf, 29, Bld de Latour-Maubourg, Paris. Memento canonique sur le noviciat et al profession religieuse. By Dom Pierre Minard, O.S.B. Editions Fides, 25 est, rue Saint-Jacques, Montreal 1, Canada. $2.60 (paper cover). OUR CONTRIBUTORS THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN is professor of ascetical and mystical theology at Weston College, Weston 93, Massachusetts. SISTER EMILY JOSEPH is head of the classics department at the College of St. Rose, Albany 3, New York. R.F. SMITH is a member of the faculty of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. MOTHER MARIE VANDENBERGH is guest mistress at the Cenacle Retreat House, Route 1, Box 97-A, Rosharon, Texas. 323 Current Spiritual Writ:ing Thomas ~. O'Calhgh~n~ S.J. Sacred Heart ON THE OCCASION of the first centenary of the extension to the universal Church of the feast of the Sacred Heart, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical letter Haurietis aquas. The subject matter of this encyclical is devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, its scriptural and traditional foundation, its true meaning and place in the Church. The Holy Father assured us that this devotion is not only the most complete profession of the Chris-tian religion, but that it is also of obligation for all the faithful. Because of this importance of the devotion to the Heart of the Incarnate Word, there is a real need for a clear understanding of its true meaning. To read, reread, and study carefully Haurietis aquas itself is of primary importance. It might be mentioned here that in re.ading it one of the points to be observed is the constant emphasis which the Holy Father places on the triple love which the Incarnate Word has for each of us. He loves us with a divine love, with a human spiritual love, and also--perhaps this has never been stressed so much before-- with a human sensible love. The adorable Heart of Christ is the symbol of this triple love. As a help to the study of this encyclical some of the follow-ing articles, which comment on Haurietis aquas, could be read: M. J. Donnelly, s.J., "Haurietis aquas and Devotion to the Sacred Heart," Theological Studies, XVIII ( 1957), 17-40; P. J. Hamell, "Devotion to the Sacred Heart: Encyclical Haurietis Aquas," The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, LXXXVI (1956), 217- 241; G. Dupont, S.J., "Pius XII on the Cult of the Sacred Heart," The Clergy Monthly, XX (1956), 248-260, and also "The Cult of the Sacred Heart," The Clergy Monthly, XXI (1957), 161-171; C. K. Riepe, "Some Thoughts on Devotion to the Sacred Heart," Worship, XXXI (1957), 328-333; F. 324 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING Courtney, S.J., "Devotion to the Sacred Heart," The Clergy Review, XLII (1957), 332-342. The best and most scholarly of these articles is that of Father Donnelly. Two quotations from his article might be of interest. First, his statement of the purpose of the encyclical: "To elucidate the soul's journey back to God through the Sacred Heart, the heart of flesh, symbol of Christ's human (sensible and spiritual) love and of His divine love, and to show that such a path to God is deeply rooted in Scripture, tradition, and the liturgy of the Church--this is the purpose of the encyclical letter Haurietis aquas" (p. 39). The other quotation which we would like to cite from Father Donnelly is a commentary which he makes upon the following words of Haurietis aquas: Therefore the Heart of our Savior in a way expresses the image of the Divine Person of the Word and His two-fold nature, human and divine. In it we can contemplate not only the symbol, but also, as it were, the sum of the whole mystery of our redemption. When we adore the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, we adore in it and through it both the uncreated love of the Divine Word and His human love and other affections and virtues, because both loves moved our. Redeemer to sacrifice Himself for us and for the whole Church, His Spouse (N.C.W.C. translation). Commenting on this passage, Father Donnelly writes: . . this passage sets forth the whole theology of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, because any reader will at once see therein the following teaching. (1) There is question of the physical heart of the Savior. (2} This heart is in a certain sense an image of the Person of the Word and also of His twofold nature, human and divine. (3) We can see in this physical heart, not only a symbol, but, as it were, the epitome of the whole mystery of our Redemption. (4) We adore this physical heart. (5} In the very act of adoring the physical heart, we adore in and through this same physical heart (a) the uncreated love of the divine Word, (b) His human love (sensible and spiritual), and (c) all the other affections and virtues which the Incarnate Word possesses. (6) The reason for this is that His divine and human love alike moved Him to sacrifice Himself for us and the universal Church, His Spouse, that we might be redeemed from our sins. In the light of this passage, it is clear why the Holy Father calls the devotion the most perfect profession of the Christian religion (pp. 30-31). 325 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review fo~ Religious The Saints Gregory tells us in his Book of Dialogues that a certain nun, on going into .the garden, saw a head of lettuce and desired it; and, forgetting to make the sign of the cross over it she greedily bit into it; but forthwith she fell to the ground possessed by a devil. When the blessed Equitius came to exorcize her, the devil began to cry out, saying, "What did I do? What did I do? I was just sitting here on the lettuce, and she came and bit me!''1 This is one of those humorous anecdotes which during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance delighted the readers of the Golden Legend. This book is a collection of saints' lives, compiled during the latter half of the thirteenth century by the learned and saintly Dominican, Jacobus de Voragine. In the article from which we have cited the anecdote above--an article which makes for pleasant reading--William F. Manning points out that the distinguished Dominican hagiographer was not a simple and gullible soul. He was well aware that these accounts of the saints were a blend of fact, fiction, and humor. What Jacobus de Voragine was primarily concerned with was not the historical truth of these stories; he was much more interested in using them as examples--they were known as exempla during the Middle Ages--to illustrate pleasantly some moral or spiritual principle. His goal was not objective history, but to foster among the faithful a fervent love of, and devotion to, the saints and God. Considering the extraordinary influence which the Golden Legend has had in the history of spirituality, his work was a complete success. But books like the Golden Legend make the life of a modern hagiographer a very troubled one. In addition to the ordinary difficulties which any historian or biographer meets, the hagiographer has a few special ones of his own. These are discussed by Lancelot C. Sheppard in "Some Problems of a Hagiographer.'' If the biography of a saint is to be a true 1This quotation from the Golden Legend is cited by William F. Manning, "Humor in the Golden Legend," Cross and Cro,wn, IX (1957), 168. 2 The Li/e of the 8pirit, XI, 454-461. 326 November, 1957 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING and living portrait, the first problem of a hagiographer is to remember that he is "dealing with a man or woman in the world" (p. 456), and thus he has to pay attention to the ordin-ary things of everyday life. Otherwise he will be presenting "an unnatural wooden figure of his saint . . . no example or help to the ordinary reader, but . . . a hindrance to the develop-ment of the Christian life in the souls of many" (p. 457). Another problem is that which is occasioned by the miracu-lous events which at times take place in the lives of the saints. If something miraculous occurs in the life of a saint, it should be historically verified, and then it should be treated as a miracle, and not as a normal and everyday occurrence. Closely allied to the question of miracles is that of those other extraordinary phenomena--stigmata, etc.--which sometimes occur. Since some of these phenomena can be explained at times by natural causes, a hagiographer should be very hesitant in assigning to them a divine cause. Some of these observations of Sheppard are very just, but I am sure that he would readily admit that these prob-lems are much more easily mentioned than solved. In the same issue of The Life of the Spirit there is an interesting article by Donald Attwater on the martyrs of the early Church.3 In the Christian Church the cultus of the saints began with the veneration of these early martyrs. In fact, one of the first definitions of sanctity was based on the idea of martyrdom: the perfect imitation of Christ even to the sacrifice of one's life; or, as Attwater says, a man is "never so Christlike as when he wil!ingly goes to death for his Saviour . . ." (p. 441). This article is a series of short sketches of some of the early saints and martyrs--th'ose who suffered in the early persecutions, up to 313, and whose accounts are based on reliable documenta-tion: Ignatius ot: Antioch, Polycarp, Justin, Blandina, Cyprian, Perpetua, Felicity, etc. Although these sketches are most brief, "They are enough to show these martyrs as men and women, "The Early Martyrs," pp. 441-454. 327 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious not as puppets . . ." (p. 451). Indeed, they were men and women whose lives were centered, in a simple yet firm way, or~ God and Jesus Christ. They were ~fully conscious of being ~a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a consecrated nation,' a society of which, in the words of St. Augustine, ~the king is Truth, the law is love and the duration is Eternity' " (p. 453). Why did Bruno of Hartenfaust leave the world and found the Carthusians? It was once piously believed that his decision, was occasioned by an event which took place during the funeral of a certain Canon Docr~s in Paris. The canon's only known failing was a worldly desire for literary fame, and yet he seems to have been damned for it. According to the legend, three times during the funeral the canon raised himself up; first, to announce that he had been accused; then, judged; and, finally, that he had been condemned to eternal damnation. Supposedly witnessing this, Bruno decided that the world was no place for him; so off: to the deserts of the Grande Chartreuse. All this is pious legend. The real reason and motive why Bruno sought the hidden life of solitude and rooted his order in contempt of the world is explained in a fine article by Dr. Borisz de Balla, a former Hungarian diplomat and at present an associate professor of history at Le Moyne College) Since the spirit of silent solitude with which the Carthusians have moved through the last nine centuries has kept them well hidden, an article such as this is most welcome. For in it Dr. de Balla uncovers the historical and psychological background of Bruno's vocation and clarifies the Carthusians' contempt for the world, which is merely a negative way of expressing their fervent love of God. The life of St. Thomas Aquinas was dedicated in an extra-ordinary degree to intellectual work. Since this was a most substantial part of his life, it must have been very closely linked with his sanctity. What was the connection between these two? In 4'~Contempt of the World," Cross and Crop, n, IX (1957), I1-23. 328 November, 1957 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING a very penetrating article Father Thomas Deman, O.P., shows how closely St. Thomas's knowledge was tied to his sanctity.~ The connection between the Angelic Doctor's knowledge and sanctity is not merely that he studied with a pure intention, nor merely that his intellectual activity demanded great abnega-tion. These things manifest more the link between effort and sanctity rather than between knowledge and sanctity. The far more interesting problem is in establishing the relation between these latter two, for in the connection of these two, according to Father Deman, "lies the ultimate secret of St. Thomas' sanctity" (p. 404). To summarize Father Deman's solution to this prob-lem would be to do it an injustice; but to recommend the study of it, especially to seminarians and theologians, would be far from unjust. F~nelon, onetime archbishop of Cambrai, although not a saint, was certainly an outstanding personality. Derek Stanford gives us in a two-part article a general overall view of his life, doctrine, writing, and great appeal.6 Even those who met him through his written word were charmed by him. " 'If F~nelon were alive today you would be a Catholic,' Bernadin de St. Pierre once wagered Rousseau. 'Oh, if F~nelon were alive,' Rousseau replied,, his eyes moist with tears, 'I should try to become his lackey in order to deserve to be his valet' " (p. 15). Perhaps the part of F~nelon's life which was most im-portant in the history of spirituality, and best known for that reason, is his rather bitter dispute with Bossuet, his former friend and bishop of Meaux, over the quietistic doctrine of Mme. Guyon. This was settled only by a papal brief from Pope Innocent XII condemning twenty-three propositions taken from Fenelon's Maxims of the Saints. To this condemnation he com-pletely and humbly submitted. Stanford's articles are a fine summary of the life of this man who was a cultured scholar, distinguished prelate, and grand seigneur. 5"'Knowledge and Holiness and St. Thomas Aquinas," The Life of the Spirit, XI, 394-406. 6"A Word for F~nelon," The Cler#y Relieve, XLII (1957), 14-25, 76-84. 329 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious Sin One of the basic needs in the spiritual life is to acquire a sincere detestation of sin, a real hatred of the evil which sin is. But what is sin? The Catholic faith has always considered sin as an offense against God. But what does it mean to offend God? Obviously sin cannot harm God himself; it cannot touch God or injure Him. The harm which is done by sin is done to man, not to God. Yet, how is this an offense against God? Father DeLetter, s.J., suggests a solution to this problem, a solution which in its full explanation depends upon the philo-sophical doctrine of relation.~ He writes: ¯ . . the sinner . . . by rejecting God's love, rejects the gift of that love, sanctifying grace. Accordingly, in this case, because of the relative character of grace . . . it is easy to see how the "malum hominis," loss of sanctifying grace, is at once "malum Dei," offence against God . The wilful destruction on the part of man of God's gift of grace is an offence against God . . . because grace is a relation to God, unites man to God; and so by refusing or rejecting grace man refuses or rejects God, to whom grace orientates and unites him (p. 338). It is basically this same problem which Father Lyonnet, S.J., tries to solve by studying the nature of sin in the Old Testament) Judging from the words used in the Old Testa-ment to designate sin, sin is not only an evil of man, malum horninis, but also malum Dei, insofar as it is against God, in opposition to God. "The sinner despises and contemns the commands of God, and therefore in some true sense God Him-self" (p. 78; translation ours). But going beyond the words used to designate sin and con-sidering sin in the whole context of the Old Testament, Father Lyonnet points out various ways of looking at sin as an offense against God. Sin offends God insofar as it harms man whom God loves and desires to protect as His very own. Sin is also 7"Offense against God," The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, LXXXVII (1957), 329-342. S"De natura peccati quid doceat V. T.," l~erburn Dornini, XXXV (1957), 75-88. 330 November, 1957 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING described as an offense against God insofar as it breaks the bond of conjugal love between God and His people, His beloved spouse. Thus sin is likened to adultery, God being the offended spouse. (Based upon this idea, God is portrayed in the Old Testament as a husband who cannot live without his beloved spouse; and, even though she is unfaithful, he pursues her with his merciful and forgiving love until she returns to him.) But in any understanding of sin the divine transcendence must always be preserved; sin never takes from God anything divine. But it does snatch away from Him man, whom God loves as the very apple of His eye. The Liturgy Those who are actively engaged in pastoral work in a parish will find food for serious reflection in an article written by Father Josef Jungmann, s.J., one of the world's most outstanding schol-ars of the liturgy.'~ The main theme of his article may be stated in his own words: "In the concrete community of the Church, which normally appears in the form of the parish, the liturgy does not represent merely one set of tasks, however holy, among many others. The Sunday and holy day Eucharist constitutes nothing less than the goal and ultimate meaning of all pastoral work here on earth" (p. 67). There is a fine article in The Life of the Spirit on the active participation of the faithful in the sacrifice of the Mass.1° The primary purpose of the article is to explain why the people should be active at Mass. The answer to this is based upon the proper understanding of the nature of the Mass and the nature of the Christian people. The nature of the Mass is that, being the principal act of the Mystical Body, it is a social, community act, in which all the faithful have their part. As regards the Christian people, by baptism they were made members of the Mystical Body of Christ the Priest; and by the character im- '°"The Liturgy and the Parish," l#ors/~ila, XXXI (1957), 62-67. 10j. D. Crichton, "The Mass and the People," The Life of t/~e 8~irit, XI, 548-560. 331 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religiou.~ printed on their soul at baptism they share in the priesthood of their Head. These ideas are developed in the first part of this article, while a second part suggests ways of educating the faith-ful to take an active part in both the dialogue and high Mass. When Christ at the Last Supper said, ~This is My blood of the new covenant, which is being shed for many," what would the apostles understand by the words blood of the new covenant? Father Siegman, C.PP.S., the editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, discusses this question and in so doing offers a few points which might be helpful in understanding better the Sacrifice of the Mass.11 He shows that the words blood of the covenant, spoken by our Lord at the Last Supper, ~'must have suggested to the Apostles the sacrificial character of the rite that Jesus was performing. Blood that was shed had to be offered to God in sacrifice, as acknowledgment of His absolute dominion" (pp. 171-172), and also as an atonement for sin. Further, the apostles must have understood that the covenant, the pact be-tween God and His people, was now fulfilled. ~What Jahweh had done on Mt. Sinai was a beginning, a first aspect of the perfect covenant-act to be realized in the future" (p. 172), when this covenant would be ratified not by '~the blood of goats and calves," but by the blood of Christ (Heb. 9:12). Finally, this fulfilled covenant would have meant "community of life"(p. 172), Christ the victim sharing His life with His apostles. A few months ago there was published in Worship the translation of an address which Father Athanasius Miller, O.S.B., secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, gave last De-cember at the Biblical Institute in Rome.l~ His concern in the paper was to discuss the problem "whether or not a harmony can be established between the psalms on the one hand, and a Christian prayer and a Christian devotion to the psalms on the other" (p. 334). Since the book of the Psalms is pre-Christian, H"The Blood of the Covenant," 7"he American Ecclesiastical Re,view, CXXXVI (1957), 167-174. 1'-, "The Psalms from a Christian Viewpoint," l'Forship, XXXI (1957), 334-345. 332 November, 1957 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING many priests or religious, whether in reading the Office or in using the Psalter for private prayer, have difficulty in giving the psalms a Christian character and interpretation. Their devotion suffers in attempting to make an Old Law prayerbook into a Christian prayerbook. Father Miller's answer to this problem may be summed up in his own words: Thus the psalter is for the Church of the martyrs a Christ-book. Its songs center around the Kyrios raised on the cross, whether she speaks of Him, or to Him, or He Himself speaks to the Father: "The psalm is a voice speaking of Christ; the psalm is the voice of the Church speaking to Christ; the psalm is the voice of Christ speaking to the Father." It was left to the ingenious hand of Augustine later to combine all these aspects into one: "The psalm is the voice of the whole Christ, Head and body": Psalmus vox totius Christi, capitis et corl~oris (p. 340). In an address, given May 1, 1955, to members of the Chris-tian Association of Italian Workers, the Holy Father instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker and he assigned it to the first day of May. This new feast took the place of the Solemnity of St. Joseph. In this exchange, however, nothing was really lost; in fact, much was gained. In order to show this, Father Francis J. Filas, S.J., an authority on the theology of St. Joseph, examines and comments very simply and intelligently on the text of the Mass and Office of the new feast.1:~ Of particular interest are the few remarks which he makes about "father Joseph" (p. 296). This com-mentary on the Mass and Office of St. Joseph could be used ior "points" for prayer by those who desire to "Go to Joseph." "In the providence of God, for the greater glory of God, to know Jesus and Mary better and to imitate St. Joseph more closely, may this new feast of St. Joseph the Worker be a promise of even greater liturgical honors to come" (p. 303). 13,'The Mass and Office of St. Joseph the Worker," The /lmerican Ecclesi-astical Re~ie~, CXXXVI, (1957), 289-303. 333 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review fo~ Religious Priestly and Religious Vocation What is a vocation? How do I know if I have a vocation? The answer to these questions is given by Father Columba Ryan, O.P., in three helpful articles.14 A good part of the matter of these articles is a commentary on the important apostolic con-stitution Sedes Sap¯len¯tla15e. The Holy Father had written in this document: ". the divine vocation . . . consists of two essential elements, one divine and the other ecclesiastical." Father Ryan uses these words of the Pope both as a point of departure and also as a suggested division of the matter of his articles. The first article considers the divine element, the divine call, but looked at from the side of God, as God's signified will. The second article examines this same divine call, but insofar as it is a grace received in a man's soul. The final article treats the ecclesiastical element of a divine vocation, the ecclesiastical call, and that which is closely associated with it, the necessary qualities which ought to be found in the aspirant. In regard to the first element of a divine vocation, the invitation of the soul by God, this is so necessary that without it the foundation of the whole structure will be lacking. Whether it be a call to the priestly life, or the religious life, or both combined, the initiative must come from God; without it there is no vocation. Because of this Father Ryan reiterates and comments upon the strong warning of the Holy Father about forcing or alluring or admitting to the religious or priestly life those who do not show the true signs of a divine vocation. But if these signs are clear, if God's loving will for a man is that he be a priest or a religious, there arises a problem: What is the obligation of following this signified will of God? There is some obligation, says Father Ryan, but this obligation falls not so much upon the acceptance or rejection ot? the voca- 14Vocations and Their Recognition," The Life of the Spirit, XI, 217-223, 258-263, 517-527. 15 The English translation of this document may be found in gEVlEW FOg LIGIOUS, March, 1957, 88-101. 334 November, 1957 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING tion as "upon the deliberations preceding . . . [the] decision . . an obligation in the line of the virtue of prudence" (p. 223). Let us observe that one should be careful about insisting upon this obligation with the young, since they could easily confuse what is of counsel and what is of obligation in this matter. In the second article Father Ryan takes up the problem of how we may know whether there is present in the soul the grace of a vocation. The most we can do is to "detect it by signs of its presence, by the outward effects which it produces" (p. 259). The signs which he indicates are: a conscious and felt attraction to religious or priestly life; an obscure drawing towards it, perhaps with a sense of duty attached, but without attraction; such a drawing, accompanied by positive repug-nance for the life in question; a calculation, from the recognition that a man may have from his whole providential setting, that he ought to follow such and such a life; the sense of the emptiness for him of any other life (p. 259). These signs are not a proof of a vocation; in fact, they are often counterfeited. Many of the observations which the author makes about these signs, their counterfeits, and the faulty motives behind the latter, are well worth careful study by those who are engaged in the work of vocational directing. Besides the divine call there must also be, in order to have a divine vocation, the ecclesiastical call, that is, being called by lawful ministers of the Church. No person with a genuinely divine vocation can fail to be received by legitimate superiors. This does not mean that every first refusal of ecclesiastical superiors proves the lack of a true vocation. But it does mean that against the refusal of a superior there can be "no ultimate appeal to some subjectively experienced call of God as a con-clusive proof" (p. 519) of a divine vocation. An ecclesiastical superior must determine whether a can-didate possesses the necessary qualities. What are these? Father Ryan classifies them under three headings: "first, qualities of health, physical and mental; secondly, general character and dis- 335 THOMAS G. 0'CALLAGHAN position; thirdly, talents appropriate to the special vocation undertaken" (p. 521). In commenting upon these Father Ryan makes some very solid observations about emotional maturity, general strength of character, intelligence, docility, and affability. These articles will well repay careful study. The question of fostering vocations, a very important ques-tion these days because of the growing need of priests and religious, is discussed by Father Baier.1' In the fostering of vocations, one point which is to be carefully noted is that which Pope Pius XI mentioned in Ad Catholici Sacerdotii. In the ordinary course of divine providence, he remarked in this encyclical, the %rst and most natural place" where the God-sown seeds of vocation "grow and bloom remains always the truly and deeply Christian family." Another point which Father Baier mentions is that young Catholics do not understand the real meaning and excellence of the religious life. Too much attention is given to the "externals." '~If we want more vocations, we must tell young people about the 'inside' story of God's call. Only the inner meaning and the full significance of a vocation can inspire the qualities of enthusiasm, self-sacrifice and heroism for Christ" (p. 3:23). l°"Toward More Vocations," The llomiletic and Pastoral Revie.w, LVII (1957), 320-324. 336 The Int:elled:ual Li e ot: t:he Religious: Prad:ical Aspect:s Sister Emily Joseph, C.S.J. THAT THIS ARTICLE may have a practical aspect in substance as well as in name, I have presumed to borrow heavily from a source that has directed the intellectual progress of many scholars. The advice here presented comes from a man who was the outstanding humanist of his day; a man of letters as well as of action who figured prominently in the political, ecclesiastical, and diplomatic affairs of his times; a man whose profound learning, both religious and secular, lent a brilliance and charm to his spoken and written word. This man was the twelfth-century scholar, John of Salisbury, secretary of St. Thomas of Canterbury, author, poet, ecclesiastic, diplomat, and an intellectual of the first order. Among John's writings we find an account of certain at-titudes prevalent in the educational circles of his day--a day which, we note with a smile, John calls these "modern times." He deplores the tendency to specialization, the immoderate tribute paid to cleverness, and the influence of a segment of educators who would over-emphasize the "practical" at the expense of the humanistic studies. Then, paying tribute to his revered old teacher, Bernard of Chartres, John quotes the pair of fluid Latin hexameters in which Bernard neatly packaged his recom-mendations for scholars-to-be. John himself called these the "Six Keys to True Learning." As a practical aspect of the intellectual life of the religious, I give you John's six keys) First: mens humilis--a humble mind. Recently I came upon this definition of humility in an article entitled "Vocation of the Intellectual; Its Requisites and Rewards.''~' "Humility is a per- 1 All references to John of Salisbury are from his Policraticus, VII, 13 (ed. C. J. Webb). Z Whalen, Reverend John P., "Vocation of the Intellectual; Its Requisites and Rewards," The Catholic Educational Re~ie~, LII (Dec. 1954), 597-601. 337 SISTER EMILY JOSEPH Review for Religious sonal evaluation without personal interest . It is observing ourselves as part of the creation of God with an unjaundiced eye, neither allowing our egoism to exaggerate our vision nor our insecurity to underestimate it." Such an attitude is funda-mental, not only for the acquisition of the moral virtues but for the intellectual ones as well. It is the guarantee of an objective approach to the search for knowledge; it precludes an interpreta-tion of research findings which accords with one'~ own prejudices or inclinations rather than with the objective evidence. Above all, it is a safeguard against one of the most pernicious spiritual ills to which man is subject--intellectual pride. The second key: studium quaerendi--the eager, questing spirit. The phrase carries a twofold implication: first, a steady, zealous, self-sacrificing devotion to the research entailed by scho-larship; secondly, it betokens the inquiring outlook which is the hallmark of a scholar. It implies, too, the proper attitude toward the intellectual life. With regret, we acknowledge that this attitude, latent in everyone who has consecrated his or her life to incarnate Wisdom, fails, in many cases, to develop and in-fluence the religious. Some hold intellectual efforts and attain-ments suspect. By their attitude of aloofness they try to cloak their own apathy where research is concerned. Others contend that the present need of the Church calls for concentration on a vigorous social apostolate. Still others avow their respect for intellectual activity but modestly place themselves outside its periphery. That all might acquire a correct attitude toward the importance, both for time and eternity, of personal intellectual growth we would strongly recommend two classic works: Cardinal Newman's Idea of a University and Cardinal Suhard's peerless pastoral letter, Groi~lh or Decline? The third key which John recommends is vita quieta--a life of tranquillity. John's own life as a scholar was interrupted by ecclesiastical responsibilities which plunged him into incessant activity. He crossed the continent of Europe ten t:.mes on diplo-matic missions and such extensive traveling in the twelfth century 338 November, ~957 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF RELIGIOUS was only at the cost of much time and considerable inconvenience. Such a life is not compatible with the atmosphere that the scholar needs. His must be a well-ordered life---a life of dedication to intellectual pursuits. His energies must be concentrated upon this one end, not dissipated upon a multiplicity of activities, how-ever worthy each in itself may be. From his life all non-essentials must be (often painfully) pruned. One in whom secular tastes and worldly attitudes develop and foster a craving for recreation, for indulgence in entertainment provided by radio, television, or light reading, for needless travel and social contacts will find neither the inclination nor the time for intellectual growth. In a recent article in the NGEH Bulletin, Father Gustave Weigel, s.J., underlines the special responsibility of the college faculty, which he calls the "soul of the collegiate community," to foster the intellectual life. Exploring the meaning of the term, "intellectual life," Father Weigel contends that it is a life of contemplation. "The true intellectual," he says, "always seeks for essences and essences are not obvious . Hence the practi-tioner of the intellectual life is a contemplative." He maintains that "the intellectual life is the very essence of the college" and that contemplation is the essence of the intellectual life; and he intimates that there are dangerous attitudes, social and economic forces, that make incursions upon and destroy the vita quieta that is a sine qua non of scholarly pursuits? Closely allied to this third key is the fourth--scrutinium taciturn--a study room where silence reigns. Just as the silence of the chapel is most conducive to contempletion of God and His attributes, so for the scholar's contemplation there must be freedom from distractions, prolonged periods for undisturbed thinking. Here is a problem which superiors should acknowledge and try to solve. The religious whose teaching assignments, ex-tracurricular responsibilities, and community obligations exhaust 3 Weigel, Gustave, S.J., "Enriching the Intellectual Life of the Catholic Col-lege," NCE/I Bulletin, LII (May 1956), 7-21. 339 SISTER EMILY JOSEPH Review for Religious his or her physical powers and necessitate constant contact with students, institutional personnel, and externs cannot be expected to develop the intellectual life, regardless of personal inclination and intellectual endowment. Paupertas--poverty--is the fifth key in John's list. Our vocation, then, in which we are privileged to bind ourselves by vow to a life of poverty, ought to insure us this key without further worry. But does it? In the pursuit of higher education what is the end in view for the majority of religious who flock in such numbers to the universities? Is their goal those spiritual entities, knowledge and truth, toward which, like a shining beacon, they are willing to press on resolutely in spite of summer heat and winter snow, demanding professors and elusive research articles, frustrating language barriers and disappointing lab ex-periments? Or does a motive which is, at least in part, pragmatic and materialistic, namely, the determination to acquire a degree and thus satisfy certain educational standards and demands, com-mit them to a temporary and half-hearted educational episode which they dispatch with a minimum of research and a maximum of compensating recreation? All will acknowledge that the poverty of a monk or nun differs from the poverty of a derelict in the slums. How does the poverty of a scholar differ from the poverty of a religious? Or does it? Was John of Salisbury implying that this fifth key imposes upon the scholar a form of discipline and a degree of detachment that is unique and un-paralleled, which demands renunciations over and above those required by the vow of poverty? The last of John's six keys s~iows his penetrating wisdom: terra aliena. We might presume to interpret it rather freely to mean: ~Get away from home base." One of the most practical aspects of this question of intellectual growth is that of time. It is one of the limitations imposed upon us by our mortal state. Certain legitimate demands upon our time are inextricably associated with our observance of community life. Charity obliges even where temporary dispensations exempt. Religious 340 November, 1957 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF RELIGIOUS superiors, then, should take this into consideration and, to the extent possible, assign students to graduate studies in universities where they will reside away from home. Financial and other practical considerations may render this difficult. Still, anyone who has attempted scholarly study or writing will insist that this sixth key is oi~ prime importance. These, then, are the six golden keys which John of Salis-bury left us nearly eight hundred years ago. I repeat them, as they are found in the seventh chapter of his work entitled Policraticus." ~Iens kurnilis, studiurn quaerendi, ~dta quieta, Scrutiniurn taciturn, paupertas, terra aliena. I rather suspect that, were John listening to me, he would repeat what he said, referring to Bernard's hexameters: "Though I am not taken by the smoothness of the meter, I approve the sense and I believe it should be faithfully impressed on the minds of those seeking true learning." FATHER GALLEN~S ABSENCE Father Gallen, who answers questions for the REVIEW, has been in Europe for several months; and we are not sure when he will return. This is the reason why answers to questions have been delayed. Since we have no other canonist on our staff, we suggest that those who have canonical problems requiring prompt answers send their questions to a canonist of their own diocese. BOUSCAREN-ELLIS It is a little more than ten years since Fathers T. Lincoln Bous-caren, S.J., and Adam C. Ellis, S.J., first published their Canon Law: A Text and Commentary. The third edition completely revised is now available. This edition incorporates papal decrees and decisions issued since 1951 and adds current literature to the bibliography fol-lowing each chapter. It includes new material on the alienation of property and on secular institutes. Father Ellis, it will be remembered, was one of the founders of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS and was one of the active members of the editorial board until very recently. The book is published by the Bruce Publishing Company, 400 North Broadway, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin. 980 pages. $10.50. 341 Com rnun icat:ions On Delayed Vocations Reverend Fathers: In accordance with the announcement in the May number of gEWEW FOg RELIGIOUS (p. 154), we are happy to send you the fol-lowing information. We are Dominican Sisters established for foreign mission work and for social and catechetical work in the United States. We are at present approved as a Pious Union by Cardinal Stritch. Our habit is the regular Dominican habit. We accept candidates between the ages of 20 and 40. We do accept widows or previously married women whose marriage was annulled or invalid, if they give signs of a true vocation. Mother M. Agatha, O.P. Missionary Servants of St. Dominic Rosary Mission House 656 West 44th Street Chicago 9, Illinois Reverend Fathers: In response to your note on Delayed Vocations, we wish to say that we would consider accepting the classes of persons mentioned in the announcement. Ours is a cloistered order. We have perpetual adoration. We accept candidates up to the age of 35, and even a little older if their health is good. If the spiritual directors who seek this information have possible candidates on the waiting list we would be glad to make their acquaintance. Mother Mary Edwina Franciscan Nuns of the Most Blessed Sacrament 2311 Timlin Hill Portsmouth, Ohio [EDITORS' NOTE: Regarding communications on the religious habit please see page 322.] 342 Survey.of Roman Document:s R. F. Smit:h, S.J. THE DOCUMENTS which appeared in the ~lcta ~lpos-tolicae Sedis (AAS) from June 1, 1957, to August 15, 1957, will be the subject matter of the present article. Page references to AAS in the course of the survey will accordingly refer to the 1957 AAS (volume 49). The Saints On May 16, 1957 (AAS, pp. 321-31), two days after the Pope had received in audience the recently liberated Car-dinal Wyszynski, His Holiness issued the encyclical, Invicti athletae Christi, in commemoration of the three hundreth anniversary of the death of the Polish martyr, St. Andrew Bobola. In the first section of the encyclical, Pius XII briefly sketches the life of the martyr. Born in 1591, Andrew entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 19. The future saint gave himself wholeheartedly to the conquest of Christian perfection, seeking only the glory of God. After his ordination to the priesthood, his life was devoted to the faith he professed. It was this love of his faith that led him to work in the eastern marches of his country where dissident churches strove to separate the faithful from the unity of the true Church. When the Cossack persecution of the Church broke out, it was this same love of the faith that prompted him to do everything in his power to keep Catholics from denying their faith and to reconcile those who under pressure of the persecutors had deserted their faith. It was, finally, the ~ame love of the faith that enkindled in him the courage to endure the fright-ful martyrdom which the Cossacks inflicted on him on the feast of the Ascension, May 16, 1657. In the second part of the encyclical, the Vicar of Christ urges the faithful to imitate in their own lives the faith and 343 R. F. SMITH Review for Religiou~ courage of Bobola. The need for similar faith, he notes, is especially great today, for materialism continues to grow and to seduce men by the mirage of an earthly happiness without God. No less necessary today is the courage of St. Andrew. Every Christian life must have something of the martyr in it; for a Christian gives testimony to his faith not only by shedding his blood for it, but also by a constant war against sin and by a complete consecration of himself and all he has to Him who is his Creator and Redeemer and who someday will be his eternal joy. The Holy Father concludes the encyclical with a special plea to the Polish nation that they of all men may imitate the faith and courage of their sainted compatriot so that Poland, today as yesterday, may be a rampart of Christianity. Three documents concern Mother Mary of Providence (1825-71), foundress of the Helpers of the Holy Souls. The first of these was a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites which was dated April 21, 1957 (AAS, pp. 374-76), and which stated that the beatification of the Venerable Servant of God could safely be proceeded with. On May 26, 1957 (AAS, pp. 339-44), Pius XII proclaimed her beatification and the day after (AAS, pp. 361-64) addressed a group of the Helpers of the Holy Souls who had come to Rome for the beatification of their foundress. In his allocution to them the Pontiff stressed the Blessed's devotion to Providence which led her to repay Provi-dence by rescuing souls from purgatory and by devoting herself to an active and universa! apostolate. The last document concerning the saints is a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, issued on April 9, 1957 (AAS, pp. 424-25}, and ordering that henceforth a determined part of the consultors of the congregation shall have consultative vote with regard to the official scrutiny of the writings of persons whose causes of beatification are introduced. The Eucharist Three documents of the period surveyed are concerned with the Eucharist. On May 19, 1957 (AAS, pp. 364-68), His 344 November', 1957 ROMAN DOCUMENTS Holiness broadcast a message to the Eucharistic Congress of Spain, which was being held at Granada, telling the faithful assembled there that in the Eucharist is to be found the same Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life for all men. He also reminded them that in the Eucharist there is the highest manifestation of that greatest of all truths: God is love. On May 23, 1957 (AAS, p. 370), the Holy Office an-swered the following question with regard to the concelebration of Mass: Do several priests validly concelebrate Mass if only one of them utters the words "This is My Body" and "This is My Blood" over the bread and wine, while the rest do not pronounce the words, but, with the knowledge and the consent of the aforesaid celebrant, have and manifest the intention of making their own the words and actions of the same celebrant? The Holy Office answered the question in the negative, since, as it said, by the institution of Christ only he validly celebrates who pronounces the consecrating words. The Sacred Congregation of Rites issued a decree on June 1, 1957 (AAS, pp. 425-26), dealing with the tabernacle and the manner of conserving the Holy Eucharist. The decree states that the pertinent norms of canon law (canons 1268-69) should be carefully observed. Moreover, the tabernacle is to be so fixed to the altar that it is irremovable. Ordinarily the taber-nacles should be affixed to the main altar, unless in certain cir-cumstances the veneration of the Eucharist can be provided for better elsewhere. Such circumstances are ordinarily found in cathedral, collegiate, and conventual churches where choir func-tions are exercised. Similar extraordinary circumstances can sometimes be found, the decree continues, in larger devotional centers where, because of popular devotion to some venerated object, the veneration due the Blessed Sacrament might be over-shadowed. The decree goes on to state that Mass should be habitually celebrated at the altar where the Blessed Sacrament is kept; and, 345 R. F. SMITH Review .for Religious in churches where there is only one altar, this should not be so constructed that the priest celebrates Mass facing the people, for in the middle of such an altar there should be placed a tabernacle for keeping the Blessed Sacrament. The tabernacle should be strong and secure so that all danger of profanation is avoided. When the Blessed Sacrament is in it, the tabernacle should be covered with a veil and a light should always burn in front of it. The tabernacle should con-form to the style of the altar and the church and should not differ too much from the style of tabernacles already in use. The tabernacle should represent a true dwelling-place of God with men and should not be adorned with unusual or misleading symbols. Finally, the Sacred Congregation notes that tabernacles that are off and apart from altars are strictly forbidden. More-over, with regard to the way of keeping the Blessed Sacrament or with regard to the form of the tabernacle, there is no presump-tion in favor of contrary customs, unless the custom is centenary or immemorial. Social Questions Speaking on May 3, 1957 (AAS, pp. 351-55), to a group of Belgians, the Holy Father underlined the necessity of better housing for a large number of people. Ten to twenty per cent of the total population of European countries, he pointed out, live in subhuman circumstances where they can not live a decent and truly human life. Such circumstances not only weaken health and physical stamina but also induce extensive moral damage: immorality; juvenile delinquency; loss of the desire to work; and revolt against the society that allows such subhuman conditions to exist. On May 26, 1957 (AAS, pp. 403-14), the Vicar of Christ addressed a group of Italian Catholic lawyers on the right way of giving assistance to those in prison. The Holy Father began his allocution by studying the presuppositions of all effec- 346 November, 1957 ROMAN DOCUMENTS tive aid to prisoners. The first of these presuppositions is con-. cerned with the relationship that exists between the punishment and the crime committed. Only the conviction that the prisoner is culpable can furnish a sure basis for all consequent aid. It must be remembered, the Holy Father stated, that even in con-crete situations the great majority of men have the possibility of regulating their personal conduct and hence of contracting obli-gations and responsibilities. This is the reason why morality and law are correct when they assert that in a given case cessation of free will must be proved, not the presence of free will. The second presupposition to be borne in mind when work-ing for prisoners is concerned with the suffering that is necessarily included in the punishment. A prisoner, the Pontiff remarked, is not comparable to a sick person; since the latter has no obliga-tion to suffer, it is right to seek to lighten his sufferings as much as possible. The prisoner, however, deserves to suffer, hence the removal of all suffering cannot be desired in the case of prisoners. The third and final presupposition to be considered cen-ters around the meaning and purpose of the punishment that has been inflicted on the prisoner. Since human punishment should in its own way imitate divine punishment, the Holy Father turned to a consideration of the meaning and purpose of the punish-ments inflicted by God on sin. The primary and essential pur-pose of divine punishment, he observed, is the reestablishment of the order of things violated by sin. By sin, man prefers him-self to God; by imposing suffering on the sinner, God constrains him to submit himself to the divine will and hence to restore the order he has previously violated. This, however, is not the sole purpose of divine punishment as far as this world is concerned. Often the punishments willed by God in this life are rather medic-inal than vindictive. They are meant to reeducate the sinner, to lead him to repentance, and to turn him toward goodness and justice. All these aims of divine punishment should be striven for also by human punishment. 347 R. F. SMITH Review .for Religious His Holiness then took up the manner in which prisoners can best be aided. The first aid to be given to prisoners is to know them thoroughly: their origin, their formation, their life up to the present time. Secondly, one should attempt to con-vince them that through their detention they can efface the errors of their past and remake their lives. Finally, one must love the prisoner. It is not sufficient to approach him with correct ideas and notions; along with this must go a love that is as comprehensive and devoted as is maternal love. In conclu-sion the Holy Father advises his listeners to look on prisoners as God looks upon them: in a spirit of justice tempered with mercy. Miscellaneous Matters On June 2, 1957 (AAS, pp. 433-603), Pius XII issued the Motu Proprio Cleri sanctita¢i, promulgating a new section of the projected Code of Canon Law for the Oriental Churches. This new section contains 558 canons and corresponds roughly to the second book of the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church. The section deals successively with the following points: the oriental rites; physical and moral persons; clerics in general; clerics in particular from patriarchs to assistant and substitute pastors; the laity. The prescriptions of these new canons will go into effect March 25, 1958. On May t9, 1957 (AAS, pp. 414-17), the Roman Pontiff delivered a radio message to the Third Portuguese Congress of the Apostleship of Prayer held at Braga. In the message the Pope expressed his great desire to see the Apostleship of Prayer propagated among all catagories of persons in the Church. The principal part of his message, however, is concerned with what he called the proper essence and the secret of the immense effectiveness of the Apostleship of Prayer. This is nothing else than the practice of the morning offering of all one's actions and sufferings of the coming day for the intentions of the Sacred Heart and of the Roman Pontiff. This practice, the Holy Father 348 Nove~ber, 1957 ROMAN DOCUMENTS noted, is an elementary and simple one, but when motivated by a conscientious desire to live it out completely, it can revolution-ize a life. On May 20, 1957 (AAS, pp. 355-61), the Holy Father gave an inaugural address for the week of astronomical studies held under the auspices of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The body of the address is devoted to a summary of recent findings with regard to the nature of the stars, in the course of which the Holy Father accepts five billion years as a reason-able estimate of the age of the universe. At the end of the allocution the Pope remarked that that man is fortunate who can read in the stars the message they carry, inviting man to rise to the knowledge of Him who gives truth and life and who estab-lishes His dwelling in the hearts of those who adore and love Him. On May 10, 1957 (AAS, pp. 427-29), the Sacred Peni-tentiary published the text of two prayers composed by His Holiness. The first is a prayer to our Lady of Lourdes; an indulgence of three years can be gained by the faithful each time they recite the prayer with contrite heart. The second prayer is a prayer to be recited by physicians; physicians can gain an indulgence of three years whenever they say the prayer with contrite heart. On June 4, 1957 (AAS, p. 429), the Sacred Penitentiary announced that a plenary indulgence could be gained in connec-tion with the practice of the twelve Sundays in honor of the infancy of our Lord. The conditions for the indulgence are the following: prayers and pious meditations in honor of the mysteries of Christ's infancy on twelve consecutive Sundays of one's own choosing; confession; Communion; visit to a church or public oratory with prayers there for the intention of the Holy Father. 349 Persevering in Prayer Mot:her Marie Vandenbergh, R.C. I. Introduction CONCERNING IGNATIAN spirituality less has been writ-ten perhaps than about some other schools of perfection; nevertheless, there are enough articles and books extant on the subject to make one pause before adding to their number. Especially if one's years in religion are not many, will the query arise, "What do you have to contribute?" The answer is, "Not very much." The best to be hoped for is that being relatively lately come to the field of interior combat might lend freshness to one's point of view. The re-cently won scars of battle might generate a more sympathetic and generally helpful approach to the problems confronting beginners about to enter the lists. There are, conceivably, certain advantages that derive from having traveled far enough along the road of the interior life to get some perspective, but not so far as to have forgotten what it felt like to be just start-ing out. Furthermore, and more importantly as a credential, the Cenacle, keynoted by its motto, "Perseverantes in oratione," has, throughout its brief history of less than two hundred years, upheld in its constitutions an ideal of high spiritual excellence. However large the discrepancy between these ideals of the con-gregation and one's personal attainments, it is surely nonetheless permissible to set forth this heritage and let it speak for itself, at least in regard to one or two problems of beginners in prayer. The Cenacle Religious have an Ignatian Rule and are devoted to the work of providing retreats for laywomen and teaching Christian doctrine. It is not, then, surprising that St. Ignatius's book, The Spiritual Exercises, figures largely in our novitiate training, as well as all through our religious life. 350 PERSEVERING IN PRAYER We are told early in our formation that a Cenacle Religious must learn to love "the solitude of the heart" and "live in prayer as in her proper element." As means toward this spiritual growth, we are given, to quote a superior general, both "meth-ods" and "liberty." The "liberty" is that inspired by the Holy Spirit; the "methods" are those suggested by St. Ignatius--his "Spiritual Exercises." If his directives applying to the special circumstances of retreat time are set aside, there remains a remarkable body of instruction for those who wish to learn the science of the saints and for those who are constituted their guides. In this article we shall prescind entirely from the retreat relationship and, using the Exercises as a manual of spirituality, concentrate on the part methodical meditation is meant to play in our spiritual lives. II. Pro's and Con's The ultimate purpose of any sort of meditation, formal or informal, is to bring a soul to give itself to God by a process of instruction, reasoning, and resolution resulting in the formation of religious convictions and in great purity of life. Training in the use of formal meditation methods often starts with ready-made outlines, developing into personally prepared meditation outlines. This has two principal advantages. First, it prevents waste of time and energy to have something definite in mind to do when you go to your meditation. Second, as a result of the first, it helps develop the habit of prayer. Unless a girl has been living a modified rule of life in the world, the likelihood is that she has been praying "when she felt like it." Entering religious life she must learn to pray at a set time--whether she feels like it or not. A knowledge of prayer technique, i.e., an outlined meditation, will help her get started on days when she doesn't feel like it. It will keep her busy and trying to pray at times when prayer is more or less distasteful. Furthermore, fidelity to the attempt to "contact God," espe-cially when sensible consolation dries up, is a sine qua non 351 MOTHER MARIE VANDENBERGH Re~iew for Religious of real progress. This fidelity is a fruit of habitual use of a method. St. Teresa of Avila :lays down two rules for the would-be saint: refuse God nothing and never abandon the practice of prayer. Use of meditation methods can keep a soul from idleness in prayer time and prevent its giving up from sheer boredom with itself in time of dryness. There are, however, dangers to be avoided in the use of a method: strain and slavish fidelity to mechanics. While bridging the gap between the free and easy ~pray when you please" of life in the world and the regular, disciplined ~pray when you ought" of religious life, it is of paramount importance to avoid undue strain. The spontaneity of the soul's response to God must be safeguarded. It is that element of sweet familiarity with God which, as far as God's grace allows, makes of prayer the personal relationship it is meant to be. Undue efforts such as straining for ~success" in meditation, in-sistence on completion of the full meditation outline, or self-induced fixation of the imagination are sure to result in a ~broken head." Some such form of tension becomes a danger wherever emphasis on high ideals is combined with strict discipline. Ex-aggerated fidelity is one of the occupational hazards of religious life. Especially in the atmosphere of a novitiate, a spirit of holy emulation can make it contagious. To such an extent is this true that over-eagerness can be suspected of spoiling more voca-tions than laxity; for tension, though combined with all the good will in the world, has a paralyzing effect. In certain cases it persists as a chronic ailment through the early years of professed life, sooner or later, let us hope, to be outgrown. In extreme cases, however, the victim may be spiritually crippled for life. The cause of the difficulty does not lie, needless to say, in the traditional methods of prayer. The trouble arises when, instead of the neophyte's mastering the method, the method masters the neophyte. What was intended as a help toward union 352 November, 1957 PERSEVERING IN PRAYER with God becomes an end instead of a means and acts as a hindrance to that very union. The exasperating part of it is that often the victim of this malady, if questioned, would reply glibly that, of course, a method is a means, not an end in itself--and then go right on clinging inordinately to his little shell of prayer technique. In his mind, though he does not realize it, prayer formality has become an indispensible means to union with God; whereas authors and advocates of prepared methods intend them to be used tantum-quantum, just insofar as they help to attain this union. An inexperienced soul can become more attached to its method than to its God. It makes him feel so secure. If ever doubts as to his fidelity to prayer arise, he has only to point to his daily "two preludes, three points, and a colloquy." There, he feels, is concrete evidence that he has not been wasting his prayer time. He does not realize until much later, perhaps, that he has been slowly strangling his spiritual life. Retreat masters have dealt with this difficulty, books have been written about it; but still it can happen that a suffering soul will not recognize itself to be a victim of prayer-tension until the sterility of its meditation and its self-imposed rigidity threaten to kill its religious life entirely. Sheer starvation of soul is its inevitable result. In order to forestall this turn of events if possible, those in charge of the spiritual formation of young people exercise a great deal of vigilance. "I watched my young men like a hawk," said one novice master, "to detect signs of strain." As soon as they began to pray spontaneously and to speak familiarly with God, they were instructed to leave their prepared meditation outline for as long as they could pray without reference to it. "Be relaxed in the presence of God," was the advice they were given. There is a possible hazard, too, for people with a studious turn of mind. They, more easily than others, can be tempted to make a purely mental exercise of their meditation and never 353 MOTHER MARIE VANDENBERGH Review for Religious really pray. There is no real "contact" with God at all. This makes of meditation nothing but a sterile academic study instead of an affair of the heart that leads them to fall in love with their Lord Christ. III. Liberty of Spirit Besides these rather obvious dangers to be avoided in the use of meditation methods, there is a further point it might be well to discuss here. The principal charge leveled against tech-niques of prayer is that slavish fidelity to "two preludes, three points, and a colloquy" hinders a soul's progress toward God in the more simplified forms of prayer. The Spiritual ercises of St. Ignatius are often called upon to bear the brunt of such criticism. For some reason it has been difficult to convince the praying public that to advocate methods of prayer is not the same as to advocate slavish fidelity to them. St. Ignatius of Loyola, himself a contemplative and even a mystic, could hardly have recommended a spirituality which excluded such graces a priori. Anyone thoroughly grounded in Ignatian spirituality knows well enough that there is in it wide margin for originality and freedom. In the beginning of the life of prayer, however, the method is more in evidence than the freedom. The same is true of playing the piano. You learn the scales before you improvise. Benson, in his The Friendship o.f Christ, and Boylan, in This Tremendous Lover, point out that one's prayer life develops along the same lines as human friendship. In the early stages of mere "bowing acquaintance," formalities and conven-tional conversation topics like politics and the weather make up the larger part of the relationship. As the acquaintance deepens, there is growing mutual self-revelation, a sharing of tastes, of personal history, of hopes and fears. There is mutual interest in and support of one another's projects and plans. Should friend-ship ripen to the point of falling in love, the amount of con-versation is reduced to a minimum, and the silent language of 354 November, 1957 PERSEVERING IN PRAYER love takes its place. There is a ~honeymoon" stage, followed by inevitable trials and tests which strengthen and mature the soul. The maturing of married love has frequently been de-scribed as a process of transition from eros to agape, from selfish to unselfish love. A similar process goes on in the prayer life. Eventually prayer comes to the point where it lives by a continuous, silent sacrifice of self for the sake of the Beloved. Such prayer is a life of love and is consonant with a great deal of suffering and self-forgetfulness. Married couples who have lived and loved together for many years have no great need of words; they are content to share each other's silent company. Even so does the soul's happiness come to consist of being silent together with God. In human love this silent togetherness can be such a dear and deep and precious thing that when one partner dies, the other does not linger on much longer. The whole reason for living has disappeared. So in prayer one's whole self can come to be lost in God who is one's only reason for living, moving, being. IV. Variety of Method Although all comparisons limp, at least it should be obvious that in our friendship with the most wonderful Person in the universe we should expect growth and development and change. The purpose of the variety of methods provided by St. Ignatius is to allow for this most desirable adaptability to the attractions of grace. Furthermore, the key to this adaptation is St. Ignatius's direction, "In that point in which I find what I desire, there I will rest, without being anxious to proceed . . . until I have satisfied myself" (Addition IV). This varying of meditation methods to suit one's need of the moment is sometimes a matter wherein a well-meaning young person is too timid. Wisely reluctant to trust her own instincts unless they receive the approval of authority, a beginner must still remember that obedience is controlled initiative. With cer-tain personalities the emphasis must be on the control; with 355 MOTHER ~ARIE VANDENBERGH .Review for Religious others, on the initiative. During the years of religious formation especially, there should be the control of reporting to the novice mistress or superior on how one's time of prayer was spent-- this at intervals of at least two weeks--together with submission to her judgment as to one's success or failure. However, the temptation to cling to a method already approved simply for fear that any other will not receive a similar approval is a kind of human respect. Reduced to its ultimate form, this is hoping to please men at the price of failing to please God. God looks for our initiatives; indeed, if they are good, it is He who inspires them. The novice will do well to remember that she is being led by the hand in order to learn to travel the road alone. Over-dependence on the novice mistress is at least equally as bad as failure to have sufficient recourse to her guidance. Like a good physician, the novice mistress aims at making her ministrations unnecessary. Second year novices, other things being equal, should expect to need less counseling than in their first year, etc. It should not take long for a reasonably intelligent person to acquire enough facility in the use of prayer techniques to begin a little experimentation in method variations. The more personal and familiar our prayer becomes, the better it accomplishes its purpose of uniting us to our Lord and transforming us into His likeness. Of course, if we fall as it were naturally into one or other method, there is no great need to force ourselves to vary our approach--except occasionally to counteract monotony, weariness, boredom; in general, to avoid getting into an unthinking rut. Some people more easily think their way to God, and their meditations reflect this trait. Others lead with their heart. Some can study our Lord in the gospel text with a ready, but quiet, imagination. Some whose imagination tends to run riot, stirring up over-strong emotions, pray best by a loving attention to the presence of God--a simple, peaceful, wordless gaze of the soul focused upon its invisible Guest. 356 Novembe~, 1957 PERSEYERING IN PRAYER Sometimes our prayer is a kind of seeking, searching, asking, wanting. It is a quest for God, a thirst for God, a need for more and more of Him and His love and peace. This is another form of wordless prayer. We may come away from it with no specific resolution, with just an increased consciousness of our need for God, God alone, God first and foremost. It would still be a very good prayer. Some are able to speak familiarly with God, telling Him all the events and hopes and needs of their daily life. So long as there are moments of pause when we can listen to Him, this is a very helpful prayer. It should, however, be a conversation, not a monologue. Too many words can be a barricade between the soul and God. In our daily mental prayer one of these methods may pre-dominate or we may use a combination. On certain days, at certain times in our lives, our prayer methods will almost auto-matically take on certain changes of pattern, simply from neces-sity. As Father R. H. J. Steuart liked to say, the level of our prayer is the level of our lives. Chameleon-like, our prayer adapts to our presefit state of soul, of emotion, or of physical well-being. A real effort to pray when we are in a state of high excitement or deep depression will have a tranquilizing, stabilizing effect. When we are very tired, just to remain numbly in the presence of God is an appropriate prayer. Just to be with Him suffices for us then. The very sick can sometimes unite themselves to God only by the loving contemplation of a crucifix; sometimes even that is beyond them. A weak grip on a crucifix or rosary can symbolize their intention to pray, becoming an outward sign of the inward turning heavenward. When a person is in a state of dryness, interior trial, or is interiorly agitated by a difficulty from without, his prayer is a prayer of spiritual pain. The soul suffers; suffers, it may be, with little hope of respite, with no alleviating sense of vitality as sometimes accompanies a beginner's cross. Father Caussade 357 MOTHER MARIE VANDENBERGH Review for Religious considers it a great grace thus to "suffer weakly," unable to find satisfaction in the thought that one is bearing up nobly under one's cross. This state of pure suffering is extremely pleasing to God and highly profitable to the soul. A person's prayer in this state may be a continual interior Miserere, springing from a great sense of unworthiness and guilt, and in spite of having no specific blemish of conscience to which it may be attributed. Later on, depending upon the degree of purification already accomplished by this state, one's prayer may be an inner attitude of oblation, willingly offering one's suffering self in sacrifice to God. "Take, O Lord, and receive all that I am and all that I have." Lastly, when the purgation of suffering has nearly run its course, an attitude of adoration, of God-regarding prostration of soul, may begin to predominate. These are all methods of prayer which, explicitly or im-plicity, can be found in St. Ignatius's book, The F~xercises. In his very first annotation St. Ignatius gives the title of "spiritual exercises" to "all methods of preparing and disposing the soul ¯ . . to seek and to find the divine will," adding a little later on that "in these spiritual exercises it is more fitting and much better, in seeking the divine will, that the Creator and Lord Himself should communicate Himself to the devout soul . . ." (Annota-tion XV). As Father Peeters has pointed out, "The Exercises in their entirety are presented to us as a means of entering into con-tact with God." V. Discursive Prayer a Preparation for Contemplation Used properly and suitably adapted to the individual, these techniques of prayer are calculated to leave the door open for the divine initiatives by which God leads a soul through darkness into light. Fruitful meditations result in a generosity and purity of soul which dispose a person, insofar as it depends on him, to receive the graces of infused contemplation. In this "gift of prayer," as it is sometimes called, God's action, though imper-ceptible in itself, is powerful in its effects and may temporarily 358 November, 1957 PERSE~CERING IN PRAYER put an end to our ability to meditate discursively. The soul is reduced to a state which seems to be one of comparative inaction, weakness, and passivity. This is because God is taking the lead and the soul is willingly following Him. St. John of the Cross gives three signs by which the director may recognize the beginnings of passive union: impossibility of meditation, painful anxiety as to fervor, and dryness, wi~out consolation in God or in creatures. A soul accustomed to discursive prayer finds a most dis-concerting adaptation necessary when it arrives at the threshold of contemplative prayer. The main reason for the element of surprise is that we cannot possibly imagine ahead of time what the direct action of God will be like or what precise form the purification will take. Secondly, it is a fairly common, though unwarranted, assumption that the habit of prayer increases ac-cording to the familiar pattern of a purely natural habit. But there is this remarkable difference between the habit of prayer and, say, the habit of playing the piano. In the latter case, repetition breeds facility, the habit increasing in kind; whereas the unpredictable element of the supernatural in the habit of prayer allows for an otherwise unaccountable psychological phenomenon. Dom Chapman in one of his letters puts it most clearly: "Progress in prayer is not (1) from troublesome discursive meditation to easy contemplation of a beautiful thought; and from weak affections to fervent and strong affections, but (2) from easy discursive meditations to the impossibility of medi-tating at all (except by ceasing to pray), and from easily warmed affections to no affections at all--to aridity, that is, and to 'night.'" The paradoxical fact about meditation is that we expect it to become easier and easier~'and instead it becomes harder and harder, then "nauseous or impossible." Dom Chapman says in another letter, "Meditation is usually necessary in order to induce souls to love God and to give them-selves to Him. But at that point--when it begins to be reached 359 MOTHER MARIE VANDENBERGH Review for Religious --the power of meditation usually stops and something better begins." It is not our purpose here to analyze the ~something better," but to indicate the point at which there must be a radical change in our technique of prayer. That St. Ignatius envisaged the possiblity of such a transi-tion is evident in his F~xerc[s~s, pronouncedly in the contrast between Annotations IX and X. He presupposes knowledge of the different phases of prayer in his instructions to the director, though he includes nothing specific in regard to passive prayer in his instructions for the retreatant. The reason for this is primarily historical, for the Jesuit founder had been called up before the Spanish inquisitors two and three times to have his writings examined for teaching a false mysticism. In such cir-cumstances it was better not to put everything he knew into print. Secondarily, there is a reason for his reticence that to some extent still applies. This is simply that it is almighty God who decides when and if a soul is to enter upon the way of contempla-tion, and it is the director who decides whether or not this has actually been the case. St. Ignatius allows for the possibility of a soul's discontinuing discursive prayer in his instruction that it rests where it finds satisfaction. He expects the director to do the further instruction when the need arises. Naturally, a soul is not incapable of recognizing in itself the symptoms mentioned by St. John of the Cross. But no man is a good judge in his own case, and far too often wishful thinkers in the spiritual life have attributed to almighty God phenomena that were actually the natural products of their own faculties and pas-sions, the result, say, of insomnia or indigestion, or in some cases the work of the devil. Hence the need for solid guidance. In the text of the F~xercises, St. Ignatius divides the retreat into four ~weeks" which correspond roughly to the purgative (first week), illuminative (second and third weeks), and unitive (fourth week) ways so often mentioned by spiritual writers. He 360 November, 1957 PERSEYERING IN PRAYER makes a noteworthy distinction between the treatment to be ac-corded souls suited only for the meditations on the purpose of life, on sin, and on repentance customary in the first "week" and the treatment of souls capable of the greater service of God asked of them in the ensuing "weeks." He has two sets of "Rules for the Discernment of Spirits," applying to the age-old principles whereby the director decides if a soul is being influenced by the good or the evil spirit or by its own self. The rules for souls of the first-week category are rules for beginners in the spiritual life, i.e., either souls struggling to break with habits of mortal sin or innocent souls just learn-ing how to meditate. (Discursive meditation is good for both alike.) The rules for the second week are for the more pro-ficient. Their application extends indefinitely onward into the heights of union with God. This marked difference between the advice St. Ignatius would give beginners and the advice suitable to the more advanced shows plainly that the author of the Exercises took it for granted that the time would come when a radical change would take place in the soul's activity. In other words, he allows for the fact that discursive meditation in many cases develops into something very different, while taking into con-sideration the instances where it does not. "If Ithe retreatant] be a person who has been little versed in spiritual matters and . . if he betrays impediments to making further progress in the service of God our Lord . . . , then let not the person giving the Exercises converse with him upon the rules of the second week for discerning various spirits, because in the pro-portion that those of the first week will benefit him, those of the second will do him harm, because they contain matter too subtle and too high for him to understand" (Annotation IX). St. Ignatius never intended his methods to be set above the valid inspirations of grace, though some of his devotees have at times given that impression. His admonition, "It is 361 MOTHF~R MARIE VANDENBERGH Review for Religious not to know much, but to savor the matter interiorly that fills and satisfies the soul," certainly shows that he meant meditation to be used in such a manner as to pave the way for the simpli-fying process God so often undertakes in the prayer of the generous. A person who remembers this advice will find Igna-tian spirituality an excellent preparation for "the gift of prayer." By way of further example we might point out that a soul formed by the asceticism of St. Ignatius is told, when prayer is dry and disgusting, to prolong it somewhat beyond the usual space of time; when prayer is sweet and easy, to resist the temptation to linger longer. This discipline breeds the detach-ment from even spiritual delights and the perseverance through times of desolate prayer that are the necessary preparation for higher gifts of God. This teaching trains a soul not to give up when ~he going gets tough and, contrariwise, not to make sweetness or facility the criterion of its success in prayer, safely guiding it between the Scylla and Charybdis of its spiritual Odyssey. VI. Adapting the Exercises to the More Proficient Throughout the Exercises there is a noticeable progres-sion of thought, an ascending scale of higher and higher moti-vation, designed to overtake a soul at whatever point it has reached in its journey toward God and guide it further, as far as the grace of God permits. St. Ignatius, though unwilling to speak to beginners about the conduct of the more advanced, did not believe that an earnest soul who has made some progress should be allowed to think that there is no other sort of prayer possible except discursive meditation for "ordinary" Christians and mystical phe-nomena for the saints. This is a common misconception castigated by Father M. Eugene Boylan, O.C.S.C., in his practical little vol-ume, Difficulties in ~ental Prayer. Although St. Ignatius in Annotation XI exhorts the retreatant "so to toil in the first week as if he did not hope to obtain anything in the second," 362 November, 1957 PERSEVER,ING IN PRAYER he does not intend this to mean that a soul should be kept in ignorance of the fact that there is something further to attain, especially if he is generous in striving to correct his defects and to remove the obstacles to his further progress. The sign St. Ignatius gives as an indication to the director that it is safe to instruct a soul in the ways of more advanced spirituality is the discovery that the soul ~is assaulted and tempted under the semblance of good," because this is characteristic of a per-son who ~is exercising himself in the illuminative way" (Anno-tation X). Sometimes in the providence of God it is not very long before the neophyte needs to know what lies ahead for him. When a soul, then, has reached the degree of purity of life where its temptations are not of a ~gross and sensual nature," or when discursive meditation is ceasing for some legitimate reason to be profitable, it is time for him to learn what the future may hold in store. Then, if his prayer begins to dry up, there will be less danger that he will do himself harm by violent efforts to ~pray as I used to," not realizing that there can come a time when a person who says, ~I can no longer meditate," must learn to pray another way. What is the part to be played by methodical meditation during the confusing transition period when the soul is not as yet accustomed to its new role as patient rather than agent? Dom Chapman's advice at this point was always, ~Pray as you can and don't try to pray as you can't,t'' With some persons, the transition between discursive prayer and passive prayer is' abrupt. With others it is gradual, periods of passivity being interspersed with times when meditation is possible to some degree. There is likely to be danger of illusion in refusing to meditate when it becomes possible, even as there is danger in making violent efforts to meditate when it is not possible. Here one's early training in outlined meditation becomes very useful, for the safe course seems to be to make an initial try at medi-tation when beginning the time of prayer, but to rest content if the trial proves a failure. The habit of turning to a preo 363 MOTHER MARIE VANDENBERGH Review for Religious pared outline is a safeguard, in spite of the fact that more and more the method of "doing something" must be replaced by a method of ~doing nothing," of learning to take one's cues from God, God working within the sanctuary of the soul. Sometimes a soul finds it helpful to pray, as it were, by means of an attitude of soul, of humility, supplication, and self-oblation. For such a soul has received ~the call of the King," inviting those who wish to distinguish themselves ir~ God's service to follow their Lord in poverty and suffering. If a person cannot make the offering of himself and all he posses-ses to serve the kingdom of Christ, he obviously has neither the grace nor the capacity for the sacrifices necessary for further progress in the prayer life. If he has made the offering, he must be prepared to fulfill it literally; for, stripped of even the spiritual armor in which he trusted, he will suffer unbearably in the experience of his poverty in the sight of God. This, however, is the way God must treat a soul in order to make it pliant in His hands. When a person has learned how to remain tranquil under the direct action of God, he has learned how to pull in the oars of meditation-technique and let ,:he breath of the Spirit fill his sails. He has learned how to launch out into the deep. Let it be noted, though, that, if the soul may ~pull in the oars," it does not throw them away. As Father 1~. H. J. Steuart put it, "You don't tear down the staircase just because you have arrived at the top." Father Boylan makes the sage re-mark that we must have "the humility" to return to discursive prayer when the facility for it is restored. In many an instance the course grace takes after passive stages have done their work is to restore the discursive ability in combination with the infused contemplation that is the fruit of the purification the soul has undergone. It would be a tempting digression to go more into detail in regard to the rules for discerning spirits, but that would be beyond the scope of this article which set out to be no 364 November, 1957 PERSEVERING IN PRAYER more than a general survey. The point we have tried to em-phasize is that in the text of the Exercises can be found the evidence that St. Ignatius, though he teaches methodical prayer, by no means intended to limit souls to it if they were drawn by God to something simpler. He definitely planned the F~xercises to prepare and dispose a soul to find more quickly the will of God in its own regard--and devotion to the will of God is one of the marks of a contemplative soul. There are references in rules 2 and 8 of the second week to "consolation without any preceding cause" as being the work of God par excellence in the soul. There follow warn-ings against pseudo-consolation inspired by the devil and the illusions of auto-suggestion apt to follow upon actual and God-sent "consolation." These show how familiar St. Ignatius was--and how familiar he expected the director to be--with the hazards attendant upon even the most legitimate graces of infused prayer. Without doubt, Ignatian spirituality, rightly understood, is designed to prepare a soul for God's direct action, protect it during the dangers of the transition period, and safeguard it from illusion when it has accustomed itself to surrender to the will of God. Mother Marie Aimee Lautier, superior general of the Cenacle for nearly fifty years, stressed the function of prayer in our "mixed" vocation as "contemplative in action." "Masters of the spiritual life," she wrote, "teach that the soul called to perfection, after being exercised in the exterior practice of charity, is drawn by the contemplation of divine things to an interior conversion and purification, so that being wholly en-kindled and burning with divine love, it is impelled anew by the strength of this love towards creatures in order to give them of its fullness: 'The love of Christ impels us' (II Cor. 5:14). "Its charity, then, is quite different from what it was at the beginning; and its zeal which at first was the auxiliary of natural activity now becomes the disinterested fruit of love." 365 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious This same holy religious exhorted her daughters, "Ask for this precious gift [of prayer]; we must prepare ourselves to receive it, and we must await it with confidence. It is the gift par excellence of our vocation." Of course, the Cenacle tlas no monopoly on it. We are grateful, though, to have the strong guidance of St. Ignatius to help us achieve our goal. Book Reviews [Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.] THE FIRST JESUIT, ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA. By Mary Purcell. Pp. 417. The Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland. 1957. 5.oo. In her preface to this delightful life of St. Ignatius, Miss Purcell says that if he were better known, he would be better loved and oftener invoked. Her own efforts are no small contribution to this happy con-summation. Too often St. Ignatius has been presented to us in the guise of what Father La Farge, in his forward, calls "a glorified efficiency expert," with the result that the lovable qualities of the saint are frequently overlooked, thus leaving him in these later days a figure more feared and admired than loved. "It is interesting to note," writes Miss Purcell, "how many people in so many different walks of life 'become fond of Inigo.' He seems to have had an easy and spontaneous manner, a nature that led him to make friends quickly. In the places where he lived, people soon got to know of him . He had an extraordinary flair for knowing exactly which ap-proach would win the heart of the particular individual or group he was contacting at any given time. And 'When he gazed at one,' writes a contemporary, 'while his conversation was benign, his eyes seemed to pierce the heart, to see all; conversing with him only once, you felt that he knew you through and through.' " It would seem that the reaction has well begun; and future biographers, taking their cue from writers like PSre Dudon, Father Brodrick, and Miss Purcell, will in the future give us an Ignatius 366 November, 1957 BOOK REVIEWS who, besides being a founder and a general, is also a fellow-pilgrim and a father. A preliminary glance at the bibliography might suggest that Miss Purcell has undertaken to write something more than a merely popular life of St. Ignatius, and the reader will not have gone very far before he realizes that there is a great deal of scholarship to it; and once he gets himself tangled up in the notes at the end of the volume, he won't have any doubt about it. Miss Purcell has gone to original sources, some of which may have been within easy reach, like the seventy-seven volumes of the ~lonumenta llistorica Societatis Jesu. But others must have been farther removed, like the diaries of the pilgrims who accompanied Inigo on his pilgrimage to Jeru-salem or about his time made pilgrimages of their own. There is a very thorough treatment of the Irish mission of Fathers Broet and Salmeron, but this reviewer feels that Miss Purcell is too sweeping when she calls it the only complete failure in the life of Ignatius. After all, they were not missionaries bent on the conversion of a pagan land. They were papal nuncios. They came, they saw, they returned. Uoila! Since they were papal nuncios, we might have wished that their visitation had been carried on with a little more leisure and something of the ceremonial becoming their exalted rank. But they knew they were putting their heads into the lion's mouth, even if St. Ignatius thought that Ireland was another Guipuzcoa when in fact it was what we should call today hardly more than a satellite state. The very fact that they survived, surveyed conditions, and escaped with their lives to make their report is by itself a considerable achievement and deserves to be regarded as some measure of success. Some readers will be very sceptical about accepting one or other of Miss Purcell's conclusions, for instance, that Inigo was "barely five feet tall" and that he was "red-headed." Consulting the sources given I can find none that warrants such a conclusion. He is described as being of "medium height" or "a little below medium." Barely five feet would place him in the under-sized class completely. One wonders how a man of such small proportions (even remember-ing Napoleon) could hope for any notable success in the use of arms on battlefield or jousting court, or expect to play Amadis to any Oriana. Yet we know that Inigo, the caballero, made no bones about aiming at glorious successes in both instances. 367 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious There is a text in the Monumenta which refers to the caput aereum, and although the term occurs twice in the same paragraph, the editors of the hlonumenta seem to be convinced that aereunt should be cor-rected to cereum, since it evidently refers to the wax effigy which was taken from the death-mask. His complexion seems to have been what we should today call blond verging on ruddy. Juan Pascual, who described him as he remembered meeting him on his way down from Montserrat, wrote of him as being "'no molt alt, pero blanc j ros, j de molt bona cara" (p. 83), which is the Catalan for "medium height, fair complexion, and handsome." Occasionally Miss Purcell is a bit unguarded and leaves herself open to misinterpretation, as when she says: "One cannot think of Ignatius of Loyola limping a little at times as he trudges from Rome out to Monte Cassino to give the Exercises to Dr. Ortiz and back again to see how Cardinal Contarini is faring in his contemplations, without recalling a veritable litany of great names . " The reader is not always ready to interpose a month or more between these two excursions; and, while Miss Purcell of course knows better, this sentence can easily give the the untraveled reader the impression that Monte Cassino is one of the outlying hills of Rome and that St. Ignatius was giving the Exercises simultaneously, but separately, to these two veritably great men, Pedro Ortiz and Cardinal Contarini. We do know that once he had three exercitants in retreat simul-taneously in different parts of Rome, a task which obliged him daily to trudge practically the periphery of the city, "limping a little," not only at times, but every step of the way. Limitations of space may be responsible for other false impres-sions as that in St. Ignatius's dealing with Father Simon Rodrigues, whom he did not threaten with "excommunication," or even dismissal, although he was fully prepared to proceed to this latter extreme if Rodrigues persisted in his refusal to leave Portugal and come to Rome, as his Father General had begged him to do in letter after letter. But, then, Miss Purcell did not write this book for specialists. She has given us a delightful picture of St. Ignatius, but an in-complete one. In fact, who would ever think of making it complete? For what she has given us we should be deeply grateful. The points here adversely touched upon are minor indeed and do not in the least impair the picture that is actually presented. The reader is 368 November, 1957 ~OOK REVIEWS given a fair and unbroken page to examine, typographically speaking; but he pays for this satisfaction in the added labor of tracking down references. But Miss Purcell's publisher is to blame for that; and, after all, it is for the most part only rugged reviewers or determined researchers who will have to bear that burden. Their growling should not be taken as an attempt to bite.--WH,LI,.\.x~ J. Youxc,, S.J. A WOMAN OF UNITY. By Sister Mary Celine, S.A. Pp 357. Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement, Graymoor, Garrison, New York. 1956. $4.50. A Woman of Unity tells the story of Mother Lurana of Gray-moor. The career of this "remarkable woman" is traced through her childhood, her searchings as a young woman for a life of perfect poverty in Anglican communities, her founding of Graymoor with Father Paul Francis, her reception into the Church with her com-munity in 1909, and her direction of the Society of the Atonement in her mature years. Mother Lurana is an inspiring personality; and in these days, when church unity is talked of more seriously than at any time since the Protestant Revolt, her life and vocation are of especial significance. It is most interesting to read of the humble beginnings of the Chair of Unity Octave at Graymoor during Mother Lurana's Anglican days and also to know of her dissatisfaction even then with the Anglican position on the unity and leadership of the Church: "In legislative bodies not so much as a committee of three can discharge its functions, unless one of the three presides in the chair of unity. It is a futile dream to contemplate a united Church on earth without a visible head. If every parish must have its rector, and every diocese its bishop, and every province its archbishop, how could the whole Catholic Church throughout the world exist as one fold without having one supreme or chief shepherd over all?" Mother Lurana conceived her life's task and the task of her society to be that of "repairer of the breach," to use one of her favorite ways of expressing her vocation to work for church unity. Sister Mary Celine, a member of Mother Lurana's community who knew her personally, has faithfully reconstructed her story from letters, official documents, and personal recollections. The biography proceeds in clear and chronogical sequences, and Mother Lurana is given ample opportunity to speak for herself in letters and exhorta-tations to the community. Sister Mary Celine brings the reader into the Graymoor community to share the joys and sorrows of the mother 369 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious foundress and the pioneer nuns. The book, however, has a tone reminiscent of the sweet and moralizing hagiography popular in an earlier day, a tone to this reviewer somewhat distasteful, and abounds in phrases and reflections which seem a little worn. On the other hand, even though in the pages of A Woman of Unity Mother Lurana loses a trifle of the vibrant humanity which must have been hers, she clearly has aroused in her biographer and all her religious daughters an admiration which is at once warm and contagious. As a matter of fact, it is difficult to see how anyone who knew her could help but admire the courage and spirit of this woman who braved all in order to lead others to the Chair of Unity. --JOHN W. O'~IALLEY, THE WORD OF SALVATION. Translation and Explanation of I. The Gospel According to St. Matthew by Alfred Durand, S.J., and II. The Gospel According to St. Mark by Joseph Huby, S.J. Translated into English by John J. Heenan, S.J. Pp. 937. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee 1, Wis. consin. 1957. $12.50. A translation of the famous Verbum Salutis series has been long overdue. Father Heenan is to be congratulated for making two of the volumes of this popular commentary available to English-speak-ing Catholics. The English version of both text and commentary is fortunately unabridged, and the translator has thoughtfully added a handy index for each Gospel. Father Heenan has preferred to reproduce the text of the Gospels with an eye to the French rather than to follow strictly any one of the standard English versions. But the words of the Gospel flow at least as smoothly as they do in the Confra-ternity edition, and to many they will have a more familiar ring. Some may be disconcerted by the alternation of you and thou in the text. However, the former is used consistently for the plural; and it seems that Father Heenan wisely opted for accuracy in this instance as in all other respects, since the main feature of the book is the commentary which closely follows the translation of the gospel text. The style of the English commentary follows the French quite well: simple, direct, concise, with occasional fluent passages. As for content, technical discussions are limited to a bit more than the minimum 370 November, 1957 ]lOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS claimed by the authors, but will prove to be of interest even to the layman in biblical studies. It should be noted that these few learned asides are written in non-technical language and can easily be handled by the average intelligent reader. They serve, too, to undergird what might otherwise be considered a pious commentary with little basis in historical fact. One cannot ignore history if one seeks a fuller understanding of the words of Christ. The Savior became incarnate for all men, but taught and toiled primarily for the lost sheep of the House of Israel. It was in their language, thought-patterns, and history that He voiced the Word of Salvation. This volume will go far to re-create for the preacher, student, and religious the atmosphere of the Gospel and its interpretation throughout the course of Christian tradition. It will be quite help-ful to those who prefer spiritual reading and meditation material which is more directly in touch with the words of the Gospel than is usually the case in a "life of Christ." The text and commentary are neatly divided into sections averaging about six pages of com-mentary for every five of ten verses of text. The apologetic value of the work should not be overlooked by teachers of high school and college. Father Smith Instructs Jackson, for all its merits, is often completely unacceptable to the college student or to the prospective convert whose chief difficulties lie in understanding the paradoxical words of Christ Himself. In this connection, Sodality study clubs (at least on the high school senior level) might use the Word of Salva-tion with much profit. May this excellent work see even more editions than its French original. It is to be hoped that the companion volume (Luke and John) will appear shortly.--CH.~RI, ES H. (~J~L~X', S.J. 8OOK ANNOUNCI:MI:NT$ THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 400 North Broadway, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin. De Ordine. Tom. I. De Institutione. By Emmanuel Doronzo, O.M.I. Priests and seminarians will certainly want to read this monumental Latin work on the sacrament of orders. This first volume of more than a thousand large, closely printed pages begins with an eighty-two page introduction to the whole treatise which is to consist of seven chapters. The introduction is followed by the first chapter 371 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religious which takes up all the remaining pages. This chapter is divided into three articles: the first on the existence of orders; the second on the sacramental nature of orders; and the last on the three grades of orders. There are exceptionally complete bibliographies and indices. The work gives promise in this first volume of being even more exhaustive than the author's justly renowned work on the sacrament of penance. Pp. 962 ~- 41. $19.00. Canon Law Digest. Annual Supplement Through 1956. By Lincoln T. Bouscaran, S.J., and James I. O'Connor, S.J. $1.75. CARMELITE SISTERS, Santa Teresita Hospital, Duarte, Calif. The Doctor's Widow. By William M. Queen. This is the first biography of Mother Maria Luisa Josefa of the Most Blessed Sacra-ment, foundress of the Discalced Carmelite Sisters of the Third Order. This congregation was born at the turn of the century and has two provinces, one in Mexico, the land of its birth, the other in California. Its expansion to California was one of God's ways of drawing good out of the evil of the persecution of the Church in Mexico. This inspiring book will be of interest to both religious and lay women since Mother Josefa was an exemplary wife before she became a religious. Pp 127. Cloth $1.00. The Soul's Elevation, by a Discalced Carmelite Father, a master of novices, is a meditation book for religious. In the introduction we find an explanation of meditation in which the author outlines both the Ignatian and the Sulpician methods. There is also a brief outline of prayer in general. In Part I there are eight meditations on the four last things. Part II contains nine meditations on the gifts of God to man. Part III devotes eight meditations to the Passion of our Lord. Part IV consists of three considerations on Holy Communion. There is also an appendix which contains "Mirror of the Good Religious" and meditations for the day of investiture, of first vows, of final vows, and of jubilee. Pp. 94. Paper $1.00. GRAIL PUBLICATIONS, St. Meinrad,Indiana. Follow Christ. No 18. This largepamphlet on vocation to the priesthood and the religious life, profusely illustrated with excellent photographs, deserves wide distribution. In it the questions which eighth grade boys and girls of today are actually asking about the important topic of vocation are answered by experts. It 372 November, 1957 [~OOK ANNOUNCEMENTS contains much information about seminaries and many religious orders and congregations for both men and women. Pp. 134. $0.75. SHEED AND WARD, 840 Broadway, New York 3, New York. Terrible Farmer Timson and Other Stories. By Caryll House-lander. Pictures by Renee George. Here are twelve stories for children which first appeared in The Children's Messenger of Lon-don, England. Children will be pleased with them and learn 'some very profitable truths without pain or effort. Pp. 152. $2.50. Soeur Angele and the Bell Ringer's Niece. By Henri Catalan. This is the third detective story by the author in which a Sister of Charity appears in the role of detective, and she does so without derogating in any way from her role as religious. The setting and characters are typically French. Pp. 179. $2.50. SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS, Mount Alvernia, Pittsburgh 9, Penn-sylvania. As a Living Oak. Biography of Mother Baptista Etzel, O.S.F. By Sister Mary Aurelia Arenth, O.S.F. There should be more, many more biographies of the men and women who have rendered out-standing service to God and religion. Such biographies would extend the sphere of influence for good which they exercised while living to the men and women of ~he present generation. We have the material; what seems to be lacking are authors to put it to good use. Hence we welcome the present biography with a great deal of satisfaction. It is the biography of Mother Baptista who was one of the pioneers of the Franciscan Sisters in Pennsylvania, and their third mother superior. That so many of the hardships of the pioneer days are now a matter of history for this congregation and that their sphere of influence has been so greatly enlarged is due very largely to her courage, vision, and fortitude. May this biography inspire many more souls to follow where she led; may it also inspire authors to gather material from the same fertile field, the pioneer religious in the United States. Pp. 133. $3.00. SISTERS OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN, St. Scholastica's, Glebe Point, Australia. The Wheeling Years. The Sisters of the Good Samaritan. 1857. 1957. Faith and reason prove the providence of God for His crea-tion. History illustrates it for the discerning reader. In The Wheel- 373 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS ing Years we have such an illustration. The book, made more graphic with drawings and many photographs, recounts the story of the foundation in Sydney, Australia, of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan just one hundred years ago. It tells the story of the first difficult years and their subsequent growth. Houses of the congregation are now found in the whole length and breadth of the island continent. This new congregation adapted the rule of St. Benedict to the needs and requirements of life on a continent at that time rapidly growing to the stature of a new nation. In this centenary publication we also find an account of their spirit, the training imparted to their members, and the work that they do for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Despite the many demands made on them at home, they have not been deaf to the call of the missions and have two foundations in Japan. We join with these sisters in thanking God for the innumerable graces of the past one hundred years. SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL, 2187 Victory Boulevard, Staten Island 14, New York. Holy Mass and Life. By Aloysius Biskupek, S.V.D. "The more the significance of the Mass is understood, and the more its power is used for the realization of the ideal Christian living, the more holiness there will be among the faithful." With these words the author sums up his book in the final chapter titled Conclusion. To offer adequate means to the faithful to attain this end was the motive which guided his pen. His explanations are clear, his exhortations persuasive, and his meditations on the unchanging prayers of the Mass even priests who have said Mass for many years would find helpful. There are twenty-three full page photographs of a priest at various parts of the Mass. Pp. 189. $2.50. 374 ( uestdons and Answers [The following answers are given by Father Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland.] Why has the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS emphasized so frequently the simplification of the habit of religious women? The articles and statements in the R.EVIEW have been mere ex-planations of the principles of Plus XII and the Roman congregations. They have been relatively conservative, as may be seen from some of the following quotations. "The first is that of particular observances. Each of these, even the most material, should bear at least indirectly on the sanctification of the religious. We find a characteristic example in the habit. It is certain that in itself, especially as regards form or color, it contributes very little to the perfection of charity. Nevertheless, it places the re: ligious in a state of separation which is visible to the world and sym-bolizes and favors that interior separation which is the first step of the soul in search of God" (Dora Basset, O.S.B., Religious Sisters. 87). "When the different religious habits were adopted by the founders, they resembled the dress of the poor people of the period. Today a habit is required that helps the body, not one that embarrasses it; it should be practical, simple. A long habit and a simple veil are always graceful and becoming. They offer many practical advantages and are in perfect keeping with modesty and with religious consecration. In order that in our day the religious habit may keep its aesthetic appeal and its character of poverty together with its attractive symbolism of consecration, it would suffice to simplify it. It would thus become more practical, fewer pleats, narrower sleeves, less pretentious coifs and cornettes" (Reverend Victor de la Vierge, O.C.D., ibid., 272-73). "The choice of religious habits for each order was not necessarily motivated by rules of hygiene but frequently by contemporary usage and certain principles of mortification and decency. In recent years a number of religious habits have undergone simplification and a wholesome process of alleviation. Still, it must be recognized that many remain far from healthy either on account of weight (some 375 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religion, s weigh as much as fifteen pounds), or of difficulty of washing, or of headdresses and winged coifs worn tightly around the head and fore-head" (Sister Germaine Marie, Ckastity, 252). "It is simply not permissible that religious should pay more for their clothing than people of the world. There are habits that have become simply impossible with regard to both health and work, and some have become ridiculous and endanger the acceptance of a voca-tion" lMost Reverend A. Ancel, deta et Documenta (~'on.qressus (;en-eralis de Statibus Perfectionis, I, 381). '~In general, the people approve simplicity and practicality. In those consecrated to God, they desire a habit that is serious, but not eccentric, clean but not ostentatious. Therefore they cannot compre-hend today some religious habits, for example, of some sisters. The eccentricity and at times the awkwardness of their headdress is really incomprehensible. One cannot grasp the purpose of those yards of material in folds and pleats, of the starched cloth that makes the imprisoned face look like a mask, of an obstructive and ridiculous headcovering" (Reverend G. Amorth, S.S.P., ibid., I, 308-09). "Dear Father, many, very many of us are one hundred per cent in agreement with you. Please keep pushing, pushing, pushing and talking, talking, talking until results are obtained. It isn't our fault that we must wear the ridiculously conspicuous and unsuitable out-tits we do. We would be eternally grateful to you if you could do anything to hasten our release from these swaddling bands, this en-casement of the face, the starch, ruffles, pleats, quantity of cloth, number of articles of clothing, the many pins which relentlessly stick our fingers and neck, the dangling, rustling rosary which catches into everything, gets caught in train and bus seats, and is forever break-ing into a dozen pieces and constantly in the repair shop. The Blessed Mother did not make herself conspicuous by adopting a singular mode of dress; she conformed to the style of her day. Religious men when working wear suitable clothes, and neither do they have their heads all bundled up. Give me a habit which is extremely simple, suitable in color and for work, and something that can be thrown into a wash-ing machine and washed at least once a week the way common sense and decency demand. Deliver me from this intricate and unwieldy headdress whose weight and pressure cause so many headaches, eye troubles, sinus troubles, and many nervous troubles as well as adverse comments" (,1 communication from a sister on the missions). 376 Nove~nber, 1957 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 35- Will you please give a bibliography on renovation and adaptation? The primary sources are the statements of Pope Pius XII and the Roman congregations. These were given in the REV[E\V FOR RF.LI(;IOUS, 14-1955-3-11; 85-92; 123-38; 15-1956-309-27. The acts and documents of the first general congress on the states of perfection, held in Rome in 1950, are next in importance. They have been published in four volumes by the Edizioni Paoline under the title of Acta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Per-fectionis. Many of the articles of these volumes are in Latin, French, Italian, other modern languages, but very few in English. The next place must be given to other Roman meetings, which can be found in the following works: Acta et Documenta Congressus Internationalis Superiorissarum Generalium; Atti e Documenti del Primo Convegno Internazionale delle Religiose Educatrici; Atti e Documenti del Primo Convegno delle Religiose Rieducatrici, all pub-lished by Edizioni Paoline. In the fourth place are the acts and documents of the various na-tional congresses, e. g., that held for the United States at the University of Notre Dame and published by the Paulist Press in separate volumes for the sisters' and men's sections under the title, Religious Community Life in the United States. The English congress has been published by the Salesian Press under the title, Religious Life Today. In the order of practicality, the next place must be given to the Religious Life Series. These are translations from the French published by the Newman Press and Blackfriars. The volumes that have been translated and published are Religious Sisters, Vocation, Poverty, Chas-tity, Obedience, Doctrinal Instruction of Religious Sisters, and The Direction of Nuns. The volume on common life, La Vie Commune, published in French by Les Editions du Cerf, has not as yet been translated. Again in the order of practicality, the next place is given to Eng-lish works and articles, e. g., The Mind of the Church in the Forma-tion of Sisters, published by Fordham University Press; the Sister Formation Bulletin, published at Marycrest College, Davenport, Iowa; and articles in the l~EVl~.W FOR REL[C, mUS, e. g., 8-1949-86-96; 9-1950- 131-39; 10-1951-75-81; 12-1953-252-72;12-1953-285-90; 12-1953-291-304; 13-1954-13-27; 13-1954-87-92; 13-1954-125-37; 13-1954-169-78; 14-1955- 205-15; 14-1955-293-318; 16-1957-3-9. 377 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious A really great source in quantity and quality of thoughts on reno-vation and adaptation will be found in the French periodical, La Vie Spirituelle and its Supplement, from 1946. Many modern spiritual books, especially in French, are affected by the movement and contribute to it. Our work the essentials, included, why the customary is a prayer. Therefore, why not get along with just Mass and Holy Communion? If meditation must be not make a good fifteen-minute meditation rather than one of a half hour? Work is not infallibly nor by any means always a prayer, and it is rarely a prayer in those who do not give sufficient time to formal prayer. The regime of prayer you favor is that of a devout person of the world, not of a religious who professes to be striving for sanctity. The prayer in the religious life must be of a duration and quality sufficient and capable of inspiring and developing a really saintly life. Some words of Plus XII can also be pondered. "However, We cannot refrain from giving utterance to Our solici-tude and anxiety for those who, because of the special circumstances of the times, have lost themselves so completely in a maze of external activities that they have forgotten the first duty of priests, namely, that of securing their own personal sanctification. We have already publicly proclaimed that those so rash as to hold that salvation can be brougl'~t to men by what has been aptly termed the 'heresy of activity' are to be brought back to the right path. We refer to that kind of activity which is not based on divine grace and does not make constant use of the aids provided by Jesus Christ for the attainment of holiness." "With the growth of devotion to exterior works therefore, let there shine forth a corresponding increase in faith, in the life of prayer, in zealous consecration of self and talents to God, in spotless purity of conscience, in obedience, in patient endurance of hardship, and in active charity tirelessly expended for God and one's neighbor. The Church insistently demands of you that your external wor