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OVER FORTY MILLION PEOPLE ARE INFECTEDwith the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the causative agent of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and more than 95% of these infected individuals are in the developing countries. The prevalence levels for this virus will continue to rise globally. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is the most devastating global public health crisis since the great plagues of the middle-ages with approximately fifteen thousand new HIV infections and ten thousand deaths due to AIDS every day and approximately 3.1 million total deaths due to AIDS.1 Historically, vaccines have proven to be the most effective weapon in our fight against infectious diseases such as small pox, polio, measles and yellow fever. HIV vaccines are our best hope to end the HIV pandemic. Although successful vaccines have been developed for the common childhood diseases, the development of a vaccine against the AIDS virus is a much greater challenge. The best way to stop the spread of the disease and the suffering of AIDS patients is by the development of successful vaccines to prevent infection with HIV and delay or stop progression to AIDS. It is now two decades and a half since HIV was first discovered and researchers have spent millions of Riyals (Omani currency; 1 Riyal = 2.6 US$) looking for possible candidates as vaccines, but what is the outcome of this research? It seems the discovery of a licensed and globally accessible HIV/AIDS vaccine is still years away, the question that arises is: how soon are we going to see a successful HIV/AIDS vaccine? More realistically, how long are we going to wait for such a vaccine? In this article, I will very briefly touch on the scientific hurdles that have impeded the search for an effective AIDS vaccine and discuss novel research approaches to accelerate its progress. Despite important progression in the understanding of HIV pathogenesis2 and HIV/AIDS virus compared to any other viral disease, why are we still not able to produce an effective or even partially effective HIV/AIDS vaccine? The answer to this question lies in understanding how the virus evades the immune system. First, HIV disables the very cells that are responsible for fighting it. Second, HIV is able to integrate its viral genome into the chromosome of the infected cells and therefore hide from recognition by the immune response for many years. Third, HIV is able to conceal the protein components that can induce protective immune responses and therefore presents itself to the body in a way that makes it difficult for the immune system to respond effectively. Fourth, HIV is genetically diverse and rapidly changing, particularly its outer envelope, and this allows the virus to evade most of the natural and protective immune mechanisms that the immune system is able to make. As soon as HIV infection becomes established, HIV continues to mutate genetically and many variants may arise within an infected person. Therefore, investigators need to know the significance of strain variation within the individuals and among the populations when developing an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine. The most logical approach for designing an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine is to identify which immune responses are most protective against this virus infection and to construct a vaccine that is able to stimulate these protective responses. Of the two main types of immune responses, the humoral immune response mainly uses antibodies to protect against a cell-free virus, whereas the cell mediated immune response is essential for body defense when the virus is hidden inside the cells. Although earlier vaccine research focused primarily on vaccines that elicited antibodies, it is now generally believed that both arms of the immune response are required in order to control and prevent HIV infection. Moreover, much attention has recently been directed towards vaccines that induce good innate (natural) immune responses particularly dendritic cells and toll-like receptors which play an important role in inducing and modulating the adoptive immune responses.3 The most practical goal for an HIV vaccine is to prevent HIV transmission rather than preventing infection with the virus. Experts believe a vaccine is the only way to eradicate HIV/AIDS because the most common modes of transmission, sexual contact, injection drug use and mother-to-child transmission at childbirth or breast-feeding are impossible to eliminate completely. The main characteristics of a desirable HIV vaccine are: safety, simple administration as well as affordable cost, long lasting immunity and effective against all HIV subtypes. To develop such an HIV/AIDS vaccine there is a need for team work in fundamental basic research; preclinical screening for active candidates and appropriate animal model followed by product development, manufacturing, and clinical research.3 Currently, there are more promising vaccine candidates being tested than ever before. Vaccine candidates are being constructed based on isolates from different regions of the world, and several research groups are testing a cocktail or a mixture of different viral components from different isolates of HIV. In addition, to optimize the immune responses, new vaccine strategies are being tested [Table 1]. The most current HIV vaccine candidates focus on producing cytotoxic CD4+ T cells, which attack HIVinfected cells in the body; such vaccines might not prevent an HIV-negative person from contracting the virus, but would delay HIV from progressing to AIDS and prevent transmission to others. Another challenge in vaccine research is that HIV strains vary among people and regions. Vaccine trial participants are chosen based on health standards for industrialized nations and many people in developing countries are not healthy enough to participate in such trials.4 Vaccineinduced antibodies that interfere with viral entry are the protective correlate of most existing prophylactic vaccines; however, for highly variable viruses such as HIV-1, the ability to elicit broadly neutralizing antibody responses through vaccination has proven to be extremely difficult. The major targets for HIV-1 neutralizing antibodies are the viral envelope glycoprotein trimers on the surface of the virus that mediate receptor binding and virus entry. HIV-1 has evolved many mechanisms on the surface of envelope glycoproteins to evade antibody-mediated neutralization, including the masking of conserved regions by glycan, quaternary protein interactions and the presence of immunodominant variable elements. The primary challenge in the development of an HIV-1 vaccine that elicits broadly neutralizing antibodies therefore lies in the design of suitable envelope glycoprotein immunogens that circumvent these barriers.5 Individuals who are infected with HIV but remain healthy and keep viral replication in check may offer some hope for guiding the design of an effective HIV vaccine.6 Some of these long-term survivors make a very small amount of antibody, which, when isolated, can neutralize HIV from patient isolates. Further, those antibodies can neutralize viruses from many different patient isolates, which is necessary for an AIDS vaccine that will be effective against a broad spectrum of HIV strains. Unfortunately, even these antibodies may not be the whole answer. Tests of cells in culture indicate that the antibodies must be present at surprisingly high concentrations to block HIV entry into cells effectively. Many researchers continue to look into developing a live, attenuated HIV vaccine despite safety concerns. Because such a vaccine would closely mimic active HIV, it should theoretically be effective at inducing cellular immunity, antibody-based immunity and perhaps- other unknown modes of protection. By systematically deleting genes critical for HIV replication, scientists hope to develop a variant of the virus that can elicit a strong immune response without giving rise to AIDS.4 It also is hoped that vaccines may give the body an immunological 'head start' by priming the immune system to attack HIV as soon as it appears, rather than taking time to initiate a defense from scratch. As the pathogenesis of HIV infection has become better understood, investigators have realized that if the virus can be kept at low concentrations in the blood, an infected person may never progress to AIDS.7 This insight is encouraging because it suggests that even a partially effective vaccine could be valuable in limiting the amount of virus in patients, thus potentially reducing virus infectiousness and the AIDS symptoms. The multitude of scientists searching for successful AIDS vaccines will require appropriate funding and ample time. Funding is now improving, but because of the above difficulties we may not see a vaccine in near future.8 Governments need to cooperate to break barriers, reduce the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, encourage HIV testing, provide support for people with HIV/AIDS and allocate appropriate funding to institutes that work for the development of HIV/AIDS vaccines. The development of appropriate antiviral therapy and reconstructing the damaged immune system are two approaches, both of which require significant financial support. For developing countries, educating the public on preventative measures is the first step in preventing and reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Treating those infected with HIV or who have AIDS is also, of course, critical, but the real hope for the future lies in developing a successful vaccine.

In my review I do not recommend the Fat Decimator System . This is because it's actually a very intense program that requires a great deal of effort. The diet and exercise regime would be difficult for most people to stick to for the required time to lose that stubborn belly fat. Can you stick to a diet of 17 vegetables and milkshake? Can you do 24 hour fasting? Do you want to do those things? There is an easy way You can actually lose 1lb of belly fat every 72 hours with no exercise regime, watch this video now to discover how. The video will teach you about a hot new African tea diet that stops you feeling hungry. Learn how to shed your unwanted belly fat fast and easy with this fantastic new diet that's getting many raving reviews. What is The Fat Decimator System? If you are tired of using those boring fad diets that never deliver results, this is the right time for you to tap into the right solution. No more relying on information that doesn't work. The Fat Decimator System is a new fat-busting diet and exercise program that claims to be able to eliminate 1 pound of belly fat every 72 hours. It is available as a ebook written by ex-US marine Kyle Cooper, and promises quick and long-lasting results. As you enter your 30's and 40's, physical fitness becomes harder to maintain as the body slows down and the effects of ageing become apparent. This system offers all you need to burn fat fast and get yourself into shape, whatever your age may be. You will be educated about how the human body controls fat levels, and how to use this information to your advantage in your quest to burn fat. It encompasses education, diet and exercise techniques, and how to maintain the correct mindset. These things in combination are the secret to this system's extraordinary success. A lot of people have noticed unbelievable results, and you will be amazed with the outcome; all you need to do is carefully understand what the program is all about and how you can make a positive change in your body. Now, before delving deep into the program and how it can help you achieve your weight loss goals, let's talk about the creator of this one-of-a-kind fitness program! Who is Kyle Cooper? Kyle Cooper is an ex-US marine gunnery sergeant, who developed this fat-busting technique whilst stationed in Afghanistan. He also has a feature in the LA times, and runs boot camps in Missouri, and is someone who has dedicated himself to health and fitness. He is now a well-renowned expert in this field. Kyle has served in the marines for most of his adult life and has therefore built up a huge amount of knowledge about health and fitness, but he also genuinely cares about his customers and strives to help them see incredible results. He is a very dedicated and determined individual, but also someone who gets a great deal of personal satisfaction from helping others. How Does The Fat Decimator Work? The techniques and formulas are based on 100% science facts; no more wasting your time and money on useless "facts". The technique relies on a principle of mobilising the body's fat reserves before creating a calorie deficit to eliminate the now mobile fat. All fat loss programs require a calorie deficit over time, otherwise they would not work, and this can be achieved by eating less or exercising more. The first three weeks will be about creating new routines and good habits, and mobilising your fat reserves, and from then on you can begin to quickly melt away your fat. The system includes quick response email support, as well as support via the private Facebook page for anyone who has queries about the system. The Fat Decimator System Phases The Fat Decimator System initially runs for three weeks, with four separate phases during that time. Here's what each one does. Phase 1 This is what kicks the whole process off and runs for the first week. The idea is to cleanse your gut and get your body ready for action. It is not unusual to lose 10 pounds or more during this one week phase. The first week restricts the types of food you can eat. There are 17 vegetables to choose from, including carrots, cabbage, and spinach. These may be steamed, microwaved, or eaten raw – but not fried, roasted, grilled, or cooked in any other way. Chicken, beef, eggs and other protein sources are allowed in limited amounts, and lots of water must be taken in order to detox the liver. Phase 2 Phase 2 is just day 8 on its own, and you may be grateful for that – it's a 24 hour fast. This helps cleanse your body even further and sets you up for the next phase. Your last meal will be in the evening of day 7, and your next meal will be in the evening of day 8, so it's not too much to worry about. It isn't a whole day without eating from rising to sleeping, but it does cover a 24 hour period. Phase 3 Phase 3 continues to tune up the liver, and to burn off more body fat. Phase 3 lasts for three days (days 8, 9, and 10) and involves a drastic change to your diet. Each day, you need to attempt to get 80% of your calories from fat – that is to say natural fat, not processed trans-fat. Studies have shown that limiting carb intake can accelerate fat loss, and with the priming of the first two phases, phase 3 is likely to show a great change in the composition of your body. Whether eating in this manner is healthy in the long run is up for debate, but for a three-day period the benefits seriously outweigh any potential pitfalls. Phase 4 This is the come-down phase, bringing your eating habits closer to what you may have been used to previously, but with a calorie restriction based on the actual needs of your body for the last few days. Using a formula to calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), you will discover how many calories your body burns while at rest. Using this number to restrict the number of calories you consume will help you to lose further weight, but allows your eating patterns to return to a maintainable state. When it's all said and done After Phase 4 is complete, you are free to start adding other foods back into your diet. The Fat Decimator System recommends that certain foods are avoided (or at least limited in quantity) in order to avoid weight regain. After all your hard work, it would be pointless to give up – you need to maintain a healthy weight for the rest of your life. What Food Can You Eat on The Fat Decimator System? The Fat Decimator System is designed to work with your body in order to help you lose excess weight. As part of the system, a reduction in carbohydrate consumption is recommended, but this is for the initial period only – you don't need to permanently eliminate carbs like some diets recommend. The Fat Decimator System is more about optimizing the food you put in your mouth, ensuring your body gets all the nutrients it needs at the right time. This includes meat, fruit, vegetables, and importantly making sure you drink enough water. The Building Blocks of Food You might be wondering what a carbohydrate actually is. In simple terms, it's the starchy or sugary component of any food. If the food isn't sugary or starchy, it probably has little or no carbohydrate in it. Your body doesn't need carbs in order to survive, and so by limiting the amount of carbohydrate you consume can affect your weight loss progress. The body likes to use carbs as an energy source, but this essentially makes the body lazy – and as you can imagine, a lazy body is not a healthy body. The other main components of food are protein and fat – together, these three (including carbs) are called macronutrients. Protein is the main constituent of foods like meat and eggs, while fat are found in many places, not just oil and butter. There are good and bad types of fat. The Fat Decimator System is careful to identify these fats as part of your weight loss process, as the notion that eating fat makes you fat is outdated. Fats from sources such as coconut oil, avocados and nuts, can actually help accelerate your weight loss when used in the right way. When you consider that the majority of your brain is made of fat, you might begin to understand the benefit of allowing some fat in your diet. Furthermore, particular types of fat can improve your bodily function. Omega-3 oils, for example, are found in fish and help to reduce inflammation, reduce joint pain, and give you better hair, skin, and nails! Drink, Drink, Drink Alcohol is never ideal for losing weight, so don't get the wrong idea – if you're drinking, your best option is to choose water. Your kidneys and your liver work together to help regulate the amount of fat in your body. If you don't drink enough water, your kidneys can't operate at their full capacity, limiting your capability to get rid of excess fat. Milkshake Surprise The Fat Decimator System recommends that you drink delicious high-protein milkshakes throughout the day. This will help tremendously with keeping you feeling full. One milkshake should keep you feeling full for about three hours. This one trick will make your weight loss mission so much easier. Do Calories Count? Traditional diets will have you counting calories with no thought as to the source. Think about it – what's more likely to be good for your body? 200 calories of broccoli, or 200 calories of processed sugar? With a regular diet, both would be treated in the same way. Clearly, when the Fat Decimator System recognizes the difference between the two foods, it's a much more sensible way to try to lose weight. The Fat Decimator System Exercise The bane of many overweight lives, exercise is necessary to strengthen your body, help your metabolism, and facilitate your weight loss. The Fat Decimator System is keen to point out that diet is the most important thing to modify in your quest to lose weight, but exercise also has its place. A body that never moves will naturally have a low metabolic rate. Exercise will increase the metabolism, as the body becomes prepared to move a moment's notice. Exercising without changing your diet in anyway is a recipe for disaster. Certainly, moving more and increasing your metabolism will help you lose weight, but the amount will be minimal without drastic changes elsewhere. Before starting any exercise program, it is always wise to consult a doctor as you may have underlying medical issues that would make starting to exercise a dangerous choice. Be Consistent If you find you are able to start to exercise, the key to success is consistency. This doesn't mean you need to exercise at 4:30 every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, but does mean you can't pick and choose. If you exercise 3 days one week, 2 days the next, skip a week, do 2 days the week after, take a week off, and so on, you'll never experience any great progress. You might have heard of some complicated exercise routine that is designed to "confuse your muscles" – in truth, there's no such thing as a confused muscle. It either gets worked out, or it doesn't. If it doesn't get worked out regularly, it gives up, and just stays as it is – what you need are active muscles that are ready for action. Why? Because more muscle burns more fat. The Fat Decimator System 21 Day Workout Just as the eating plan runs for 21 days, the Fat Decimator System has a workout plan for the same period. These are high intensity exercises, designed to be completed within 30 minutes, rather than the traditional hour long workouts you might expect. Starting with a warm up, progressing to body movements with small weights, planks and stretches, every inch of your body will be put through its paces in order to get the most benefit from your motion. What are The Pros and Cons?ProsThe book contains lots of dietary information, including advice about superfoods which can revolutionise your diet. It includes recipes for tasty, healthy foods and information about what foods you should avoid. Interestingly, you will see Kyle recommend some calorie rich foods which can actually help you to burn fat.You can expect to see visible results in as little as 1 week of following the program.There is a money-back guarantee if you do not see results.The program will help you build and maintain healthy habits, including diet, exercise and mindset.You will learn about the physiology of the human body, and how it deals with fat.You will have access to personal coaching via the internet.It has been tried and tested in the US military and found to be extremely effective.ConsThe Fat Decimator is an intense program and requires a great deal of effort and concentration. If you are not ready to put in the effort, you will not get the desired results.Even though the diet is varied and interesting, sugar is definitely out. No cheating is allowed!The book is quite detailed and extensive, and you will have to read the entire thing. Make sure you have proper time to go through everything.You have to stick with the program carefully if you want spectacular results.

The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master's Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ; This is an oral history interview with Junior Edward Rich. Dr. Rich discusses the difficulties of practicing medicine during the Depression: collecting fees, changes in obstetric procedure, and taking script as payment. He also discusses the closing of the Ogden State Bank. ; 25p.; 29cm.; 2 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 sound disc: digital; 4 3/4 in. ; Oral History Program Junior Edward Rich Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Junior Edward Rich Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master's Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Rich, Junior Edward, an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Junior Edward Rich. Dr. Rich discusses the difficulties of practicing medicine during the Depression: collecting fees, changes in obstetric procedure, and taking script as payment. He also discusses the closing of the Ogden State Bank. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: What was your profession during the Depression years? JR: I was an M.D., a doctor. MT: What do you remember about your profession at that time, the difficult times that you had, if there were some? JR: Well, it was a trying time for the doctors. They all had certain costs of operation, and the income of the doctors dropped off so radically. I know in my own experience that I was probably collecting maybe 90 percent of the fees outstanding, while during the Depression years, it dropped off to where I was probably only collecting 10 percent. In fact, some months I had difficulty paying my nurse, and paying my overhead, rent, incidentals, and medical supplies, and so on. People were just unable to pay for the service that was rendered. Of course we were working harder than ever because it seemed like there was more work at that time, and a person couldn't do anything other than render the service and put the charge on the books, and hope that sometime the person might be able to pay. But the question was getting enough income to take care of fixed commitments and expenditures that one had to meet, and some months, it was actually operating in the red. You were digging into what little reserve you had to meet the expenses to keep going. 2 In fact, at that time, there was an organization, I've forgotten the name now, that amongst the professional men and some of the merchants, that set up a script type of money. The farmers would bring in the produce - they had a large department area down, I think it was in the Berthana building on the ground floor - four bare walls and so on, and just merchandise piled around the walls of the building, and so on. And one would take the script in there and receive vegetables or fruits and produce of different types. That would kind of give you an idea of the way the economy was going. People would bring vegetables and fruits into that place, and then they would get script and come up and pay the doctor with the script - or the dentist, or the other individuals - and he, in turn, would go down to that building and pick up a few vegetables, and so on. That seems a rather primitive way of doing business, but still during the Depression, that was what was going on - that was in the years about 1930, 1931, and 1932 through there. And then there were certain outfits that set up on gas stations that were pretty much the same way. They would give you, for a little fee to set up membership, they would sell you gas for cost. Even some of the professional men were having their nurses deliver statements within a near radius rather than put out money to pay the postage, and so on because even the postage amount that was expended became prohibitive considering the income that was coming in. Many of the things that we resorted to were with just the idea of keeping going because at that time rents were a kind of a fixed expenditure, and other things, they didn't vary much, and it was a problem. A lot of charitable work was 3 being done, a lot of home work being done, and more operating work in the offices that could be done because the people just didn't have the means of paying the hospital. I imagine the hospitals also were creating a good deal of credit, and putting amounts on the books that previously were paid for by cash. So everything was in a precarious position. Of course a lot of the professional men at the time, due to the boom years of 1928-29 with the stock market going up and so on, many professional men had opened trading accounts, and not only professional men, but others were operating on a margin account, which at that time, were about 10 percent. A person had to put up about 10 percent money for the total cost of the purchase, and carry the account of margin. Then when the stock market, of course, began to drop, why every few points the broker would call for more money to maintain the 10 percent spread. And as a result it finally got to the point where the person couldn't put up the money, and they had to let the stock go, and they'd lose everything that they had in it. Of course a corrective thing came along later whereby they had to put up a 50 percent or even 100 percent margin, and then, of course, naturally they were protected against their own vice, so to speak. But when you think of, for instance, as a personal experience, I watched a stock like, say, Anaconda Copper. Professional men, many of them would buy into the exchange market rather than buy land and so on because it's an easy way of doing it. It doesn't require a good deal of outside management and distraction from their practice and so on. And I had been interested in Anaconda Copper, just as an instance, and I'd watched it go from $176 to the neighborhood 4 of $56. And so, after it got down there, I started buying some Anaconda Copper stock, thinking that it couldn't get. it's a giveaway, and so on. And I went ahead and bought it, and it kept dropping and dropping and finally it got down to a point where I thought that I ought to even up my purchase, it was so much lower. It got down around in the $20s and finally I wound up buying my last purchase at $4 a share. And it went down to $3 a share after that. Now that just gives you an idea of the values. Now, for instance, Electric Bond and Share went down from $556 to 75 cents a share, and when you think of value, you can see how people were broke. People who owed money for stocks were just hopelessly wiped out. But the person that owned the stocks outright, of course, and could hold them throughout that whole thing, were not particularly hurt because it turned out to be a paper loss. But the one great lesson of the Depression years in borrowing was the fact that if you owned it outright, you couldn't be hurt, but if you owned it on margin, and owed the banks for it, then, of course, that is where you could be wiped out and be hurt because you had a two-way spread. For instance, if a person had a loan at the bank and had gone ahead and borrowed money to buy some commodity or some stock or property or so on, and he put up, say, what he thought at the time was just absolutely gold, maybe triple A bonds, and then one would never figure that the bonds would never, maybe at the worst, go below 90, why some of these bonds that were put up as collateral went down maybe as low as $25 on the hundred. It was the matter of the two-way spread. Not only was the value of the thing you bought going down, 5 but the value of the collateral that you put up was going down, so that you had a two-way spread, and it was more difficult all the time to raise money. And, of course the banks were, at that time during the heyday of '29, were encouraging people to take loans. Why, when things got tough, then they began to tighten down, and sure, when the loan was made, oh, no, this was fine, they required you to put up a little collateral. During the Depression years, as it got tougher, the banks got tougher, and of course they called for more and more collateral, until finally a fellow only had the gold left in his teeth to put up. And all he could do was say, "Well, there it is," and the banks, of course, went ahead and threw the collateral on the market, and it just forced prices down, down, down. And that was the panic of all this, that caused it. But it was very difficult on the profession. I know two or three doctors that had stock in ranches and things like that, and they finally wound up having to let all their stock go because assessments were made on the stock and the assessments couldn't be paid, so they just had to kiss the whole thing goodbye. One doctor here in Ogden had a very large investment in some Nevada ranches and so on, and, in 1928, he could have sold those out for about $300,000, as I remember it. He wound up letting it all go because he couldn't pay a $2 assessment on the stock. He lost the whole thing. So that many doctors were hurt, and some doctors in the profession were having such a tough time of it that the society had to kind of come to their aid with the doctors that were getting along fairly good putting up a little fund each month to kind of carry them over and keep them in business and let them keep their self-respect .I mentioned 6 about the script, and that helped some, but you took short-cuts that you'd never dream of before to conserve your capital and your outlay. MT: Do you remember any specific little innovations that you used to speed up your collection or to increase your business, other than script? JR: At that time it was so difficult to know the exact economic status of the individual that you were treating in the profession, that rather than to send out letters and things of that nature requesting help in meeting our financial obligations, we hired an individual, who was tickled to death to get the work because there were so many out of work, to personally visit the people who were not making any payment whatsoever to ascertain their circumstances and whether or not they could make some small payment in the way of money, or even in the way of goods, or something that could be used. That worked out very satisfactorily for us. I don't know, I say us, because at that time I was associated with my father, Dr. Edward I. Rich, in a partnership, and that helped because we got an exact, intimate knowledge of the family's condition. If they couldn't [pay], well, they couldn't, and you went along rendering the same aid, like I say, with the hope that eventually they might get to the point where they might be able to make some payment on the account. MT: When did you start your practice? JR: In January of 1926. And I practiced up until 1965, January 1965. At the end of 40 years, the last 30 years of my practice were devoted to general surgical work, and so on. I left in June of 1942, and spent three and one-half years in the service during the war. Other than those years, and being away occasionally for 7 short times, or for graduate work and conventions, I practiced in Ogden for the full time. MT: Who were some of the new doctors that came in right during the Depression years - do you recall? JR: Well, there was Dr. Wilbur Wilson, and Dr. C. J. Olsen, and let's see, those were two, and Dr. Wes Anderson started up about 1931 or '32. He was interning up at the hospital at that time. And also Dr. Olsen and Dr. Wilson were both interns about 1929, 1930 or thereabouts - that would be in Ogden. Dr. Reed Rich over at Montpelier, Idaho, was interning about that time. MT: Now, are there any other doctors at that time that are still around that were established prior to the crash of the stock market? JR: These are the only ones that I can think of. When I first came here and started practicing in 1926, I think that all of the doctors have either died or retired that were practicing then. But there are two or three of them that are alive that are retired. One is Dr. Vern Ward, and he is an obstetrician, you know, but he lives up here. And there is Dr. George Phizter, and he lives up on 29th Street. He was in neurology at that time. Dr. Olsen wasn't a doctor then, but he was in Salt Lake as a laboratory man and he graduated later. Even though I'm younger, I had been in practice at least two or three years when he was an intern. Dr. Frank Bartlett is out at the chronic disease hospital in Roy, but he may be able to give you quite a little help. He may be alert enough. MT: Now, let's go back into this area we explored before on the bank closing. 8 JR: Of course the closing of the Ogden State Bank had a distinctive shocking effect upon our local community here. It was really the first thing, I think, that brought home the seriousness of the Depression. At the time there was a good deal of information in the papers about the situation through the East and the many banks that were closing. And the thing began to snowball, and people became so apprehensive that this run started on the Ogden State Bank. People just all of a sudden decided that they ought to get their money and put it in a sack instead of leaving it in the bank. And when the run started on the Ogden State Bank, it was probably one of the older and more stable banks. It had done a lot of service for the community. It had probably been a little more liberal than many of the other banks in granting loans to ranchers and stockmen and that long-range loan plan where the loan can be readily liquidated. As a result of having a disproportionate amount of their loanable funds out in this type of loan, why with this demand for cash, they found it difficult to convert these loans into cash adequate to meet the demands of the depositors. It seemed like kind of a groundswell of fear that came up, and as the run started, why they couldn't get any funds. They appealed to the First Security Bank, which was a federal bank and having difficulty of its own. In fact, just after the closing of the Ogden State Bank, it had a run. The fact that the First Security Bank was able to tell them, "Line up for your money, and we'll pay all of you," it kind of quelled it down. There was a big meeting in the lobby of the bank, at which the president of the bank reassured them and said that the money was there, and all they had to 9 do was line up and get it. That kind of put the quietness on the run, and established some form of sense in the public. But the Ogden State Bank went ahead and tried to meet their demands, and ran out of cash and couldn't raise any more. And, as a result, they closed up and went into a forced liquidation of their assets. In spite of that, they paid off practically 100 percent. I know that I was a depositor in the bank, and, as I recall, I received all my money, which was in a checking account, at the end of about a year and a half of liquidation. But they sold out assets at probably 10 or 15 percent of their real value under a forced liquidation program, and it was too bad because the bank need never have closed. They had assets of two to three to one, but they just couldn't convert them. But the thing was, it was not just the banks that were having the problem in assets and in getting liquid. The same thing pertained to individuals. I know that at the time prior to the 1929 crash, when everything was favorable, and everyone was skyrocketing prices and outbidding each other for anything, especially in the way of securities, that a person didn't hesitate at all to go into debt to buy securities because they were sold on the idea that they were 100 percent gilt-edged. So, many people were encouraged, and now I feel that the bankers were somewhat at fault for this because they encouraged people. They had plenty of money, and they encouraged people to come in and take loans on collateral that probably wasn't nearly adequate after things got worse. And people would go ahead and buy a stock, and then, of course, after the crash came, they only owned 10 percent of it because that's all the money that they 10 had to put up under the margin requirements. Every time the stocks would drop 10 points, the stock market would call them and they wanted more collateral, they wanted more money. And the person would keep putting up the money until finally they had exhausted all their means of raising any money. And loan companies, people that had money in the building and loan companies, were drawing it out until the building and loan companies were broke. The thing was that a person would go ahead to a bank and want to borrow some money, and they would put up a normal amount of collateral, and the collateral probably was even some gilt-edged bonds that people wouldn't ever expect to go down. But the bonds that ordinarily shouldn't ever go below 90 went down to 26 percent, and the stocks that were selling up in the 100s went down to practically zero. But when you see a stock like General Motors go down to about 7 percent a share, which - considering the splits and everything of stocks - you can imagine how cheap these stocks got. But it was a trying time. Now, some doctors in our community lost a lot of money. The friend that lost the money on the ranches in Nevada finally had his stock assessed. And, as I remember, it was only about a $2 assessment per share. As I remember, he couldn't even raise the money to pay the $2 assessment per share and had to let all his stock go, so that he not only lost his stock, but he also still owed the banks for some of the money that he had borrowed to buy the stock. So he was really paying for a dead horse afterward. That was the sad part about some of these things. You not only lost, but you still owed. But that was the problem at that time. 11 And I think one of the greatest lessons to be learned from the individuals that experienced this thing, who happened to be at that age in life where he was buying things and in an attempt to look out for the future, and his retirement and this sort of thing, is that they didn't owe. The one thing that I learned was never to buy anything on borrowed money. In fact I've always said since that the only justification for anyone to borrow money was if they were properly putting it in their own business to tide them through a time when they had full control of it. But to borrow money to put in somebody else's business is just sure death. MT: Do you feel that you would have developed that much conservatism if you hadn't lived through the Depression? Or do you feel that's a contributing factor of the Depression in your life? JR: Well, I think that lesson comes because of having experienced the Depression, and that it probably had a very good effect even nationally, that people became more conservative. From the standpoint of venturing into the unknown, and to go through this experience, I think that it has paid off, personally, many times over, because it has changed my whole thinking about investments, about what is worthwhile, what isn't worthwhile, and the true values in life and in our economic life. In fact, I had an experience prior to this Depression during my school years, during my junior and senior years in medical school in Pennsylvania. I went to Europe for four months and it was at the time that the German nation was going through the wringer. I remember going into Germany when the mark was 18,000 to the dollar. I spent six weeks in Germany during this time overseas, and when I came out, it was 65 million to the dollar. Of course it didn't cost me anything to 12 live there because I had outside dollars. I changed one dollar a day and then wished that I could only change 50 cents because it was only costing me 10 or 15 cents to live a day. But for the person that had to make their money there, they contracted a salary and at the end of two weeks, the salary wouldn't have been enough to buy a good meal. So that was a very early experience in this business of what inflation and depression and other things can do to an economy. This was in 1923 when Hitler made his first push. In fact, in Munich one night they had these big meetings and so on. He failed in that, and that was when the money and the economy were going to pot. And of course our Depression was just the aftermath of all these things overseas and so on. In fact I've always said that Hoover was just such an unfortunate man to have gone into the Depression when he did, when this was the backwash of the whole worldwide affair, for which he got blamed. He was probably our most able, intelligent and best educated man that we've ever had in the presidency. In fact, I knew Herbert Hoover. I'd taken care of his son, along with another San Francisco doctor when I was at Stanford in San Francisco. I had occasion to meet him and know him and develop a good deal of respect and admiration for him that made me feel kind of doubly bad that he got behind the eight-ball on this kind of thing as a result of just a set of circumstances that would have probably killed anyone. MT: Before we started the recording, you said that you felt that perhaps President Roosevelt was responsible for part of this. Would you explore that just a bit? 13 JR: Well, I've always felt that the bank closing was really unnecessary, that the election in November and the time of the election, and this time that Roosevelt was elected into office was the critical time of the whole Depression. That was when the banks were closing and that is when everything was going to pot fast. Hoover asked, after he was defeated in the election, he called upon Roosevelt to come in and jointly work with him on this. And Roosevelt sat back there and wouldn't help in any way, and wouldn't consent to anything even though Hoover said, and I recall reading it in the paper publicly, that any credit would go to Roosevelt. All he wanted was to stop this sort of thing. But Roosevelt wouldn't even give a recommendation or even meet with President Hoover. He wouldn't even accept an invitation to meet with him until after he went into office. And when he was officially in office, then of course he took his first steps to start correction of this thing, which should have been done several months before. I mean that's the way I remember the thing, and the way things were going, because I remember the bank business in a state of panic and fear that was building up and up and up. And it could have been stopped if the two of them had gotten together and taken some of these steps. MT: What else do you remember about the time, the economy, and what people did to exist? JR: Well, everybody of course economized, and during the early days of the Depression, it made such an impact on people's minds that even after things got going along fairly well, there was this extreme reversal instead of a tendency to spending, as prior to the Depression - which partly accounted for the big boom 14 and everything. People reacted and there was a tendency not to normally spend, but also since many people had that debt still hanging over their heads from things they lost, rather than go into bankruptcy that many of them were working to pay off. As a result, a lot of the money that people were finally making when they had jobs and were doing very well, was going toward repaying things that had been carried on credit during those lean years. As a result the economy was rather slow coming back, even though the government was pumping money into all of these public works and so on. But it always reminded me of how a group can be panicked, or like a stampede of cattle. But after the big flare is over and solved, then you begin to repair the damage that never would need to have been in the first place. As a result it was we had a few good years, and along about 1934 and '35, things began to go pretty good. And then we had a Depression, which in many ways was probably even more severe than the Depression of the early 30s. That was in 1937 that things got bad, but because of the fact that the people had been conditioned to this sort of thing, they didn't panic, they didn't stampede, and as a result some phase of the economy didn't realize that we were in that severe depression in 1937. But actually we never recovered from the Depression until World War II came along, and then the spending on armaments and the preparation for war and furnishing other countries and so on [turned] the wheels of industry to such an extent that we finally pulled out of it. And of course that was in spite of all the pump-priming and all the money that was laid out through the years of the early Roosevelt administration. We still had not recovered from 15 the Depression. We were being carried artificially, and so on, and it was only when World War II came along. It's a sad commentary that the expenditures of the war were necessary to take us out of the deflation. Yet, still, that has held true in other cases as well, since World War II. But I think that it was a long, drawn-out affair in recovery because of a re-adjustment of people. People had lost their homes and their ranches and so on because of being in debt. They went and moved to other parts of the country, took up probably other businesses, and went into other vocations or professions and what not. As a result, it was a great period in the country of readjustment. Maybe as a result of all of it, it was for the better, like going through the fire and coming out a bit purified, at least in our thinking. But it was an experience. After the first mad rush of panic, then the expression became not so much one of fear and panic as it was one of slow, tough rebuilding process. MT: Which section of people were more severely affected by the Depression - those who lived in the country, those who lived in the city? JR: Well, that would be difficult to say. I feel that the group that was probably least affected were those that were probably rural and kind of living on the land, that their pattern of living was not affected as much as the person who was depending upon a salary check. The ability to buy things became unavailable, even though they might have been fortunate enough to continue on in a job. Of course from the standpoint of the professional man, and maybe the people who were living on the farm or the ranch, while they maintained more of their own standard of living and were less affected unless their ranch or farm was taken 16 away from them as a result of being in debt - and many people were in debt for numerous things that they didn't really need. They had gone into debt because they were booming time, and then the debt time came along. But generally speaking, I'd say the person living in the city was strapped more because the basic elements of living were more difficult for them to get than the person who was on the ranch or the farm. In fact some of them on the ranches and the farms got along very well, and were very little affected by the Depression if they had escaped this debt, this death trap. A lot of people economized. There was very little traveling, very little, if any, unnecessary expenditure. In fact, people that previously liked to take a trip to the coast and so on, if they took a trip at all - I know people in this town that ordinarily would take a bedroom suite, this that and the other - would ride a chair car. Just to give you an example of people that still had means, but this idea that they didn't, that this forced retrenchment of expenditures would cause them to go ahead and ride a chair car down there because it was less expensive. This feeling of retrenchment was so profound and as a result all that did was aggravate the overall spiral. It was this sort of fear and panic that got us into the trouble. It wasn't that we didn't have everything that we had before; it was just that there was no circulation of profit. Everything was entrenched. There wasn't money available. Nobody was making it available. It went down in the sack, what they had. MT: What would have been some of the problems of a new doctor just coming into practice at the time? 17 JR: Well, his problem of course was not - you didn't have very many doctors in the community. The society, which now has probably a couple of hundred, we only had about 24 or 30 members. But a doctor coming in had a difficult time because he couldn't collect enough cash to really pay his expenses. He'd be fairly busy, but he was putting everything on his books, and probably 95 percent or better credit. How much of that he could collect at a later date was purely problematic, so that made it a very trying time. I know that doctors at that period - might not be just at that period - but it was more of a general pattern that you always took calls. I remember through those years, and it always carried over even until I retired, I always answered a home call, especially as a younger man. If an older doctor called me about a night call that he was unable to take, and so on, I was always tickled to death to take it for someone. And of course these younger men did a lot of night calls that way, which made it possible for them to exist. They were glad to get them, and at that time too. The pattern has changed for young men coming now. In the hospitals at that time, for interns and that type of thing, they weren't paying anything except just room and board. That was all that a young doctor ever expected in the way of remuneration during his hospital years, where now the hospitals pay very fancy salaries for interns and residents, which makes it possible. Of course, another thing was that the younger doctors at that time were either single or had just married. The practice now is that doctors marry at the beginning of their medical education because it's rather prolonged. Of course it was prolonged 18 then, but this pattern has changed. As a result, a doctor starting out now starts up with a family, with probably several children, where at that time, he was a single doctor or a newly-married doctor. It was possible for them to get along a little bit easier because the demand financially was not as great. MT: What would a young doctor receive for a house call at that time? JR: Well, $4 was the going charge, $2 for an office visit, and $4 for a home visit. Of course that included any medicines and so on that you left with the patient, and any it was necessary to administer at the time. Night calls usually went up to $5 and $6 and so on. At that time, a woman could go to the hospital. In fact while I was a county physician back in the late 1920s and early 1930s, I made arrangements with the hospital, and this is when we first started taking maternity cases into the hospital. I made an arrangement with the hospital for a woman to go in and, for $30, that covered her entire hospital arrangement. Not only the delivery room changes and the drugs that were necessary, but the anesthetic, her bed and room for the 10 day period, which was the amount of time we used to keep a maternity case, and also took care of the baby and the operation of the circumcision, if that was indicated. The cost of that was sort of an overall, catch-all price that covered that. And of course at that time, the doctor charge was $30 for the care of the maternity case, and that included the prenatal visits throughout the nine months of pregnancy, the delivery, the care at the hospital, the care of the baby including circumcision, and so on, and six weeks care afterwards for both the mother and the baby. 19 The services, I guess two or three days in the hospital for the mother, which is about as long as a maternity case is kept in now, would probably run right in the neighborhood of $200-$300, besides the fact that any drugs are charged for separately and the operation upon the baby, such as circumcision, is a separate charge. The anesthesiologist has a separate charge, and the doctor in many communities - I know especially out along the coast - that the delivery charge is entirely separate from the prenatal charge and the postnatal charge. And the doctor who is in obstetrics and delivers the baby has nothing to do with the baby. When he delivers the baby, it's turned over to a pediatrician who looks after it, and his charges are separate. So the total charge of having a baby is very, very considerable over the way it used to be. Now I charged years ago, of course during the Depression years and before the Depression - the Depression didn't alter our charges, the only thing that the Depression altered was the fact that we didn't collect what we charged - but most deliveries at that time were done in the home, and the charge was no different whether they went to the hospital or had them in the home. You furnished all the materials that they paid for at the hospital, but that was just part of the overall charge. MT: How many did you deliver at home, do you recall? JR: Well, as I say, I did some maternity work as part of my general practice up until about 1939. Then I started doing just general surgery, and as a result of being in the service during World War II doing nothing but surgery, I was chief of surgical services when I came back. But I used to do a lot of maternity work during the '20s and '30s, and my father, who I was associated with, he did a lot of 20 obstetrical work during his time. In fact he delivered over 5,000 babies during his career. In fact, he practiced about 54 years, and then he just died about two years ago. He was just a few weeks short of 101. But he was one of the early pioneer physicians in this area, so it was quite interesting to be associated with him because I carried on doing a lot of work. For instance I used to do a lot of tonsil work in the office which a lot of doctors didn't do, just because Father got me in the habit of doing it and I continued on even after it was kind of the acceptable procedure to do them in the hospital. Of course a lot of these things are done there because the public has demanded it, not because it's better, but because they go for certain things in the medical profession. And that is one reason for the higher prices is that a doctor doesn't dare do some of things even though it's better and safer for them because if anything happened to them, why the public is suit conscious. As a result, the public has made it so that they aren't getting the same care because a doctor won't venture for them, even where they haven't any chance the other way. The doctor isn't going to do it.

The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master's Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ; This is an oral history interview with Dr. Clyde Winslow Fields. Dr. Winslow discusses the difficulties of setting up a dental practice during the Depression, including working in the Eccles (First Security Bank) building, caring for some of the Eccles family, and the closure of the Ogden State Bank. He recalls dealing with bootleggers and sexual harassment, and professional jealousy within the medical, dental, and law professions. He also talks about vice on 25th Street including prostitution. ; 27p.; 29cm.; 2 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 sound disc: digital; 4 3/4 in. ; Oral History Program Dr. Clyde Winslow Fields Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Dr. Clyde Winslow Fields Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master's Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Fields, Dr. Clyde Winslow, an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Dr. Clyde Winslow Fields. Dr. Winslow discusses the difficulties of setting up a dental practice during the Depression, including working in the Eccles (First Security Bank) building, caring for some of the Eccles family, and the closure of the Ogden State Bank. He recalls dealing with bootleggers and sexual harassment, and professional jealousy within the medical, dental, and law professions. He also talks about vice on 25th Street including prostitution. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: What were you doing during the Depression years? Were you a dentist then? CF: I started in August 1929. I opened my office on the 14th of August, and the crash hit in October. I was here in Ogden in the First Security Bank building. I hadn't got started, and I had a wife and twin babies. We'd come from Portland, where I had been going to school. When we got here, we knew that she was going to have twins and were completely financially broke. We had no money, and we had borrowed money from my sister to open an office and take the state board, for that matter. I took the state board at that time, then I had three days at the Capitol Building and one day at the University of Utah and at the penitentiary, where I worked. That was in Sugar House at that time. I have often said that every young man ought to have the opportunity of being in the penitentiary for one day to teach him a lesson to stay out of trouble because it was one of the hardest tests I ever went through in my life. The strain I went through because I had a wife and twin babies that were born in July. Even though in that summer it was a boom time, I started in the middle of August and had all expenses and no income. I think that I collected 2 $550 gross between August and January. But of course my expenses were much more. It looked pretty good starting out in Ogden and then, of course, the crash came, and they kept saying, "It won't last, it won't last." But it went on and on and on. I didn't get any start before the crash came. I was in the First Security Bank building, and I was there eleven months. Then I moved over in the Eccles Building and joined offices with my father-in-law, Dr. Dwight Hardy, and we were. But I was in debt, and it was really a struggle because money was very hard to get after the crash came, and people were having a heck of a time trying to get any money. Of course they couldn't pay us at all, and it was a struggle for me. I had to keep going down to the bank renewing the notes that I had there because they were having a hard time, and the bank made me renew my notes every three months instead of every six months, as we started out. Of course people themselves were having a hard time. They finally came out with script. I think that was partially paid for by the federal government, and they'd buy vegetables with the script. Well, it was supposed to be really illegal to spend the script for dental or medical work, but then they needed help and they couldn't get it through the script, as they called it. So we traded them dental work for the script, and we would go buy vegetables with the script. This was common among the dentists and the physicians and all. Of course if got to be kind of a struggle for survival, and lots of things were done that maybe shouldn't have been done. Maybe I shouldn't mention this, though, but the county physicians were taking pay. They were being paid by the county, and they were also being paid by the patients. They found it out and caused a lot 3 of ruckus in the medical society, and almost split the society wide open because they were all having a hard time. When they tried to do it this way, it caused a lot of feelings. Of course the county commissioners felt bad because it was a bad mark on their record; and Mr. Stratford, who was a senior member of the county commission, asked my father-in-law if we couldn't squelch this thing in the medical society so that it wouldn't get out to the public too much because it looked so bad for him politically. MT: What kind of care did people take of their teeth during the Depression years? CF: Well, that was one of the hardest things that we had to put up with because there weren't very many that felt they were very essential. In fact, they let them go until they ached, and oft times there was a loss of teeth that ordinarily would not have been if they had the sense to get at them. But they didn't have the money, and we didn't have the money, and it was a very difficult situation. Of course some things were very bad situations because of the lack of care. It was the days of Prohibition, too, and this added another facet that most people don't stop to realize because we had a number of people who were doing bootlegging work who were out to get money. It later had a reflection that was very bad. Now among both the medical and dental and legal professions, if we found he was a bootlegger, we would charge him a more excessive price. We had two or three reasons for that. In the first place, we figured he made his money illegally. The second reason was that we never knew if we were going to have him the next day or not because he might be in jail. And the third reason was that they had the money when nobody else did. And this was a common 4 practice when we realized they were bootleggers and were in the business. Those were the ones we tried to make our money on because lots of times we had a hard time making it on the others. They did neglect their work – bridge work, anything that way, just the bare essentials. Sometimes not even that. Back in the phase of bootlegging, just to give you an example of what would happen, I had a man come into my office who was on what was known as the WPA at that time. He brought his wife in with a terrible toothache, and I didn't know them. They were strangers to me, but they had been referred to me. She was about seventh months pregnant, and she had a terrific toothache and they wanted something done. He was sort of a gruff fellow and said, "I can't afford to pay you, but," he said, "you can take the tooth out, and you don't have to deaden it. I know that's a cost to you and you've got to pay it, but," he said, "I can't afford to pay you, and I don't know when I can. She's got to go to the hospital and have a baby." I couldn't take the woman's tooth out without deadening it, so I deadened it. I said, "Well, if you get to where you can pay me, let me know." Because I was having a hard time buying milk for my twin babies. I couldn't tell hardly which tooth it was because they were all so bad, and I didn't know which tooth was aching. I couldn't afford to go very far myself, so I took the tooth out that she said was aching, and looking at the rest of those, I thought that she would soon be back for more. I didn't know, and within another month, she was back again with another toothache and the same story: "Oh, I can't afford to pay you." I couldn't see the woman suffer that way, so I went ahead and took it out. The next month 5 he came in, and he had a toothache. She was in the hospital. He couldn't stand a toothache, so he had gone down and bought him a fifth of whiskey from the bootleggers. Well, that made me furious. He could buy the whiskey, but he couldn't pay for his wife's teeth to be pulled. So I made him pay then. I made him pay it all, and I told him I wouldn't do his teeth unless he did. But these were the sad parts of it because she was a good woman, and he was just a weakling. We saw a lot of this in the Depression because people would often fake some of their injuries in order to get care, both medical and dental. Those were the people that I might say were more of a dishonest type that made it hard for us because if we tried to be honest, we never knew, as in a case like this one, it made it very difficult to get it. We used to do all kinds of things. We used to trade dental care for services, for groceries, and things this way. This was often very unsatisfactory because either on the dentist's side or on the patient's side, oft times one or the other would take advantage of the other. It did its service all right. It had a service, but it still was not satisfactory because one felt the other was taking advantage of them, and in some cases it may have been the dentist taking advantage of the patient. I know one dentist whose patient had apples to sell and couldn't sell them. He made him give him an exorbitant number of apples just to have his tooth pulled. The patient felt that it was very unfair, but they were desperate and needed help. Now, as far as the patient was concerned, they would take advantage of the dentist, declare hardship when they didn't have it. I had a case where welfare was supposed to be being done, and they were 6 dividing up some of these cases that were so bad, and some of the service clubs were having some done, and they wanted to know if the dentists would help out, and we did – we wanted to help out. But one day, one patient had so much work that they divided up among several of the dentists. I got part and Dr. Clark got the other part. Dr. Clark was a Mason, and belonged to the Masonic Lodge. One day he called me up and he said, "Hey, sucker, what are you doing?" He said, "This patient that we're doing work for, you and I, has no reason to be on charity." He said, "I found that out through the Masonic Lodge. His father is a railroad engineer, and they would be able to pay." He said, "They've gone on charity, and they're not supposed to be." Well, I said this was not fair to us because we were having a hard time, too. So we had all these kinds of problems to put up with because people were taking advantage. It got progressively worse as time went on because they figured, "Everybody else is getting it done, why shouldn't I?" So it was really not a satisfactory thing of trading services for dental. It was far more satisfactory where the cash was handled. Even though we may trade with the individual, grocers would come to us and want work done, and we would do it in trade for groceries. Well, sometimes I found that in some of the cases, not all, there were exceptions, but when the groceries were delivered, they were mediocre, poor fresh vegetables, fresh groceries, and they'd come that way to the home. I'd ask my wife to call them up and trade the bill off, and they'd bring that stuff that was really unsatisfactory, not fit to use sometimes. This was a common thing. Of course, it made the dentist want to slough his work. Yet we were held 7 by a law if we did slough it that would come at us in a lawsuit. This was a tough proposition. However, there were those who were perfectly straight and honest in all their dealings. But we were still always suspicious, and they were too. I know that I had patients come in. One patient came in and wanted to trade that way, and I did some work for him the first sitting. He said, "When are you going o finish the job?" I said, "You are finished." He said, "But when are you going to put the permanent fillings in?" I said, "They are in." He said, "But they can't be." He said, "The dentist I've been going to would just cut them open a little bit and put in a temporary filling, and have me come back, and keep charging me each time." I said, "I can't do that." Well, the dentist was protecting himself from the same proposition – the lack of honesty and fairness in trade. This was a continual problem with us. Now, in my own cases, I went up and picked peaches in payment for dental work I did. He let me have the peaches, but he charged me twice what I could pay for the peaches elsewhere. And I didn't know the price of peaches at the time, and my father-in-law found it out. It was one of his patients, and he sent me there to do that, to trade it. He was pretty angry about it, and called the man and called him down about it. People who were working for the WPA would do the same thing. I know they brought a man into me for a physical examination. He was supposed to have hurt his back while working for the WPA. The doctors couldn't find anything specific that was causing the pain in his back, and he was continually complaining. They had to pay him his wages. He was supposed to have been on the road grader when he was injured, and they had to pay him his 8 wages. I'd tried to examine him for his teeth, and the WPA was giving him the money, and he was supposed to pay his bills with the WPA check. But they gave him double money for the medical condition. I did get some money, but they asked us to keep the price down because they couldn't afford to carry too much. I walked out of the office one day and saw a man walking in front of me. I thought he looked familiar and, all of a sudden, I realized that it was this patient who was supposed to be injured and couldn't walk. But he was walking as normal as anyone I ever saw. I followed him for about two blocks. Then he turned around and saw me and recognized me, and started in with the best limp you ever saw. He went limping from then on. So these were the common things that we had to put up with, and yet we were having a struggle making our payments and paying our rent. Our rent was not held down, and so we had a meeting with the owners of the building and told them that we just couldn't afford to keep going on this way, and they couldn't afford to lower the rent. They were running the building in debt, and now they had a heavy debt to pay off, and they couldn't afford to cut the rent. So then the Eccles, the owners, said they would try to divide their medical and dental work up amongst the tenants of the building. Well, that created problems because Royal Eccles was one of the tenants, and he had been going to Dr. Tribe for his dental work. He was a good dentist, but then suddenly he brought part of his family to me and part of them to Lee Tribe. To try to be fair to Lee Tribe, I went in to him, and I said, "How do you charge because some of the family is coming to me?" Well, then Lee got mad, 9 and there was professional jealousy, which crept in because of these conditions. I know this was typical among dental, medical, and legal people because I saw it. A lot of them would not admit it but finally I said to Lee, "Now look, I'm trying to be fair with you and not undercut you. I just don't know how to handle this situation with him because he's hard to handle." And Lee said, "Well, he can afford to make a trip around the world, so he can afford to pay his dental bills. You have to charge him not by the job, but by the hour because he'll take more hours of your time than any of your other patients." I said, "Well, that's all I wanted to know." This was a problem. Now, in due time, Royal left me and went to another dentist in the building. He didn't come to me and ask how to handle him, and in due time he was complaining because he couldn't make any money on him because he took too much of his time. So I said, "Well, I went and asked Lee. He came from Lee to me, and Lee told me what was happening." I said, "You come to me and you could have found out, too." He said, "Yes, but I didn't want you to know that I had him." This was professional jealousy, you see. Patients were needed, wanted, and where there was any possibility of getting money, naturally you struggled to get it. Well, it's human nature. You just have to recognize that it's human nature. Some dentists would even make passes at the elevator girls to send them patients. People would come in and want a dentist, and they would want the elevator girl to send them to him, and they would give the elevator girls service and not charge them, or do it for a very cut rate. So then we had to go to the building manager, and the elevator girls had to receive strict instructions that they 10 would refer nobody to no one anywhere. Another thing that often happened, the patients wanted their work, especially young ladies, especially with young dentists, made some passes, and it made it very difficult. We had some moral problems came from that. This also happened in the medical and legal offices, and this I know because I know some of the girls that were involved, and I know the dentists that were involved. I know what happened to them, and how things went along. Sometimes it created a condition that was not very satisfactory. For instance, I had a girl come into me and wanted a tooth extracted, and I had reason to believe that she was from a bootlegging family. So I ordinarily charged $2 for an extraction, I believe, and my father-in-law came in, and I thought he recognized her from the bootlegging family. When he walked out, he put up his hand – $4 like that – so I charged $4. Well, she said that she didn't have the money with her, so there was nothing I could do but put it on the books. About two weeks later, she came in paid me 50 cents. Well, we were glad to have the 50 cents. Well, about two weeks later, she came in with another 50 cents. She said, "I could pay you all at once, but I kind of like you. It's too bad we only have dental appointments, isn't it?" So they were constantly. Now other girls did the same thing. I was a young dentist, new because I started out in August of 1929, and this was common amongst many of them. They were willing practically to sell themselves for dental services, and in some cases successfully so. But of course others of us had a little different standards. We didn't go for it, but this was a frequent problem. MT: What do you remember about the Ogden State Bank? 11 CF: Well, I remember quite a bit about the Ogden State Bank because they had certain involvements with me in an indirect way. It was a bank which everyone liked, and the friendship and the friendliness in there was very good. But then suddenly it crashed. It was a severe blow because many people had what little they had in there. This was true of both farmers and professional men, and it really hit them hard. The laws were not strict like they are now, and the legal professions went in there and helped straighten it out, and they really took advantage. They took a lot of money, and the depositors got it in the ear, and they didn't have a strict law as to what could be taken and what couldn't be taken. So the lawyers that were in there, it was common knowledge that they really took a great advantage of the people. It caused a lot of feelings. There was a lot said among the other professions about those lawyers really taking advantage of it and hurting the people alike. Now one of the Barkers was a cashier, and a lot of his friends had money in there. They were kind of teed off because he didn't inform them that the bank was going to close so they could get their money out. But he really didn't know himself, and the result was that he cracked up, and they had to take him to Provo for treatment for a while. It was said there was insanity in the family, but there was not. It was just the stress and strain on him from his friends accusing him that he didn't inform them that the bank was going to close. MT: Now, was that located on 24th Street? CF: Right where the Ben Lomond Hotel is now, that building right on the corner there. It was really a hard blow because sheep were running wild up here, and the bank 12 had money on them. The law was trying to foreclose on them, and the sheep owners couldn't pay it. So they had to send men out to try and take care of them, and some of them just running rampant because there was nobody to take care of the sheep. It finally began to resolve itself, but people lost heavily and it caused a lot of feelings. Of course it caused repercussions in my wife's family because this Barker that had the breakdown had a brother that was going with my wife's cousin, and this caused fear. They said that she couldn't marry him because of the insanity in the family. I believe that there wasn't because I knew the boy that she was going with. They said it was insanity, and they broke her relationship with him. Of course I lost my wife, Beth, and they didn't like the new fellow she was going with, so they tried to get me to go with her. When I first came here, I was like everyone else, and I liked to go hunting, and I couldn't afford to go. I had to stay here for every dime I could get. But during the second year, I went up with this cousin's father into Cache Valley to hunt, and so it was really hard to leave the office. So I was only able to spend one day up there. At that time, there was no minimum wage paid girls. I had girls come in my office and work for me – the first one came in and offered to work just for the experience so that she could get a job. They didn't ask any pay, and finally because of the stress and, I think, moral conditions was such that they took advantage of it. We found out that problems occurred more in the business than in the medical and dental profession. They took advantage of some of these girls because they needed help, and they needed work, and they had to almost sell themselves in order to get a job. It was not so prevalent here as it 13 was in some other areas. We got the reports all right, but there was some here. There were too many here with a higher moral standard, but we still had plenty that were not. Now, I had some here that I would get the money from, and I said to one of them, "How come you can afford to buy gas stations for your boys and give them jobs?" I had an idea that he was connected with the bootlegging, but when I started asking him questions he frankly told me where he got it. I realized that bootlegging was just a side issue. There was more money in the prostitution, and this was where he got a lot of money, and he frankly told me so. MT: What's your opinion of the repeal of the 18th Amendment? Was it a good move, or what do you feel about that? CF: I would say it was a good move under the conditions because it was being violated so much. If it had been enforced, I could see it. But it was not being enforced, and it was causing so much law violation and so much trouble, they were making money at it. But as far as paying taxes, they were not, and it was causing such a moral burden. I personally would be for the Prohibition, but the way it was handled, and the way it was turning out, the administration of it was a failure. MT: What was your opinion of Hoover and Roosevelt at that time? CF: Well, Hoover was a strait-laced Quaker, and my feeling was that he was handicapped because he didn't have the freedom to operate that was later given to Roosevelt. When the crash came, you could see that he tried to get the Federal Reserve Bank to give more credits to get business back on its feet. When he lost the election because of it, they blamed him for it. I don't think he 14 was any more to blame than anyone else. And he tried to get Roosevelt to send someone else to the White House – they didn't want to close the banks. He didn't want to, and he could see what was going to happen. He asked Roosevelt to send a representative to help him, and see if they couldn't get the Federal Reserve to cooperate. Roosevelt refused to cooperate. So by the time Roosevelt got in, things had deteriorated so bad that he had to close the banks. I personally think that it would never have had to be done if he had sent someone there in the first place to carry it on. But Hoover was a strict disciplinarian, and he wanted to carry it on to live the law. He wanted to do what was right. Roosevelt got in and immediately they gave him a blank check, and the whole phase of it changed. The Republicans were swept out, and the Democrats went in. Of course they'd been out for quite a while and they were glad to promise the people anything. The people were so desperate that they grabbed on to any promises that came up. He was a shrewd and clever politician, and he tried to soothe the people with the fireside chats. But basically, I think if he had gone in there as he had been asked by Hoover, he could have stopped the closing of the banks and forestalled a lot of the problems that came later – of killing little pigs and trying to curtail production because there was a limited market. But he had done this. The Federal Reserve Bank tried later, but it had gone so far by that time that it really caused still further deterioration until the war started in Europe, which started the upturn in business on war basis, not on an internal reconstruction. They were having too 15 many problems with pouring money in too many directions, and people were taking advantage of it. MT: The war, then, was actually the thing which ended the Depression? CF: It was, definitely. When the war came, then we started selling. When it began in Europe, a trend because they were buying, and then we got more and more and more on to a war basis. Of course, we became more involved in it ourselves. It became a war of prosperity. It was not prosperity itself. This was very evident to me and many others. We had expected and expected because the government had been priming the pump. But it didn't prime. Then the war came along, and from then on things started picking up. Of course then they started putting boys into the service and heretofore fellows trying to get into the dental profession were trying to get into the service because they were guaranteed an income according to their commission. They had their medical services taken care of – their dental services, hospital services, all that. A lot of the fellows in Ogden were trying to get in there. They joined the reserves trying to get into regular full-time employment in the service. There their business was assured, and their pay was assured. But as these fellows went into the service, that was when our business began to pick up. More industry was picking up because of it, and they started these installations out here. Then, of course, it started to rush. But I got out of the reserves because after my wife died, I'd been two years in succession, and I went down to Fort Douglas and spent two weeks as a dentist. I was glad to do it. The pay was good, and it wasn't the hard work of 16 private practice. But I went two years in succession, and that gave me promotion to a major. But as we got up to where we had a higher rank and higher pay, the government cut us off. I was one who got cut off. Then as the war started in earnest, they started drafting some of the dentists who hadn't been in at all, and then the business started picking up for all of us. MT: What about 25th Street there? Did it boom more during the Depression time than at other times, or what was the condition? CF: I would say yes because I know a number of the people. Some of them lived up in this area that worked down there. They were among the prosperous people, and bootlegging was doing a lot. Some of the people who owned buildings down there were getting good rental off the buildings. They claimed they didn't know what was going on down there, and this was brought out in investigations later on when they finally tried to close up a lot of this stuff on 25th Street. It was brought out because the Rose Rooms down there, she said that she didn't know what was going on down there. She didn't realize it, but she did all the time because she was really prospering. They were doing good down there, and a lot of that. One of the auto courts in Ogden that is now operating was built entirely on bootleg money. They did well enough and got enough money that he quit the bootlegging and was able to hire Native Americans here to do all the dirty work. They would get arrested, and he'd bail them out. When the war came on, they had jail records and couldn't get in it. His family could. But he was one of the instigators. I did his dental work when money was hard to get, and he was sent to me 17 by another doctor. He had been going to another dentist, and he had a good-looking girl, but her teeth were very crooked. Another dentist had tried to fool with them, and I knew nothing about that particular work at that particular time. They weren't very successful. They only had one orthodontist in Salt Lake, and he brought her in to me. He was very rough, very crude, and crudely wanted to know what I was going to do about the girl. I said personally that I wasn't going to do anything. I said, "Just calm down, and I'll send you to a person who can." He said, "I don't care about the money. I don't care about the money. Whatever it costs, I'll pay it." And I knew he was a bootlegger. So I called up the dentist in Salt Lake, and I told him what I had. I said, "He can afford to pay for it, and you see that he does pay plenty for it." He was standing right by my side when I told him. This other fellow that I did work for, another farmer, they came from Rock Springs. While he was sitting in my chair, he said, "I have all the money I need. I don't need to work." And he didn't need to work. He had plenty of money, and he bought gas stations to get his boys jobs. I had a man come in, and he had gotten in a fight there and had broken his front teeth. The more I talked to him, I assumed he was a bootlegger. I didn't want to soak him if he wasn't, if he was an honest man. I knew they were having their problems. But if he was a bootlegger, I wanted my money. So I kind of fished around but I couldn't get out of him what he really did. He was manager of one of the clubs down on 25th Street. Well, that gave me a clue. I told him what a new bridge would cost him. It was about three times what I would have normally charged. He said, "Well, you just as well get started on it." 18 I told him that it was a cash job because we had learned that if we didn't get cash from them at the time you did the job, they would be in jail, and you couldn't get it. So I went to work on him, and I got my money all right, and I finished the job. Two days later, he was picked up for owning a house of prostitution and was banished from the state. He went down to Las Vegas and practiced down there. One night, he came back here and got into another scrap and broke a tooth. He came into Ogden, and it was a hot summer evening. I was ready to quit, and he wanted me to fix his teeth. He said, "You'll get your money." He wouldn't leave the office until I got done. In between sessions, while I was working in the lab, he was calling his friends. I had to work until midnight. He said, "Doc, you're a fool working this way." He said, "I'm a welder by trade, but," he said, "I made $100,000 this year down in Las Vegas running the business I run." He said, "What do you want to work like this for?" But these were the temptations these fellows put before us. But of course my standards would not go along with this kind of thing. I did his work, and he paid me cash, and I charged him plenty. MT: What do you think it was more difficult for yourself or the average person to secure, food or clothing? CF: Well, I would say clothing may have been harder, but I don't think they put so much stress on clothing. After all, people will try to take care of the pangs of hunger first and clothing second. People liked to dress neatly, perhaps more respectably, maybe, than they do now. But nevertheless, they would make the 19 most of little, more so, I would say, than they do now. Because their attitude was, there was still a semblance of pride among the people, more so than there has been during the last few years. MT: Were there people in your acquaintance who did their own shoe repair and things along this line? CF: Yes, a lot of people did. They would do anything and try to fix anything up that they could. You could go into Woolworth's and stores like that, and you could buy rubber patches that you could glue on your shoes, and people did it. It was hard for them to do it, and they didn't do as good a job. But they did a service. People wore cheaper clothing, bit by bit. Sometimes they would look quite nice and try hard to keep it nice. It wouldn't last long because they were buying everything cheaper. Of course anybody that came out with anything cheaper, people tried it. Lots of times they got bit on it because they got things that were too cheap for the money they put into it. This was caused by these fellows who travel through the country selling clothing and things that way, and they would write and say they were coming through with clothes from Hong Kong, and they would sell it for half what it would cost in the store. The people would order, and when they got it, well, they really got taken. I got taken once that way, but not like a lot of them. I was on the seventh floor of the Eccles Building, and there were a whole bunch on the floor that got taken on some suits because they were no good. I'd paid $5 down. Well, the other guys, when they came, they paid the balance. Then when they saw what they got, they saw they were really taken. Well, I lost my $5, but I didn't get them, 20 and I was still money ahead. And this was a problem. Deception was a common problem. Fellows came through selling gowns, and they would take your measurements and your order and give you a receipt. They had stolen the order books, and the company didn't have any connection with it, and they took the deposits. MT: What about patent medicine during that time? Was there much of that? CF: Yes, there was quite a lot of patent medicine sold. One of the most common things at that time was Crazy Crystals, but that was pushed from down in Texas. There were a lot of things just like that. I can't remember the names of a lot of them. They sent samples to you, and they tried to get you to prescribe them and push them. Crazy Crystals were really the rage, and people would come in to me and tell me how much better they felt from Crazy Crystals. It cut out their constipation and they felt better. I quizzed them, and I told them, "You can do the same by drinking water." I said, "They've given you enough to give you a mild laxative, but, "I said, "Then they prescribe for you to drink so much water a day with it." I said, "If you'd just drink the water, you'd get the same result." Some of them didn't believe it, and to this day, I have patients come in and say, "How do I take care of this situation." I tell them, "You don't drink enough water." MT: What were some of the good things that came out of the Depression? CF: I would say at that time that people learned a little more self reliance. They learned to work. They learned to be more dependable in the things they did, and they tried to do more for themselves. I think also they learned to be more cooperative and helpful toward one another. There was more of a spirit of 21 cooperation. We were all in this boat together. People were more willing to cooperate because they couldn't do it otherwise. There was more of a spirit of friendliness. Of course, as I say, there were exceptions of those who tried to be greedy, but there was more of a spirit of friendliness and cooperation. MT: What did the wards do for entertainment then? Did they do a better job than they do now? CF: Yes, I would say they did because there had to be more of that kind of cooperation, and the wards tried every way they could to bring the people together because otherwise it was very depressing. It was a Depression both in spirit and in finance because people were hurt. People did more, and got together, and tried to help them out. It was a period of trying to organize. I think that the wards in the [LDS] church soon found out what they had to do because, heretofore, they had been depending upon commercialism, business to do these things. But now the people couldn't afford the commercial, and they had to cooperate or they'd die. There was more of it done. You'd find people more willing to do things. Of course, they stumbled along and struggled along trying to do some of these things. Of course when the church welfare program first came out, it was a blundering program. I criticized it a lot because when they started it out, they wanted the people in the wards who had fruit and those things to give every so many bottles to the ward to give to the needy. Well, my criticism came this way – the needy, all right. But let the needy help put it up. But if they want to come into the ward, let's get together and we'll furnish the fruit, not us do all the labor for 22 them. So that's a few criticisms that way started to bring the spirit of cooperation out of it, and they began to do things. But my wife was busy with three little children, and I didn't feel like loading her down with work to give to the others without them working in payment for it. So I said I would be glad to furnish the fruit and help with the bottles and a few things that way, but let them help to put it up. Finally it did begin to change, and soon it got to be a kind of cooperative thing within the ward. But it was a development process. MT: Did you have any innovative method of developing your clientele? CF: Yes, it was a matter of trying to work through clubs and others to try to develop educational programs through the PTA to show people that if they would regularly take care of their dental work that it would be much cheaper than if they had to get a lot done at once. We did a lot of educational work that way through clubs and PTA, and lecturing at the schools and organizations.

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