Review for Religious - Issue 08.4 (July 1949)

Issue 8.4 of the Review for Religious, 1949.

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title	Review for Religious - Issue 08.4 (July 1949)
title_short	Review for Religious - Issue 08.4 (July 1949)
title_full	Review for Religious - Issue 08.4 (July 1949)
title_fullStr	Review for Religious - Issue 08.4 (July 1949)
title_full_unstemmed	Review for Religious - Issue 08.4 (July 1949)
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description	Issue 8.4 of the Review for Religious, 1949.
publisher	Saint Louis University Libraries Digitization Center
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spelling	sluoai_rfr-194 Review for Religious - Issue 08.4 (July 1949) Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus Jesuits -- Periodicals; Monasticism and religious orders -- Periodicals. Issue 8.4 of the Review for Religious, 1949. 1949-07-15 2012-05 PDF RfR.8.4.1949.pdf rfr-1940 BX2400 .R4 Copyright U.S. Central and Southern Province, Society of Jesus. Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute individual articles for personal, classroom, or workshop use. Please credit Review for Religious and reference the volume, issue, and page number and cite Saint Louis University Libraries as the host of the digital collection. Saint Louis University Libraries Digitization Center text eng Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus A. M. D.G. , :._~!~;~ Review for Religious~ JULY 15, 1949 ’ Saint Paul, a°Spiritual Master ........ Auoustlne Klaas What Good are Conferences? ...... John Maffhews ,It’s a Wonderful Life ~ ........ Richard Leo Heppler Gethsema ni ................ M. Raymond That God’s Will be Known ........ Sister M. Digna Questions Answered Communi.catlons Book Reviews VOLUME VIII NUMBER 4 RI VII::W FOR RI::LI®IOUS VOLUME VIII JULY, 1949 NUMBER CONTENTS SAINT PAUL. A SPIRITUAL MASTER--Augustine Klaas0 S.J. 169 COMMUNICATIONS ................. 178 WHAT GOOD ARE CONFERENCES?--2ohn Matthews, S.3. 180 IT’S A WONDERFUL L~FE--Richard Leo Heppler, O.F.M ...1..85 GETHSEMANI--M. Raymond ............... 191 THAT GOD’S WILL BE BETTER KNOWN--Sister M. Digna, O.S.B20.1 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERSm 26. General Councilor as Local Superior ..........208 27. Use of Legacy for Education of Religious ......... 210 28. Novice Makes Will and Disposes of Income in Favor of Community 210 29. Daily Rosary as Sacramental Penance .......... 211 30. Permission for Equipment Worth More Than $10,000 ....211 31. Permission to Lease Community Property ........212 32. Superior’s Duty toward Fugitive or Apostate from Religion , 212 33. Formula for Concluding Accusation in Confession ..... 213 34. Effect of Perfect Contrition (or Love) .........~214 BOOK REVIEWS-- First St~ps in the Religious Life: A Procession of Saints ..... 214 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS ................ 220 FOR YOUR INFORMATION ............... 223 OUR CONTRIBUTORS .................. 224 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 3uly, 1949. Vol. VIII, No. 4. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, 3uly, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary’s College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical ~pprobation. Entered as second class matter .lanuary 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard0 S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: Alfred F. Schneider, S.2. Copyright, 1949, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of" reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription prke: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. Saint: .Paul, A Spirit:ual/ asl:er Augustine Klaas, S.3. IN TARSUS, a bustling seaport of Cilicia in Asia Minor and "no. ¯ mean city," the future Apostle of the Gentiles was born of 3ewish parents in moderate circumstances sometime in the first decade of our era. His father, of the tribe ot~ Benjamin, but also a Roman citizen, gave him at his circumcision the 3ewish name of Saul and brought him up in the strict educational t~adition of the Pharisees. In this cosmopolitan town, cut.in two by the Cydnus River and overshadowed by the Taurus Mountains, young Saul, besides his Hebrew Scriptures, learned Aramaic,. Greek, probably Latin, and incidentally picked up the useful trade of weaving tent cloth. Still a youth he went off to the rabbinical school at 3erusalem to study the 3ewisb Law under the famous doctor, Gamaliel. Studies com-pleted, he returned to Tarsus, but later came back to Palestine in time to assist, perhaps not without guilt, at the stoning of Stephen the first Christian martyr. Of an ardent, dynamic temPe.rament, he became in the enst~ing persecution a zealot for the 3ewish Law and took to hunting down for arrest members of the hew religion founded by 3esus Christ. Until one day at high noon, on the road to Damascus, in a blaze of light Saul met hik risen Lord. His eyes were blinded, but he never saw more clearly in his life. From Saul, the persecuting Pharisee infatuated with the Old Law, he suddenly became Paul, the apostle of 3esus Christ, destined to carry the New Law almost to the ends of t~e then-known world. I Baptized in Damascus by Ananias and his sight restored, Paul retired for a considerable time to the Arabian desert south of that city to prepare himself for the apostolate by reflection, penance, and prayer. He emerged to begin his missionary labors, first at Damascus, then at 3erusalem, then at Tarsus, finally establishing with Barna-bas a base at Antioch, third largest city of the Roman Empire and the "gateway to the East," where his special apostolate to the Gentiles began to take definite shape. It was here that the baptized were first called Christians, though Paul never employs that term. He prefers 169 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Review for Religious to call baptized Christians saints, sanctified,, ’well-beloved of God, faithful, chosen ones, holy and loyal brethren. From Antioch, beginning about 45 A.D., Paul made three extensive missionary journeys. He won over large multitudes of converts to the true Faith. With Barnabas, Silas, and Timothy he founded and organized Christian .churches up and down the whole of Asia Minor, in the islands of the Mediterranean, and, over on the mainland of Europe, in Greece, Macedonia, and Italy. During some twenty intensive missionary years Paul fought to victory three important apostoli~ battles: one against the Jews, who never forgave him for deserting them and who treated him as a trai-tor and apostate, hounding him during his whole life and once almost succeeding in putting him to death; another against certain Christian converts from Judaism who wanted to retain in the reli-gion of the New Testament too many customs and practices of the Old Law now defunct; the third, the longest and hardest battle of all, against the pagan Gentiles and the influence of paganism on the recent converts to Christianity. Paul with magnificent generosity toiled and suffered in both body and soul to accomplish these three objectives. He went through an incredible number of adventures and experienced all the so-called romance of the missions, as when he escaped over the wall of Damascus in a basket, or stood on Paphos before the Roman gov-ernor Sergius Paulus to confound the magician Elymas, or was mis-taken for the pagan god Mercury at Lystra, or preached of the "unknown god" in the Areopagus at Athens, or clashed with the pagan silversmiths in Ephesus. Signs and prodigies accompanied him everywhere. To sum up his life he can say forthrightly and without vanity: "I have toiled harder spent longer days in prison, been beaten so cruelly, so often looked death in the face. Five times the Jews scourged me, and spared me but one lash in the forty; three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned; I have been shipwrecked thre’e times, I have spent a night and a day as a castaway at sea. What journeys I have undertaken, in danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from my own people, in danger from the Gentiles: danger in the cities, danger in the wilderness, danger in the sea, danger among false brethren! I have met with toil and weariness, so often been sleepless, hungry and thirsty; so often denied myself food, gone cold and naked. And all this, over and above something else which I do not count; I mean the burden I carry every day, my 170 SAINT PAUL, A SPIRITUAL MASTER anxious care for all the churches. Does anyone feel a scruple? I share it. Is anyone’~ conscience hurt? I am ablaze with indigna-tion. If I must needs boast, I will boast of the things which humili-ate me; the God who is Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, blessed be his name for e~ier, knows that I am telling the truth." (II Cot. 11 : 23-31.) Such was the apostolic career of Paul, God’s "vessel of election," the indomitable warrior for Christ unto the Gentiles. In the year 60 Paul was in prison at Caesarea where he remained confined, but not too closely, for two years, until he "appealed to Caesar." He demanded as a Roman citizen to be sent to the capital for trial. ’His right was recognized and his petition granted. Two more years passed, this time in close imprisonment in Rome; then, at last, trial and acquittal. Immediately Paul was off to Spain and then back again to the East, but his time was fast running out. Once more apprehended in Rome and brought to trial he was condemned to death by decapitation and summarily executed on the Ostian Way under Nero, most probably in the year 67. Taking for granted God’s ordinary and extraordinary graces, likewise the numerous miracles that accompanied his missionary labors, what was the human character and personality that made Paul the Church’s most successful apostle of all times? Physically it seems that Paul was not very prepossessing; he Was small of stature and afflicted with some sort of chronic illness. Yet he had all the fire, energy, and dynamism of a heroic man of action: he had a mind rich in ideas, that could think for itself, that was sharp in contro- ~’ersial debate; he had a gift of eloquence in speech;~ he had sound judgment and an uncanny foresight in choosing the strategic sites of new churches; he was an excellent judge of men to put in charge of them. He was a splendid organizer, pliant and adaptable both in speech and action; he could meet any emergency; he could be and was "all things to all men." Cardinal Newman lists "human sympa-thy" as Paul’s outstanding quality of character. He was also utterly selfless and completely devoted to the cause of Christ. Of course, there were some faults, too, in this strong character: he was at times impatient, self-willed, and not an altogether easy man to work with, as Peter, Barnabas, and Luke found out to their dismay. If Paul was eminently the man of apostolic action, he was also the contemplative. He had the simple, profound, refined traits of the contemplative and was actually gifted with the highest mystical graces (II Cot. 12:2-7). Moreover, he harmonized perfectly the 17! AUGUSTINE KLAAS Reuieu,~ for Religious active life and the contemplative life, as every real apostle must ear-nestly strive to do. The Acts of the Apostles, written by Paul’s disclple and com-panion Luke, gives a vivid account of Paul’s external missionary activity; his interior life and his doctrine, dogmatic, moral, and spiritual, are contained chiefly in his fourteen immortal letters. In this article we are interested above all in setting forth the essential points of Paul’s spiritual doctrine which form likewise, as might be expected, the sum and substance of his own personal spiritual life. Scattered as fragments throughout his Epistles, they are here brought together in a synthesis that reveals something at least of the com-pelling power and beauty of Paul’s spiritual wisdom. II The fundamental doctrine of Saint Paul"s spiritual teaching is the close union of Christians with Christ and Christ with Christians. Christians are with Christ, they are in Christ, in some way they are Christ. Whoever does harm to Christians does harm to Christ; who-ever divides Christians into factions, divides Christ. When Paul was struck down in his mad ’career of persecuting Christians, he heard a voice: "Saul, ’Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Paul wanted to know who was speaking. The voice replied: "I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest" (Acts 9:3-5). ~aul never forgot it. That Chris-tians are Christ became the basic principle of his own personaI spirituality and of his spiritual message to the first Christians. Indeed, this principl.e epitomizes the whole divine plan of man’s salvation and perfection for time and eternity. It pulsates through-out his Epistles. To explain more clearly the ifitimate union of Christ with Christians, Paul employs many analogies, some very striking. Chris-tians are the living stones of a house of which Christ is the corner-stone. Christians are living shoots grafted onto Christ. Christians are united to Christ as closely as husband and wife in marriage. Christians and Christ form a living body of which Christ is the Head. Of course, these images fall far short of the sublime spiritual reality they are meant to describe and explain, namely, that a mem-ber of the true Church of Christ is by that very fact a member of Christ’s Body. Christ and Christians are one. The union is such that Christ shares His life with Christians. Christ actually lives in Christians. Hence, Christians live by a n’ew life--Christ’s life, the supernatural life of grace. Christ’s life flows 172 Julgt, 1949 SAINT PAUL, A SPIRITUAL MASTER in Christians as sap flows from the tree trunk through its branches, as blood courses from the heart to the extremities of the body. It is much more than the Eucharistic presence; it is the life of grace, a real if analogous sharing by Christians in the divine life of Christ. There is here no pantheism, no identity of life. The Christian always retains his own individual personality.’ Nor is this vital union an essential one, such as the substantial union of soul and body. Neither is it a personal union, as the union of the human: nature with the divine Person of Christ. Yet, if it is less .than a physical union, it is more than a mere moral union. It is a hidden, secret, mysterious union, supernatural but none the less also very real. It is a rn~sticat union of Christ the Head with the members of His Mystical Body. Paul d~clares: "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). "For to me, to live is Christ," (Phil. 1:21). Just as for Paul, Christ lives in Christians, and they live in Christ, with Christ, for Christ; they are incorporated into Christ. In a word, the life of Christians is Christ. By reason of this incorporation into Christ Christians enter into the life of the Blessed Trinity. The Christ-life in their souls makes them, like Christ, sons of God. Christ is the first-born and only Son of the Father by nature; we Christians are sons by grace, the grace of adoption. Adopted sonship is something real, though analogous and subordinate to Christ’s sonship. By. reason of it, Christ becomes our elder brother and with Christ we become joint heirs of the Father. Moreover, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, dwells as in a temple in those incorporated by grace into Christ, forming Christ in them, making them more and more perfectly images of Christ. The Holy Spirit is also the principle of life and unity in the Mystical Body, uniting the members with the Head, and the members with each other. Hence, all Christians are brothers. fundamentally equal, intimately bound to one another, indeed, members of each other in Christ. Children of the same Father, vit.alized by the same Holy Spirit, they form a solidarity with Christ and with each other, a sublime solidarity that transcends both space and time. The gift of faith being presupposed in adults, how is this life in Christ, this incorporation into His Mystical Body, this entry into the life of the. Blessed Trinity initiated? By baptism. Baptism, through the merits of Christ, washes away sin, original and actual, by infusing into the soul justifying grace, the grace of spiritual 173 AUGUSTINE KLAAS R~vieu; for Religious regeneration, a new life, supernatural life, a free gift of God. Ira baptism the believer participates in the death and burial of Chri.st through immersion; he dies to sin and to the "old man" in him. But he also shares in the resurrection of Christ when he emerges from the saving baptismal waters to the life of Christ’s grace, to the life of the "new man." He is now liberated from the powers of darkness and, signed by the Holy Spirit of Christ, becomes a member of Christ’s Kingdom, the Church. The life of the Christian is therefore a dying and a living with Christ, a dying to sin in order to live the Christ-life of virtue and live it to the full. Having become a member of Christ by faith and baptism he must now strip himself ever more and more of everything that is not Christ, and also seek to l~Ut on Christ more and more, progressively~ to identify himself, as it were, with Christ, that Christ may gradually take fuller possession of his whole soul, live in it, become its whole life. In short, life in Christ is not static; it is eminently dynamic. Justification must be followed up by sanctifica-tion, of which it is only the beginning. And sanctification must grow until it ends in everlasting glory. III How then is this life in Christ to be lived and increased? How is sanctification accQmplished? By progressively putting off the "old man" and putting on the "new man," by ceasing to live the life of the "flesh" to live ever more and more the life of the "spirit," by continuallly dying and being buried with Christ crucified in order to live more ~bundantly with the resurrected Christ, in a word, by an ever greater avoidance of evil and imperfection and a more enthu-siastic pursuit of supernatural good. To do this effectively involves a struggle, an all-out spiritual combat, a courageous battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Christian must be like a soldier fighting with a full panoply of virtue, or lik~ an athlete engaged in a crucial boxing match in the arena, who does not beat the air uselessly but delivers telling blows on his opponent. Espe-cially, like the runner in the stadium, the Christian must turn away from all else and concentrate mind and muscle on his objective: he must deny himself, suffer many a privation and hardship, ever maintain a salutary fear of failure, steadily increase the swiftness of his pursuit of Christ, and persevere to victory. Constant energetic effort must be exerted if the crowning goal of spiritual perfection is 174 Jul~/, 1949 SAINT PAUL, A SPIRITUAL MASTER ever to be attained. Of course, God always stands by with His help and His grace, without which nothing is possibie supernaturally, but the Christian himself must co-operate, must fight on bravely, relent-lessly, confidently. There must be no discouragement, no defeatism; rather an unfailing buoyant optimism that ultimately the battle will be gained, the enemy vanquished, and the race won. Thus, no mat-ter what may be his station in life, even though it be that of a slave. he will achieve the dignity and destiny of a true Christian, possessing faith, liberty, charity, peace, hope, joy, thanksgiving, apostolic zeal, loving and serving his fellow men for the love of God. Thus, .too, will the love and freedom of the New Law triumph over the fear and servitude of the Old, for the New Law is not the mere meticulou~ observance of multitudinous commands, but above all it is a living, a living of life in Christ. The assiduous practice of penance and mortification implied in the spiritual combat is predominantly a negative aspect of Christian living and perfection. The more positive way is’ the progressive putting on of Christ and His manifold moral virtues, so that gradually Jesus Christ takes undisputed possession of the whole soul, lives in it, becomes its very life. To accomplish this, the Christian must be assimilated to Christ; he must take on the moral and spir-itual likeness of Christ through imitation. He must imitate not so much the particular pl~ysical act.ions of Christ, but must above all assimilate the thoughts and sentiments, the "mind" of Christ. Therefore, not merely an external but an internal, not so much an outward as an inward, resemblance must be sought and striven for. He must put on Christ’s interior, His spirit, His "mind." And this means the mind of Christ as the Word of God before the Incarna-tion, principally as the God-man in the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption, in His crucifixion, death, and burial, but also in His Resurrection and Ascension, and finally as the Head of the Mys-tical Body now gloriously reigning in heaven. Jesus Christ is indeed ~he Grand Model," the exalted exemplary cause of all spiritual per-fection; and it is the Holy Spirit residing within us who by His inspirations and guidance gives individuality to our imitation of Christ. Indeed, Christ Himself also co-operates directly in our assimilation to Him; hence we must ask for His.help in persevering prayer. Assimilation to Christ by imitation already leads to and even effects a certain union with Christ, union of mind and affections. 175 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Review for Religious. Beyond this, the Christian must also zealously strive for union of will with Christ by cl~arity, prayer, and action, all of which should increase his union day by day. Here is where the Holy Eucharist plays a leading role in the spiritual life, since the Eucharistic Sacrifice and banquet brings Christians into intimate union with Ch.,~rist. The chalice of benediction is a partaking of Christ’s blood; the bread broken is a sharing of Christ’s body. The Holy Eucharist therefore is a bond of union between Christians and Christ in His sacrificial death and in His living presence. Union with Christ as Head of the Mystical Body will also progress in depth and in extension in proportion as we advance in union with Christ by’ intellect, will, and action. And this ever closer union with Christ, the Head of the Mystical Body, brings with it an ev4r closer union with the other members of the Mystical Christ, just as by sharing in the common food of Christ’s Body Christians become one body. The Holy Eucharist is a real bond of union between Christians themselves because they are "one bread." This Eucharistic bond also marvellously preserves, cements, and per-fects that other union (through baptism) of the faithful with each other as members of the Mystical Body of Christ. In addition to this, to a fortunate few, of whose number Paul was one, there is granted in this life as a divine gift an extraordinary. mystical, ecstatic vision of and union with God. The qualities and effects of this union for the Church and the individual are somewhat obscurely related by St. Paul in his Epistles. We are not here directly concerned with this ineffable experience nor with the other charis-matic gifts of grace mentioned by St. Paul, who considers them the special workings of the Holy Spirit. And so, as the year~ advance, life in Christ must develop and progress.. It is dynamic, not’static; an increasing, not a mere pre-serving; an augmenting of grace, not merely a repelling of sin: a going forward, not a standing still; a grow.th’, vital, organic, gradual, from infancy and childhood to maturity, from w~akness .unto strength. The Body of Christ. must grow to perfect manhood. to the fulness of Christ. Individual spiritual growth theremust be, but this is at the same time growth of the Mystical Body; and the necessary condition of its increase is growth in union with the Head of the Mystical Body. This upbuilding of the Body of Christ is not only intensive, but also extensive, adding new members to the Body of Christ, in order to supply what is still lacking to the fulness, the ,176 July, 1949 SAINT PAUL, A SPIRITUAL MASTER completeness, the plerorna of the Mystical Christ. IV While the Christian is thus growing in his own perso.nal Christ-life and also augmenting qualitatively and quantitatively the living Body of Christ, he is on his way to the life of glory, which is pledged to him both by the Spirit of Christ dwelli~.g within him because he is a child of God, a joint heir with Christ, and by the thrilling fact that God loves him and wants to share His glory with him. By baptism~ it is true, he died with the dying Christ; but Christ is also a risen Christ, and so he must rise with Christ--- mystically in baptism, morally and ascetically during his whole life--in order that he may share in "His glorious resurrection. By baptism he was made a member Of the risen Christ. He must realize more and more Christ’s r~surrection by his fervent Christian life, until he is transformed from glory to glory unto the image of the risen Savior. This spiritual, mystical resurrection which belongs to him by baptism is his in its plenitude only after death, since the spiritual resurrection of the soul is completed after death by the resurrection of his transformed body. Death, no longer a punish-ment for sin, is really an ascension and entrance into glory. Only then will the grand plan of God regarding this world’ be fully revealed. Only then shall we understand the mystery of Christ, namely, that the Mystical Christ is the true purpose of creation. Christ is the Head of all: He is over all, and all serve Him.- Christ came into this world to unite all creation under His sway and to draw all creation after Him, for He ascends again on high. He has lowered Himself to this earth only to draw to Himself and to restore all to God; all belongs to Christ and Christ belongs to God. With a magnificent sweeping gesture Christ summons all the members of His Mystical Body and takes them with Him to the place prepared for them in the Blessed Trinity. The Blessed Trin, ity was active in our incorporation into Chris~ by baptism and in our whole life in Christ; now each person of the Blessed Trinity has a share also in our glorification with Christ. Drawn by the Father, who sees us more and more conformed to His beloved Son and who continues to transform us from glory to glory into the image of His Son; sustained interiorly by the Holy Spirit, who signs us :with His seal, implants in us the pledges of immortality, and gives us the first fruits and guaranty of glory: 177 COMMUNICATIONS Reoieto for Religious raised from tile dead and borne aloft by the risen Christ because of the true oneness that binds all the members to the Mystical Head, we shall share in the very life of the Blessed Trinity. Then in due time will come the great parousia, the manifestation of the glory of the children of God at the second coming of Christ. This parousia wil! be the glorification, the apotheosis of the Mystical Christ, who with all the members joined to the Head has now reached His full and lasting maturity. Finally, the glorious Mystical Christ with all His glorified members will be taken up to eternal rest in the bosom of God. To summarize Paul’s spiritual doctrine briefly. The. life ,of Christians in Christ is a sublime reality, inaugurated by’..baptism, which is a participation in Christ’s death and resurrection. Th~s life in Christ, this incorporation into the Church, His Mystical Body, must increase and grow steadily as long as we live on earth. It grows by our putting off the "old man" and putting .on the "new man," by our sharing ever more and more in Christ’s death and resurrection, by an ever greater assimilation to Christ by imita-tion and an ever closer union with Him and His mystical members by faith, charity, and virtuous action, especially by partaking of the Holy Eucharist. Thus, by de~’eloping our own personal interior life in Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and at the sam~: time by augmenting bothqualitatlvely and qua.ntitatively the Mys-tical Body of Christ, we p~epare for and indeed already begin our glorification with the risen Christ in heaven. This glorification wil! reach its climax when we participate in the second coming of Chris.r and then, as members of the Mystical Christ, are assu.~ed with Him into the’eternal sanctuary of the Triune God. The pleroma ha~ now been attained. God’s family is comp!~te; His eternal plan, a’~complished. God is now "all in all" forever. (,I Cor. 15:22-28.). Communica ’ions Reverend Fathers: Since the May 1948 issue of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, when "Worldliness in Religious" was proposed as a topic which might be, profitably discussed as of g~neral concern, five Communications on this subject have appeared in the Review, Pro, bably the m.o,st,help.~.u...1 178 .... ~.. ¯ ..~. dalai, 1949 COMMUNICATIONS of these is the one that faces the matter of worldliness as an experi-ence acually undergone by the Sister who wrote the communication. Although there should be.universal agreement with the golden jubi-larian Sister in her statement: "A convent is the best place on earth to make a study of unworldliness," there is reason to question Sis-ter’s complacent comment, "that the number of worldly Sisters in any community is a small minority." one is prompted to ask: "Because communists are a small minority in our United States, do our citizens remain smugly satisfied that no harm will come to the ¯ whole through this numerically smaller group?" We have not yet heard from those v;ho are bestprepared to tell us the truth about worldliness in religious. We should like to know what directors of souls, retreat masters, and moral theologians think regarding the debated existbnce of worldliness in religious communi-ties, and it would be helpful to receive their advice on the question, "Where should it be attacked, and how?" The logical distinctions set forth in Father-Creusen’s translated article, Adaptation, March 1949, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, present a guide for minds which are likely to confuse the accident with the essence. However, is there not the possibility .that liberals may take a too-broad view of "objects of adaptation" and fail to give due consideration to the fourth section of the article, which cautions that adaptations must be made with prudence and decision? A question naturally arises also as to the justifiability of onecomparison intro-duced by the author. In one instance regarding the matter of certain exemptions and dispensations, it is religious engaged in lengthy peri-ods of study, examinations, and laboratory exercises who "will be dispensed from certain observance.s," from "exercises of piety"; i..a the other, it is students of pbilosopbg and theology who "are allowed exemption from choir." Because the st, udy of philosophy and the study of theology tend to keep the student closely in touch with thoughts on the supernatural life, it is easy to understand why exemptions from choir may be allowed, but can the same be said of many secular studies’ in which religious must engage? Again, may we ask for further instruction on "Worldliness in Religious" from the Editors and other ecclesiastical contributors? --~A SISTER. 179 What Good Are Cont:erences? John Matthews, S.J. OUR Lord told His Apostles: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them.., teaching them to observe all things .... " (Matt. 28:19-20). Teach! Christ was not content me, rely to say, "Build libraries, write, put books in every Catholic’s hands." No, books are dead things. Ex;en the Holy Bible is dead without the voice of the Church. But Jesus said, "Teach." He wanted the living word, the sound of the voice.. He wanted His priests to teach mostly by talking; and that is why God’s pri_ests give sermons, retreats, points, spiritual conferences, parish novenas, to lay people and religjous~ That is why Brothers and Sisters also teach religion and conduct retreats and conferences. Here we might ask a question: what good are conferences? What use are spiritual conferences to each individual soul who attends them? First, conferences give you holy saving thoughts, thoughts that help you to holiness and salvation. They teach you the truths of your religion, for example, why Our Lord had to suffer, what is the meaning o.f Holy Mass. They instruct you about Jesus, Mary, the Mass, the Rosary, and Holy Communion. They tell ~;ou of what you love most, for example, the saints of the Church, ot~ your order, of your state of life. It will be profitable to delay a moment on one value conferences have already had for you. Conferences teach you to do everything needed for your daily meditation. They teach you about the act of faith and joy in God’s presence within you; and it is this act with which you begin your prayer. Conferences give you word pictures of Jesus and Mary which can help you to make your composition of place. Above all, conferences supply you with the holy thoughts which you will pray over" all your life, which you will discuss with Jesus arid Mary and the Trinity in your meditation, from which you will draw love and courage. These same thoughts will lead you to imitate Jesus and Mary and the saints; they will help you to form your daily resolutions; they will be recalled in your colloquies. Thus conferences supply holy thoughts not only for your morning meditations but for your private prayer during the day, for example. in visits to the Blessed Sacrament. For Jesus wants you to talk to Him morning, noon, and nig.ht; and a true religious must store his mind well with sacred thoughts if be is to live prayerfully as he should. 180 WHAT GOOD ARE CONFERENCES? Again,-conferences teach you how to live your life. They instruct you in the duties of your state as a religious, as a foreign missioner. They teach you to practice virtue--the virtues of a teacher, the vlrtu4s of a nursing Sister. The tools of your spiritual life are prayer, Mass, Holy Communion, work, common life: con-ferences tell you how to use them. The.virtues of a religious are humility, spending one’s life for God, seeing God in all men and events, pure intention, poverty. Your special Virtues may be gener-osity, purity, obedience, fervor, the charity of Christ, prayer. Con-ferences tell you what use these virtues are in your life of holiness and how you can form yourself to Christ by them. By your vocation you are men and women of God. That is your business--and it is a life job! The lad learning his trade tries to learn every trick of the trade. The young man in law school or medical school tries to remember every bit of advice lawyers and doc-tors give him. As men and women of God you must know the things of God--holiness, virtue, what helps to perfection, why prayer and Mass are important, what good is work, and so forth. And conferences are one way of learning your heavenly Father’s business, your business as intimates of God. That is why desus Himself gave spiritual conferences to the apostles and disciples. The one who gives you a conference is another Christ, and you are Christ’s disciples.’ You still need the advice given you in conferences; but it was especially in the early years of your vocation that you needed the help of conferences. Be-fore you entered religious life, how much did you know about 3esus and Mary, Mass, Communion, and prayer? How much did you know about your order, its common life, rules, virtues, history, saints, vows, prayer, and spiritual exercises? You knew very little. So the director of novices gave you daily conferences to teach you about the life of holiness and the religious life. But it is not only in your early years of vocation, it is all through your life that you need the help of spiritual exhortation. For our whole life on earth is only a preparation, a nox;itiate for heaven. We can become more holy every day; so we can always use the means of holiness--and the conference is one of therfi. Our religion is so divine that we’ can always learn more about it, for example, of the depth of Our Lord’s love for us, of the height of God’s majesty, of the fulness of Christ’s holiness. Even the oldest religious can receive new lights from con-ferences, can take new pleasure in the things of God, can give holy 18l JOHN MATTHEWS for Reh’g~’ous example by his attendance at conferences. We said before that conferences give you holy thoughts which can be the food for your prayer. Now we kay that the conference itself can be a prayer. You yourself can. make a prayer out of the conference, for example, just by listening reverently you dwell on godly thoughts and desires--and that is prayer. For prayer is the turning of the soul towards God, and that is what you do as .you heed the thoughts of the conference passing through your mind. You are not forced to pay attention at a conference: you can turn your mind to other things or to nothing. But when you listen with rev-erence and attention to the words of the speaker, you are uniting yourself with God and making a prayer out of your part in the conference. Then too you can say special prayers all the way through the conference. When the speaker says, "Tonight we shall talk about charity," you can say, "Lord, I want this conference to help me." When he tells you how God the Father loved men, you can whisper to yourself, !’Thank You, Heavenly Father." When he mentions the sufferings of ,Jesus and Mary, .you can think within yourself, ’.’I’m sorry for my sins that made You suffer so much." When you hear of Jesus’ love for you in the Eucharist, you can invit~ Our Lord to come to you in spiritual Communion. When the speaker tells you how the Sacred.Heart is offended if you offend your neighbor, you can pray, "My Savior, I offer you my love in reparation." .When the speaker recalls how the Church teaches. Mary’s Immaculate Con-ception, you can whisper, "Lord God, I believe with all my heart." When you hear about the glor.y .of the saints, you can feel .joy your-selves at the happiness of heaven. So we could go on. For there is no end to the prayers we can have in our minds during a conference. Of course we can als6 use v(iell-known..ejaculations like "Jesus, Mary and ‘joseph," "My.Jesus, mercy." When, too, a saint’s name is mentioned, we can say to ourselves, "Pray for us." But, whether we pray in our own words or the Church’s, let us be sure to make every conference a time of prayer in union .with God. "But, Father, that will keep me busy during a conference!" Correct! That is your part of a conference as God wants it. No need to be afraid of making a prayer out of your conference. So many people at Holy Mass just sit and listen. That is so useless. At Mass we should act, do what the priest does, for 182 duI~,1949 WHAT GOOD ARE CONFERENCES ? example, offer Christ to God the Father, give thanks, adore, beg par-don, welcome desus in Communion. Such is your part in the Holy Sacrifice; and you have your part in a conference too. Do not just sit and listen; do something about your conference. It is God who is talking to you through the speaker. So pray to God, offer Him your time at conference, say ejaculations, beg God’s pardon, ask Him to help. you, love Him and Mary and the saints. Then you w~ll make a prayer out of your conference and you will be growing in holiness. Making a prayer out of a conference helps you to keep awake and interested, to overcome dislike for holy things to which we turn often with diffic.ulty. (It it so easy to think of other things we could do that have more appeal for us.) Even whefi the conference is dull, or the speaker has a displeasing voice or tone, or the weather is hot, or you are distracted or tired or sleepy--even then you can make a prayer out of your conference. You can at least try to talk to God about what is.being said, and you will be all the holier for trying to make a prayer out of your conference. Lastly, every conference is an external grace for us. But what is an external grace? A conference as an external grace is an influence which is outside our soul and which helps us to holiness and salva-tion. Because the influence is outside our soul, it is called exte.rnal; because it helps to our supernatural growth, it is a grace. Let us see, then, how a spiritual talk can be an external grace. As the words of the conference strike your ear, they registe’r the ideas in your mind, they warm your .heart, and they rouse your will to action. This is the natural human result of the speaker’s words and of the conviction and sincerity with which he talks. Of course, these thoughts and resolves aroused in your mind and will by the confer-ence are only human thoughts and resolves. They are of the same order as those which any orator seeks to effect within you. Such natural ideas and resolutions alone would never enable you to do a deed of supernatural virtue; for no merely human decision of the will is powerful enough to attain the supernatural holiness that is man’s common vocation. But here is where.the conference does help us. In God’s plan for sanctifying souls, a conference is the occasion of and preparation for the actual graces which empower men to act supernaturally. You are pondering over the ideas of the exhortation, you are planning your decision on the spiritual path to which the speaker invites you. 183 WHAT GOOD ARE CONFERENCES? Reuiew for Religious Now comes the exact moment which God uses to give you His grace. Your human thoughts and resolves have prepared you to receive this grace. Let us suppose that the conference is on humility. While you consider the speaker’s words on that virtue, your mind is enlightened by actual grace to see the supernatural need for humility; while you plan your decision to practice humility more, your will is ifispired and strengthened by actual grace to make this resolve super-naturally. You have been givefi the graces of’enlightenment, inspi-ration, and strength; and the conference has, in God’s wisdom, been the timely occasion to step up your pov~ers of action with actual grace, a "seasonable aid" (Heb. 4: 16). Thus does a conference fit into your spiritua.1 life as a help to holiness. It lets your human powers play their part in your salva-tion; it is an opportunit.y which God uses to give you His graces. In this way conferences have through the centuries aided in forming souls to Christian virtue. Our Savior conversed spiritually with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. First His words had their natural effect. "Was not our heart burning within us whilst He spoke on the way and opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32). Then, while their hearts burned with human enthusiasm, Jesus flooded their souls with the grace of faith...The result of using this grace was that. they believed in His resurrection and hastened to share their faith. with the apostles. In like manner the impact of St. Peter’s first ser-mon as an external grace plus the powek of the accompanying actual grace brought three thousand Jews (Acts 2:37, 41) to supernatural contrition, obedience, and baptism: So too did the words of St. Francis Assisi and the grace of vocation combine their human and divine strength in leading St. Clare to beg admission into the new Franciscan order. Now there remains for speaker and listener only this, that each do his best to make a conference the richest external grace pos-sible. The speaker will suit to his sacred purpose the thoughts he presents. He will use his skill to explain the spiritual life dearly, he will plan to inspire his hearers, he will seek to persuade his audience to resolution. So will he be a John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord. On his part the listener must accept ’a conference not as a penance or even merely as a duty but as an opportunity for instruction, prayer, and spiritual growth. Th’e listener should be wide-awake, supernaturally eager for the speaker’s thoughts, for his own prayer, and for God’s grace. The question to ask after the talk 184 Julg, 1949 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is not, "How did you like it?"--but, "Did I make the conference fruitful for myself?" A conference is a three-way work in which speaker, hearer, and God co-operate. We can be sure God will do His part to mike every conference a spiritual success. It:’s a Wonderi:ul Lit:e Richard Leo Heppler, O.F.M. ~__ UESSING the identity of next year’s crop of postulants would ~ be easier than foretelling the disguise in which the. next blessing will come to us. This is a very crude way of ren-dering St. Paul’s beautiful words: "O the depth of the ricbes~ of the wisdom of God. How incomprehensible are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways." And, in reality, we do not know in what form we shall receive the next good inspiration. God sends His graces, His blessings, His heavenly promptings in accordance with Divine Wisdom and not in accordance with ours. He may choose anything at all to be the means of conducting His graces to us. An apparently chance conversation by Jacob’s Well was an inspiration for the sinful woman. Getting the daylights knocked out of him was a great blessing for St. Paul. A bolt of lightning was a mean.~ of grace for St. Norbert. St. Hyacintba received a heavenly favor when her confessor, who had been summoned to her sick bed, refused to hear her confession until she bad ridded her cell of every: thing that violated poverty. Anything may be a means of grace for us: a good book, a letter, a change of appointment, a siege of pneu-monia, a fire, the failure to catch a train, a radio program--anything! But these divine inspirations to be better and to do better can be refused and rejected. That is why the Psalmist warns us: "Today if you hear his ,~6ice harden not your hearts." Pontius Pilate received a very unusual external grace in the form of his wife’s dream, but he refused to co-operate with it. Judas was offered a great blessing by Our Lord when He called him friend, but Judas hardened his heart. The important thing about these blessings is not the dis-. guise in which they come, but our willingness to accept them and to co-operate with them. If we are sincerely trying to cultivate humil-ity; purity of intention, docility to the will of God, and the practice of mortification, then we are keeping ourselves in readiness to take 185 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER Review [or Religious advantage of each external grace, and--what is more--we are dis-posing ourselves to co-operate with each internal actual grace that God sees fit to offer us. Contradictory as it may at fi~st seem, God wants us to act super-naturally; yet of ourselves we .cannot do so. Without God’s grace we cannot think supernaturally, will supernaturaJly, or operate supernaturally. What other conclusion can we reach after reading the following words of Sacred Scripture: "Without me, you can do nothing"; "Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves, but our sufiiciency is from God"; an~, "For it is God who worketh in us to will and to accomplish"? Actual grace is the supernatural magic which enables us to comply with God’s desires. And what makes living the life Of actual grace so exciting is that we are in constant need of actual grace, and God is constantly giving l~s actual grace, and yet at any moment we may refuse to make use of this precious gift. Now, all this may not seem very thrilling to us, so dull of spir-itual perception are we; still, to watch us trying to lead the life of actual grace must be very thrilling for the devils and angels and saints. Our tension in following adventures of a modern radio Cinderella, or of an F.B.I. agent, or of a private detective is quite anemic compared with the celestial suspense our guardian angels may endure in watching us live the dangerous life of grace. Dangerous? Yes, because a rejection of grace is always a spiritual tragedy. Each time God offers us an actual grace, a turning point in our spiritual lives is reached. Will we accept the grace and perform a supernatural action? Or will we reject it and fail to come up to God’s expecta-tion? The angels and saints want us to use the grace; the devils want us to neglect it; the decision rests’ with us. Without meaning to be disrespectful, we may suspect that many a guardian angel has been near the point of prostration when his partciular client drew near death, and breathed a heavenly sigh of relief when that human being co-operated with the final actual grace. It is to be hoped that the guardian angels of religious get off with less strain on their spir-itual constitutions, but they too may be a little gray and bent (if angels show signs of wear) when some of us come grinning up to them to render our undying thanks. At any rate, actual grace we certainly need in order to perform any supernatural action. And to be true to our vocation--to resist temptations, to practice virtue, to make progress in perfection-- 186 dulg, 1949 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE we need a great amount of this marvellous gift of God. Since we need this grace all the time, we have to pray for it all the time. What life is best adapted to the constant praying for grace? The wonder-ful life which is called religious life. Religious life is a wonderful life because it affords us the oppor-tunity of living .to the full the thrilling life of actual grace. Spir-itual adventures surroui~d us; all we have to do is to wake and’live. But there are two kinds of grace, sanctifying and actual. And religious life is a wonderful life because it also enables us to live to the full the life of sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is real life, soul-life. It gives us a participation of God’s life and of God living in’us. By means of sanctifying grace God is present to us so as to make us not gods, but godlike. For God the Father, the Life of All Living, lives within us; God the Son, the Way, the Truth and the Life, lives within us; and God the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Life,. lives within us. With sanctifying grace in our souls we are more wonderful than all lower creation put together, for we are.charged with a divine vitality which enables us to perform supernatural actions pleasing to God and worthy of a supernatural reward. Then it is that drilling a class.i’n the parts of speech, typing letters in the office, tagging plates in the X-ray room, purchasing next month’s supply of sugar, baking hosts, or trying to get money out of the pockets of a fellow mortal is more marvel-ous than the bright glitter of the Milky Way or the slow blossoming of a rose or the violence of an ocean storm. The man of the world who is devoid of sanctifying grace may .devote his time and energy and talent and money to’ the cure of cancer or the composition of symphonies or the construction of skyscrapers, and great worldly success may repay his efforts. But such a man is a monstrosity, an absurdity, because he is not supernaturally alive. On l~he other hand apparent failure may dog the steps of a good religious, but in reality he is a living success. No matter what fellow religious think or say about him or her; no matter whether the doctors and nurses think he or she has an electrifying personfility; no matter whether his or her students laugh at the annual jokes, the good religious is tful7 leading a won’derful life. How important is it to be pleasing to God? How important is anything else in this whole wide world? A young lady whom I instructed ifi the faith assured me when the course was over that the doctrine on grace pleased her most. I must confess that in a n.ear-by 1S7 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER Review for Religious drug store I had seen over the cosmetic counter a sign proclaiming, "Beauty is your duty." I must further confess that I had used the whole notion of grace as soul beauty, and I bad tried to show her that true. beauty is soul deep. And finally I must cont~ess that, wb~le I was certainly no expert on beauty, I did venture to guarantee that she would always be beautiful when walking back from the Com-munion rail. Her only complaint was that she thought it unfair that only men could become priests since that eliminated women from the possi-fiility of getting the third "character" imprinted on the soul. She recovered from her indignation, however, for she now married. But I am confident that she is still continuing her weekly beauty treatment. Being children of God means that we are related to God and to "all creatures; we become members of God’s great family. Sancti-fying grace makes us sons and daughters of God the Father, who with true fatherly love watches ove.r us better than earthly fathers watch Over their children to protect, shelter, feed, clothe, and care for their own flesh and blood. Sanctifying grace makes us brothers and sisters of Our Lord and Savior desus Christ, who is not only" the Majestic ,Judge of fhe living and the dead but also Our Friend, Our Food, and Our Victim. Sanctifying grace makes us temples of the Holy Ghost, who operates jn us to make us more holy, more precious, more worthy to house the Most Adorable Trinity. When we possess sanctifying grace in our souls the Blessed Virgin is truly; our Mother; the angels and saints our companions; the souls in purgatory our suffering friends;, the members of our community our brothers and sisters; and all men are related to us as fellow chil-dren of God. Such is our true dignity; but that is not all, for we also possess by sanctifying grace a claim to a place in God’s own home. Of ourselves we have no right to the perfect and unending enjoyment of God Himself, but with sanctifying grace in our souls we are actually" the heirs of heaven; we have a claim, a title, a right to dwell in the kingdom of the blessed. Strange as it may seem, it is much easier for us to get into heaven than for a displaced person to get into our country. To get into heaven--at least eventually-- we need only die in the state of grace: to get into the United States a foreigner needs almost everything else. Our dignity as children of God and heirs of heaven flows from the supernatural life of our souls. And the life of grace is wonderful because it begins, not at forty, but at baptism; and, if God has His way, it continues, not 188 1949 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE until the final "’Requiescat in Pace" is intoned over our coffined remains, but forever and ever. What is the test of a pilot’s skill? His ability to handle his plane in any emergency. ~v~hat is the test of an actor’s ability? His capability of entering into and living’ the life of the character he portrays. What is the test of a young lady’s popularity? Perhaps her repair bill for shoes worn thin on the dance floor. But what is the test of a person’s spirituality? The amount of sanctifying grace he has at this moment in his soul and the use he is making of that grace. This, of course, does not contradict the statement that a good religious is one who is faithful to the rule and constitutions and seriously strives for perfection. But we are Christlike in proportion to the amount of grace we possess; and we are living in unidn with Our Lord when we are. saturating our every thought, word, and deed with grace. Our spirituality is the work of the Holy Ghost. But the Holy Ghost does not dwell inactively in our souls like a dove idly brooding over the deep. He is ever operative; He is constantly trying to perfect His temples. He knows the exact capacity of each one of us for grace, and He strives to bring us to a personal plenti-tude of grace. Fullness of grace is the same as perfect personal sane-tity. This we know from the fact that, when the Archangel Gabriel " " wished to pay tribute to Our Lady’s holiness, he addressed her as "full of grace." How holy can you become? That depends upon your capacity for grace and your co-operation with God in acquiring and using grace. But all of us must strive to reach the degree ,of sanctity God has set for us; in Other words, we have to keep plugging along in our striving for perfection. But the process of becoming full of grace is certainly not a nega-tive state of existence. Leading the wonderful life of grace does not consist merely, in avoiding sin. No one would say that a person is leading a full intellectual life if he merely avoids a mental break-down. No one would say that a man dearly loves his wife if he merel~ avoids strangling her. The life of grace is certainly not all about avoidance of sin. Religidus who permit themselves anything and everything as long as it is not directly sinful come in time to compromise with deliberate venial sin. Then they develop that most deplorable "It’s-only-a-venial-sin" mentality. From_then on spir-itual growth ~s arrested, and tepidity does the rest towards making religious life miserable: It was the" idea of leading a positive and rich and full spiritual 189 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER Review [or Religious life that attracted us to leave the world. We bad "discovered that soul-growth in the world was at best too often fitful and fractional. Perhaps we did not know that Our Blessed Savior had said, "I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly." But once we discovered that He had said these words, we started to become grace-conscious and, in the most polite and unselfish sense of the word, grace-greedy. When we learned how good grace is, we wanted to possess it; and we wanted to possess a fullness of it; but we wanted this fullness not for our glory but for God’s. We were not satisfied with merely being in the state of grace. We wanted to live! And religious life furnishes us every opportunity to live to the full the wonderful life of grace. Every exercise of the interior life is intended to be a growth in grace. Such things as renewing the dazed good intention made in the. sleepy hours of the morning, recalling the presence of God in a personal way, saying the grace before meals as a prayer and not as a curiosity appetizer, receiving the sacraments fervently, and treating all the members of the com-munity as we would treat Our Lord remind us that living the life of grace is not negative but positive. And living to the full the wonderful life of grace means sancti-fying our external act[vlties. The supernatural life and vitality in our souls’must flood everything w~ do. "I am the vine, you are the branches; He that abi~leth in me, and I in him the same beareth much fruit." The harvest of which Christ speaks is not the dead harvest of mere external activity. It is not an empty, lifeless record of classes taught, interviews conducted, bills paid, recitals given, games won and lost, patients admitted and discharged. We are expected to radiate holiness: One cannot be a good religious without being apostolic, at least to the extent of praying for others, giving good example, and being charitable. Each religious has a tremendous power for good or for evil. What is expected of us is an all-round Christlike conduct. All who come into contact with, us should realize that we are charged with divine vitality. And we must realize that all with whom we come into contact-;--pupils, patients, em-ployees, salesmen, friends, relatives, benefactors, fellow religious-- have been made by God and for God. The vocation of each person we meet, whether we like him or not, is (he salvation and sanctifica-tion of his soul. And our vocation is to help him succeed. There are times when a good meditation on the spiritual dignity of those with whom we come into contact is very practical for one who wants 190 July, 1949 GETHSEMANI to live the life of grace, which demands the wedding of ~/full interior life with a fruitful active life. These are some of the reasons for saying that religious life, the life of grace, is a wonderful life. These are some of the reasons for obeying the injunction of St. Paul to stir up the grace that is in us. These are some of the reasons for thanking God for a religious vocation. Gethsemani M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. GETHSEMANI, the proto-abbey of’ the New World, publicly celebrated her. centennial the First of June of this year. Countless have been the questions .asked about this gray’ Ladyhouse which has stood silent and solitary, cloistered by a circle of undulating hills, for one hundred full years; but two queries that have been most frequently put have been answered most differently. One is about her surprising fertility after ninety-six years of utter sterility. In the last four years she has given birth to two healthy daughters, and soon will be delivered of a third. Such robustness after more than nine decades, during which she was always threat.- gned with recall to the motherhouse because she seemed to be ailing in a foreign air,does give pause to the thoughtful, and naturally raises questions. Perhaps the b’est way to answer these is to give a short interpretation of her long century of silence and thus not only explain her fertility and sterility, but also reply to the other questiori most frequently put. My interpretation is this: If harvest is the result of seed time’s heavy labor, and death for the grain of wheat a necessity for the" hundredfold; if birth pangs are the required prelude to the joy of a child’s being born into the world, and austere asceticism theonly) gate that leads to sound mysticism; if we must know crucifixion before we can hope for a resurrection, and if an agony at the base of Mount Olivet is a necessary condition for an ascension from the top of that mount; then I say Gethsemani’s ninety-six years of sterilit’~" are the explanation of her last four of fertility. ¯ -Viewing Gethsemani as a moral body, the history of her hun-dred years shows God working slowly but surely fbr the°complete purification of her soul. For 6ver fifty years He sent her thr6ugh the 191 M. RAYMOND Review for Religious dark. nights of the senses and the spirit, but only that she might know the dawn of a day that promises to be all flame--and as we humbl~; hope, th~ living flame of love! "The Making of a Mystic" might well be the title for the story of these ten decades; and since every mystic must first have been an ascetic, the opening of the story is somewhat gruesome. On Octo-ber 23, 1848, the Abbot of Melleray, the Cistercian house near Nantes, France, named forty-four men as members of the pioneer community for the New World. One was already in Kentucky trying to convert a log-cabin convent, which he had just purchased from the Lorettine Sisters, into some semblance of a monastery for Trappi~t monks. That is why only forty-two men stretched out in double file behind a priest who walked through a dampening drizzle with a long, thin wooden cross on his shoulder and his clerical hat in i~is hand. The procession that marched the twenty-four miles between Melleray and Ancenis that drear October morning was strange; for while the priest~at the head was in soutane, the men behind him wore ill-fitting secular clothes; yet the silence in which they walked told of the presence of God in their minds and the love for Mary in their hearts. Most of them were fingering their rosaries. Tours saw them the following evening; and Paris, enveloped in an atmosphere as hostile to religion as the one that pervaded that city when the goddess of Reason was enthroned and Madame Guillo-tine set up, viewed the same strange sight on the morning of .October 26th. But what neither Paris nor Tours saw was the ache.in the hearts Of these men who were leaving their country and the mon-astery in which they bad vowed to die. Nor did either city know that these men had had but one full meal since leaving Melleray on October 24th. ’Le Havre was reached on the 27th; and the drizzle of Melleray, which had turned into a downpour at Ancenis; was now giving all the signs of a deluge. But this inclemency was only the beginning. For, though their little ship, the "Brunswick," cast off her lines in a stiff breeze on the afternoon of November 2nd, she was being driven that night into a North Atlantic that had been whipped to a fury by a wind that had risen to hurricane velocity. For ten days that storm raged. Before it had blown itself out, the light of life in the eldest of the Trappists bad gone out. The seventy-year-old Frater Benezet gave the yet unfounded Gethsemani her first funeral-- 192 duly, 1949 GETHSEMANI and it was at sea. The suddenness with which death struck their young community made some of her members wonder: Was God pleased with this undertaking? Forty days later, in rain again, the forty-two monks were clam-bering aboard three open wagons which were to take them from Louisville to Bardstown. The colored drivers assured the superior that they would be at the Jesuit college there before mid-afternoon. But these men had reckoned without calculating the depth of water on the roads and the weakness of their wagons. It was midnight when the monks arrived at the college, and one-third of them had had to splash through twelve miles of mud; the axle on one of the wagons had given way. At.two o’clock on the-afternoon of December 21st they arrived at Gethsemani and learned almost immediately that there were things worse than rain, sea-sickness, and even death. Three of their num-. bet deserted! .When they learned that the house, which had been described as "capable of holding sixty monks," could not accommodate forty properly; that they had no workroom oi bakery; that the kitchen was not half large enough; that there was no heat in chapel, chapter, refectory, or dormitory despite the piercing cold of December, the pall that was slowly enveloping the community fell further. But when, two weeks after their arrival, Father Eutropius, the superior, was announced to be in his death agony, even the most optimistic began to suspect that God wanted no foundation of Trappists in the New World. But some few saw deeper and persuaded the others to. hold on. "If winter comes,, spring cannot be far behind," may have been their argument. If it was, it proved most flimsy when the spring did come; for that brought discoveries that made winter in many a heart. The monks plowed their land and learned that while they were in the Blue Grass State they were far from the Blue Grass Country! Gray limestone and shale were plentiful beneath a very shallow top soil. Father Paulinus, who selected the spot, told the community that he did it to prove to people that Trappists were not afraid of work. Had he looked deeper into the past than into the future, I believe he would have seen God choosing the spot to prove to people that Trappists are not afraid to worship. For I see Divine Providence guiding the Catholic pioneers from Maryland through the fertile Blue Grass Country and on to’Pottinger’s Creek that the 193 M, RAYMOND Review for Religious monks’ of the nineteenth and .twentieth century would never get rich but would always be religious. Poverty is the strong wall of reli-gion, and hard manual labor purifies souls.. ¯ ’: Long before their first year had ended, this pioneer group knew that their monastery was well’named.. A frost in the late spring took their fruit;, a long drought in the summer took their potato crop, the most important item on their meatless menu. Then the heat! How they suffered intheir woolen robes which served as work’ clothes, sleeping suits, and choir cbstume. Then death stiuck, taking three of their members; while of the thirteen applicants in those first twelve months only three persevered, and no one of the~e was native born. ’..That first year was. a fittingl prelude to five decades that remind one much of the five sorrowful mysteries; for they began .in an..agony and,ended in a crucifixion. What makes me .see l~he hand of. God in them all is the fact that all their sorrows came upon them for doing the right thing! The first a’bbot built on generot~s lines. He waslo0king to the future. ¯ His .long-sightedness led to such...re.is-understandings with the capitula.r fathers that he.had to r~s.ign .his ofli!e, The second abbot would be charitgble and just; he would redeem the promises that were made by Gethsemani at the time of thelaunchj.ng of her.campaign for funds to build ..... He would have a boys’ school and a girls’ school. He had both; but the girls’ school led ti3 such complications’that a local interdict.was ultimately !aid. ~n,t.he abbey, and the boys’ school firially brought such a scandal that the abbey was temporarily repudiated, by her.Order.. Gethsem~ni’s .second abbot resigned because of ill health induced in no slight degre’e,by misunderstanding from without. Her third abbot resigned because of misunderstanding from within. If one cannot, see. a.sco,u.rging, a crowning,’a, staggering, stumbling, way of the cross~ and even a cruci-fixion in.those, he will not see .what. I see so clearly as the lance through Gi~thsemani’s heart even while she lived: in" fifty years not one native-born postulant had persevered! John Green Hanning, "the man who got"even with God," died in 1908. He was the first American-born postulant to persevere as alay brother. Dom Mary Frederic Dunne, who died in 1948, .w~s the first American-born to persevere as ~ choir monk. Small wonder that the motherhouse in Frhnce was ever on the point of recalling this daughter who was always having trouble from without and within, whose books never balanced, and whose silence, simplicity, 194 dul~t, 1949 GETHSEMANI andsolitude held no attractions for the youth of a young i~nd robust country. But the tiny group of foreign-born monks,.held on! And at the monastery’s golden jubilee they. saw the ebb tide and its turn. Or to stay ycith my original thought and metaphor: It was at the turn of the twentieth cent.ury that Gethsemani’s long night ended and she knew a slow breaking dawn. For many years now America’s proto-abbdy has been recognized as one of the strictest monasteries in the Order of the Strict Observ-ance. That tribute and triumph is due, I firmly believe, to what was almost tragedy. God was preparing a community of contemplatives for contemplation. To do that He had to use fire. It purged and purified; it did not damage or destroy. The tide has turned and the light has broken; but the tide is~slow in coming in, and the light is slow in mounting to full brilliance. But that is looking at things .with the eyes of man. What has this monastery looked like to God these ten decades of slow moving years? That’s what matters-- and only that! It has been told that Christ once stepped from the tabernacle and gave a cloistered contemplati~ie the prime purpose and essence of the cloistered contemplative life by saying: "I have .Sera-phim in Hearten; I want "some on earth." The men who came over on the "Brunswick" (and even while on the "Brunswick"!) spent six to eight hours a day singing Office and assisting at Mass; four to six hours were spent at manual .labor which was performed in a silence as deep as that which pervades the sanctuary--and for the same reason: God was there and He could be spoken to! Two to four hours were silent in re~ding that was spiritual and meditative; from September until Easter they took but one meal a day; and all the year round they observed a silence with men that allowed them converse w.ith God. Do you think they were cloistered contempla-tives? Do you believe they fulfilled the prime purpose of such a life as outlined by the Christ? I have no doubt that this grizzled Ladyhouse looked very like a little bit of heaven to God for these hundred years; for every day’s Sacri~icium Missae was set like a jewel in the center, of the arresting beauty of the Sacrilicium Laudis; Gethsemani’s silence was continu-. ously shot through with song, and he/ regular, rhythmic Sanctus, "Sanctus, Sanctus was but antistrophe’to heaven’s angelic strophe. When rightly lived, this life is doing in time what is done in eter-nity, is a thi.every such as the Good Thief.never knew,.,is heaven begun before, life on earth is ended.; and I have rio r~as0n to.think 195 M. RAYM~ND Reoieu: for Religious ¯.that my forefathers failed to live this life aright. In fact I have every reason to believe that they spent their days and nights in adoring love and loving adoration. That is why I dare the fol-lowing: I believe this mona’stery was. and is God’s oasis in a desert land of sin; one spot in a veritable Gehenna whence rises aromatic smoke of white worship; for I see these hundred years as a long double genuflection of reverence made in awe to Him who made us, a dox-ology of praise as steady and strong as the hymn the Nin~ Choirs sing. And I know for what purpose God has used this Ladyhouse through the d~cades that are dead, and for what purpose He will use it in the decades that are unborn. A few years ago The Voice of Trappi~t Silence was presented to the public. I have always liked the title of that book; fo~ I know Trappist silence has a voice. But I have long.wondered if the author had really heard it speak. To those who have ears to hear, this monastery has shouted but one word since its founding; if it remains true to its calling, it will shout that one word till its falling into dust. Trappist silence is eloquent with the cry, "God! God! God!" For the sight of these silent monks tells people that it is possible to llve not only for God alone, but toitb God alone. To those who have eyes to see this monastery is .God’s signal fire burning over a blackened world, God’s lighthouse on a darksome sea, His signpost on a wanderer’s road; for the’picture of a hundred men and more making an all-out effort to give God His due by giving Him thei~ all speaks With the clarity of the Baptist, the imperious-ness of Moses, the imperativeness of Christ. It says: "God is nigh!" "The Lord thy God thou shalt adore! .... Lay up treasure in. Heaven .... " Hundreds on hundreds have heard that Voice; that is why I can say this mona.stery is God’s warning cry running through the night, His cry of welcome breaking with the dawn, His sob of loneliness silvering the dusk. The New World’s first Hagia Sige--her tall Temple of Sacred Silence--has meant much to God the Creator since December 21, 1848. But I think she has meant even more to God the Redeemer; for here men are forced by the very circumstances of their existence to make the Mass their very lives and their lives a veritable Mass. In silence and, solitude they soon learn to bring all their sufferings and sacrifices to the One Fruitful Sacrificial Suffering; to carry all their crosses to the One ~Great Cross, to sweat in their Gethsemanis, stagger 196 "duly, 1949 GETHSEMANI and stumble to Golgotha and there merge all that yhey have and all that they are in the One and Only High Priest of the New Law-- Jesus. Here they soon learn that they are the wheat of God and the wine of the Divine Vintner to be. offered "through Him, with Him, and in Him," that the Father "might have His glory and the souls of men be saved. Therefore Gethsemani can be represented rightly as an ageless and unaging priest endlessly bent over a wafer of wheat and a cup that is rubied with wine. She is correctly seen as two thick-veined, toil-hardened hands holding up a paten, on which rests the host of humanity. That is Gethsemani because that is the Christ!. You can see, then, that long before Einstein bad balanced the equation which finally spawned the greatest menace’mankind has ever faced, this tiny band of tenacious Frenchmen knew an atomic fission finer than that which’has every nation in the world tremu-lous. They had a Bomb infinitely more powerful than the one that left Hiroshima a bole in the ground and half of Nagasaki smoking ruins. They had the Heart which broke over~he world from Cal-vary’s top, and daily, as they "renewed that Sacrifice, they set His’ radioactivity functioning, influencing in aft invisible manner the teeming millions that struggle for existence on the face of the globe. To God and man they meant much; but what puzzles not a few is the contentment these men found in a.life that looks like no life at all. The explanation lies in the simple philosophic axiom: Actior~es surer suppositorurn (Actions.belong to the person), not to the members; and these men knew they were members of Christ! Life for them was Someone, not something; hence, they knew not only that they were great, but that they could do something mar-velous. Realizing that in themselves and of themselves they were infinitesimal, they also knew that so long as they performed their deeds in Him, so long as they acted as members of Christ their every deed bad an infinitude about it that could repai~ the infinite ravages wrought by sin and win eternity for some sinners. It is the dogma of the Mystical Body lived that gave .meaning to their every move-ment and integrated their entire mode of existence. Since they were the Christ, it followed that they had to be penitents for an unrepent-ant world, redeemers for a captive mankind, saviors for the lost souls, and victims for the heavily victimized. It was this dogma that told them that their seeminglyi valueless lives were’~v~ry valuable to God and all,His intelligent crea,tures. They knew~that the world is saved by those who seemingly d.o nothing. ,, 197 M. RAYMOND Reoiew for Religious The confidence and joy in life generated by the living of this dogma,, the very heart of which is the Sacrifice of the Mass, was fo~e-runner to confidence and joy in death. One hundred and sevent3)- six men died at Gethsemani during her first century of existence; and the "’1re rnissa est" of death for each of them--from that of Fr. Bene-zet, the seventy-year-old pioneer, who breathed his last in the steerage of the laboring "Brunsw.ick," to that of Dora Mary Frederic Dunne, Gethsemani’s late abbot, who died alone in the empty smoking com-partment of an idle Pullman, just outside Knoxville, Tennessee-- was but the "’Introibo ad altare Dei’" of deathless union. For their life was a Mass, and the Mass was their life. For them Gethsemani was an altar, and they were--the Christ. I think you can understand why I have often called these men Galahads who had found the Grail, Jasons who had won the Fieece, Sampsons who were never shorn. I see them not as Wise Men fol-lowing the star, but as that Star whose silver splendor will lead all watchers of the sky to God. But in our day it seems that not even astronomers look for such a Light, and that is wtiy the second most frequently phrased ques-tion hurts. How often have I heard it! Why, only last month after outlining a Trappist’s day for a middle-aged priest, a member of a semicontemplative order, I was met- with the query: "Do you think God meant men to live like that?" "Do I think . . . ?" Oh, how that question hurts! It shows the questioner so unreflective, unconscious of the fact that he is casting aspersions not only on the visible head of the Mystical Christ, but on that Body’s invisible Head and on Him who is that Body’s soul! The Holy Roman Catholic Church is infallible when she approves a religious order; and she has again and,again approved the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance. Then it manifests such a superficial knowledge of the practical meaning and dynamic force of our Faith. One would suspect that the questioner had never heard of John the Baptist, Christ’s fearless foreruflner. When that Prol~het of Fire blazed by the Jordan h~ had but one command for men. He gave it with the clarity of light-ning and the force of thunder. "’Metanoeiter."" he shouted (Matt. 3:2). find though that is o’ften translated as "Do penance!" it really means "Change yot)r mind and heart!" When the Only-. begott.eia..o.f the Father ca,me, what was Hi~ call? St. Luke tells us, "’Eis Metanoian’" (Luke 5:32)~.wh!ch ~,e.a.ns,"to pen.ance,".’or bet~ July, 1949 GETHSEMANI ter: "To a change of mind and heart." On Pentecost,’ when Peter the first Vicar of Christ spoke, he so touched the consciences of the Jews that they asked: "What must we do?" Peter’s answer was of a ’piece with the command of the Baptist and the call of’the Christ. He said: "’Metanoiesate’" (Acts 2:38) which means: "You must do penance"; or more exactly, "You must change your minds and hearts.". ~. The first Vicar of Christ urged his hearers, to a Metanofa because that is the practical’application. of the Gospel!..Christ’s’ latest Vicars have given the same message to the world and. almost, in the same manner..,Plus XI in three;great encyclicals ’called mankind to .do what Trappists do: to pray:and do penance, .to change their minds and hearts! His~ Miserentissiraus Redernptor would move a heart of stone..’His Caritatg Christi Coropulsi is a bug!e blast for souls wit.h any chivalry. His Divini Redernptoris makes one weep. .The’late little giant of the Papacy prophesied in those encyclicals :as truly as i~ny prophet ~f.old, The first had an apocalyptic strain to it. ~ As one read he.could hear the pawing, and neighing of. the four ,horses! In unequivocal terms Pius stated that. the world was.in the power of Evil,, a._nd we .were at the dawn of.that, day whose sun at noon would look ,upon’the tribulations sinful man had brought upon the ,earth by his arrogance. He told mankind to do wha~’the?Ninevites did;.to pra.y and to do penance.: Th~¢ did not listen. In his. Caritqte Christi Compulsi he issued ’:~a final warning to the nations of the w0r, ld.’.’ He. ga..ve .hu, manity, the.q~oic.e of "e.n.trusting itsel.f~ in.~.,humi!ity and contrition, to the benevolent powers of prayer and. penanc.e,,..Q.r d.e!iyeri.ng.itse!f, and ’.the fin.a.1, yemnan.ts .of e.arth!y, happ!n~ss, to the enemy of. G. od--the...Sp!.rit.o.f .Revenge.and Destruction.’" We know the choice humanity made! , But.it:is not too late! Pius XII is still callin, g.to the same Me. tanoia. In. his. immortal Mgstici Corporis he tells how.. Christ needs His members an’d says, "Deep mystery this, and.subject of inexhaust-ible meditation:, that the salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ offer for this intention .... " Do I believe that God meant men to live like this? Do I, when the Pai~al Confirmation of our Constitutions reads: "Trappists do penance and ’pray for the conversion of sinners, the salvation of the Faithful, .and the expansion of the Church Militant?" Do I?-- My only question is: Did God mean any of us to live Otherwise? 199 M.R’AYMOND What a Metanoia the world~-even some in the religious world-- needs! But ’that Babylon will yet become Nineve; that our mad world will yet know a Metanoia; that moderns will pray and do penance, undergo a change of mind and heart, I expect; for Geth-semani is crowded again! And its Night Office swelled by the voices of the young from the heart of America. What Leon Bloy said about La Grande Chartreuse I say about this, America’s La Grande Trappe: "you cannot know this place in the flower of its my.stery unless you have attended its Night Office. There resides the real perfume that transfigures this severe retreat .... When you have seen it, you realize that you knew nothing of the monastic life~ You are even astounded at having so little known Christianity, because until this moment you have seen it only through the literary leafage of pride’s wisdom. The heart is seized in the hand of the Heavenly Father like an icicle thrust in the midst of a furnace. Christianity’s twenty centuries begin anew like some unheard poem of which you have known nothing. Faith, Hope and Charity rain down together like the three twisted bolts of old Pindar’s thunder, and were it only for an instant, a single minute in the span of a life as scattered as is the blood of a flayed man, at random’, it is enough to make one remember and make one never_again forget that on that night it was God Himself who spoke." For the past century--at two, at half-past one, at one--Geth-semani’s monks have risen in the dark of night to hold rendezvous with mankind’s Redeemer; for two, three, and four hours they kneel ~vith the Christ to praise the Father; hang with Him in Agony and cry, "Forgive them, they know not what they do"; die with Him, rise with Him, and then ascend that our frozen world may know the fire of the Holy Ghost. That’s the Night Office; but it is not enough. You’ve got to see the Conventual Mass. Then you will realize that Thomas Merton was not wrong when he wrote: "This Church, Court of the Queen of Heaven, is the real capital of the country in which we are living. This is the center of all the vitality. that is in America. This is the cause and the reason why the nation is holding together. These men, hidden in the anonymity of their ¯ choir and their white cowls, are doing for this land what no army, no congress, no president as such could ever do: they are winning for it the grace and the protection and the friendship of God." ¯ This life is Someone; that is why I know God meant some men ¯ to live this way! 2OO That:- God’s. Will Be Bet:t:er Known Sister M. Digna, O.S.B~ AWHITENED HARVEST and a scarcity of laborers exert pressures upon the, sometimes not too well-defined, admission policies of religious communities. Yet, communities recognize that they are playing with high stakes in the selection of their candi-dates. St. Francis de Sales warns when he says that nothing is so destructive to orders as a want of care in examining the spirit of those who wish to cast themselves into the cloister. In appraising an applicant’s physical fitness, communities do not hesitate to utilize recent scientific findings in the medical field. Similarly, a community may well resort to the recent findings in psychometrics1 to objectify the too-often thoroughly subjective appraisal of an applicant. That the supernatural rests upon the natural is attested by the fact that canon law requires good health as a primary consideration for religious life. Therefore,-the use of psychometrics may be a decided aid in determining factors that may militate against one living in a religious communil~y. A superior, herself, may not always form a realistic picture of the applicant’s background. She may think in terms of the world as she knew it. She may forget that a lag of from twenty to thirty years exists between her thinking about life and the young aspirant’s actual experiences in life.’ In such an all-important decision as the accepta, nce and rejection of an applicant the subjective judgment of one person is not too reliable a criterion. St. Augustine says that those who are about to enter do not know their .own minds. How, then, would it be possible for others to know them? Although the manner of accepting and rejecting applicants varies from community to comm’unity, the fact that individuals enter religious life and create problems both for themselves and their communities ’is not a rare occurrence. Com-munities may with profit employ whatever available means are at their disposal for screening, appraising, and directing candidates into their respective communities. The underlying motive for the existence of any community is love of God, which is fundamental to all religious life. But this love of God is concretized through a life of prayer and work. Some non-cloistered communities stress the active life; whereas cloistered corn- 1psychometrics is synonomous with psychometry, which includes mental testifig and measurement in any field of psychology. 201 SISTER M. DIGNA Review foe Religious munities emphasize the prayer life. Whatever the chosen way to God, each community needs a clear-cut picture of its particular aims and objectives. Then each community needs to appraise its appli-cants in the light of its particular work, its emphasis on prayer, its spirit, and its ideals. The very existence of so many different types of communities in the world should really preclude the possibility of a subject actuated by a true love of God living an unadjusted life within some religious group whose mode of life is at varianc~ with her particular disposition and interest. In another community, her particular aptitudes and capabilities might be better utilized. She would sanctify herself by living and working for God without the constant struggle of fighting within herself to do work for which she h~is little talent. Religious communities should make explicit to themselves their own specific aims, and they should use these aims as objective norms for appraising aspirants to their community. The community needs to know what particular type of subject fits into its work, its spirit, and its ideals. A more fruitful harvesting may" result if greater care is exerted in matching characters and person-alities with particular communities. In this day and age, com-munities should be willing to refer and to direct applicants, not too well-suited to their spirit, to other religious groups to which they may be more adaptable. To know the candidate thoroughly presents a challenge to those concerned with the admission of applicants to religious life. What about the individual’s background, intelligence, mental and physi-cal health, character, personality, aptitudes,, and interests? Are thes~ carefully assessed? To secure a more objective picture of the appli-dant’s background religious communities may ask the prospective candidate to answer a more or less detailed questionnaire. Some years ago Dom Thomas Verner Moore2 suggested that the com-munities would do well to send a booklet to prospective appli-cants. His purpose was to detect tendencies to insanity and his questions were directed toward that objective: today, psychometrics offer a more reliable means of detecting personality disdrders. How-ever, a questionnaire can be used to secure data about the applicant’s family background. Once a community has set up its norms for admission, it can devise a questionnaire covering the ~educational, social, economic, and religious background, as well as inkerests, hob-bies, personal evaluation of character and temperament which would "Cf. "Insanity in Priests and Religious," in The American Ecclesiastical .Review, XCV (Nov. and Dec., 1936), 485-498; 601-613. 202 dulg, 1949 GOD’S WILL BETTER KNOWN be one of the first steps toward an objective evaluation of a candi-date in terms of the aims of the community. The information secured from the questionnaire may be a definite clue to the applicant’s motivation for seeking entrance into a religious life. Was her home life happy? Is there a divorce,.a mixed marriage, or a separation in the home? Such factors might induce a disgust for homelife in the applicant, and her entering into religious life mighl? be based upon such a natural motive as escape. Is the applicant one of a large family? If so, certain personality defects found in families of one or two children will not likely appear in this applicant?. Has the girl lived a normal social life or has she been one who sought to isolate herself and spend much time at her devotions in preference to social intercourse with others? A superior may-say th~,t all this information is gained from observing the candidate after she enters religious life. That may be too late: Too, the candidate, in talking may not give as objective a picture as the checking brief answers of a questionnaire will reveal. The background data are only a few of the possible aids for under-standing the applicant. Of course, no’community would make a decision solely upon this information. In this day of testing, vocational directors may wish to consider the potentialities of psychometrics, which although not infallible do have a contribution to make in understanding the individual. Naturally, the use of psychometrics in terms of religious life is restricted. Still the results have con’tributed to a better knowledge of the individual in the secular field; therefore, test results may well supplement other facts when it comes to making decisions that may affect the entire life, temporal and eternal, of an individual or may cause untold suffering to a community. At present there are six areas of knowledge about the individual that may be obta.ined from reliable and valid tests: intelligence, achievement, aptitude, interests, attitudes, and personality. The more we know about the individual the better we can understand him, and the deeper our understanding the more aid we can give him to achieve emotional, intellectual, and spiritual maturity. Psycho-metrics as applied to candidates to the religious life are not to be inter-preted solely in terms of a candidate’s fitness or unfitness for a par-ticular community, but these findings can very well be used to aid the director in guiding the candidate after his admittance into the religious life. 203 SISTER M. DIGNA Review [or Religmu~ Frequently a religious has difficulty in adjustment and works under strains because she is either given work for which she is not capable mentally, or she is given work that in no way matches her intellectual capabilities. Family economic conditions may have pre-vented the applicant from continuing her education. .She may be admitted to a community with a limited education but with great intellectual possibilities. If the duties assigned in religious life are made on the basis’ of educational qualifications, one may be given work that is in no way an outlet for one’s potentialities; henee, the religious unconsciously suffers tension and strains. On the other hand, a girl from a more economically secure home may come with a college education, but her education represents financial backing and over-achieving on the part of the individuhl. In that case, a community that decides the individual’s future work and responsi-bilities on the basis of educational qualificatfons may be placing burdens upon an individual who through an earnest effort to achieve lives in a state of anxiety and apprehension which eventually takes a heavy toll. .Hence, it would seem a wise precaution to.administer a reliable intelligence test to all applicants to religious life. Of course, no test result should be accepted as conclusive evidence of one’s intel-ligence; yet there is much to recommend a wise use of reliable intelli-gence tests. Father Moore pointed out the necessity of religious communities" taking more cognizance than they generally do of the mental health of applicants. Although the incidence of mental illness in religious life is lower than that of the world at large, still Father Moore showed statistically that such illness does exist in religious orders; the incidence being higher in the contemplative than in the active orders. He believes that an applicantto a religious order should be rejected if two or more relations within the first degree of kinship have been insane. He goes on to show that it is a matter of prudent consideration whether or not a religious community is willing to assume the possible burden of supporting a subject in an institution for a considerable portion of her life. Candidates whose family his-tory is sprinkled with cases of insanity, alcoholism, and suicide should rarely be admitted. Besides sound mental health for religious life, there is also the factor of personality adjustment. By the term "adjustment" is meant a person’s ability to function reasonably well within the limits of his own capacity without serious inner tensions or distresses. For 204 du1~,1949 GOD’S WILL BETTER KNOWN example, conscientiousness is a desirable trait. In a disturbed indi-vidual, it may reflect a compulsive need and result in an anxiety so intense that the person cannot adjust or is easily overwhelmed in situations of stress. The term "psychopathic personality" is so broad and vague in its connotations that no one may consider it an insult if ~be term has been applied to herself. The need of good mental health training should be recognized as a part of the early training of religious. Where the adjustment scores on personality tests are good, the director may begin to build immediately the spiritual life 6f the religious neophyte, but where there are indica-tions of trouble, the prudent superior will endeavor to assist the young religious in correcting the causes of conflict. Passing over or failing to detect these defections from the normal may result in serious personality disorders. The results of tests, whether they be projective or diagnostic,’~ may reveal many facets of personality which will either accentuate or impede the development of the emotional maturity so desired in religious life. The extrovert individual who is dominating and gregarious will have an entirely different adjustment problem in religious life than the introvert type. One may be very happy and adjusted in one religious community, whereas she would be thor-oughly unhappy and dissatisfied in another. Certain that she has a vocation and eager to serve God, she tries to make a virtue out of a necessity. Certainly a definite extrovert type of personality is far happier doing God’s work in a community that is active than in one that is contemplative. This problem may be explored further. Is a community that emphasizes the ideal of silence and recollection justified in encou,’- aging an applicant who shows through objective appraisal that all her tendencies and interests lie in another direction? Even in those, communities whose work is sufficiently wide in scope to make adjustment possible for various individuals, is there any realization of the difficulties experienced by some novices that are totally unknown to others? It is not because of lack of good will or stubbornness that the domineering type finds it difficult to accept certain obediences which are completely out of harmony with her ¯ ~A projective test is one by which certain pr6blems of personality are studied through some creative product or response such as the drawing or interpretation of a picture. These results are elicited from the individual and analyzed to reveal as far as possible his values, motives, complexes, characteristic modes of adjustment, etc. A diagnostic test reveals specific characteristics or sets of characteristics of the individual. 205 SIS~FER M. DIGNA Reoiew for Reli’gious particular personality. True, one enters religious life out of a whole-hearted spirit of self-sacrifice and self-oblation; yet no community requires that its subjects carry physical loads in excess of their strength. Is there the same conc’ern for the limits of.mental loads? Or do superiors recognize that danger signals warn that some may not meet the particular requirements demanded by a community? If the superior is aware of the limitations of particular individuals, she may skillfully guide them around the difficulties; had she not known the possible danger, she might have been amazed at the unexpected turn of events. Hence, the predictive value of c~rtain tests may prevent tensions and strains in lives by forewarning a community about the weaknesses and strengths of its applicants. Other individuals are emotionally unstable. These are candidates who seek emotional prop~ either by over-dependence upon superiors or by forming friendships that are more or less limited to a few. A community may wish to stress the complete renunciation of all friendships of this nature. Ofte’n these friendships are stigmatized as "particular," although lives of the saints ~ furnish proof that genuine friendship is not at variance with the ideals of religious life. Many religious in their declining years of life express deep gratitude tO God for the friendships that have not only been a source of great joy in their lives, but have been much help in the service of God. However. there may be a tendency in some cases to particular, or sensual, friendships which is rooted in serious deviation from a normal personality. At present, rather reliable and valid tests reveal these tendencies which are often unknown to the Catholic girl. If there is a marked deviation on the so-called"M-F" (masculine-feminine) score, the applicant should not be admitted into a religious com-munity. Other types of emotional disturbances upsetting for the ~ndividual include the intelligent maladjusted. These constitute the rebels and the rule breakers in the order. Recourse to prayer and careful guidance will lead these individuals to overc.ome their emo-tional instability. Any treatment of these young religious should be directed toward the source of the difficulty rather than the overt manifestation. If the emotional difficulty is too deep-seated for the candidate or novice to correct, then it will undoubtedly be the wiser course to discourage further continuance in religious life. Speaking of the causes of defection, a recent writer4 says that 4Louis 3. Faerver, S.M., "Religious Personality and Perseverance," in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, V (May, 1946), 150. 206 July, 1949 GOD’S WILL BETTER KNOWN assigning work for which the candidate has neither the aptitude nor ability is one major reason. Perhaps much more use of Vocational Interest tests might be made to ascertain th~ true nature of the "one or five talents" the applicant possesses. True sanctification cannot always be achieved while an inner conflict is raging within the sub-ject who valiantly endeavors to sublimate the work that has been assigned to her although she. is constantly aware of her own dislike for it. To make an intelligent’ choice of a .vocation the applicant should be encouraged and gi’~en an opportunity to explore the various types of work in which the different communities engage. By objectifying the. appraisal of applicants for religious life through the prudent use of a questionnaire and psychometrics, a community may save itself, the,. applicant, and the Church much future grief. The community may more intelligently accept and more wisely guide souls to God. Furthermore, an applicant who is more desirous of "being a Sister’.’ than she is of accepting God’s apparent will for her may be helped to recognize more objectively wherein her character and personality do not harmonize with reli-gious life. The director, then, in all charity, may assist this unhappy individual to make a better adjustment elsewhere. Furthermore, a community may use the data secured for further guidance and coun-seling of young religious. Sometimes, superiors fail to sense the wide individual differences inherent in their novices and young reli-gious. _An early recognition of the potentialities for sanctity may speed an earnest religious God-wards, whereas some of her novitiate companions may be in the initial stage of rooting out personality defects before a deep religious foundation can be laid. Hence, these scientific data may be utilized in building a more supernatural life for individuals, and communities, and ultimately for God. A director who views the work of the Church as a whole and the particular needs of the individual may save the order and the applicant future heartaches by directing the candidate into some community whose work is more in harmony with the individual’s aptitudes and interests. The Church offers manifold opportunities for the apostolate, and a sincere applicant may use her one talent to glorify God happily on this earth. Her personal happindss, mental poise, and religious maturity may rest on such natural assets as intel-ligence, physical and mental health, and emotional maturity which can be transmuted into joy in God’s service. 207 ues!:{ons and Answers N26m Referrincj to question No. 20 in the May issue of Review for Religious may we point out that Lanslots, in his Handbook of C~anon Law, pacje 213, expressly stat~s that a councilor should not be a local superior, treasurer cjeneral or mistress o~. novices. This is not in conformity with the answer you have given. Please clarify. We acknowledge and respect theopinion of Lanslots which we shall discuss presently. But we believe that our statement still holds: " "Neither the Nor.mae nor the Code of Canon Law forbids a councilor to hold the office of local superior." It may be well to take this occasion to clarify the question regarding the holding of other offices by members of the general council. The Normae of 1901 bad three articles on the subject: "Art. 277.’ Other offices are not to be committed.to the members of the council which would interfere with the fulfillment of their principal duty." "Art. 285. Since the bursar general is obliged to carry out the orders of the general council and render an account to i.t, she cannot be a council member, lest she become a judg~ in her own cause." "Art. 300. The mistress of novices should not be burdened with any other offices which might impede the care or the regimen .of the novitiate. Hence she cannot be a councilor to the mother general." The Norrnae, therefore, laid down a general principle which is still written into the constitutions apprc?ved by the Holy See in our day. Here is the text taken from a set of constitutions given final approval in 1948: "Other offices are not tO be committed to them which would interfere with the ft~lfilment of their principal duty." Then the Normae proceeded to state positively that the bursar gen-eral and the mistress of novices were such offices. The Code says nothing about the councilors holding other offices, or about at least two of them residing with’the superior general. But constitutions approved before the Code (i..e. before 1918)frequently retain, in ¯ their approved revision (after 1918), all the provisions of the Nor: rnae. Constitutions which received their first papal approval after 1918, and especia.lly during the past tw.enty years, more frequently contain only., the one article quoted in the preceding paragraph. Hence it seems to be the present mind of the Church as expressed by the 208 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS S. Congregation of Religious to allow superiors to decide which offices will interfere with the principal work of a general councilor, and which will not, without mentioning any specific offices. This is in conformity with the great diversity which exists among the 800 and more congregations approved by the Holy See. In a small con-gregation, under normal circumstances, two councilors may con-veniently hold another office without in.terfering with their work. Father Bastien, a learned Benedictine, who was for many years until his death a consultor of the S. Congregation, confirms our opinion in the following words: "In these latter times the S. Cdn-gregation avoids determining which offices in particular are incom-patible with that of councilor; it leaves the decision to the superior general and her council, who shall judge according to circum-stances." (Directoire Canonique, 4th ed., 1933, n. 321, p. 215). Commenting on our subject, Father Larraona, the present sub~ secretary of the S. Congregation, gives his private opinion as follows: "In the Normae the office of general councilor was held to be incompatible with the office of master of novices, and bursar general. But the reasons on which this incompatibility was founded do not seem to be cogent either in theory or in practice. (See Com. pro Rel., VI, p. 351, not. 94)." "Some wish to find incompatibility also between the office o~ general councilor and that of local superior. In general mother houses frequently enough a general councilor holds the office of local superior." (Comrnentarium pro Religiosis, IX, 1928, p. 420.) Conclusion: Thirty years ago when Lanslots last wrote that "a councilor, therefore, should not be a local superior, treasure~ general, or mistress of novices," he expressed merely his own opinion in regard to the local superior, not necessarily that of the Normae, since the latter had not explicitly stated that this office was incompatible with that of a general councilor. Today it is left to the .good judgment of the superior general and his council to determine which offices are incompatible with that of a general councilor, unless the constitutions explicitly forbid some particular office to a general ~ouncilor. In case a general councilor does hold another office, he should absent himself from the council meeting when matters pertaining to this office are to be discussed; but before doing so he should give the general council all the infor-mation necessary to pass proper judgment, and thus he will avoid becoming "a judge in his own cause." 209 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Retffew for Religious m27m If a religious community received a lecjacy from a friend to be used for the education of its youncjer members, must the cjift be invested, and the interest used exclusively for that purpose? The mind of the Church regarding the use of gifts of the faith-ful for pious causes is expressed in canon 1514: "The wishes of the taithful who give or leave their goods (property) to pious causes. whether by an act inter ~ivos or by one morris ca~tsa, are to be car-ried out most diligently even regarding the manner of administering and spending the gifts." Hence it is clear that religious must use whatever gifts, legacies, and the like they receive for the purpose designated by the donor, unless such purpose is contrary to the laws of the Church for religious or to the constitutions of an individu~.l institute. In these latter cases, the gift must be returned to the donor unless he agrees to change the purpose designated to one which is in conformity with the laws of the Church and with the constitutions. Whether the gift received for the education of the younger mem-bers of the community is to be invested and only the interest used, or whether the capital sum may be used without permanent invest-ment, will depend on the will of the donor. If nothing has been stipulated, then the superior is free either to use the capital sum itself, or to invest it and use only the interest, depending upon particular provisions of the constitutions. m28~ If a novice when makincj his will designates ÷hat the income or interest on his possessions be used as community property, may this be used during the lifetime of the relicjious? Two concepts are confused here: the will, and the disposal of income during the lifetime of a religious. By. making his will, the novice merely designates the person who is to-receive his personal property after he dies. But the novice must give away during his lifetime the income of his property to whomsoever he wishes. Obvi-ously this income has nothir~g to do with the capital sum of the private possessions of the religious which have been taken care of in his will. Hence the beneficiary of his income during his lifetime may use it for any purpose he wishes as soon as it is received. In the case mentioned in the question, therefore, the community may use the income during the lifetime of the religious as soon as it is received (subject to any limitations which may be contained in the constitu-tions.) 210 JuI~,1949 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS n29-- What splrifual benefits may be derived from having the sacramental penance a÷fached to the daily recitation of one’s rosary? Any prayer said by a person’ in the state of grace has a certain satfsfactor~l value (i.e. a power to obtain remission of temp6ral pun.- ishment still due to forgiven sins). A prayer which has not been assigned as a sacramental penance has this satisfactory value ex opet:e operantfs: a prayer assigned as a penance has’an added value ex opere operato. (For an explanation of these expressions see REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, VI, 257-71.) It seems to follow from this that if one’s daily rosary is assigned as a sacramental penance, its recitation has a two-fold satisfactory value. It does not follow, however, that religious ought to make a prac-tice of asking their confessors to assign their usual ’daily rosary as their sacramental penance. A certain moderate method is to be observed even in holy things. Theoret’ically, a priest could do nothing holier than say one Mass after another right through the day; in actual practice, the Church limits him to,one Mass a day, except for. rare occasions. Somewhat similarly, although large pen-ances would be especially beneficial for removing the debt "of tem-poral punishment, yet the approved custom in the Church is to assign large penances for serious sins and small penances for slight sins. The rosary is considered a large penance; a daily rosary is a very large penance. It seems to.us, therefore, that such penances should seldom or never be assigned for venial sins. Would the purchase of new equipment worth ~ore than $10,000 for a hospital or for a school require the permission of the Holy See or could if be considered as exfraordlnary current expense? For the mere’purchas,’ng of equipment for a school or hospital no permission of the Holy S{e is needed, provided the community has the funds to pay for such equipment. The permission Of the Holy See is required when one alienates property, or when one contracts a debt. If the $10,000 must be borrowed from a bank, and will be paid back at the rate of $1000 per year for ten years, then the per-mission of the Holy See is required. The same permission is required if property owned by the community is to be sold, or permanent investments such as stocks and bonds are to be sold to pay for the new equipment, since this would come under the head of alienation. 211 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious But if the community has the $10,000 in the bank waiting to be used for such expenses, then no permission is needed from ecclesiasti-cal superiors. The regulations of the institute will have to be fol-lowed regarding what is ordinary and extraordinary expense, and regarding the superior whose permission is needed in the case of extraordinary expenses. 3 I Do the two conditions mentioned in canon 1541:"$6000 income per annum," and "not over a period of nine years," hold cjood for communlfy property to be leased to an outsider? Since a religious community is a moral person in the Church, it is bound by the general law of the Church regarding leases as for-mulated in canon 1541, which may be summarized as follows: Permission of the Holg See is required to lease church property (1) if the value of the lease (annual rental) exceeds $6000 (gbld. or $10.000 of our present 59-cent dollars); (2) and the term of the lease runs begond nine gears. If the lease is for more than nine gears but the annual rental is less than $6000 (gold), or, if the lease is for less than nine gears but the annual rental is over $6000 (gold), then the permission of the major superior suffices, accqrding to the constitutions; in a diocesan congregation the permission ,of the local ordinary would also be required. --32m If a relicjious leaves the relicjious house dressed in secular clothes and without the knowledcje of the superior, must he be treated as a fucjitlve? Is the superior allowed to take him back without the permission of the local ordinary? Whether the religious who leaves the house dressed in secular clothes and without the,knowledge of his superior is to be considered as a fugitive or as an apostate, depends upon his status (temporary or p~rpetual vows) and upon his intention (cf. canon 644). How-ever, in both cases the religious is obliged to return to his commun- ¯ ity without delay (canon 645, § 1) ; and the superior must earnestly seek for him, and if he returns repentant, he must receive him (canon ¯ 645, § 2). Hence the superior does not need any permission of the local ordina.ry to receive the repentant religious back, since he is bound by law to do so. 212 dulg, 1949 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ~33~/ Wha+ is +o be +hough+ of using and +(~aching +his concluding accusa- +ion in confession: "For +hese and for +he slns I canno+ now remember, I humbly becj pardon of God and penance and absoluflon from you, Fafher"? In our opinion, the use and teaching’of such a formula is lamen-table. One purpose of a concluding accusation is to give the priest a sound basis for judging that tile confession contains sufficient mat-ter for absolution. This accusation does not do that. All that it includes, besides the matter explicitly confessed, are the sins that the penitent cannot now recall. Presumably this means sins committed since one’s’last confession; ~nd it may be that there-are no such sins. Take the case of pious penitents who confess weekly. Many of these penitents explicitly confess only small things that are at most only probably sinful. If they add to their confession only "what they cannot recall," they may actually be adding nothing; and the entire confession thus contains no certain matter for absolution. These penitents should include, at least in a generic way, the sins of their past life, or of the past year, or of some such long period of time. It is the official teaching of the Church that no one can avoid small sins throughout his whole l[[e without a very special privilege. And it is the common teaching of theologians that no one can avoid such sin~ ouer a long period of time without a similar privilege. But it is not at all certain that one needs such a privilege to avoid small sins for a short time. That, is why we say that the accusation, "for the sins I cannot now recall," may actually include no sins when it is made by a pious person who confesses frequently. Hence, it should not be used, and it should not be taught. (Cf. REVIEW FOP. RELIGIOUS, III, 146-48, and IV, 244-47.) Another point: It is certain that any real sins committed after baptism, even those already absolved, are sufficient matter for abso-lution. According to this teaching it is always profitable at the time of confession to renew one’s contrition for these past sins and to includ~ them in one’s confession. (Cf. "Are You Sorry for Your Sins?" in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, III, 335-48.) An apt formula for this is: "For these and all the sins of my life, especially.for ..... I ask pard6n from. Almighty God and pendnce and absolution from you, Father." Why not teach and use some such formula as this instead of the vague concluding accusation cited in the question? 213 BOOK REVIEWS Reoieto ~Cor Religious 34 Does a person who makes an act of perfect contrition {or love) when dying cjo directly to heaven, without having a purgatory, even though there were mortal sins on his soul? It is certain that one who dies immediately after having made an act of perfect contrition (or love) does not go to hell; forl even in its minimum degree, perfect contrition (or love) wipes away mortai sins and restores grace to the soul. It is also certain that, if the act of contrition (or love) extends only to mortal sins and not to urifor-given venial sins, the soul cannot go straight to heaven. What if the dying person makes an act of perfect contrition for all his sins, mor(al and venial--will he then go straight to heaven? We do not know. God has made no promise to the effect that per-fect contrition will always take away, not only the sins, but all th~ temporal punishment due to the sins. This last effect seems ro depend to some extent on the quality its depth or intensity. Book Reviews FIRST STEPS IN THE" RELIGIOUS LIFE. By Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp., D.D. Pp. 127. The Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 1948. $2.S0. The fact that this book deals with the "first steps" or funda-mentals of the religious life does not mean that it will be profitable for novices only. Theoauthor is probably right when he observes in his preface that professed religious, even more than novices, may appreciate the importance of many of the points made in the volume. Even veteran religious should recall periodically (he basic prin-ciples upon which the superstructure of religious perfection is built. Such subjects as the meaning of religious vocation, the importance of the rule, the obligation to tend to perfection, the significance of the three vows, the difficulties and advantages of community life, the harmonious blending of action and contemplation, correct attitudes towards the part played by the sacraments and prayer in religious development, and a vivid realization’of God’s providence over the slightest details of ~eligious life need repeated renewal in the minds of all. All these subjects are pithily and clearly explained by Father Kelly. One commendable feature of the book is its positive outlook on 214 July, 1949 BOOK REylEWS matters that are sometimes treated in a solely negative way. For instance, Father Kelly does not view the vows merely as renunciations ¯ but as’a means of drawinl~ closer to God. He explains why prohibi-tory rules, are ndt simply restraints plac~d on liberty, but conditions which positively help to foster the Christ-life in religious. His comments on fraternal charity (pp. 29-34), on the vows (pp. 35- 52), on community life (pp. 70-76), and on distractions in prayer (pp. 95 ft.) deserve special commendation. The reader will prob~ably be impressed by the vast amount of solid spiritual matter that can be covered in a comparatively shorl) book by the simple device of c~mitting illustrations )lnd quotations. He will look in ’vain for examples drawn from the lives of the saints or even from Hol~ Scripture. Quotations are rare and are limited to the New Testament. Yet the book is e~ninently practical and does not hesitate to point out definite circumstances in which the religious can apply to his daily life the principles reviewed. The only chapter that is somewhat disappointing is entitled "The Sacraments in the Religious Life." Even here we find many reflections of arresting value. However, it seems futile to pretend that the sacramerit of matrimony is of personal importance to reli, gious, since they do not receive any of its graces. It also seems to be "stretching a long bow" to imply that the reception of the full effects of extreme unction depends upon the high quality of one’s entire preceding religious life. Similarly, it seems to be an overstatement to dekcribe the religious life "as a form of life in which the sacrament of ba, ptism is allowed to work its full effects in the soul.". So far.as we know," the actual, graces flowing automatically from this sacra-ment enable a person to live as a Christian not as a more perfect ci’iristian. It would probably also be a,notewortby improyemen~,t if the author had insisted more on the. interior effects of confirma-tion. One of these is the bestowal of actual graces prompting the re.cipient to advance in i~erfection, and conseq.uently this aspect of. ~he sacrament is of special importance for religious. Again, the,re~der might be confused by the statement that "if the reli~iou.s is, also a pri~st, the action of the grace of confirmation is perfected ’b31 and ab~Srbed into that of the sacrament of orders. F’inaHy, since th~ a6.~bbr tJ~s insisted ~o strongly on the s.anctKying vMue 0f’theo.’,Hol~; Eucharist, he’,Should probab!y have devoted morse than three p.a,ra.- gr.al~fisto Holy Communion. .B.ut.,th.e.....mention of .these defects, all pe’rtaining to a single chap- 215 BOOK REVIEWS’ Reoieto for Religious ter which is in most respects commendable, is not intended to dero-gate from the excellence of this book. It is unusual to find so much solid spiritual wisdom in so few pages.--C. R. MCAULIFFiL S.3. A PROCESSION OF SAINTS. By Jemes Brodrick. Pp. ix q- 198. Long-mens, Green end Co., Inc., New York, 1949. $3.00. There is (it is held) a difference between a book that is always easy to pick up, and one that it is impossible to put down. If such a distinction really does obtain in validated instances, it fades away entirely in the presence Of Father Brodrick’s latest volume: until you have it actually in hand it remains easy to pick up, but once opened, ¯ it’s. very. hard to relinquish. The sketches (3500 words) aretoo short, too few in number, the bookkovers too close together. The beauty and charm of sanctity, of course, .is responsible for this attractiveness; but it is an allure made manifest by the author’s grace of style. When Christopher Hollis spoke of him as "one of the few great masters of English prose .... I do not know who there is that Writes better," he had not read A Procession of Saints; but we may be sure he will find his verdict truer than ever. There is warmth and wit in every paragraph, and at least one good laugh on every page; yet there is often a catch at the throat. The fact that the saints of this collection marched through tl~e pages of The Clergy Ret;iew (London) explains the circumstance that the personalities selected were English and Irish saints, and that they are spaced at mQnthly intervals across the year. No woman saint formed part of the original sequence, but here M~re Marie of the Incarnation of Quebec has been added to make this a baker’s dozen. The author himself adverts to the facts a~ follows: "The absence of women saints from the procession is due, as God best know~, to no lack of such holy persons, but solely to a woef, ul lack of evidence. One woman, not even yet beatified, has been included because she represents in her single person the love, sacrifice and heroism of millions of wives, mothers and nuns" (p. vii). This list i~ headed by St. Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-66), whose winning light has too long been hid beneath the Cistercian bushel, though within that Order he has for centuries been cherished as an almost-Bernard (Bernardo prope par, p. 5). The irresistible secret of that appeal is well reflected in this sketch. It would be fitting if some one translated Aelred’s treatise On tile Tweloe-Year-Old Jesus. "Lost causes have inspired some of the world’s best poetry, from Homer onwards," begins the second essay on St. Colman, "and it is 216 dutg, 1949 BOOK REVIEWS part, at least, of the appeal of St. Colman that his life is largely the story of a lost cause," scl., the older way of computing the incidence of Easter Sunday, condemrted at the Council of Whitby, 664. Incidentally, this account of (he rival computation systems puts more logic and clarity inio them than even the protagonists of either camp could then do. The saint for March is Cuthbert, and here the author indulges in a few initial paragraphs in the historic debate as to whether that ’worthy was of Irish or of English extraction. The verdict is left open: "Wherever he was born, and St. Paul’s nescio, Deus scit seems to be the safest answer to that question, one likes to think of Cuth-bert’s function in life and history as being that of a great reconciler, bringing the two peoples whom he loved closer together" (p. 32). Anselm, celebrated teacher at Bec, then Archbishop of Canter-bury as the result of the Conquest, and now Doctor of the .Church Universal, is the next figure, "whose Ontological Argument has teased philosophers for close on nine centuries, whose Cut" Dens " Homo is the most thought-provoking treatise on the Incarnation ever written, whose speculations on Grace and Frge Will anticipated by ball a millenium the famous theological battle-fronts of Bafies and Molina" (p. :43). But the’scholarship of Anselm was nothing in comparison with his charity and his episcopal grandeur. The May season is embodied in St. Godric (-1170), a Norfolk peddlar, then merchant-seaman, then tireless pilgrim, Godric travele City of Saint Louis (Mo.), http://www.geonames.org/4407084 http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/194

Review for Religious - Issue 08.4 (July 1949)

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