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Issue 25.5 of the Review for Religious, 1966. ; Mal~ Religious in Past and Present by Maurice A. ROche, C.M. 749 Updating the Cloister by Sister Teresa Margaret, O.C:D. 770 ' Directed vs. Preached.Retreats by Ladislas M. Ors,2, S.J. 781 The Religious Teacher by Sister M. Fredericus, O.P. 797 The Woman Religious and Leadership by William J. Kelly, S.J. 814 Retreat: Dialogue or Silence? by Ambrose de Groot, O.F.M.Cap. 828 A Pastoral Theology Program by Gerald G. Daily, S.J. 836 The Eucharist as Symbolic Reality by J. P. de Jong 853 Retreat or Community Experience by George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. 860 The Problem of Vitality by John Carmody, S.J. 867 D, irection and the Spiritual Exercises by Daniel J. Shine, S.J. 888 Poems 897 Survey of Roman Documents 899 Views, News, Previews 906 Questions and Answers 909 Book Reviews 925 VOLUM~ 25 NUMBER 5 September 1966 Notice to Subscribers Because of constantly increasing costs, REVIEW FOR RELK;IOUS finds it necessary to increase the cost of its individual issues as well as of its sub-scriptions. The new rates, effective in 1967, will be the following: (l) Individual issues of the REVIEW will cost one dollar; this price will apply not only to all issues beginning with 1967 but also to all previously published issues. (2) Subscriptions in the United. States, Canada, and Mexico will cost $5.00 per year; $9.00 for two years. (3) Subscriptions to other countries will cost ~;5.50 per year; ~;10.00 for two years. (4) All the above prices are in terms of U.S.A. dollars; accordingly all payments must be made in U.S.A. funds. These prices will affect all individual issues sold on or after January 1, 1967. The new subscription prices will be applicable to all subscriptions-- new and renewed---beginning with the January, 1967, issue of the REVIEW. MAURICE A. ROCHE; C.M. The Male Religious in Past and Present What is the perfect Christian life? Can it be lived? If so, how? Does it entail the transformation of all human society? Can in-dividuals be immersed in a prevailingly or partially un-Christian society without compromising their principles and be fully Christian? To be fully Christian, is it necessary to withdraw from society? If so, must one live alone, or must those intent on the complete Christian life seek it in.community with othersP These and similar questions have been asked by zeal-ous Christians and by the Church herself since the time of Christ. According to the circumstances of time and place, the answer of the Church has varied. This article will treat in summary form the major manifestations of the "perfect life" as .they have appeared in the Western part of the Catholic Church during the past nineteen hundred years. As with most 'institutions in the Church, both the idea and practice of: the religious life developed rather slowly. Some of the elements of the religious life, for example, common purse, existed among the disciples even during the lifetime of Christ.2 Shortly after Pentecost at least some of the disciples gave all their possessions to the p0or.s In the First Epistle to the Corinthians (written about the year 57), St. Paul talks about the concern of a Christian father for his virgin daughter;4 presumably the motive for her virginity was a religious one. ÷ During ,the first two centuries, the life of perfection was lived within the family circle; domestic asceticism + was the rule. Given the small number of Christians in a pagan society, no othel- solution seemed feasible. Such persdns engaged in ordinary employments; each local church usuall~ had a number of these "continentes" ; ampton, 1 Kenneth S. Latourette, .4 History ol Christianity (New York: vania 18967. H~rper ~nd Row, 1953), p. 221. =Jn 13529. VOLUME 25, 1966 ' 1 Cor 7:36-8. 749 Father Maurice A. Roche, C.M., is a faculty member of Mary Immaculate Seminary; North- Pennsyl- + ÷ ÷ M. A. Roche, .M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 750 and "virgines." They formed a sort of spiritual aristoc-racy and occupied special places in the church. These primitive ascetics differed in many respects from the later religious: no special ceremony marked their entrance into the ascetical life; they wore no distinctive clothing; they did not live in community (though they might fre-quently assemble for mutual encouragement); they did not abstain from ordinary employment; they did not devote themselves as a matter of course or in .any special way to the corporal works of mercy. This mode of striv-ing for perfection has never died out in the Church; every parish still has its group of unmarried women who work for a living and are exceptional for their piety. About the middle of the third century there arose in Egypt the institution of monasticism. Authors have ad-vanced various reasons to explain its development in this place at this time. (a) Pagan Egypt had a strain of .mysticism in it. (It was in Alexandria that Ammonius Saccas [d. 245] had founded Neoplatonism.) Thus the Egyptian people were not entirely unprelSared for this mode of life which purported to lead to mystical union with God. (b) The desert wastes of Egypt made it easy to find solitude. Food and water were a constant problem of course, but the hot dry climate simplified the matter of clothing, shelter; and so forth. (c) The Decian persecution (249-251) was particularly thorough in Egypt and the desert offered a safe refuge. Some, driven out of the cities by the persecutors, sought refuge in the wilderness, liked the solitude, and remained there. Each of the above statements is true, and probably each contributed in some way to the growth of monasti-cism. They seem, however, to be occasions rather than causes. The basic cause for going to and remaining in the desert was the desire to live completely for God, a desire that was difficult of fulfillment in the still pagan atmosphere of the cities. Some ascetics had previously attempted to live in seclusion on the outskirts of the in-habited areas; this halfway measure proved in the main unworkable, and so the more zealous among them aban-doned the dwelling of men completely. Traditionally, the first hermit was St. Paul of Thebes (228-340) who fled to a remote mountain during the Decian persecution. St. Antony (250-356) was for a time a solitary hermit, but eventually a group of disciples gathered about him. Basically, these men were still her-mits, each living in his own ceil, giving hihaself to pri-vate prayer, reading, and manual work. Occasional dis-courses by St. Antony (and perhaps Mass) were the only occasions on which silence was broken. St. Antony was at heart a hermit, yet the needs of the Church twice called him to the active life. In 311 he left his retreat in order to encourage the victims of the persecution of Maximin, and about 338 he quitted his solitude in order to confer with St. Athanasius on means to defeat the Arian heresy. Between these two dates the desert had flowered: in the ),ear 325 the Nitrian Desert alone counted some five thousand men dedicated to God. Five years before this, another manifestation of the perfect life had appeared in Egypt: cenobitism, of which St. Pachomius (d. 348) is considered the initiator. His followers were not solitary hermits, nor were they inde-pendent hermits joined together by an accident of loca-tion; rather, they lived in common in subjection to ~he rule of the superior or abbot. Unlike some solitaries who neglected the sacraments, the Pachomian monks took part in Mass twice weekly, at one of which celebrations they communicated. The Pachomian rule tended to moderate some of the corporal austerities of the hermits, but it was withal quite severe. St. Pachomius was, it seems, the first to draw up a rule for monks. The great codifier of Eastern monasticism was not 'he, however, but St. Basil the Great (329-379). To his personal sanctity and firsthand experience with the dangers and advantages of monasticism, he added familiarity with the~ problems of rule, the grace of the episcopal office, a good education, and a keen intellect. His rule became the norm for Eastern monasticism, and in its broad lines at least is still followed today. More to our purpose, however, St. Basil's rule had an effect on the rule drawn up by St. Benedict in the sixth century. Before leaving the East completely, reference should be made at least in passing to the pillar saints, of whom the most famous was St. Simeon Stylites (d. 459). This singular expression of the perfect life had a brilliant but short-lived existence. Up until this time, monasticism had not developed much in the West. For the most part an importation from the East, it was, like much Eastern food, too highly seasoned for. the Western man: it did not suit Western climate, Western mentality, or Western man. Mention Should be made, however, of those who were more or less successful in forming monasteries after the Eastern fash-ion: Saints Hilary (315-367), Martin (c. 315-c. 399), Am-brose (339-397), Jerome (c. 347-419 or 420), Honoratus (c~ 350-430); and John Cassian (c. 360-c. 430).5 St. Augus-tine of ~Hippo (354-430) lived a common life with his clergy, but these were (to use a later terminology) can-ons regular rather than monks. ,~ Cassian is not usually recognized as a saint; this is probably a re-sult of his views in what has come to be known as the semi-Pelagian controversy. ÷ ÷ ÷ The Male Religious VOLUME 25, 1966 ÷ ÷ ÷ M~ A. Roche,~ C.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 752 By the end of the fifth century, monasticism, already firmly established in the East, had begun to sink roots in the West, although its exact form had not yet been definitively established. Over the years monasticism would undergo many changes in the West; "but in its various ramifications it was to be the main channel through which new bursts of life were to find expression in the various churches which conserved' the traditions of the Catholic Church of the Roman Empire," ~ The institution had already been in existence over two hun-dred years by the time St. Benedict of Nursia (480-550) was born; the number of monasteries varied greatly from place to place at this date in the Ctiristian West, but the institution as such had gained ac.ceptance in the minds of men. The work of St. Benedict was not pre-cisely to introduce a completely new organism into the Western Church; it was more to reform and adapt an existing institution so that it might be viable and useful in his time and place. In drawing up his rule, St. Bene-dict apparently took the rule of St. Basil as a model, though he did not imitate it slavishly; rather, he modi-fied it in order to suit the needs of himself and of his followers. The judgment of Latourette on St. Benedict's rule is worth noting: ~ The rule of Benedict became standard in the West, probably because of i~s intrinsic worth. Pope Gregory the Great did much to give it popularity. It was taken to Britain by missionaries sent by Gregory from: Rome . In the seventh century it began to gain in Gaul. Charlemagne admired it and furthered its adop-tion. By the latter part,of the eighth century it was generally ac, cepted. No central organization existed for its enforcement and to bring uniformity. Each monastery was independent of ~very other." Modifications might and often were made in the rule by individual houses. Yet it became the model from which many other rules stemmed. In an age of disorder the Benedictine monasteries were centres of quiet and orderly livfng, communities where prayer, work, and study were the custom, and that in a society where prayer was ignored or was regarded as magic to be practised for selfish ends, where work was despised as servile, where even princes were .illiterate, where war was chronic. ,.Like other monastic establishments, Benedictine foun~lations tended' to decline from the high ideals setby the rule. Many were heavily endowed and in numbers of them life became easy and at times sCa'ndalous. When awakenings occurred, they often took the form of a re-turn to the rule or its modification in t.he direction of greater austerity. Even when the rule was strictly observed, the mon-astertes were self-centered and were not concerned with the sal-vation of the so~:iety about them, except to draw individuals from it into their fellowship.' Hdwever., the missionaries of the e Latourette, History o[ Christianity, p. 233. ' As it stands, this sentence is far too sweeping. The monks at this time (outside of mission lands) did not engage in parochial wo~'k; but the monastic priests did not refuse their ministration to those lay Western Church were predominantly monks. It was chiefly through them, although often at the initiative and under the protection of lay princes, that the faith was carried beyond its existing frontiers. Later, moreover, monks of the Benedictine rule became prominent in the general life of the Church and of the community as a whole,s The life [in the monastery] was orderly but was not unduly severe and was probably more comfortable than was that of the great masses of the population. Clothing and meals were simple but adequate, and special provision was made for the ill, the aged, the very young, and those doing heavy manual labour. There was to be fasting at regular times, but this was not the kind practised by the extreme ascetics . Much weight was given to humility. Provision was made for various degrees of discipline, from private admonition to physical punishment, ex-communication, and as a final resort, expulsion. The entire round of twenty-four hours was provided for, with eight services, one every three hours, and with .periods for sleep, including a rest early in the afternoon, for eating, and for labour . Silence was encouraged and was the rule at meals and after compline. . Stress was placed on worship b.y the entire community and directions were given for the services. There was a place for priests, for they were needed to say mass, but they were to obey the rule as fully as the lay monks. The rule was wisely designed for a group of men of various ages living together in worship and in work for the cultivation of the full Christian life as it was con-ceived by the monk? The spirit of the rule is perhaps best summed up by its author in the prologue when he wrote: Therefore we must establish a school of the Lord's service, in founding which we hope to ordain nothing that is harsh or burdensome?° Dorn David Knowles writes: ¯. if the Rule holds within it so much of th~ wisdom and ex-perience of the past, its anticipation of the needs of the future is even more striking. The ancient world, with its city life, its great seats of culture, its graded society and its wide and rapid means of communication, was rapidly disappearing. In the new world that was coming into being, the estate, the village, the district were the units; Europe, from being a single complex organism was becoming an aggregate of cells, bound to one an-other by the loosest of ties. St. Benedict lived in a society where the scope and opportunities of education, secular and theologi-cal, were yearly narrowing, and in which the numbers of the people who sought it. The monks also wrote works for the edification of the faithful and furthered the development of theology¯ Moreover, their example of selfless devotion to God had a salutary impact even on those who did not become monks themselves¯ Finally, an important part of the religious life was prayer for the benefactors, for the local clergy, for the civil government, for the conversion of pagans, and so forth. Even the most cloistered monk was solicitous for the salvation of the society about him. s Latourette, History o] Christianity, pp. 335-6. 9 Ibid¯, pp. 33,1-5. l° Justin McCann, "The Rule of St. Benedict," cited in Colman Barry, Readings in Church History, v. 1 (~Vestminster: Newman, 1960), p. 168. 4- 4- 4- The Male Religious VOLUME 25, 1966 4" M, ,4. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS educated were yearly lessening; a socie(y in.which the family, the farm;the estate was strong--a society continually threatened with extinction., by invasion, or (with) chaos, and which therefore needed above all some clear, simple, basic principles to which it might hold and rally . This suitability to the needs of the time was met at every level of life, by the monastery of the Kule . Only in the early centuries or backward countries of medieval times could such a community continue to be a norm, and it did not, in fact, long endure in its original com-prehensiveness . A full acknowledgment of the unique ex-cellence of the Ruie does not imply that it had no limitations. Such are inevitable in every code that bears the stamp of time and place . ~ Benedictinism was not without rivals in the West. There were the Eastern-type monasteries founded before the time of St. Benedict, most if not all of which were within the then existing boundaries of the Roman Em-pire. 12 Of more importance and more influence were the Celtic monasteries initiated both before and after the lifetime of the saint of Nursia. For the most part these monasteries were located in regions that had never been or were not at the time of foundation within the. con-fines of the Empire. This Celtic monasticism was il-lumined by a galaxy of brilliant saints like Columkil (521-597) and Columban (540-615), the latter of whom composed the rule that bears his name. Much shorter than the Benedictine rule, the Columban rule Was Orien-tal in spirit. (This is not so strange as it may at first appear: St. Patrick had been formed to the religious life in the Eastern-type Abbey of Lerins founded by St. Honoratus about 400 A.D. and the influence of, the East had remained strong among the Celtic Christians.) The Celtic rule was very severe: hours of prayer and of work were multiplied; discipline was strict, with corporal pun-ishment meted out even for slight faults,' Columban monks went to England and to the continent in great numbers and started monasteries--such as Ltixeuil, Bob-bio, and Saint Ga!l--which were of great importance in the Middle Ages. The C61umban rule produced spiritual giants; but conversely, it was made only for spiritual giants, not for ordinary men. By what seems to us a strange quirk, this very strict rule allowed great freedom ~Dom David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (2nd ed~; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1963), pp. 9-11. = No one rule predominated here. Rufinus had translated and abridged the rule of St. Basil; St. Jerome had put the rule of St. Pachomius 'into Latin. Some in the West drew up new rtiles: St. Honoratus of Lerins gave out certain constitutions which are no longer extant; we do, however, possess the Regula ad monachos and the Regula ad virgines of St. Caesarius of Aries (469-542) and also rules by Aurelianus, bishop of Aries from 546 to 551. See P. de Labriolle et al., "De la mort de Th~odose h l'fiiection de Gr~goire le Grand," v. 4 of Histoire de l'Eglise, ed. by Fliche and Martin (Paris: Bloud and Gay, 1948), p. 592. of travel, and this sometimes led to disorder. For a while both the Benedictine and Columban rules existed over large portions of Western Europe; but eventually the Celtic Rule was forced to yield: in England at the Synod of Whitby in 664, in the Frankish Empire at the Synod of Autun in 670. Only in Ireland.did the Celtic Rule manage to endure. Even there it was eventually replaced, though by the stricter Cistercian Rule rather than by the Benedictine Rule strictly so-called. Even in defeat the austere:Irish monks won half a victory. , The character of Western monasticism, influenced.to some degree by St. Columban, was affected even more by the saint'g Italian contemporary, Pope St. Gregory I (540-604). About the year 575, he converted his parental home on the Caelian Hill into a monastery (St. An-drew, s), and there lived as a simple monk until chosen abbot in 585. The, regime at St. Andrew's was Benedic-tine in spirit; perhaps it even followed the Rule of St. Benedict explicitly. At any rate, St. Gregory was himself formed according to the Benedictine ideal. Chosen as bishop of Rome in 590, six or seven years later he sent St. Augustine and other monks from St. Andrew's to evangelize" the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in present-day England. His use of monks as missionaries undoubtedly effected a notable change in the Character of Western monasticism. Up until his time, Benedictinism had been basically a lay movement. In the mission lands, clergy were needed; and so most of the missionary monks re-ceived ordination. By the end of the Carolingian era, the great majority of monks were priests. Besides con-tributing to the clericalization of the monasteries, the missionary movement also fostered an activist strain in Western monasticism. From time to time this tendency would become prominent in the West; it is the more noticeable because such external work is much less en-couraged in Eastern monasticism. As the number of clerical monks increased, manual labor was relegated to servants, and the liturgy was lengthened. In 817 St. Benedict of Aniane attempted a monastic confederation, but feudal disorders hindered his work. The last half of the ninth and the first half of the tenth centuries were periods of great disorder in the civil and religious fields. Civil wars; invasions by Northmen, Muslim, Magyars; lay patronage; and so forth contributed to the breakdown of civil government, to the physical destruction of numerous monasteries, and to the relaxing of morals, both within and without the monasteries. In the second half of the tenth century, a great re-awakening occurred in the Western Church. Of major importance was the reform of Cluny, initiated by. its ÷ ÷ ÷ The Mal.e,~Re.ligious VOLUME 25~ 1966 M. A. Roche, C.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS first abbot, St. Berno (850-927) in 910 and continued for some two and one half centuries by a series of outstand-ing and long-lived successors. An important innovation in the Cluniac reform was its centralizing tendency. Dur-ing the years after 910, many monasteries placed them-selves under the aegis of Cluny. The Cluniac regulations as eventually in force under St. Odilo (abbot from 994 to 1049) suppressed the title of abbot for heads of sub-ordinate houses; in charge of these lesser foundations were priors, subjected to the sole rule of the abbot of Cluny. By the beginning of the twelfth century, the num-ber of subordinate houses had risen to three hundred, the number of monks to ten thousand. Next to Rome, Cluny was regarded as the ecclesiastical center of Europe. Equally important to the monastic renewal was a movement, largely successful, to free the monasteries from the control of local lay lords and diocesan bishops. This question of exemption is a very involved affair, but it seems good to present a summary of the chief develop-ments in order that we may view with objectivity the events of the tenth and later centuries.13 The early monks, usually far removed from the cities (and from the bishops resident there), tended to develop independently of the hierarchy. The cenobitic life, more-over, demands a certain independence for the superior, or else he is superior in name only and powerless to lead his monks. Hence a certain tension developed between the legitimate abbatial desire for independence, and the likewise legitimate episcopal concern lest diocesan dis-cipline be subverted. The oldest extant conciliar legislation regarding monks and domestic ascetics goes back to the fourth century. The Council of Gangra in Paphlagonia (c. 340- 350) issued a series of anathemas against false ascetics; a council at Saragossa (380) speaks of the cleric who be-came a monk out of a spirit of pride and makes provi-sion for religious profession and veiling of virgins.14 Im-portant here is the fourth canon of the Council of Chalcedon (451): Those who lead a true and sincere monastic life ought to en-joy due honor. Since, however, there are some who, using the monastic state as a pretext, disturb the churches and the affairs of state, roam about aimlessly in the cities, and even undertake to establish monasteries for themselves, it is decided that no one shall build or found a monastery or a house of prayer without the consent of the bishop of the city. It is de.cided furthermore that all monks in every city and country place shall be subject to 13 The following remarks on exemption are taken for the most part from E. Fogliasso, "Exemption des religieux," Dictionnaire de droit canonique, v. 5, col. 646-51. 1, Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, v. 1.2 (Paris: 1907), pp. 1029-45; 986-7. the bishop, that they love silence and attend only to fasting and prayer, remaining in the places in which they renounced the world; that they shall not leave their monasteries and burden themselves either with ecclesiastical or worldly affairs or take part in them unless they are commissioned to do so for some necessary purpose by the bishop of the city; that no slave shall be received into the monasteries and become a monk without the consent of his master. Whosoever transgresses this decision of ours shall be excommunicated . ~ Though the text seems to subject the monks without any restriction to the local bishop, E. Fogliasso comes to a different conclusion. In his opinion, the council merely stated the general principle that monks are sub-ject to the bishop but did nothing to revoke the various customs which in practice limited episcopal control, The council did not annul the authority of abbots, nor did it reserve to the bishop the choice of the abbot, nor did it regulate the administrative relations between monastery and diocese; all of these continued in the same way as beforehand. In short, .relations between bishop and monks were not yet precisely regulated. The Council of Chalcedon had dealt chiefly with problems of the East rather than of the West, and there were comparatively few Western bishops in attendance. Hence the canons did not impress the Western bishops with their urgency; just four years after Chalcedon a council was held in Aries which, among other concerns, regulated the relations of bishop and monks. Without saying so in so many words, the council in effect held that the bishop was to regulate the external activities of the monks, while the monks were independent of the bishop in their internal affairs. This division of control (which later became normative in the West) was not ac-cepted everywhere immediately. Some particular coun-cils, especially the African, gave to the monks a very great liberty; other councils subjected the monks more strictly to the bishop. With St.: Gregory I, the concept of the regimen inter-num became more precise. St. Gregory desired that the internal independence of the monasteries be preserved, particularly in the choice of the abbot and in temporal administration. A short time later, in 628 to be exact, Pope Honorius I (625-638) went much further: he re-moved the monastery of Bobbio (founded near Milan in 613 by the wandering Celt St. Columban) completely from the jurisdiction of the local ordinary. Monasteries in Benevento (714 and 741) and Fulda (751) were granted exemptio.n by the Apostolic See in the next century. About this time, another current of events was leading a~ H. H. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees o] the General Councils (St. Louis: Herder, 1937), p. 92. -I. ÷ ÷ The Male Religious VOLUME 25, 1966 757 ÷ + + to or at least facilitating exemption from the bishop: the so-called "gift to St. Peter." 16 Pious laics would found a monastery and then give it to St. Peter, repre~ sented by his vicar in Rome. The prestige of the Apostle and of his vicar were so great, it was hoped, that no king, bishop, or lesser person would dare seize the foundation for his own ends. A few examples of this occur in Italy in the eighth century; in the ninth cen-tury, the custom crossed over the Alps.17 In this period, too, certain lay persons were persuaded to abandon the dominium that they had acquired over religious houses. In virtue of this and in virtue of the above mentioned donation to St. Peter, many monasteries succeeded in avoiding or in freeing themselves from lay control. This independence from local lay control must have also en-couraged the monks to seek exemption from the reli-gious control of the local ordinary. After this long digression to obtain the background, we return to Cluny; at its foundation in 910 it was do-nated to St. Peter; a few years later (912) it was given exemption from episcopal authority by Pope Anastasius III. This exemption it communicated to all the monas-teries subject to it, in virtue of a special papal concession given in order that the reform work of Cluny might be furthered. Toward the end of the tenth century, the question of exemption became more difficult. Many monks felt that the local bishop was not respecting their rights: he would demand the fulfillment of unjust and unreason-able conditions before he would perform the services for which only he had the power and jurisdiction. The bishops on the other hand claimed that the monks were exceeding their rights and privileges: disparaging the prelates, absolving from censures when they had no au-thority to do so, and so forth. In the pontificate of Pope Gregory V (996-999), exemptions multiplied both in number and in extension. Cluny was the beneficiary of further privileges: no one, not even the local ordinary, could enter the monastery to ordain without the permis-sion of the abbot, and the abbot could invite any bishop to ordain his men without even consulting the ordinary of the place. As a result of these and similar privileges, the great abbeys succeeded from the beginning of the eleventh century in freeing themselves completely from the authority of the diocesan bishop. This exemption soon characterized all the monastic orders. ¯ M. A. Roche~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 10 Emile Amann, "L'Eglise au pouvoir des laics," in v. 7 of Fliche- Martin's Histoire de l'Eglise (Paris: Bloud and Gay, 1948), pp. 343-64. 1~ It should be noted that this donation referred to the temporalities of the abbey; it had nothing to do with withdrawing the monastery from the spiritual jurisdiction of the local ordinary. Other centrally organized Benedictine groups came into existence after Cluny: the Camaldolese founded about 1015 by St. Romuald (950-1027); the Vallombro-sians begun about 1038 by St. John Gualbert (958- 1073). Distinct from these were the more eremitical Carthusians initiated about 1084 by St. Bruno (1030- 1101); to them Innocent XI in 1688 gave the supreme compliment: "Cartusa nnmqnam reformata, quia num-quam deformata." In the twelfth century, the leadership in vigorous, creative monastic life passed from Cluny to Citeaux, established in 1098 by St. Robert (1029-1111). The dis-tinctive features of this new Benedictine movement in-cluded: (a) white rather than black habits; (b) a strong insistence on the observance of poverty; (c) the establishment of monasteries far from the haunts of men; (d) a lessening of liturgical prayer and an increase of private prayer; and (e) a provision for uniting all the houses together into an integrated order, the first of its kind and precur-sor of many others. The houses of the older Cluniac reform were theo-retically under the control of the motherhouse, but they soon became too numerous for one abbot to rule. In the Cistercian system each monastery retained a large degree of autonomy, but there were also certain unify-ing factors. Identical service books were provided for all houses; each abbey was visited annually by the abbot of Citeaux or by the abbot of one of the four other oldest foundations (La Ferte, Pontigny, Clairvaux,18 Mori-mond); every year all the abbots assembled at Citeaux in a general chapter in order to maintain unity and mu-tual charity and to take such legislative and disciplinary actions as might be necessary. The Cistercians are usu-ally credited with the introduction (or better, reintro-duction) of laymen into the monastery. In Cluny and its dependent houses, all monks were clerics and took part in choir; manual labor was done by serfs. The Cister-cians admitted to tI~e habit such as were nnwilling or unable to become choir monks. These non-choral reli-gious were called "conversi" or lay brothers; they did the manual work of the monastery and were complete though subordinate members of the monastic family. Though Citeaux at first refused exemption from episcopal authority, it later accepted that privilege. As with Cluny, the primitive fervor of the Cistercians is Clairvaux was made famous by its abbot St. Bernard (1090-1153), the most influential ecclesiastic of his time. The Male Religious VOLUME 25, 1966 759 4. 4. 4. M. ~. Roche, .M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS '760 gradually waned. The downfall of the order has been attributed to internal disorder around the beginning (1378) of the Great,Western .Schism; self-willed abbots abused local autonomy, capitulated to national differ-ences, and allowed frequent exceptions to the rule. Learning came into prominence, flesh meat was allowed, wealth .and pomp entered in. Efforts to restore pristine observance broke dowm with the cessation of general chapters in 1411 during the Great Western Schism. The order later split into congregations more or less dis-tinct. ; Thus far this article has limited itself to the monastic life. It should be noted that the influence of the monastic life upon the non-religious clergy has been profound. It is perhaps not too much to say that clerical celibacy be-came morally necessary in the West in order to main-tain the prestige of the parochial clergy against odious comparison with monks. The more zealous ~ among the non-monastic clergy have always been eager to borrow such elements of religious observance as would be com-patible with their duties. It may be that the direct in-fluence of the Cluniac reform upon the secular clergy has been exaggerated; but undoubtedly the spiritual success, of Cluny suggested the advantage of cooperative effort in promoting one's individual holiness and~ in furthering reform on a broader scale. Up until the time of Gregory the Great, it will be recalled, monasticism was chiefly ~a lay movement; few clerics were involved. The only place in which there was a number of clerics was in the city, for only the city needed the services of more than a few ministers. Those clerics who lived together in a city under a rule (usually with their bishop at the head) were' not known as monks; later they would be known as canons regular. The credit for organizing the first body of ministers in the common life is usually given to St. Eu~ebius of Vercelli (d. c. 370), though the influence of St. Augustine (354- 430) in this field was much more profound. At the time of the barbarian invasions, the canonical life as well as many other Christian practices suffered greatly; in fact the next great man whose name is strongly associated with the canonical life is St. Chrodegang of Metz (700- 786), who is considered the proximate founder of the canonical life in the Teutonic West.19 His ideal was to lOThe canons were distinguished from the monks by their es-sentially pastoral orientation, The canon was basically a member of the pastoral clergy who followed a rule and lived in common with others of like mind in order to sanctify himself and to make.his work mo~e effective. The monk, on the other hand, became a monk not in order to minister but in order to seek God; if he later became a priest and did work among the people, this was not an essential part of his vocation as a monk. combine the apostolate to the laity with the practice of monastic asceticism; he therefore adapted the rule of St. Benedict to the life of the parochial clergy, prescrib-ing a common dwelling, common table, and common dormitory. Chanting of the Divine Office was to take place at fixed hours. It is uncertain why these men were called "canons." Perhaps it was because their names were inscribed on a "canon", that is, on a list; or maybe because they re-citedthe horae canonicae; maybe because they lived ac-cording to a canon or rule. Their institute was especially (and perhaps uniquely) suited to churches where many priests were attached. Though the institution of canons did considerable good for'a while, it had within itself a cancer which would destroy it: the absence of a rule of poverty. Archbishop Gunther of Cologne about the middle of the ninth century authorized his canons to use and administer the ecclesiastical revenues at will, and very soon the common life ended for those canons. Other groups of canons followed the example of Co-logne, and by the end of the ninth century there were few canons still living the common life. Those canons who lived in private dwellings but still were attached to the cathedral or collegiate churches came to be known as secular canons (which is almost a contradiction in terms); those canons who continued to live the common life were known as regular canons (which is almost redundant). In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there occurred a great revival among the canons, as elsewhere in the Church; in many secu-larized cathedral and collegiate chapters, canonici saecu-lares began to live the common life again and thus be-came canonici regulares2°. The best known group of canons regular are the Premonstratensians~ founded about 1120 by St. Norbert (1080-1134). They remained subject to the local bishop, rejecting all exemption un-til the fifteenth century. A second group is the Canons Regular of St. Victor, formed in 1108 by William of Champeaux (1071-1121). There were in addition many loosely knit bodies of Canons Regular of Saint Augustine, usually of diocesan proportions; they numbered some four hundred housesby the sixteenth century.21 The age of the Crusades produced the next species of religious observance: the military orders, which com-bined practices of the monastic life (including the three vows) with the chivalry of knighthood. The government ~o Karl Bihhneyer, Church History, trans. Victor E. Mills, v. 2 (Westminster: Newman, 1963), p. 222. ~The Canons Regular of St. Augustine are to be distinguished from the Hermits of St. Augustine later fused by papal authority into the Augustinian Friars. 4. 4. 4- The Male Religious VOLUME 25, ~966 761 ÷ ÷ ÷ M. A. Roche, C.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 762 of these military orders was,, as may be expected, strongly centralized; only the general chapter could limit the power.0f the grand master. The Knights of St. John or Hospitalers were organized around a hospital in Jeru-salem by a knight named Gerard (d. c. 1120). Succes-sively removed to Rhodes and Malta, they still survive. The Knights Templar were formed at Jerusalem in II19 ,by Hugh of Payens and seven other French knights. Like the Knights of St. John, they defended the Holy Land with courage; they were, however, sup-pressed by Pope Clement V in 1312. The Knights of St. Mary were instituted at Acre around 1198; eventually they became preponderantly German (whence the name Teutonic Knights), and moved their field of operations to the Baltic. In 1525 the grand master Albert of Brandenburg secularized the order's holdings, erected them into the hereditary Duchy of Prussia, and. became a Lutheran. Even though a Protestant as well as a Catho-lic branch of the order survived, for all practical pur-poses the order was dead. Other knightly orders existed ~n the Iberian peninsula. These military orders had a relatively brief existence; of far greater importance to the history of the Church are the mendicant orders which next appeared: The emergence of the me0dicant orders was associated with the growth of cities in Western Europe. By the thirteenth cen-tury, that part of the world was beginning to move out of the almost exclusively agricultural economy which had followed the decline of the Roman Empire and the disappearance of the urban civilization that had characterized that realm. Cities were once more appearing. It was to deepening the religious life of the populace of the cities and towns that the friars devoted much of their energy. Most of the monasteries had chosen solitude and centers remote from the contaminfiting influences of the world. In contrast, the mendicant orders sought the places where men congregated and endeavoured to bring the Gospel to them there. The older monasteries were associated with a prevailing rural and feudal ,milieu. The mendicant orders flourished in the rapidly growing urban populations,m The mendicants are usually listed as four: the Car-melites whose foundations were laid in 1156; the Franciscans begun by St. Francis of Assisi (1181 or 1182- 1226) and given tentative approval in 1210; the Order of Preachers instituted by St. Dominic (I170-1221) and approved in 1216; the Augustinians, amalgamated and formed as an order only in 1256.28 Sometimes the list of mendicants is expanded in order to include the Ser-vites: established in 1223 by seven youths from aristo-cratic Florentine families, the group was constituted an = Latourette, History of Christianity, p. 428. = The order formed in 1256 was composed of preexisting congre-gations, one of which had been founded by St. William about 1156. order in 1240, although final approval did not come un-til 1304. The largest of the mendicant groups owes its origin to St. Francis of Assisi. He wrote a rule for his followers in 1221, and a second one in 1223. After his death, the friars (First Order) split, chiefly on the question of pov-erty, into the Observants and Conventuals. The Second Order developed from the little group of women headed by St. Clare. The Third Order, established in.1221 under the name of the Brothers and Sitters of Penance, de-veloped into the Third Order Secular '(persons living in the world), the Third Order Regular, and numerous other tertiary organizations basing themselves on the Franciscan rule. The friars of the various orders quickly spread and rapidly attracted large numbers of members. Perhaps this Was due to the fact that they combined in an obvi-ous way the love of God (as' did the monks) with service to others. This growth b~ought the mendicants into re-peated conflicts with the secular ~lergy. The friars were by the nature of their institute destined to go°and to minister to the people everywhere. To do this, they needed exemption from the diocesan bishops, exemp-tion that was not local (as in a monastery), but personal. This exemption the popes gladly gave, for they saw 'in the friars a most powerful aid in the work of reform. During the fourteenth century, the Brothers of the Common Life, a congregation of laymen without vows under the leadership of Gerard de Groote (1340-1384) did much to revitalize education. They attempted to combine a thorough Catholic training with the new classical curriculum. Despite their work and despite the presence of some religious saints, the fourteenth~ century was in general one of decline among monks, canons, and mendicants. In the years around 1350, the Black Death took a heavy toll among the more zealous; While in some lands religious life recovered, in many places the de-terioration in discipline and morals seems to have been especially marked in the latter part of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth centuries. Besides the Brothers of the Common Life, only a few small religious groups were founded. There were nevertheless some attempts at re-form among the Franciscan groups and among the Dominicans. The Augustinian friars experienced a re-form in certain countries; it was to an Observant friary that Martin Luther would apply. The Carmelites un-derwent a reform movement in Italy about 1413, but this gradually spent itself. In general, these pre-Triden-tine reforms lacked thoroughness and permanency. At the time of the Reformation, consequently, many religious houses were in a low spiritual state and their ÷ ÷ The Male Religious VOLUME 25, 196~ 763 + + + M. A. Roche, C.M. REWEW FOR .~ELm~OUS 764 members were unprepared to meet the attractions of Protestantism. The list of those who embraced the new religion included many priests and nuns. Reform came, though somewhat late, to the older or-ders. The Dominicans, less in need of moral than in-tellectual renewal, were given impetus in the latter field by Cardinal Cajetan (1469-1534). The Franciscans were again reorganized (in 1517) into Conventuals and Ob-servants; a later offshoot of the latter group is the Capuchins. The Augustinians were reformed by their general, Giles of Viterbo (d. 1532). The work of renewal undertaken on behalf of the Carmelites by St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) and St. Teresa (1515-1582) re-sulted in the separation of the new Discalced Carmelites from what came to be called the Calced Carmelites. Re-form was also undertaken with more or less success by the Benedictines,~4 Camaldolese,~5 Ciste~'cians,2~ Canons P,.egular,"-'7 and other groups. Before the opening of the Council of Trent (1545- 1563), the reform movement in the Church had pro-duced a number of new institutes. Prominent among these are the clerks regularY8 Included in this group are the Theatines founded in 1516 by St. Cajetan of Thiene (1480-1547); the Barnabites initiated in 1532 by St. An-thony Zaccaria (1502-1539); and the Somaschi begun in 1532 by St. Jerome Aemilian (1481-1537). The most important of these pre-Tridentine founda-tions was the Society of Jesus begun in 1540 by St. Ig-natius of Loyola (1496-1556). The Society had many unique qualities, so that some feel that it should be classified not as an order of clerks regular but in a sepa-rate classification.-~9 Among the distinctive features of the Jesuits were: (a) a two-year novitiate; (b) the deferral of profession for ten, fifteen, or more years after the novitiate; .-4 A reformed cmlgregation of Benedictines that received papal ap-proval in 1604; an offshoot of this reform is the later Congregation of St. Maur. = Paolo Giustiniani (1475-1528) worked to restore the primitive spirit of the Camaldolese. -~ A reformed group of Cistercians (the Feuillants) arose in France under the leadership of Jean de la Barri~re (1544-1600). In 1662 Ar-mand de Ranc~ (d. 1700) initiated the reform of La Trappe. -~ Peter Fourier (1565-1640) worked to renew the canons regular in Lo~:raine. ~ The clerks regular are distinguished from (a) canons regular, in that the clerks do not have Office in choir in order to have more time for the ministry; (b) monks, in that they are pastorally oriented; (c) mendicants, in that they do not subsist from alms and do not recite the choral Office; and (d) secular priests, in that that they live a com-mon life with vows. -~ Ricardo Garcia Villoslada, Historia de la lglesia Cat61ica, v. 3 (Madrid: 1960), p. 827. (c) the division into the professed of the four vows (a minority who take solemn vows); and the ordinary members, coadjutors spiritual (priests) and coadjutors temporal (lay brothers); (d) the great power of the superior general; (e) a fourth vow of obedience to the Roman Pontiff; and (f) the elimination of the choral Office. The members of the Company wore no garb other than the ordinary dress of secular clerics; made much of study; and engaged in works of education, mission; and controversy. They were ch.iefly responsible for halting the further spread of the Reformation; indeed, they often succeeded in winning back regions that had fallen to Protestantism. Especially noteworthy .were their works in the foreign missions. After much delay, the Council of Trent finally opened in 1545. Besides the many other pressing problems, the Council fathers interested themselves also in the ques-tion of religious orders. By this time exemption had grown so universal that it created administrative chaos in the Church. The council decided what the local or-dinary could do in regard to regulars jure ordinario, jure delegato and utroque simul jure. Thus, for exam-pie, a bishop was empowered to punish regulars for crimes committed outside the house, if his superiors failed to act, and so forth, In general, Trent preserved the internal autonomy of religious, but subjected them to the authority of the local ordinary in all ministry to the bishop's people and in all things looking to the common good of the Church. After the Council of Trent, a new type of clerical life became exceedingly popular: that of secular priests liv-ing in common but not bound by vows.s° One of the earliest of these groups was the Oratory founded in 1564 by St. Philip Neri (1515-1595). The members of the ora-tory lived together without vows, retained their own property, and provided for their own needs except for lodging. The superior was more a chairman than a ruler, since no public act could be decided without the approbation of a majority of the members. Each house was independent, although the personal influence of St. Philip was very great. In France, Pierre Cardinal de B~rulle (1575-1629) organized a French oratory on the principles of St. Philip, though the independence of each house was re- ~o These priests resemble the canons of the time of St. Chrodegang in that they are priests living in common without vows. The canons of St. Chrodegang were almost all in the parochial ministry; the newer groups, on the other hand, engage in a great variety of works: parishes, schools, seminaries, domestic missions, foreign missions, and so forth. + + + The Male Religious VOLUME 25, 1966 765 ÷ ÷ ÷ M. A. Roche, .M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 766 placed by a type of federation. Similar groups were the Oblates of St. Ambrose initiated in 1578 in Milan by St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584); the Doctrinaires begun in 1592 by Caesar de Bus (1544-1607); the Lazarists or Vincentians" founded in 1625 by St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660); the Sulpicians begun in 1642 by Jean- Jacques Olier (1608-1657); the Eudists formed in 1643 by St. Jean Eudes (1601-1680); the Paris Foreign Mis-sion Society organized in 1660 at Paris by Pope Alex-ander VII (1599-1667). After the Council of Trent there also arose new com-munities of religious who differed from the newer com-munities of secular priests in that they took the usual three vows of religion, and from the older orders in that these vows were not solemn but simple.The great ma-jority of post-Tridentine religious groups are of this type. Among them are the Camillans organized in 1584 by St. Camilhls de Lellis (1550-1614); the Passionists begun in 1737 by St. Paul of the Cross (1694--1775); the Redemptorists started by St. Alphonsus Ligouri (1696- 1787); the Company of Mary initiated by St. Louis Marie de Montfort (1673-1716). The above congregations were composed chietly of priests; St. John Baptist de la Salle (1651-1719) organized abont the year 1684 a congrega-tion of non-clerics, the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Despite these new foundations and despite the re-newal of the older orders, the religious life began to decay ;~gain during the second half of the eighteenth cen-tury. Gallicanism, Josephism, Jansenism, and subservi-ence to the king seriously weakened Catholic life in gen-eral and reached even into religion. The suppression of the .Jesuits by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 temporarily removed the Society from the scene; the French Revolu-tion and the Napoleonic era dealt harshly with com-munity life in what remained of Catholic Europe. The one other area of ltourishing religious observance, Span-ish America, lost most of its monasteries and convents during the wars for independence and the subsequent years of turmoil. In 1815, then, the religious life among clerics had to ;i large degree disappeared; but the nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary revival. The Society of Jesus (granted some sort of recognition in 1801) was restored to the whole world in 1814. The Benedictines--their houses reduced to about thirty--took on new life. Not the least of their contributions was the impetus given to liturgical study and liturgical worship by Dora Gu~r-anger. The Cistercians reopened many old monasteries and made new foundations. The Dominicans acquired fresh vigor--the name of Lacordaire. is important here-- and qnickly accepted the invitation of Leo XIII to re- vive the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Fran-ciscans were again reorganized in 1897. Numerous new institutes of clerics arose, almost all (if not all) congregations with simple vows. St. ,John Bosco (1815-1888) begafi the Salesians; Blessed Peter Julian Eyniard (1811-1868) started the Priests of the Blessed Sacrament. The Congregation of the Immacu-late Heart of Mary (1841) of Venerable Frances Lieber-mann merged with the Fathers of the Holy Ghost in 1848; William Chaminade initiated the Marianists around 1815 or 1816; in 1816 Eugene de Mazenod founded the Oblates of Mary Immaculate; in the same year Jean Claude Marie Colin (1790-1875) began the Marists. Blessed Vincent Palotti (1798-1850) about 1835 formed the Pious Society of the Missions, soon called after him the Pallotine Fathers; two existing groups united in France in 1842 to form the Congregation of Holy Cross. In 1898 the Anglican Father Paul Francis established the Society of the Atonement; in 1908 he and most of his followers were received into the Church. Several new congregations of religious clerics with simple vows were initiated solely or primarily for work on the foreign missions. Among these are the Congrega-tion of the Immaculate Heart of Mary begun in 1863 by Theophile Verbiest in Belgium; the Society of the Di-vine Word inaugurated in 1875 by Arnold Janssen; the Mill Hill Fathers, started in England in 1866 by Her-bert Cardinal Vaughan. In addition to the above religious congregations, sev-eral societies were formed for priests living in commu-nity without vows: the Precious Blood Fathers started in 1815 by Gaspar del Bufalo; the Paulists formed by Isaac Hecker (1819-1888); the Maryknoll Fathers established in 1911 by James Walsh and Thomas Price; the Joseph-ite Fathers inaugurated in 1893; the White Fathers be-gun by Charles Cardinal Lavigerie in Algiers in 1868. As this paper draws to a close, perhaps it will be help-ful to give a panoramic view of the religious life as we have it today in the western Church. The modern canoni-cal organization of the religious life is divided into the orders (in which solemn vows are pronounced) and con-gregations (in which simple vows are taken). Included among the orders (in their order of precedence) are: (a) canons regular, for example, the Canons Regular of St. Augustine at St. Maurice, Switzerland; (b) monks, such as Benedictines, Cistercians, and so forth; and (c) other regulars, such as mendicants (Franciscans, Dominicans, and so forth) and clerks regular (Barnabites, Jesuits, and so forth). ÷ ÷ ÷ The Male Religious VOLUME 25, 1966 767 + + M. A. Roche, C.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 768 Among the congregations aye the Passionists, Redemp-torists, Salesians, and most of the newer groups. Somewhat like the congregations are the societies of secular priests living in common without vows: Sulpi-cians, Vincentians, Maryknoll, Paulists, and so forth. It seems fitting here to add a word about secular in-stitutes. They are societies, whether clerical or lay, whose members profess the evangelical counsels in the world in order to attain Christian perfection and to ex-ercise a full apostolate. Though these institutes are still in the embryonic stage, they show much promise [or the future. A treatment of these, is beyond the scope of this article, but it is interesting to note that they are somewhat akin to (though better organized than) the groups of domestic ascetics of the first century. The wheel has returned to its starting place. At the end of this article, it seems appropriate to list some conclusions that may be drawn from a study of the historical aspect of religious life.al (1) The practice of the evangelical counsels with or without vows has always been esteemed in the Church; moreover, it has a necessary.role to play. (2) As a general rule, religious orders increase in power between general councils as a result of papal grant. During general councils, religious usually lose power as a result of episcopal action. (3) A good criterion for the vitality of the Church in any period or in any area is the vitality of the religious (and especially of the monastic) observance. (4) Every approved form of religious life gives wit-ness to a special attribu'te of God or to a special truth that needs emphasis. The monk, for example, witnesses to the absolute primacy of the supernatural; the Domini-can to the wisdom of God; the Franciscan to the neces-sity of detachment and to the joy of the Christian life; the Mayknoller to God's universal salvific will, and so forth. In addition to this basic emphasis, most religious engage in work for the people. At times it may seem that a par-ticular form of religious life is today not the most efficient type for external work; perhaps, for example, the choral Office or prescribed manual labor or the vow of poverty may hinder to some degree the work of the ministry. This does not mean, however, that a seemingly less efficient group should be allowed to die; nor that it ought to change its nature radically. Every religious group still serves a most useful purpose in the Church by witnessing to its basic orientations. In the case o[ those who vow = Some of these points were made by Pope Paul VI in his allocu-tion, Magno gaudio, of May 23, 1964, treating of the religious life; an English translation of the allocution can be found in REVIEW FOR RELIC~OUS, V. 23 (1964), pp. 698-704. poverty, for example, their profession of detachment is of great value to the Church and ought not to be aban-doned lightly. (5) As a corollary to the foregoing, it can be said that religious orders and congregations ought to adhere as closely as possible to the spirit given them by their founders, for only then can they give the witness for which they were created. A further corollary is that there is need for a periodic examination of conscience by every order and congregation to see whether it has really kept its original orientation. (6) The history of religious life is not necessarily an e~colution from a less perfect to a more perfect form. A particular form appears because changed conditions have called for a new mode of religious observance. Thus the monastery (and it alone) was ideal in the agrarian society of the early Middle Ages; there was in fact little call for wandering friars. The reurbanization of Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries did not necessitate the abandonment of monasticism; but it did call for another expression of the religious life, and the friars appeared. (7) As a corollary of this, it is quite possible that mod-ern times demand new types of religious life, types which up till now have not been tried. It is also quite possible that these new forms will have a difficult birth, that some attempts will be premature and abortive. Only time will tell. In the past, certain representatives of es-tablished forms of the religious life have with the best of intentions attempted to thwart men seeking to estab-lish newer forms of religious observance. It would be a tragedy if today we repeat these errors of the past. It would be far better if the established orders, congrega- ¯ tions, and societies would assist these new attempts with their counsel, encouragement, and prayer. Love of one's own institute ought not to blind a man to the fact that there are other ways of serving God. We know that God is wonderful in His saints; He is also wonderful in the variety and holiness of religious life. The Male Religious VOLUME 25, 1966 769 SISTER TERESA MARGARET, O.C.D. Updating the Cloister ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Teresa Margaret, O.C~D,, writes from the Carmelite Mona-stery; Bridell, (~ar-digan; Wales. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS We have reached a turning point in history, it would seem, when the world is taking a new path and when, in the words of the late Cardinal Suhard, "the greatest mis-take the Christians of the twentieth century could make would be to let the world develop and unify itself with-out them." In saying this, the cardinal was urging the Church to emerge from her closed circle and become immersed in the activity of the world. But his words apply no less to the necessity of the religious "emergence" by shedding the inhibitions and barnacles of centuries. Adaptation and Renewal. Cardinal Suenens and other notable writers on the subject of religious reform have confined their suggestions and criticisms, to the active apostolate, specifically excluding the enclosed orders of ~women from their remarks. This has been interpreted in many cloisters as indicating that in our case no updat-ing was necessary, either because our customs and the externals of our life were "changeless" (which, in effect, merely means that they have not changed since the sixteenth century), or because they are so perfect in themselves that they stand in no need of renewal-- which sounds like the stock formulation of Pharisa-ism. Glosses traditionally applied to the monastic life as an anticipation of heaven or a continuation of the Gospels should be taken for what they are--metaphors --and not lead cloistered religious to believe that they form a privileged elite of humanity, a class of Christian different from and superior to all others. Everything human changes with time except human nature itself; and in a world subject to continuous alteration; it would indeed be a rare individual or community that stood in no need of renovation. Any lingering doubts on this score should be dispelled by the Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of the Religious Life promulgated by Paul VI on October 28, 1965: The adaptation and renewal of the religious life includes both the constant return to the sources of all Christian life and to the original spirit of the institutes and their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time. [but] even the best adjust-ments made in accordance with the needs of our age will be in-effectual unless they are animated by a renewal of spirit . Therefore let constitutions, directories, customs books, books of prayer and ceremonies and such like be suitably re-edited and, obsolete laws being suppressed, be adapted to the decrees of this sacred synod . Papal cloister should be maintained in the case of nuns engaged exclusively in the contemplative life. However, it must be adjusted to conditions of time and place and obsolete wactices suppressed? External Reforms 1. Enclosure. A recently published symposium entitled Religious Orders in the Modern World2 contains as the last and longest contribution a survey of practical aspects of renewal made by the Bishop of Arras, Mgr. Gerard Huyghe, a couple of years ago. Bishop Huyghe does not limit himself to criticisms of outmoded customs, and dress that hamper the exercise of the active apostolate but turns his searchlight also upon the cloister. Present forms of enclosure, he rightly says, are a legacy from' the Middle Ages, grilles, curtains, and turns being, "doubtless a survival from the long period of Moslem domination over the Iberian peninsula," a weight of custom that is purposeless and ridiculous in this age. Certainly it is advisable for [cloistered] nuns to live entirely apart from the world--partly for protection against the noise of the world, and as a defense against the temptation to go out too much; but mainly as an unequivocal sign that they have chosen to offer their services gratuitously to praise God in the Church's name. But all external signs of such enclosure should be ruth-lessly eliminated, and the law on enclosure for nuns should be brought into harmony with the law on monks' enclosure, which is much more humane and has more respect for the dignity of the person . Canonical penalties like excommunication should be abolished, because they are a threat to none but the scrup-ulous; 8 I would like to make it clear at the outset that in relegating grilles and prison bars to the category of "obsolete practices" which the decree recommends should be "suppressed," I am in no way championing claustral emancipation in the sense of more contact with the secular world, or any mitigation of the monastic need for withdrawal and rules of silence and solitude. But it is a poor form o~ "aloneness with God" that can be enforced only under lock and key. If one has not already erected a cloister of the heart, no multiplying of bolts and veils will provide the necessary withdrawal, which is something essentially interior. No, my reasons ~ Decree on Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life, nos. 2, 3, 16. -" Geoffrey Chapman (ed.), Religious Orders in the Modern World (London: 1965). ~ Ibid., p. 156. Updating the Cloister VOLUME 25, 1966 771 + Sister Teresa Margaret REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS for assuming the grille to be obsolete are all strictly utilitarian. It hinders vocations, creating antagonism and an entirely false and unhealthy conception of the con-templative life in the modern generation; it causes un-told and unnecessary suffering for parents; and it serves no useful purpose. If I wanted to get out of this cloister tomorrow, I could achieve it with the greatest of ease and without any need to make a dramatic nocturnal escape over the wall. It is anti-feminist discrimination that presumes no woman may be trusted except under lock and key and constant supervision, else why are regulations for enclosed men so different? It is shocking that in this day and age some monasteries of women actu-ally continue the most reprehensible practice of sending "companions" to the parlor so that a sister may not speak to a friend or relative except in the presence of a monitor. If she cannot be trusted in the parlor, then by all means keep her out of it; but do not send her with a hidden vigilante. Again, why may a nun not embrace her mother, or sit with her in the parlor in the normal way, as any monk does when his parents visit him? Why may a monk offer Mass in the public sanctuary of an enclosed convent while the nuns must "participate" from the other side of a grille? These are all matters of discrimination and serve no usefizl or sensible purpose except that since time imme-morial women and children were expected to show so little discretion that they must be confined to the nursery under the watchfi~l eye of a governess. Bishop Huyghe says: A final reason for abolishing some of the externals of the nuns' enclosure is connected with the present needs of the Christian people in liturgical matters. As a nun says: "Priests and sacred ministers are allowed to enter the enclosure to bury the dead (Inter coetera, n. 27). Why should they not also do so for the processions on the Rogation Days and Palm Sunday? It becomes increasingly difficult for us to see why the priest should be left 'marking time' on one side of the grille, while the nuns go off to perform their own little ceremony on the other. Why should a function like the Easter Vigil be cut in two by a grille? Moreover, I do not see why there should be a grille separating the nuns from the altar. Would it not be more reason-able if the priest came in to say Mass and went out as soon as the sacrifice was over?" ' We have been told by the highest authority that cl6istered nuns are not to remain aloof from litur-gical participation by silence, darkened choirs, or veiled faces, but to join in with celebrant and congre-gation in dialogue Masses, hymns, Benediction, Bible vigils, and such services. But present claustral regulations do not facilitate participation, tending to isolate the nuns' choir from the action in the sanctuary and chapel beyond the grille, both physically and psychologically. Ibid., p. 156-7. 2.Habits. Any suggestion to modify nuns' habits meets ~with varying reactions; and, in fact, little practical lead has been given in the matter, although in recent years there has been considerable reduction of the bulk, both in material and unnecessary layers of garment. But the habits still look voluminous, unhygienic, and incon-venient. And they are. Nowadays few would agree that this is an acceptable or reasonable form of penance, for wearing heavy clothes fatigues one unnecessarily and reduces efficiency and working capacity. Is there any reason why habits should not be shorter and lighter so that wasted energy could be redirected into more pro-ductive activities than mere physical exhaustion? Nor can I see much force in the argument that, were habits not at least ankle-length, Poor Clares and Discalced Carmelites who do not wear shoes, would look most inelegant. Granted they would. But why not adopt normal twentieth century footgear as the more sensible alternative? The Council fathers in their decree stress that the religious habit is an outward mark of con-secration to God and therefore "should be simple and modest, poor and at the same time.becoming. In addition it must meet the requirements of health and be suited to circumstances of time and place., the habits of both men and women ~religious which do not conform to these norms must be changed," ~ and that, one imagines, would include the habits of most enclosed orders, male and female, Can one think of anything less practicable than the white habits of Cistercians, Carthusians, and Dominicans? And' th~ fact that brown or black merely do not show th~ dirt is 'little recommendation'. In the interest of simplicity, I fail to see why we can-not have a common habit for all religious. For the various, congregations, teachers, nurses, catechists, social workers, could not each group, rather than each congre-gation, wear a common "religious" dress for inside their convents/and another suitable costume (with, perhaps, a distinguishing badge) for external work? And could' not all cloistered nuns and monks have a common habit, combining the best and most servicei~ble features of all? The cloistered religious could retain veil and scapular (in a modified form), which would clearly differentiate them from their apostolic sisters. Thus a nun would be easily identified on sight without this perennial hunt for a different style to mark off the var-ious orders which has led to such exaggerated headgear in the recent past, when latecomers in the field found that all moderate, styles for coifs had already been snapped up. The badge of the order or congregation would distinguish one's identity and form of work. ~ Decree on Adal~tation and Renewal oI Religious Life, n. 17. + + ÷ Updating the Cloister VOLUME 25, 1966 773 ÷ 4. ÷ Sister Teresa Margaret REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 3. Legislation. Another point that needs urgent re-vision is the framing of our laws, which is at present done exclusively by men who, however learned and holy, simply do not understand women's domestic prob-lems. Thus, no sooner are new regulations issued than it is necessary to apply for dispensations and indults be-cause of local conditions; and it seems an anomalous rule that can be maintained only by constant dispensations. Why [asks Mgr. Huyghe] should [women] not be allowed to share in the work of reformation themselves, as they are the principal persons to be affected by it? It is not fitting that the rules for contemplative houses of women should be made ex-clusively by men, even if these men belong to the same Order as the nuns? Principles of Renewal The above matters are all more or less self-evident, but merely "keeping abreast of the times" or "adapting ourselves to the modern world" is not enough. However, the impressive bulk of bibliography about religious life, theory and practice, theology and pastoral application, does not on the whole contain a great deal of fun-damental thinking or real help. No order or congre-gation can effectively undertake reform or renewal with-out a very clear grasp of the principles that are its underpinning. Too often the accidental has been allowed to shift to main focus so that the means take precedence over the end, customs which have no longer any relevance become canonized and then fossilized until some religious seem to fear that their removal will topple the whole structure of religious life. But surely it is built on a sounder foundation than that. Nor will renewal be effected by adding new gimmicks; merely because they are modern, brightly packaged and labor-saving, they are no more going to effect the necessary aggiornamento of themselves, than those sixteenth century ones they are replacing. There is no such thing as push button renewal. In his speech to the Council fathers proclaiming a jubilee to mark the close of Vatican II, Pope Paul said: We ought not to pay attention to these reforms, however necessary they are, at the expense of those moral and spiritual reforms which can make us more like our Divine Master and better equipped for the duties of our vocation. To this we should attend principally: to our effective sanctification and to realizing our capacities for spreading the Gospel message among the men of our time7 Superiority-complex. Caste spirit is strong in human Chapman, Religious Orders, p. 162. Quoted in the Tablet, Nov. 27, 1965. nature, and religious are human beings. Of course, the religious is not .seeking personal aggrandizement; but she knows that the order she has entered is undoubtedly the most perfect form Of life in the Church. Cardinal Costantini wrote: Take religious individually and you will find them of the highest calibre: broadminded, genuinely devout and often excellent theologians. As individuals they are faithful to the vows., humble.Yet taken together, in the Congregation, the sun1 of these virtues undergoes a change. The members' natural instincts for glory, power and wealth are transferred to the Congregation. The members themselves are humble; but no one must touch d~eir Congregation, its honor or its prestige. The members are poor individually, but do not ask that their Congregation should be poor . s Obvious examples of this have been the blatant an-nexation of saints to which many orders have no legitimate claim and even the fabrication of "saints" who have never existed; the astounding .n~ture of some supposed "relics" that have been exposed and venerated m Europe and the Middle East; and in our own day, the fervor with which, in the face of liturgical renewal, so many orders cling to their own rites and liturgies. Any reform immediately meets with requests from some reli-gious congregation for a dispensation, since a "venerable tradition" in their institute has always celebrated such-and- such a feast as a double of the first class or with a privileged octave, and despite the fact that the Sacred Congregation has issued a uniform ruling for the universal Church, their first instinct is to preserve intact their own beloved rubric. Can religious wonder if at times the laity regard them as being outside the main stream of °the Church's life when they deliberately seek special donditions for no really good reason (except hidebound custom), thus putting themselves into a special category? Religious life is a special consecration to God indeed; but it is a sharing of the life of the Church. Wholehearted participation in that life is essential for any really effective renewal in religious life. To seek anything else wot~Id be no less unfruitful than cutting ourselves off from the sacraments, as death-dealin~ as .closing off a main artery. Reform Is Not Revolt. There are many cloistered nuns who harbor an unexpressed fear that to plunge into the main stream would be synonymous with a loss of monastic 'status, the first step on the downgrade to secularism. Take away the grilles, open the cloister win-dows, let in some fresh air, and who knows what kind of virus and restlessness will find its way in with it. Could this be the thin end of the wedge that will eventually send s Chaptnan, Religious Orders, p. 142. 4- Updating the Cloister VOLUME 25, 1966 775 + ÷ ÷ Sister Teresa Margaret REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS us out into the world to assist in the active, apostolate~ The fathers of the Council have no such scruples: Communities which are entirely dedicated to contemplation, so that their members in solitude and silence,, with constant prayer and penance willingly undertaken, occupy themselves with God alone, retain at all times, no matter how pressing the needs of'the active apostolate may be, an honorabl~ place in the Mystical Body of Christ, whose "members do not all have the same function" (Rom 12:4) . Nevertheless their manner of living should be revised according to the principles and cri-teria of adaptation and renewal mentioned above. However their withdrawal from the world and the exercises proper to the contemplative life should be preserved with the utmost care. [Italics mine]? Nor can adaptation to the twentieth century be interpreted merely as a movement "back to the founders," if by that we mean a literal interpretation of what was laid down and practiced by our founders in the sixteenth, twelfth, or sixth centuries. Yet one hears astounding reports of communities where oil lamps, are still used and bathing is prohibited because the founder had specific remarks to make on such matters. Even more absurd are the accounts of importation, at exorbitant costs, of a particular type of pottery which the founder legislated for refectory use and which can now only be obtained at great expense abroad, handmade and fired, in the precise shade and shape used by the first monastery of the order. Common sense and genuine poverty.demand that we use wl~at is the cheapest and commonest' ware today, as such pottery (now a luxury ware, the art dealer's province) was in the time of the founder. Archaeologism is one of the pitfalls that beset any movement back to the past. Return to Sources. How, then, should we implement the "constant return to the sources of all Christian life and the original spirit of our institutes,'~' as the decree puts it? We cannot return to the conditions, social~ cultural economic, and religious, that prevailed then and which shaped the founders' minds and spirituality, dictating the norms of their institutes. Religious orders no less than civilizations and nations are living entities, subject to growth, change, evolution; and in all live organisms change is an indispensable condition. Only a mummified body does not alter, for even a corpse decays. The original institute cannot be regarded as a finished work, coming down from heaven like the New Je.rusalem, perfect in every detail, which subsequent generations ne~ed only maintain in that condition, occasionally scraping off time's corrosion to restore it to its :pristine glory. Rather it is the mustard seed which grows into a Decree on Adaptation and Renewal o[ Religious LiIe, n. 7. plant, then a huge tree in which the birds of the air shel-ter. The holy rule leaves its mark on all.the members of the order, but no less do they leave their mark on the holy rule, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. I fancy that St. Teresa of Avila would make one of her characteristic "God preserve me from." exclamations were she to find her daughters today clinging like limpets to some outmoded custom that was a normal social acceptance four centuries ago. St. Teresa herself was as strong a champion of flexibility as St. Ignatius was of mobility; and neither of them would have wished their sons and daughters to imprison themselves in the narrow groove of formalism which precludes either. As a concrete example: St. Teresa swept away much of the protocol both of speech and elaborate ceremony surrounding social life in her day, which was meticu-lously observed in religious houses, her attempt being to "return to sources," that is, of the gospel. The result was that her ceremonial and customs book were extremely simple for the times; and if today some of the prescribed c.urtsies, inclinations, and forms of address seem to us excessive that is only because such tokens of personal reverence to teachers and parents have entirely disap-peared from the modern scene. To drop them betokens no disrespect; they are simply archaic. Again, St. Teresa ruthlessly swept away the elaborate clothing, the yards of material, trains, rings, pectoral crosses, croziers, and all the episcopal insignia that abbesses had gradually acquired through the Middle Ages. She laid down unequivocally that habits and cloaks and all garments were to be as spare as decency allowed, so that only the minimum of material and work might be expended on clothing. In St. Teresa's day the Carmelite habit as she reconstituted it was simple to the point of skimpiness. It is not today, but that is because a yard of material now suffices to clothe our modern contemporaries. Even St. Teresa would not wish her daughters to get about in a cotton shift; but in a period when it is ho longer considered immodest for girls to go bareheaded, stockingless, and with bare arms, she might not consider that the Carmelite habit was any longer "as spare as possible." Another interpretation of "returning to the founders" has been that superiors should translate the founder's intentions and principles into present day norms and conditions, bringing the institute into line with them by striving to do what the founder would do here and now in this situation, did she live today instead of in a previous age. But this is not really possible, unless the superior is to become herself a founder or at least a reformer. The superior today has inherited not only the time-honored ÷ ÷ ÷ Updating ,the Cloister VOLUME 25, 1966 + + + Sister Teresa Margare¢ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS traditions, but a way of life that has been approved by the Church for centuries. What she must do is take the situa-tion ~as it exists and work on and with that, for in the first clause of the above quotation, the conciliar decree provides th~ solution to this question: ". constant re-turn to the sources of all Christian life." No founder, however holy, however inspired, is the source of all Christian life. Christ alone is that, and the return to the sources envisaged by the decree can mean only one thing: renewal in the spirit of the gospel according to the par-ticular forms of life framed by the founder for this insti-tute and sanctioned by the Church. When on a Sunday afternoon I look out of my window ~nd see a row of schoolgirls pass, dressed all in black, wearing ridicu-lous berets and led by a sour-faced nun, also in black, I cannot help wondering. Is that really what the Church should look like, what Christianity should look like? Is that the only ex-ample we can give the faithful and the rest of the world? Is that negative attitude 'to the simplest and most elementary values of life the necessary premise of a life consecrated to God? ~o Starting Point: The End. The end of thereligious life is no different from that of ever~ Christian life: the attainment of perfect charity towards God and men. All Christians are called to perfection, to love God and their neighbor with their whole heart an'd mind and strength; and this is exactly what perfection means, this is the essential end Of the Christian life, whether one is a religious or not. The perfect love of God" and men to which each is called in a particular state of life and consonant with his own gifts and graces, is an obligation laid on all: "Ydu therefore .are to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). But the talents we have received differ; and "the administrator must be content with his administration, the teacher with his work of teaching, the preacher with his preaching. Each must perform his own task well; giving alms with generosity, exercising authority with anx-ious care, or doing works of mercy smilingly" (Rom 12:7-8). There are in the Church orders whose purpose is to promote the prayer life of their members, as there are congregations constituted for the performance of char-itable and apostolic works. Each and every form of life and work of mercy, spiritual, corporal or material, contributes to the building up of the Church. "The eye cannot say to the hand, I do not need~thy help; nor again 10 Bernard Besret, S.O.Cist., in Chapman,.Religious Orders, p. 121. The questions of the ends of religious life and return to Gospel sources for principles of renewal are discussed at length in two outstanding egsays by Fr~ Besret in this book. They should be read by all religious interested ih these matters. the head to the feet, I have no need of you" (1 Cor 12:21). The hand, however efficient, is simply incapable of performing the fnnction of the eye, or vice versa, so it is futile to argue whether cloistered nuns should go out and work in soup kitchens or nursing sisters incarcerate themselves in monasteries. But it is well not to lose sight of the fact that the classifications of ',active" and "con-templative" lives are a comparatively modern inno-vation. In the monastic tradition and the writing of the fathers, the terms "active" and "contemplative" do not represent two separate and mutually exclusive states' of life deriving their distinctive character from the work engaged in; they were rather two stages of the same spiritual growth: asceticism or the practice of the virtues (active life); and union with God, knowledge and ex-perience of His love (contemplative life) was the goal. for which the active asdeticism was but a preparation and training. This remains substantially true today. There is no teacher, preacher, missionary, or nurse who is so committed to non-stop activity as to have no time f6r prayer; any more than there is any such creature as a "pure contemplative" so emancipated from the mate-rial needs of this life and the demands of charity as never to engage in some form or degree of activity. I doubt whether any modern exegete would try to defend the overworked interpretation of Luke 10:38-42 as a contrast made by Christ between the apostolate (Martha) and the life of prayer (Mary), let alone that He preferred the second. In fact, many i'ecent works of exegesis have demonstrated clearly that he was in no way pointing to different canonical forms of religious life as we know them, but which were neither born nor thought of during His lifetime. Every active missionary since St. Paul understands the need of a vital life of prayer if his apostolate is to succeed; and it is only in this sense that the Church stresses the value of the contemplative life, for unless they called down "an abundant rain of divine graces to make this harvest fertile, the workers ~f the Gospel would reap less fruit." 11 The Church, in proclaiming St. Teresa of Lisieux co-patroness of the missions with St. Francis Xavier, has underlined the mutual assistance of the interior life and apostolate for souls, not only in the missions but in every sphere of activity. St. Teresa and St. Francis Xavier are eminent representatives of the Gospel commandment of love, which is twofold: God and our neighbor. Not that one does the work and the other the praying; such an apportionment is never possible. St. Francis Xavier would not have been the perfect, or even a good, mission-n Pius XI, Umbratilem. + + updating the Cloister VOLUME 25, 1966 779 ary without a deep interior life; nor would St. Teresa have perfectly fulfilled her contemplative vocation unless her love and zeal for souls was overflowing the narrow horizons of her own cloister and embracing the whole world, preparing the ground for future evangelization. But it was fitting that two outstanding patrons should jointly watch over both parts of the commandment. Practical forms of renewal are urgent and necessary; but it must never be forgotten that the principle "First things first" applies here as elsewhere. Unless "they are animated by a renewal of spirit" says the decree, "even the best adjustments made in accordance with the needs of our age will be ineffectual . This must take precedence over even the active ministry." 1.o To attempt anything else is not repairing the foundations; it is merely plastering over cracks. Decree on Adaotation and Renewal of Religious Life, n. 2. 4. 4. Sister Teresa Margaret REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 78O LADISLAS M. ~SRSY, S.J. Directed Re reats vs. Preached Retreats With the expansion and renewal of the retreat move-merit there is an increasing interest in the so called di-rected retreats as distinct from the tradkionally well known preached retreats. Priests who give retreats re-ceive inquiries frequently from persons and communities about the desirability or feasibility of a directed re-treat. The inquiries are in many cases followed by invi-tations to help make one. Moreover, there are retreat masters who insist that all retreats should conform to this apparently new pattern that consists more in direc-tion given personally to each of the retreatants than in talks or conferences given to a community. This movement of directed retreats has existed long enough and made enough progress to permit the assess-ing of its value and its suitability for the needs of vari-ous persons and communities. In this article my intention is precisely to attempt this evaluation; and I shall do it through three steps. First, I shall try to present the method of directed retreats; then I shall recall briefly the way in which preached retreats are given; an.d fi-nally I shall attempt to draw up a balance of advantages and disadvantages that may flow from the application of the two different methods. Directed Retreats A retreat is usually called a directed one when the emphasis is not put on talks and conferences given to a community but on personal prayer under the guidance of the retreat master. Talks to the community are not fully excluded, but they are reduced to a minimum: one or two rather short conferences a day. Even these few conferences would be marked by a certain simplicity and clarity so that the minds of the retreatants might not be overcrowded with ideas, or their nerves over-whelmed with holy but unruly emotions. It would be ÷ ÷ Ladislas M. Orsy, s.J., is professor of canon law at the Catholic Univer-sity; Washington, D.C. 2O017. VOLUME 25, 1966 expected that each one of the persons in retreat will be in close contact with the director and will keep him in-formed about his progress in prayer, about the inner world of his conscience where the grace of God meets his human nature. The retreat master in his turn would help him to discern the inspirations of the Holy Spirit from other movements in his soul and to obey the will of God thus manifested. One can see that the emphasis is on personal activity. Or, more correctly, on a right type of passivity which is the fertile soil for activity. This passivity makes a person able to receive the grace of God, to become aware of the life of God in himself.1 It has a hidden dynamism and very soon it blossoms out into personal activity. One is reminded of the evangelical parable: when the good seed takes root in receptive soil it will finally grow into a large tree. If this is the essence of a directed retreat, the inade-quacy of the term directed comes to the fore. There is really no question of a continuous direction. The retreat master's office is to convey some basic elements of the gospel to the retreatant, letting him penetrate its depth with the light of grace and reason. The work of the director consists more in reviewing and somewhat con-trolling the internal life of his disciple, more in watching over his progress than in giving him direction in the ordinary full sense of the term. The example of John the Baptist is a good illustration of the office of the director: he pointed out the Messiah to the disciples, sent them to Christ, and then withdrew since his mis-sion was accomplished. The retreat master presents the image of Christ to the person under his care, sends him to Christ, then leaves him alone with the Redeemer. It is this meeting that brings into motion the whole internal world of the retreatant. He will experience the attraction of grace that calls him to follow Christ. He + + + L. M. Orsy, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 782 a The genuine Ignatian method of prayer is really a incthod to build up a disposition in the mind and the heart of the retreatant to receive the grace of simple prayer. The Saint never intended to impose a rigid logical pattern on those who are seeking the grace of God, but he tried to help them to detach themselves from the visible world in order to enter into God's invisible mystery. All the preludes and points in a meditation serve to tune up, to warm up the person to the communications or consolations of the Holy Spirit. Once God's grace is somehow experienced, the method has fulfilled its purpose and the person in prayer should enjoy the freedom of the children of God. No formal meditation in the world could give him so much as the Holy Spirit working in him. Paradoxically, the purpose of the Ig-natian meditation is to help a person to abandon meditation and to take up a simpler form of prayer. St. Ignatius does not seem to think that this development should take a long time. He certainly assumes that some transformation will take place in a well