Review for Religious - Issue 10.2 (March 1951)
Issue 10.2 of the Review for Religious, 1951.
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sluoai_rfr-205 Review for Religious - Issue 10.2 (March 1951) Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus Jesuits -- Periodicals; Monasticism and religious orders -- Periodicals. Issue 10.2 of the Review for Religious, 1951. 1951-03-15 2012-05 PDF RfR.10.2.1951.pdf rfr-1950 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., ~ Reiciew for Religious St. Jos~ph;s Patronage ......... Francis L Filas ’ Dominican Spirffuality ....... .~ Regknald Hughes Ten÷afive Tes¢incj ~ P¢ogram ....... Sister M. Digna, Peace ......... : .......... Winfrld Herbst Why Do They Leave.’! .......... ; . . . Anonymou,s ~uesfions and Answsrs Book Reviews ¢ Summer Sessions Communications VOLUME X NUMbeR~ 2 RI::VII:W FOR RI::LIGIOUS VOLUME X MARCH,, 1951 NUMBER 2 CONTENTS ST. JOSEPH’S PATRONAGE--Francis L Filas, S.J ......5..7 THE FAMILY FOR FAMILIES ............... 66 THE ASSUMPTION .................. 66 OUR CONTRIBUTORS ............. , . 66 DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY--Very Rev. Reginald Hugl~es, O.P. 67 FRANCES SCHERVIER CAUSE ADVANCES ......7..4. : TENTATIVE TESTING pROGRAM-~Sister M. Digna, ’O.S.B. 75 PEACE--WINFRID HERBST, S.D.S ............ 81 WHY DO THEY LEAVE?--Anony.mous ........... 84 BOOK REVIEWS-- Catholic Social P,rinciples; The Nun~.at her Prie-Dieu; Recruiting for , Christ; .Patrology ; Religious Sisters .~ .... ’ ...... 93 BOOK NOTICES .............. ..... 101 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS ........ ;.~. ....... 102 COMMUNICATIONS ° 104 ’ QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 7. Term of Office for Local Superior ........... 8. Obligation to Sick Religious under Temporary Vows .... 106 9. Letter to Local Ordinary .............. 107 I0. General Chapte~ and Change in Constitutions " 108 11. Attwater on Apgstoli ~ndulgence ........... 108 12. Indulgence for Reeling Rosary ............ 109 13. Vote on Clerical Religious before Major Orders ......109 14. Vows Reserved to the Holy See ............ 1 I0 SUMMER SESSIONS .................. 111 REPRINTS : SINGLE SETS ................ 112 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS,~ March, 1951, Vol. X, No. 2. Published bi-monthly : January, March, May, July, September, and November at the College Press," 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary’s College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka. Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S..I., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: ,Jerome Breunig, S. 3. Copyright, 1951, by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, proyided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a rear. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, pleese consult notice on inside back’cover. S!:. Joseph’s Patronage Francis L. Filas, S.J, ST. JOSEPH’S closeness tO Jesus and Mary gives him~a’degree of dignity and holiness which it is hard to understand. ’However, if we consider his position as Patron of the Universal Cl~urch, we can grasp to some extent the exalted rank God has given him. By studying the greatness of the patronage, we learn the greatness of the patron. , Like every pa.,tron saint, 5oseph receives from God a quasi-right to protect his clients. This precise relation of .patron "saint to client is difficult to express in our language, but the" fact is certain. The patron is like a father toward his charge, and a s~rong note of fatherly love characterizes his watchful care. The Communion of Saints is the bond that unites the Church Triumphant with the Church Militant and the Church Suffering. Due to this bond God grants the saints in heaven a special interces-sory power so that.by their prayers they can further the spiritual and temporal interegts of their brethren on earth. They invoke the merits they gained during their tim~ 6f pilgrimage, and by an act of suppli-cation they present to God~’t’bei}~requests for~th~ir clients, In this we rightly discern a manifestation of:the all-eml~ra~ing love which’Chrlst desires to flourish in His Church. ’:’* Individual saints can freely be chosen as~patrons by anyone. In the case of some, however, it is fitt,ng that,~ttiey spec,ally watch over particular groups of people or types of~enterprises. Ordinarily, this fitness exists because of a circumstance df the saints’ lives or some providential direction of their energies and prayers. Thus, the patrons’ interests are more specific.ally those of ,their clients. Papal Pronouncements on Reason for St. Joseph’s Patronage In the case of St. Joseph his patronage is the logical extension of his duties on earth. Although he was officially declared Patron of the Universal Church by Plus IX in 1870, Pius did not actually create him as such. The Pope. proclaimed what had already been a reality. St. Joseph’s office as Patron of the Ufiiversal Church, a~ well as the dignity belonging to this title, was a corollary of the office and the dignity whichGod bestowed on him in making Joseph the head of the Holy Family. Reoieto for Religio,,s The decree of Pius IX makes this clear. "’Because of this sublime dignity which God conferred on His most faithful servant, the Church has always most highly honored and praised Blessed Joseph next to his spouse, the Virgin Mother of God, and has besought his intercessiob in times of trouble .... Plus IX has therefore declared St. J~oseph~ Patron of the Universal Church.’’1 The same termi-nology of "declaring" the Saint’s patronage occurs in the Pope’s decree of 1871.2 Even more detailed is Quamquam Pturies, the encyclical of Leo XIII concerning devotion to St. Joseph. "There are special reasons," Leo says, "why Blessed Joseph should be explicitly named the Patron of the Church, and why the Church in turn should expect much frdm his patronage and, guardianship. For he indeed was the husband of Mary, and the father, as was supposed, of Jesus Christ. From this arise all his dignity, grace, holiness and glory .... "The divine h~usehold which Joseph governed as with paternal authority contained the beginnings of the new Church. The Virgin most holy is the mother of all Christians, since she is the mother of Jesus and since she gave birth to them on the mount of Calvary amid the indescribable sufferings of the Redeemer. Jesus is, as it were, the firstborn of Christians, who are His brothers by adoption and redemption. "From these cor~siderations we conclude that the Blessed’Patriarch must regard all the multitude of Christians who constitute the Church as confided to hih care in a certain special manner. This is his numberless family scattered throughout all lands, over which he rules with a sort of.paterr~hl" authority, because he is the husband of Mary and the father of J~sus Christ. Thus, it is conformable to rea- .~on and in every way becoming to Blessed Joseph that as once it was his sacred trust to guard with watchful care the family of Nazareth, no matter what befell, so now by virtue of his heavenly patronage he is in turn to protect and to defend the Church of Christ.’’s The Recognition of St. Joseph’s Patronage Its Historq This modern concept of Joseph’s patronage lay hidden and unnoticed for centuries. Probably the first writer to call attention to it was John Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris. Gerson proposed St. Joseph’s. guardianship of the Church in a set-lPius IX, Quemadmodum Deus, ASS 6, 193. ZPius IX, lnclgturn Patriarcbam, ASS 6, 324. SLeo XIII, Quamquam Pluries, ASS 22, 65.’ 58 March, 19 51 ST. JOSEPH’S PATRONAGE mon to the. members of the Council of Constance, September 8, I 416. °The sermon had as its purpose the adoption of a feast of the espousal of Joseph and Mary. With deep anxiety the chancellor noted the disastrous results of the great Western Schism of 1378, a wound to the Church which was still unhealed. Gerson asked for al3proval of the feast of the espousal "in order that through the meri~ of Mary and through the intercession of so. great, so powerful, and in h certain way so omnipotent an intercessor with his bride., the Church might be led to her only true and safe lord, the supreme pastor, her spouse in place of Christ.’’4 The suggestion made by Gerson was not acted upon, but once it had been put forth, the idea continued to recur to others. What really began to receive marked emphasis was JoSeph’s part as guardian of the. Holy Family. This contained in germ the concept of Joseph’s further guardianship of Christ’s Churqh. It was next elaborated in the Summa of the Gifts of St. Joseph, a Latin book written by a Dominican, Isidore de :Isolani, in 1522. While depicting the exceptional honors he felt sure would be granted the saint, Isidore heralded the future with this prophecy: "For the honor of His name: God has chosen St. Joseph as head and special patron of the Church Militant.’.’~ The theme, of St. Joseph’s guidanc~ of the Holy Family and of-the Church continued to run tl~kough the devoii3n~’as it flourished up to the middle of the eighteenth century. H~re, in.common with the temporal fortunes of the Church, it suffered a rela13se; but with the reign of Pius IX, a hundred years later, it. aggin surged forward. During the 1860’s, various petitions’from bishops, priests, and the faithful were sent to the’Holy See, *asking for St. Joseph’s full glorification in the liturgy and for the declaration of his patronage of the 13niversal Church. Three special, petitions were presented to the Vatican Council i.n 1869-70. ,It seems that these three were the petitions which immediately led Pius IX to make his declaration on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1870.6 St. Joseph as Patriarch ~ Closely related to Joseph’s title of Patron of the Universal Church is his title of Patriarch. Ordinarily, the name. "patriarch" is reserved for a man who is the father of numerous descendants. The patriarchs 4John Gerson, Sermon of September 8, 1416, Conclusion; Summa Josephina, 213. 5Isidore de Isolani, Summa de donis S. loseph, III, 8. ~For historical details, cf. Film, The Man Nearest to Christ, oh. 9, 10. 59 FRANCIS L. FILAS Review for Religious of the Old Testament deserve the title not only because of their ven-erable fatherhood, but also (in a spiritual sense) because of the Mes-sias who was to be born of their line. They were literally "patri-archs. in preparation," in view of God’s promise of the Savior who was to spring from the Jewish people. St. Joseph was truly the greatest of the patriarchs, understanding the term in this spiritual meaning. Our Lord took human nature of the virginal wife of Joseph, and in this fashion the saint exercised the rights..~of father over Him whose spiritual posterity would embrace all the elect. Leo XIII explains how Joseph’s. position as patriarch is linked with his offke as patron. "Conformably with the Church’s sacred liturgy," the Pope writes in his encyclical on St. Joseph, "the opinion has been held by not a few Fathers of the Church that the ancient Joseph, son of the Patriarch Jaco.b,foreshadowed both in person and in office our own St. Joseph. By his glory he was a prototype of the grandeur of the future’ guardian of the Holy Family. In addition to the circumstances that both men bore the same name--a name by" no means devoid of si~nificance-~’it is well known to you that they resembled each other very closely in other respects as well. "Notable in this regard are the facts that the earlier Joseph re-ceived spec!al favor and b~nevolence from his lord, and that when placed by him as ruler over his houkehold, fortune and prosperity abundantly accrued tO the master’s house because of Joseph .... Thus, in that ancient patriarch we may recognize the distinct image of St. Joseph. As trio. one was prosperous and successful in the domestic concerns of. his lord, and in an exceptional manner was set forth over his whoIe kingdom, so the other, destined to guard the name of Christ, could well be chosen to defend and to protect the Church, which is truly the house of God and the kingdom of God on earth.’’~ ¯ ... In the e.arly 1700’s the Holy See was considering the re-insertion of Joseph’s name into the Litany of the Saints,. from which he seems to have been dropped at some earlier date. In the study of this ques-tion, Cardinal Lambertini (the future Benedict XIV) published a st~orig defe’nce of Joseph’s position as patriarch. He wrote, ~ ’"That St. Joseph can be called Patriarch is proved from the fact that the patriarchs, according to the holy Fathers and both ancient ~nd more recent writers, were those who were the progenitors of the ;Leo XIII, Quarnquara Pluries. 6O ..March, 1951 ST. JOSEPH’S PATRONAGE families of the Chosen People. Since, therefore, St. Joseph was the putati~’e father of Christ our Lord, He who is the head of the pre-destined and the elect, the name of patriarch is for this reason rightly and deservedly attributed to St. Joseph, and by- this very name is he a,ddressed by most writers. "St. Joseph was not the natural father of Christ our~L-ord and did not generate Him, but this alone can prove that he was not the father of the faithful by natural generation, as. were the other patri-archs. It doesnot hinder him from being patriarch in a more perfect and more exalted manner according to the "explanation we have already giyen.’’s The Di~nitq and Ef~cacy .’of St. Joseph’s Patrohaqe Joseph’s dignity both as Patriarch and as Patron of the Church is most exalted, for these two titles recognize in,him ar~ excellence that is absent in other men. The wider the extent of his patronage, so much the wider must be its dignity; and since Joseph’s patronage is concerned wiLh the entire Church, he is, reverenced to a degree that is subordinate only to the honor given Mary. The sterling worth of the saint’s office is also measured by the perfection on which it is based. Because he ~cted ast the father of Jesus, his patronage is an extension of his office oia earth. Yet, his role as patroh is not based merely on. a certain fittingness, as is the case of other saints. Instead, his God-g!ven titles of husb~and of Mary and father of Jesus directly place ~the interests of Christ’s Church close to his heart. All this has b~en solemnly con.firme.d by ,official papal decree. The power of Joseph’s intercession appears from his holiness, from his virginal fatherhood, and from his relationship to our Lady-. We know that the effi.cacy of a saint’s intercession depends in general on his love of God and on his glory in heaven. The higher a soul exists in glory, by so much is he more acceptable to Ggd. Joseph’s holiness and glory are considered second only to the holiness and glory of our Lady. Again with the sole exception of Mary, no one except St. Joseph ever had a quasi-authoritative position over Christ. No other saint shared that intimacy with the blessed Mediatrix of all graces which only Mary’s virginal husband possessed. This gives Joseph a tre-mendous intercessory power which the Church has officially reco~- SBenedict XIV, De Beatif. Serv. Dei et Canon, Beat. I. 4, p. 2, c, 20; n. 57. 61 FRANCIS L. FILAS nized. Among other indicative actions it has approved and indul-genced a Memorare in imitation of the same type of prayer addressed to Mary: "Remember O most pure spouse of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, my beloved pat~ron, that never has it been heath that anyone invoked thy patronage and sought thy aid without being comforted. Inspired by this confidence, I come to thee and fervently commend myself to thee. O, despise not my petition, dear foster father of our Redeemer, but accep..t i~. graciously. Amen.’’9 The Univ~rsatitg of St. Joseph’s Patronage It would appear that Joseph’s patronage as understood in its full extent embraces all those who owe their.salvation to the redemptive work of Jesus and to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The reason is clear. Joseph was chbsen to be virginal father and virginal husband in order that the redemptive work of our Lord in co-operation with Mary might be accomplished. Hence, the saint’s guardianship (which is the outgrowth of his protection of Jesus and our Lady) logically embraces all who participate in the fruits of the Redemption. Meditative consideration of the full meaning of Joseph’s title "reveals still further consequences in another direction. Since the saint is patron of the whole Church, his interests must be more universal than those of othe~ sa.ints. Other patrons concern themselves with one group of persons; Joseph is patron of all.. Resultantly,.writers have amplified his title so that they describe him as universal patron because Patron of the Universal Church. In other words, he is the patron of everyone in every class. Because he was a member of an impoverished family of kings, the story of his life heartens all who suffer financial reverses. Earning his livelihood and supporting his holy charges at the carpenter’s bench, he fittingly leads all who work for a living. In his actions we discover a guiding principle that can often hold true for every employer. He can look to Joseph, who, while supe-rior in authority, recognized that he was inferior in dignity and used his authority with the utmost moderation and prudence. Thus, while on the one hand St. Joseph inspires employers to provide just wages and healthful working conditions, on the other hand his example reminds employees to return fair and industrious service for °Indulg. 500 days, S. P. Ap., Jan. 20, 1933; Encbirid. Indulg. (1950), n. 472. 62 March, 1951 ST, JoSEPH’S PATRONAGE wages received. , ¯ . . Against the purveyors ofthe false ide.ologies of our day, Joseph stands out as the antithesis of racial prejudice and international ha-tred. Himself a Jew, he suffered because of the political dreams of a monarch ’~ho was mad for power at any cost. Welcoming the for-eign Magi and then living in exile in a not too friencl, ly land, he knew the distress caused by prejudice against color and against race, Joseph’s pIace as father in the Holy Family shows a11 fathers how steadfastly they must strive to imitate him in cherishing and educating their children. No husband can ever offer his wife a degree of fidelity and self’sacrifice great.er than thatwhich Joseph offered our Lady.’ Hence, in him we behold the worthy patron of the Chris, tian family. As head bf Nazareth, the first Christian religious community, he exemplifies’ the ideal religious superidr~ the serv’ant of the servants of God. Simultaneously his absolute and unquesti6ning obedience to the messengers of God mark him dut as the mbd~l foe priests and religious.’ When ~he end comes to his iS~riod of. service Joseph di~s in the presehce of Jesus and Mary and is made the.gr.and protecto~ at the hour of death--the friend who le~ds departing souls peacefully to their Judge... " ’ In our own age st. Joseph’s patror;age’of labbr has been particu-larly emphasized~ Closely coupled with thi~ ’~mphasis was the new honor grfinted him in 1937 by Plus XI. ’At ~hat tlm~ ’£he Pope dec!.ared him the patron of the Church’s campaign again.st atheistic communism, for"he ~belgngs to the work~ing-clas~, and he bor~ th~ burdens of i~6verty for himself and the Holy Family, whose tender and vigilant hea’d he was.’’~° Universal Patron--Papal Pronouncements ¯ We possess sound Church authority for, claiming St. Joseph as the universal patron of the Church. The encyclical, of..Leo XIII, after tracing the saint’s present office to his earlier,vocation on earth, continues, "This is the reason why the faithful of al! places and con-ditions commend and confide themselves to the guardianship of Blessed Joseph.. In Joseph fathers of families have an eminent model of patern~l care.and providence. Married couples’ find in him the perfec.t image, 6f love., harmony, and conjugal loyalty. Virgins can look to him for their pattern and as the guardian of virginal integ-rity. " " ¯ ~0Pius XI, Dioini Redemptoris, AAS 29, 106. FRANCIS L. FILAS Review for Religious ’"With the picture of Joseph set before them, those of noble lineage can learn to preserve their dignity even under adverse circtim-stances. Let the wealt,hy understand what goods they should chiefly seek and earnestly amass, while with no less special right the needy, the In, borers, and all possessed of merely modest means should fly to his protection and learn to imitate him.’’11 The Pope’s.Briet~ on the Holy Family is entirely devoted to the subject of family life, placing Joseph with Mary and Jesus as a family exemplar.12 In the words of Benedict XV, "Since Joseph (whose death took place in the presence of Jesus and Mary) is justly regarded as the most efficacious protector of the dying, it is our purpose here to lay a special injunction on Our Venerable Brethren that they assist in every possible manner those pious associations.which have been insti-tuted to obtain the intercession of St. Joseph for the dying.’’1~ The Litany of St. Joseph The shortest official summary of the Saint’s patronage is found in the Litany of St. Joseph, approved by Plus X in 1909. This Litany expands; as it were, Leo XlII’s earlier catalogue of.Joseph’s clients --"all the faithful of all places and conditions." The action of Plus X in sanctioning the Litany of St. Joseph for use in public services gave Josei~h one of his most exclusive honors. Only four other litanies have been granted this rare and signal approval: the Litanies of the Sacred Heart and of the Holy Name of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin!s Litany of Loreto, and the Litany of the Saints (with its" two’ adaptations for Holy Saturday and the Vigil of Pentecost, and for the commendation of a departing soul). The use of a litany as a form of prayer dates from the very earli-est days of the Church. The word itself comes from the Greek term, lissamai, "I pray," Probably Psalm 135 is the prototype on which the first Christians modeled their primitive litanies: "Praise the Lo~rd, for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever." Here, after every statement of the Psalmist, the phrase is repeated, "for His mercy endureth forever." This repetition of the same prayer has passed over into our mod-ern litanies. When addressing God we beg, "Have mercy on us"; when petitioning a saint’s intercession, we say, "Pray for us." In. this manner, God or our Lady (and in the present instance, St. Jo-l~- Leo XIII, Quaraquam Pturies. 12Leo XIII, Neminem Fugit, Decr. No. 3777, CSR. l:~Benedict XV, Bonura Sane, AAS 12, 313. 64 Ma~h, 1951 ST. JOsEPH’S PATRONAGE seph) can be honored under different titles but always with the same petition. There is. a very interesting feature about the Litany of St. Jo-seph. Unlike the older litanies which spontaneously grew out of separate and more or less unrelated invocations this Litaoy was com-posed according to a rigid grouping. Seven tides depict the role that Joseph played on earth: Two concern his royal ancestry in preparation for the Messias: "’Illustrio~ts descendant of David"; "’Light of patriarchs"; Two, his relationship to Mary: "’Spouse of the Mother of God"; "’Chaste guardian of the Virgin"; Two, his relationship to Jesus: "’Foster father of the Son of God’;; ¯ ’ "’Watchful defender of Christ"; and finally, one’ title as "’Head of the Hotg Famitg."" In the second group of invocations, six llst Joseph’s special vir-tues: justice, chastity, prudence, valour, obedience, and faith. In the final division of eleven titles, four address him as ex-emplar: "’Mirror of patience"; ... "’Lover of povert~t"; ~.,.. "’Model of workmen"; "’Ornament of familg life"; and seven invoke him as a protecting patron: "’Guardian of Virgins"; "’Safeguard of families"; "’Consolation of the poor"; "’Hope of the sick"; "’Patron of the dgin9"; "’Terror of demons"; and "’Protector of Holg Church." For the final word on the patronage of St. Joseph, probably no tribute to the saint’s widespread and powerful friendship will ever surpass the words of St. Teresa of Avila, long become classic: "It seems that to ’other saints our Lord has given power to help 65 FRANCIS L. FILAS:" " us.in only one kind’of: necessity; but this glorious saint, I know by my own experience, assists us in all kinds of necessities .... I only request, for the love bf God., that. whoever will not belie~ve me will test the truth of what I say, forhe will see by experience how great a blessing it is to’recommend oneself to this glorious Patriarch and to be devout to him .... Whoever wants a rnas~ei to instruct him how to pray, let him chobse tl~is glorious saint for his guide, and he will hot lose his way:’’14 " ’ THE FAMILY FOR FAMILIES One of the first of.the Catholic pocketbooks (50 centsL to be issued by the Lumen Books (P.O. Box 3386, Chicago 54, I11.) is a reprint of The Family for Families, by Francis L. Filas, S.J. In this behind-the-scenes story of the Holy Fam-ily at home Father F, ilhs, a’Ibioneer in the Cana Conference movement in the De-troit area. shows mode~;n husbands,and ~vives how they can share the happiness.and inspiration of the Nazareth home. Father Filas, also the author of Tbe Man Near-est Christ, is giving a cours,e at .Loyola University, Chica.go, on the theology of St. Joseph (cf..p.age 111)’ " ¯ ; THE ASSUMPTION Pope Pius xII, on Octob’e~- 31, 1950, in connection with the formal definition, decreed that the invocation, Qr}een assumed into hedven, ¯should be added to the Litany of Loretto after the iti:cocation "Queen concei~d without original sin." He also approved a new Mass which is to replace the Mass formerly said on the Feast of the Assumption. .. , .. . ¯ our cONTRIBUTORS REGINALD HUGHES is .pr!or at S’t. Peter Martyr Priory, Winona, Minnesota, and professor of philosophy] and religion at the College.of St. Teresa. WINFRID HERBST, author and retrea.t master, is on the faculty of the Salvatorian Seminary, St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. SISYER M. DIGNA is professor"of psychology at the Col-lege of’ St. Schq~astica,, Duluth, Minesota.. FRANCIS .L. ,FII~A$, the author of The Man Nearest Christ, is teach, lug at Loyola University, Ch!cago. Illinois. ¯ 14T~resa of Avila, Autobiooraphg, c. 6, n. 1 1. 66 Dominican Spirit:u lit:y Reginald Hughes, O.Po, UST beca’use they were men, the Apostles differed in tempera-ment and char.acter, peter was impetuous and quick; Paul, fi~ery and brilliant; John, loving and gentle. More than this, they were entrusted with distinct missions. Hence ’we cannot be ’surprised that the founders of religious orders, those wh6 took the apostolic band as their inspiration, manifested distinctive character-istics. St. Benedict consecrated his sons in a special way to the choral recitation of the Divine Office. The childreh of St. Francis find the secret of their spiritual Father in his seraphic poverty. St. Ignatius instituted a militia which united prudence and versatility to zeal for God’s greater glory. St. Dominic was inspired to form an order of preachers and teac~hers, a closely knit organization dedicated to the diffusion of Divine ’.Truth. ¯ Our Lord Himself revealed this .fact to St. Catherine of Siena when He told her: ’~’Thy Father, Dominic, desired that his brethren have no other thought than the salvation of souls by the light of knowledge. It is this light that ~he wished to make tl~e principal object of his. order, to extirpate the errors existing in his day." Truth, then, contemplated and preached, is the ideal of the Order of St.Dominic. How faithful the early disciples of Dominic were to’this ideal We learn from the Vicars of Christ. In 1216, Pope Honorius III approved them as "champions of. the Faith and l!ghts of the world." POpe Alexander IV recommended them in 1257 as "men steeped in the divine science, powerf.ul preachers." In 1266, Pope Clement IV could laud their order as the "Guardian of T;uth." Not only that, but these decades, penetrated with the spirit of Dominic himself, produced in his order the friar who became the incarnation in his life and w~rks of the idefil which his’spiritual Father had envisaged. "See the glorious Thomas. Wldat a none intelligence, wholly applied to the contemplation of my Truth. There he found supernatural and infused knowledge, and this grace he obtained more by his prayers than by study." It would seem obvious that an investigation of the principles of Dominican life and spirituality would fittingly begin with an inter- 67 REGINALD HUGHES Review/or Religious rogation of the Angelic Doctor and his writings. Therein must be found those cardinal principles which have inspired the spiritual children of Domin’ic Guzman for more than seventy decades; We shall not be disapl~ointed in our search if we turn to the Summa Theologica, Thomas’ masterpiece of Christian thinking. As a primary and fundamental principle Thomas would seem to advocate the fullest development of one’s natural faculties. God has created us for His honor and glory, and to help us fulfill this mission He has endowed us with wonderful natural powers and properties: a spiritual soul, with an intellect, will, imagination and memory; a b.ody, with the physical ability of achievi.ng our earthly destiny. Each one of these gifts of Almighty God has within itself the capability of being developed to a certain degree of perfection that we call natural. Our duty is to develop all these natural powers, however not of ourselves nor for ourselves, but with God and for God alone. He has given us all that we have of goodness; He alone preserves us in the very existence we enjoy. The realization of this principle is witnessed in a grand phalanx of preachers,.: theologians, scripture scholars, canon lawyers, mystics, ascetics, philosophers, s~ientists, medical doctors, historians, painters, sculptors, miniaturists, architects, artists, engineers, litterateurs, poets, and simple, humble souls who have taken their inspiration from St. Dominic and placedtheir own distinctive mite and talents where they might best serve God’s glory. But Thomas would remind us, when we have discovered all that nature in its very perfection can do, we must realize that it is as nothing in comparison, with the life of grace, the supernatural life of the soul, to which life God has raised us. This supernatural order surpasses the powers and exigencies of every created nature---even that of the most perfect angel. God could keep on creating angels more and more.perfect, yet never by their natural powers alone could they attain to the least degree of grace, There is simply no compari-son between created natur.e, actual or possible, and the Divine Na-ture, of which grace is a real and formal participation. By nature God gives us gratuitously to ourselves; by grace He" gives Himself gratuitously to us. Thus nature and grace are as distinct from each other as we are from God--infinitely. The just soul is "a partaker of the Divine Nature" insofar as it has within itself the radical prin-ciple of supernatural life, the life of God. St. Thomas tells us that 68 March, 1951 DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY. the sanctifying grace of a single soul is of more value than all the natural good of the universe, m.’9(~ than all created or possible angelic natures combined. " -:" We can hardly conceive ~( higher idea of the order of grace. Neither can we’ admit that thei’e is in us the least germ of this super-natural life. It is absolutely and entirely "the free gift of Almighty God. We have, it is true,, the purely passive capacity of being raised to the supernatural life. .This capacity, however, is no greater in the most perfect angel than in the humblest Christian soul. o And if the latter die with a degree of grace equal to that of the most perfect angel, she will see God as perfectly as that angel does. Such are some of the notions of the Angelic Doctor with regard to the order of grace and the supernatural. Our Faith teaches us that we are destined to this supernatural life. Grace is but the commence-ment of it, the seed of our eternal happiness. The effects of grace, he says, are the healing 6f the soul, wounded by sin, original or actual; the incentive to good desires; the effective operation .of these desires; final perseverance and eternal happiness. Grace unites us to God in charity, supernaturalizes every good action, elevates and perfects us as creatures of an infinitely superior world. The necessity of grace is such that without it we canfiot love God above all things, we cannot fulfill all the precepts of the natural law, we cannot abstain from all mortal sins and we dannot persevere in a good life until death. This teaching of Dominican spirituality thus. emphasizes our complete dependence upon the grace of God~ Are we then reduced to mere machines? No. We have free wills and God saves no man who has not the dksire to be saved. But He does command us to pray, to ask for His. grace and assistance, to beseech Him to bless us with those good gifts which He has determined to bestow only when we ask for them.° By prayer we recognizd God as the sole Author of all good and we realize that we have nothing of ourselves but sin. Thomas used to say that since natural wisdom is the gift of God, man ought not try or hope to acquire it by dint of study without humbly asking for it in prayer. Briefly, these are three’guiding principles of Dominican spir-ituality to be drawn from the Summa Theologica: the development of human nature; the infinite superiority of the life of grace; our complete dependence upon God, with the obligation to pray and labor ceaselessly for His honor and our eternal salvation. 69 REGINALD HUGHES Review for Reli~lious The important place that this spirituality gives to the natural development of our superior faculties has occasioned an accusation of naturalism by some who preferred to consider Thomas more of a philosopher than a theologian. Some have held that the Summa itself savors more of Aristotelian wisdom’ than of the Gospel and St. Paul. However, since St. Thomas possessed a very precise notion of the power and purpose of human nature, he comprehended better any, thing that deformed it, all that was unregulated in it. The rooting out and healing of human defects is always considered by him from the point of view of the first cause and the last end, God. He de-clares that true human renovation in our present state is impossible without grace, whose two principal functions are to heal nature an’d elevate it supernaturally. Hence when Thomas speaks of natural perfection and the acquired virtues which constitute it, he is speaking not only as a philosopher, but also as a Christian and a theologian. Dominican spirituality emphasizes as well the infinite superi-ority of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, over the natural knowledge and love of G6d, and also over the natural knowledge of miracles and other signs of revelation. Our infused act of faith is not a natural act clothed over with supernatural mo-dality. It Is essentially supernatural. Its immediate formal motive is none other than Divine revealing Truth. Consequently, it is in-finitely superior to an act of faith made by the devil, founded on the natural evidence of miracles~ even though the devil has infused ideas more perfect than our acquired ones. From this point of view One conceives as well the inestimable value of the least act of charity, the elevation of the infused moral virtues above the acquired moral vir-tues, and the grandeur of the gifts of the Holy Ghost which render us docile to His inspirations. If, as for St. Thomas, fidelity to the Holy Spirit normally leads " one to the living waters of prayer, what should be said of the relation between contemplation and the apostolate? Does the intensity of the first demand the sacrifice of the second, and can the latter hope to be nourished by the warmth and light of the former? Dominican spirituality replies: the teaching of sacred doctrine and preaching ought to be derived from the plenitude of contempla-tion. In the language of St. Thomas these words have a very special significance. Contemplation is not ordained to action as a means subordinate to an end, such as study in view of a lecture, but it pro-duces it as from a superior cause. The culminating point in the life 70 March, 1951 DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY of the apostle is the hour of Unibn with God in prayer. From this union he should return to men filled with the light of life, to speak of God and lead them to Him. Thus St. Thomas considers the active life and the purely con-templative life as means less perfect than the aposiolic life uniting both. As Christ and the twelve, the modern apostle should be a contemplative who gives to others the fruits of his contemplation to sanctify them. "°"’Contempla,re et contemplata aliis tradere," the motto of Dominican spirituality, are the very words of St. Thomas. With the hours of recollectioia which it exacts, contemplation, far from impeding apostolic activity, is its source. Thomas would say: where our contemplation ceases, there ends our apostolate also. Without it, without the desire to prepare one’s self for it, inflated with knowledge, the soul radiates light no longer. Practical natural-ism envelops it and can wholly destroy it. Such divine contemplation as is demanded by Dominican spir-ituality makes one forget what flatters or bruises one’s personality. It turns one always to God and souls; it suppresses the fever of superficial activity and spiritualizes one, causes him to act pro-foundly, to say much in a few words. ,~ Such a contemplative and apostolic life was lived by Dominic and many saints and blesseds of his religious family who preached and taught with indefatigable zeal and fire of which the Psalmist speaks: "ignitum eloquium tuum vehementer" (Ps. 1 15). That is one reason why Thomas himself is such a model of Dominican spirituality. Everything he did--pray, preach, teach, or write--he did with all the zeal and eagerness his heart could sug-gest. Zeal, he tells us, is nothing other than intense love, and the measure of our love of God is to love Him without measure. It is significant to note that Dominic, his successor, Blessed Jordan of Saxony, Blessed Reginald, Thomas, Pope Innocent V, St. Louis Bertrand--all died comparatively young. St. Catherine of Siena and St. ,Rose of Lima did not live thirty-five years, and the eleven-year old heart of Imelda Lambertini burst from the intensity of her love of God. "I feel and am persuaded," said St. Thomas, "that the chief duty of life, which.I owe to God, is in all my words, as in all my. thoughts, to speak. His praise." It was then the genius of St. Dominic that he placed his order as it were midway between the older monastic groups that had con-templatibn and personal sanctification as their aim, and the later 71 REGINALD HUGHES Review for Religious active orders that followed the Dominican lead in working for souls. Dominic envisioned the salvation of souls as the cherished fruitage of his prayer, his study and his teaching. Thus to the older monastic observances he added intensive study because there can be no opposition between truth discovered by study and contemplated Divine Truth. A Dominican does not contemplate and study pri-marily in order to preach and save souls, but he is filled with the zeal for the apostolate because through prayer and study he has acquired a deep personal knowledge of God. The closer a man is to Christ, the more apostolic he becomes. Dominican spirituality includes as well a liturgy peculiarly its own and" has guarded it carefully since its approbation by Pope Clement IV in 1267. It is essentially a Roman liturgy, and if any single peculiarity about it were to be noted it would be that it en-closes in its ceremonies a note of solemnity imprinted upon it by the antiquity of its customs and chant; that its prayers have a decidedly theological tone. In fact, it is the liturgy that rules the life of the Friar Preacher. Study, work, recreation, even sleep is set aside in favor of choral reci-tation of the Office, as the injunction of one of the early legislative Chapters of the Order notes: "The Office takes precedence of all our activities." It is easy to understand why St. Dominic gave such an impor-tant place to the observance of the liturgy in the life of his children. First of all, because it is divine worship par excellence, aiding one to perfect his duty of glorifying God. It also leads religious to the perfection of their state of life, because it is a simple and sure way to assimilate one’s life to that of Christ, the model of religious. One might ask, what is the connection in Dominican life between the liturgy on one side, and study and the importance of the aposto-late ori the other side? The answer is that the liturgy does not take a religious from the essential object of his studies: God. The lit-urgy itself is the depository of Catholic doctrine condensed in pray-ers, in extracts from the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. It has been called living dogma speaking to the heart as well as to the head. T.he Friar Preacher in regularly dividing his time between study and liturgical prayer in no way sacrifices the latter but makes the former more fruitful. Frequent returns to choir keeps study from becoming simply an intellectual work and cold speculation. The danger of intellectualism can hardly menace one who joins 72 March, 1 ~ 51 DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY study and preaching and teaching with the solemn prayers of the Church. The truth which the religious finds in his books, he dis-covers again in living liturgical formulas. Thanks to the liturgy theology can become a science filled with deep contemplation. As St. Vincent Ferrer has phrased it: "Through this interchange of prayer and study you will have a heart more fervent in prayer and a mind mor~ clarified for study." Not the least attractive feature of Dominican liturgical life is the perfect freedom which it affords~ in the matter of personal prayers. In the organization of Dominican daily life, everything conduces to contemplation. St. Dominic n~ver had any idea of limiting prayer to certain determined periods or forms. The earliest Con~stitutions consecrated the entire day to Go~d. When the Dominican is obliged to silence it is that he may bet-ter forget th~ world and himself that he may the better hear God. When he is placed under obedience to study, it is that the soul may be steeped in ~he beauty of the~ divine mysteries. Thus for him, study, liturgical prayer, - and pe.rsonal prayer suppose one another, sustain one another, penetrate ~n~ anothe~r. To violate them, to separate them, and to compare [~hem jealously would be to falsify the economy of Dominican life! In other Words, the Friar studies to pray better and prays that he may study better. If o~ were to seek characteristics of Dominican prayer he would find first that it is disciplined a,nd strong because saturated with the dogmas of ~he Faith; that it is humble, with a humility begotten of contemplation of the Divine M.ajesty: I am that which is; ~ou are that which is not"; and eminently free, because knowledge begets love and nothing is freer than tl~e love of God. Thus we find a marvellous ~ariety among the Dominican saints. Each one keeps his own distinci physiognomy, his personal tenden-cies, his preferred virtues, and b~ings together underthe same domes-tic roof differences of race, environment, and education. Yet they are all marked by the same distinctive note: the zeal for souls through the doctrinal apostolate. Each a[Ids his own personal note: a Vincent Ferrer, Spanish impetuosity a~d indomitableness; a Henry Suso, Teutonic mildngss and melancholy; a Catherine of Siena, Italian ardor ar;d harmony. It was th, le late Archbishop Paschal Robinson, O.F.M., who once said: "Dominican saints are wonderfully natural in their goodness." In order to prove our virtu~ and to increase our merit, God per- 73 REGINALD HUGHES Revieu; for Religious mits the power of death to exist in us. The body weighs down the soul, ’the flesh struggles against the spirit. Sin has broken the har-mony between the powers of the soul and their Creator. To re-establish order and to correspond to appeals’ from our Saviour, vig-orous restraint must be imposed. Dominican spirituality does not ignore this, but prescribes the practices necessary to subdue rebellious forces of nature and to employ their liberated energies for the realiza-tion of the supreme design of Dominican life. It has been said that were a text to be chosen which should express Dominican spirituality, nothing could be more appropriate than the words of Our Lord set down by St. John: "The truth shall make you~ free." The children of Dominic have ever aimed at Truth and have. thus achieved freedom. Dominican spirituality has thus been likened to the architecture that flourished when the Order began its course in the thirteenth century--joyous and unrestrained-- springing up from earth as though it were part of the earth, pointing upwards as though it were part of heaven. "The Heavenly Husbandman, the Supreme Author and Protector of the Faith, has planted in the paradise of the Church as a fertile tree the Sacred Order of Preachers to exhilarate it by its beauty, to satiate it by the abundance and the exquisite savor of its fruits. Of superb aspect, filled with vigorous and dulcet strength, steeped in the morning dew of heaven, this tree is a source of life for the weak, of health for the infirm. Hence innumerable Christians, nourished by its salutary fruits, are endeavouring to shed around them its life-giving influence." (Alexander IV-~1257.) FRANCES SCHERVIER CAUSE ADVANCES After the Sacred Congregation of Rites examined the processes conducted by ordinary and apostolic authority relative to the life, virtues and miracles of the Servant of God, Mother France} Schervier (1819-1876), Foundress of the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis (1845), the S.C. of Rites recently decreed the processei valid. Preparations are under way for the next step towards beatification, namely: the judgment on the heroic character of the virtues in particular. In this country the community conducts twenty-eight institutions including General Hospitals, Special Hospitals and Social Service Centers, located in .the Arch-dioceses of Cincinnati, Newark, New York and Indianapolis, also in the Diocese~ of Covington, Columbus, Brooklyn, Springfield in Illinois, Kansas City in Kansas, Charleston, Lansing, Steubenville and Albany. 74 A Tentative Testing Program t:or Religious Lit:e Sister M. Digna, O.S.B. THE interest expressed in the use of psychometrics as one means of evaluating the fitness of aspirants to religious life’~nd as objec-tive guides for the counseling of young religious has motivated the formulation of the following tentative testing program. The primary purpose of the testing program is to screen possibly unfit candidates before admission, or before they have assumed"responsi-bilities that they may be unable to carry¯ Unfitness is one of the indications that an individual has not been called to the life of reli-gion for, as canon 538 states, "Every Catholic who is not debarred by any legitimate impediment . . . and is fit to bear the burdens of the religious life, can be admitted into religion." Father 3osepb Creusen, S.,I., professor of canon law at the Gregorian University, Rome, interprets this further. He says, "But the presence of an obstacle which the subject cannot do away with of his own accord or the lack of aptitude, would suffice to show that this desire is the result of a call to a more perfect life in general, and not of a vocation to the religious life in particular.’’1 How does one determine an obstacle or a lack of aptitude? Is it best decided on the basis of subjective opinion? Should scientific methods be employed? Communities now utilize the findings of medical science¯ What about the scientific findings in the field of psychometrics?. True, it is a new.field and one would never wish to rely on the findings of any single test or inventory as the sole deter-minant of fitness for religious life, but these data may implement or supplement other subjective impressions and observation; they may be good clues to hidden motives and personality "kinks" that may be corrected before becoming "set." Any testing program for religious life must necessarily be tenta-tive, for there are no tests, other than intelligence tests, that have been devised in terms applicable to religious life. In establishing a testing program for any community, one must consider such factors as trained or untrained personnel, interpretation of the data, and use of the findings. The ideal prerequisite is that some member of the 1Religious Men and Women in the Code, p. 129. 75 SISTER M. DIGNA Ret~iew for Religious community be trained in the field of psychometrics. As a prelim-inary step, several basic courses in tests and measurements may suffice. In lieu of trained personnel, the services of someone who is sympathet.ic to testing, who will conscientiously adhere to manuals of directions, and who will be extremely careful in interpreting results may be utilized. Much emphasis needs to be placed upon the inter-pretation of the findings, lest an individual be kept from the reli-gious ’life because of hastily drawn conclusions not warranted by the test or inventory itself. The examiner must assemble all types of information. The administrator will then make a careful study of all the data before recommending the admission or rejection of the aspirant. In case the applicant is accepted, the data may. also assist in orienting him to the religious life. A director provided with all the subjective and objective facts about the candidate can help him to a speedier and holier adjustment to religious life. ¯ Use of Intelligence Tests Other things being equal, a director can give better religious guidance according to his knowledge of the subject’s degree of intel-ligence. Intelligence tests help one to gain this knowledge. One test, which may be referred to here as an example of the use of. intel-ligence tests, is the California Test of Mental Maturity, advanced series. This test has a number of significant features.. .It is both diagnostic and analytical, and the scores may be interpreted in terms of mental ages and intelligence quotients: It includes items dealing with language fadtors, non-language factors, memory, spatial rela-tions, logical .reasoning, numerical reasoning, and vocabulary. The pre-tests are visual acuity, the purpose of which is to discover whether the examinees can see well enough to take the remaining .tests with fairness to themselves; the auditory acuity test, to discover whether individuals hear well enough what is said to them in an ordiliary tone of voice to warrant the giving of the tests; and a third to deter-mine the degree of motor coordinations the examinee possesses. After¯ the tests proper have been¯ administerd, the test results may be interpreted in terms of the language test data, which ale useful in indicating how well the individual understands relationships ex-pressed in words, and the non-language tests data indicating how well the individual ufiderstands relationships among things or ob-jects when language is not involved. The significance of these addi-tional data for guidance, selection, and placement is obvious in that 7,6 March, 1951 TESTING PROGRAM they Will make possible a more appropriate consideration of the real abilities of ti~e person. David .Wecbsler’s interpretation of intelli-gence quotients for ages ten to ~ixtyu may be used: 128 and over, very superior; 120-127, superior; 1 I1-I I9, high average; 9i-I10, average; 80-90, low average; 66-79, borderline; and below 65," defective. What are the implications of these figure~ in any psychological testing program? First, the elimination of those unable to grasp the meaning of religious life; and secondly, the utilization of intelligence scores for determining the educational and vocational placement of religious. .In general, the intelligence score of the applicant is one more concrete evidence of the intellectual ability of, the individual. Those who are inferior or very low may need to be re-tested. If the score places the individuals below the low average, it is very doubtful whether they will be useful in religious life, unless the community is willing to assign them to very simple tasks. Then these questions arise: how well will they be able to understand the meamng and implications of religious life? How much benefit will they derive from the novitiate instruction? And will the community be willing to assume responsibility for possible custodial care? Personalitg Tests Intelligence is only one factor. Other factors such as background, personality, aptitudes, and interests should be considered when one applies, for admission into the religious life. Since the personality "from the philosophical point of view is too abstract an approach to give the necessary clues to the’individual’s potentialities in getting along with others, the more concrete, approach is considered, here. The social skills which are basic to getting along with others are ski.lls that can be acquired. In community life gra- ¯ ciousness of manner and social skills need to be supernaturalized by stressing the virtue of charity as the- motivating force. What are the potentialities for an individual to get along with others and to sublimate the ups and downs of routine living with diverse temperaments? A personality needs to be free from nervous symptoms and introvertive or anti-social tendencies to adjust to reli-gious life. Even the most conscientious and holy novice master or mistress will succeed only in veneering a personality unless he recog-nizes the basic causes for certain personality defects. True, it may, 2The Measu~’ament of Adult Intelligence, p. 40. 7.7 SISTER M. D[GNA Review fol Religiou~ and likely will; happen that the subject makes a valiant effort to overcome these "faults,~’ but if the fight seems continually a losing one, and the pressure of close supericision is removed, there is little doubt that the individual will revert to his innate tendencies. How detect these underlying causes, for maladjustments? No foolproof method of appraising personality has yet been devised. G~nerally, the personality scale takes the form of a rating scale. A definite assumption should motivate the use of any one of several rating scales. Most personality ratings have a number of valid uses if and when they are well administered. Common sense should operate in determining the purposes of the ratings and how they are to be used. Personal’ity tests are not as precise as or as easily interpreted as I.Q. tests; they are indicators rather than measure-ments of personality, and they p’rovide worthwhile leads to work upon for, symptomatic indications of emotional conflicts, maladjust-ments, tensions, anti-socialattitudes, and anxieties. A good person-ality is one that has achieved a balance between self and those around one. The self-adjustment is often indicated in terms of self-reliance, sense of personal worth, sense of belonging, sense of freedom, and freedom from withdrawing and nervousness. The adjustment toward others is interpreted in terms of social standards, social skills, whole-some gregariousness, family and social relationships. Among the several tests suitable for a testing program is the Cali-fornia Test of PerSonality. It includes items that will reveal the presence or absence of desirable or undesirable traits. The test is easy to administer and easy to score and, although the interpretation of the scores is almost self-evident, it is. wise for the one who interprets the test to explore further and probe deeper the other data on the person, particularly the intelligence quotient, the family history, and previous schooling record. In general, letters of recommendation are not too reliable, for tile tendency of.many, flattered by having to recommend an individual, is to put a halo around the person. The expressed purpose of the authors of the California Personality Test is to enable counselors to appraise and to improve thh personality of all ages. This instrument" makes possible a detailed and patterned diagnosis of personality adjustment as a basis for improvement that is possible of realization. Another test, the Bell Adjustment Inventory, attempts to get a reliable measure of an individual’s personality in ihe areas of home, health, social, emotional, and occupational adjustments. This inven- 78 March, 1951 A TESTING PROGRAM tory is not more: than thirty minutes in length and it is easy to ad-minister, with simple and clear directions. The time for scoring each’ test is not more than three minutes. In utilizing the inventory, the administrator needs to realize that, whereas it is more objective and more penetrating than observation, the results should be used only to implement other data. The Personality Inventory by Bernreuter has four specific areas which are assessed. B1-N is a measure of neurotic tendencies. A person scoring high on this scale tends to be emotionally unstable. Those scoring above the 98~percentile would probably need psychi-atric or medical advice, and certainly one would be hesitant about admitting aspirants to religious life with exceptionally oh’igh scores in this area without further consultation with a medical man. The B2-S is a measure of self-sufficiency.’ Persons scoring high on this scale prefer to be alone, rarely ask for sympathy or encourggement, and tend to ignore the advice of others. The low score indicates the type of personality disliking to be alone, and often seeking advice of others. Perhaps scores on this section would in no way debar the aspirant from admission into religious life or from the priesthood, but in directing and guiding the individual, the scores offer clues to innate causes for externaI behavior. Modification of undesirable behavior patterns can best be attained by a.clear understanding of the innate causes. The B3-1 section of the Bernreuter Inventory meas-ures introversion-extroversion, with the high scores indicating intro-version, the low, extroversion. A score above the 98 percentile in this part of the inventory bears a similar significance to a high score on the BI-H section. The B4-D classifies the personality of the individual as either dominant or submissive. Low scores represent the naturally submissive type of individual. The use of the Minnesota Personality Scale and its interpreta~ tion was explained in considerable detail in a previou, s article.8 Unless there are trained individuals for interpreting the results, a community is wise to begin a testing program without attempting the more refined techniques of personality assessment through such projective techniques as the Rorschach Method. The Thematic Apperception Test or the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inven-tory should be administered and interpreted only by individuals trained to do so. As an initial step, it seems wiser to resort to the 8"Practical Application of Psychometrics to Religious Life," by Sister M. Digna, O.S.B., in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, IX, 132-39. 79 SISTER M. DIGNA " Reoieto for Religious simpler tests that can be administered and interpreted by a beginner before attempting to use more penetgating tests. Other Tests To insure better adjustment in religious life, some cognizance might well be taken of the individual interest and occupational pref- .erences. General and occupational interest inventories reveal whether the level, types, and fields of work offered meet the interests and the needs of the individuals. In planning effective community place-ment, an appraisal of the competencies, strengths, and weaknesses of the individual as they relate to a given area of worl~ or a specific task will often insure greater satisfaction on the part of the community as well as th~ individual. Two rather well-known and fairly reliable tests are the Kuder Preference Record, and Strong’s Interest Blank. The Kuder Pref- .erence Record determines the types of activities which people prefer. The manual lists typical occupations which may correspond to the :preferred type of activity. Scores are designed to be recorded in the form of a graphic profile showing the percentile rank of the indi-vidual for each type of activity. Form BB gives scores for the fol-lowing activities: mechanical, computational, scientific, persuasive, artistic, literary, musical, social service, and clerical. The test is easy to administer, to, correct, and to interpret. Strong’s Vocational In-terest Blank, one for women and one for men, is considered by some authorities more reliable than that of Kuder, but the scoring is very difficult. It is advisable to bare the answer sheets scored by machine, which costs from fifty cents to a dollar for each blank. The under-lying purpose of this appraisal of vocational interest is to indicate how closely the individual’s interests correspond, with those of men and women successfully engaged in certain occupations. There are over 35 occupations, six occupational groups and three non-occupa-tional traits for men; for women, over 17 occupations and one non-occupational trait. Since there is a re!ationship between the level of the intelligence quotient and adult occupational adjustment, the following classifica-tion of Bernreuter and Cart4 may be of interest to those who wish to think of future work in terms of measured ability. These au-thorities believe .that the person with superior intelligence (115 and 4"The Interpretation of I.Q.’s on the L-M Stanford-Binet." in Journal of Educa-tional Psychology, XXIX, 312-14. 80 March, 195 l PEACE upward) will be best qualified for professional work requiring college or university training, the individual having a measured normal in-telligence quotient (85-114) will succeed in work requiring high school training, and the low average or dull person with an intelli-gence quotient between 70 and 84, unskilled work. The main rea-sons for using interest tes(s ar,e to isolate, evaluate, and utilize the findings showing aptitudes and interests which are required for the different types of occupations, An adequate testing program for religious communities requires the accumulation of objective, evidence regarding the competencies, weaknesses, and strengths of the candidate. The data should include information regarding the physical, mental, educatio;aal, vocational, and social status of the applicant. The findings need to be integrated as an aid in arriving at the most satisfactory conclusions. The obvious limitations of objective testing devices should be noted, but the failure to use them at all is almost certain to result in great inac-curacies of diagnosis, since personal observation and judgment are not completely reliable. Peace Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. OF ALL the good things the Savior desires for you, one of the .first is peace. "Pax vobis!" Those were His first thrilling words to the Apostles assembled in the Upper Room after His resurrection. You must ever strive to acquire this deep, interior, lasting peace--a calm, spiritual contentment--and it must influence your exterior actions by making them deliberate and quietly, al-though sensibly, precise. Walking in the presence of God and unceasing watchfulness over your tongue are two means of obtaining and preserving peace. They are particularly helpful, even necessary for you. And there are two secret societies which you may join to your great spiritual advantage, namely, the KYMS and the MYOB. Those letters mean Keep Your Mouth Shut andMind Your Own Business. The careful observance of these directives means greater peace of heart than you would at first believe. 81 WINFRID HERBST Review for Religious You have been a religious long enough to know the calm and contentment that comes to one who reposes trustingly in the arms of God. "Thou hast made us for Thyself, 0 God, and our hearts are not at rest until they rest in Thee." How well you have learned to understand and to feel this, even here below. From now on may yours be a lasting Pax in Domino. Remember the days when the thought of the eternal years, even with God, filled your soul With strange and crushing dread? It is a far cry from that day to this, when your soul is filled with peace and repose at the thought that you belong to God. How long it takes before we understand even a little! But, sometimes, after years of effort and meditation, a certain truth will come to life in a flash. In an instant we seem to realize--and the realization endures. Of late you have been much drawn to meditation on God, as He is in Himself, as thus set forth in glowing words by the Vatican Council: "The Catholic Church believes that there is .one true and living God, the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, Almighty, Eternal, Immense, Incomprehensible, Infinite in intellect and will and in all perfection; who, being one, individual, altogether simple and unchangeable Substance, must be asserted to be really and essen-tially distinct from the world, most happy in Himself, and ineffably exalted above everything that exists or can be conceived." And then it came home to you with astonishing light and truth that this great God became also Man for love of you! And you profess your faith in the being and power of ~our God; you profess your hope in His wisdom; and you profess your love for Him as the Supreme Good. You pray to Him that He may ever give you the grace to rest peace-fully in the arms of His Providence--in a word, to be completely happy, satisfied, and content that you belong to God. The closer your union with God, the greater will be your peace of heart. You realize this; and that is why there comes from the very depths of your heart the longing prayer: "0 my God, would that I could attain my ideal in the matter of my daily Mass and Com-munion and Office; my evaluation of my vocation; the perfect ob-servance of the Rule; the most perfect observance of the vows, which make me a religious; the spiritual exercises of every day, all of them, during the whole time prescribed! How happy I would then be! My ideal is ever before me. It is clear and definite, outlined in my "law book," the constitutions. To reach it means sanctity. But strive as I may--and the past years have literally been years of be- 82 Ma~h, 195l PEACE ¯ ginnings--I do not seem to be able to attain the heights. Help me, my Savior, to go forward slowly but surely, in a calm, sensible, de-termined way. Come, Holy Ghost, guide me always through those who speak to me in conferences, sermons, chapter exhortations, con-fessional advice, retreat considerations, spiritu,al books--guide me always; for Thou knowest how much circumstances make it neces-sary for me to be thus guided by Thee. Then will I have that peace of heart which surpasses all understanding." Peace will abound in your spiritual life if you let your reverence for God manifest itself by recollection in prayer. Try every day to pray a little more than is necessary, in order to safeguard what is prescribed. And after reverence for God must come reverence for your superiors, who take God’s place in your regard. Show them the utmost loyalty, disregarding their faults. Thereupon must come reverence for equals or inferiors. Be sure to treat them all with the deference and respect due to the chosen friends of God. And in all these things there must be respect for self. Of yoursdf you are indeed nothing; yet you must reverence yourself and have great confidence. You must be a worthy child of your Father in heaven. You must-not be a coward and thus seem to make a failure of Almighty God. Pray to the Savior that you may be thus reg, erent. Peace of heart can be lost by being so engrossed in the Father’s business that you neglect your daily prayers and spiritual exercises, or at least perform them in a maze of distractions. That will never do. You must never lose yourself in external activity to the detri-ment of inward recollection and union with God." Never let your-self be permanently overwhelmed with work or business. No; rather your vocal prayers must be said without haste; your mental prayer must be calm and quiet, with a varied method and a generous ad-mixture of vocal ejaculatory prayers. Your meditation may not, week after week, be of that more-dead-than-alive sort. Remember, in a practical way, that one prayer is always good-~"Lord, teach us to pray." Let this be your determined resolution and an oft repeated re-solve, one that means great mortification and corresponding progress in the spiritual life: "No matter when or where, I will perform all my spiritual" exercises, eoert.I day, during the whole time prescribed for them, and with devotion." Failure to do this means dissatisfac-tion with self, letting oneself go, ~nd consequent misery because one is not what one professes to be. It is a hard resolution to keep, but 83 ANONYMOUS Review for Religious the peace of heart it brings--and glory of God--is worth it. Do not grow weary of being good. It may be that some day, for a moment at least, you will feel such a deep, personal, sweet, and de-lightful love for our dear Lord that, thus athrill with joy, you will realize for the first time in your life what heavenly happiness means, what bliss floods the soul when it is united with God. It may be a feeling of being in the arms of God, all enveloped by His love, all filled with a sensation of peace and satisfaction such as you cannot describe. And when yot~ are dying that same feeling just described may come over you, so that, exultant in the thought of going home to 3esus, flooded with spiritual joy, you exclaim, in the heart if not with the lips: "Oh, I did not think it was so sweet to die. I am so happy. I am so glad to go. My soul is enjoying a foretaste of heavenly peace." Why Do They Leave? [AUTHOR’S NOTE. The reflections that follow were partly (not only nor chiefly) prompted by two recent books. Though differing in many respects, both books tend to give an unfavorable impression of the religious life. La Nuit est ma Lu-mitre, by Dr. Etienne de Greeff, is a novel by a Catholic doctor-psychiatrist, who is a professor at Louvain University. Instructive in many respects, it tells some unpleasant truths about religious, but fails to do full justice to the Catholic con-cept of the religious life. It portrays "those terrible vows" as a source of medi-ocrity more often than not and maintains that only exceptionally gifted souls would find in" them the starting point and permanent inspiration for more than human greatness. The second book, I Leap ot~er the Wall, by Monica Baldwin, is more literary but less instructive. The well-known bestseller tells the autobio-graphical story of an ex-nun who left a cloistered convent in England in 1941 after twenty-eight years of religious life and struggles with the problem of re-adapting herself to a world where she feels altogether lost. The Rip van Winkle experience of ie-awakening to the world, and to a world at war, after twenty-eight years "sleep" is rather overdone. The author’s references to her past religious life fluctuate between two tones: one of slightly ironical depreciation of the antiquated standstill in which the rules and customs, inherited from the Middle Ages, freeze the nuns: another of a sincere endeavor to give "worldly" people an idea of what religious life really is and of how it is possible to live and be happy in it.~The following reflections are written by one who stayed for twenty-eight years and hopes to stay for many ~EW religious live for long in any order or congregation without seeing some of their fellow religious leave. This happens espe-cially during the years of probation, before first or final vows. It is only natural and normal. Religious in training who find out 84 March, 19~ 1 WHY DO THEY LEAVE "they had no vocation" go back to the world. It also happens, con-siderably more rarely, after the last profession. We may not like to think of these facts, but we cannot help knowing them. Perhaps it is good~ just for once, to face them squarely. Why do these religious leave? We who stay are perhaps compelled to answer this question for ourselves. We may and do sincerely endeavor to give a charitable and supernatural answer. Yet, is it not true that these departures always leave some feeling of uneasiness, at times only slight, at other times, when the persons concerned are closer to us, more painful and persisting? We do not mean to say that every one of them shakes our vocation. The grace of our vocation, thanks be to God, does not stand or fall with what happens around us. But the events we are speaking of do not generally leave Us altogether unaffected. They at least provoke reflection and prayer. They Had No Vocation? Why do they leave? The answer to our que,stion is complex, for natural and supernatural reasons fuse. We must endeavor to put them down as simply and sincerely as we can. The truth, here as elsewhere, will be liberating. Why do they leave? Because, we like to think., they find out they had no vocation.. Often, very often perhaps, that may be true. A religious vocation" is a grace, and because grace builds on nature and perfects it, the grace of a religious vocation supposes a certain natural foundation. Without this, nor-mally speaking, it can har’dly be genuine. To have or not to have a vocation means that God calls or does not call one to the religious state. But how do we generally come to know the grace God offers? The signs of a true vocation are normally these three: (1) natural and supernatural aptitude to live the religious life; (2) a right intention, mainly or chiefly (perhaps not exclusively), inspired by supernatural motives: and (3) the desire or will to answer the divine call. "Candidates have the natural aptitude when they are physically, mentally, and morally fit, that is, when they have suffi-cient heal~h, gifts of mind and education, and sufficient strength of character and freedom from habits and inclinations that are not com-patible with a life according to the vows and rules and are not likely to be corrected by the regular training. When at the same time they have a sufficient spirit of piety, self-abnegation, and apostolic aspira-tions, born from and nourished by regular prayer’ and the reception of the sacraments, then their aptitude is also supernatural. Let such 85 ANONYMOUS Reoieua for Religious apt candidates intend to join a religious institute, not only nor mainly to find an honorable state of life, but chiefly to work out the salvation of their own souls and to do much good, whether to pray and study, or help the sick, or teach and educate the children, or to go to the missions; or more definitely because they believe, after reflection and prayer and taking advice, that such is God’s will for them. Then they have also the right intention. It is then enough for them to conceive the desire to enter the religious state in one of its institutes, according to the guidance of Providenci expressed in the concrete circumstances in which they live: school, home educa-tion, contacts, examples, advice from parents or teachers. Their religious vocation then materializes into actual fact. Those who so join have the vocation. It is officially sanctioned, in the name of the Church and of Christ, when the institute accepts their profession. How then does it happen that some religious, after years of actual experience of the religious life, come to believe and to find out that they had no vocation? Normally that is found out before long. When any of the three mentioned factors of a vocation is lacking in a notable degree so as to arouse serious doubts about the genuineness of the vocation,, the religious in probation or their superiors will generally come to know this in the course of the years of training. That such a previous mistake was possible need not cause any sur-prise. What was an apparent vocation may turn out a failure and ¯ prove a’sbam vocation. True self-knowledge is rare especially in the young who have little experience of life and of men. They may have deceived themselves or have been deceived in good faith about their aptness ’for a kind of life of which they bad but little or only second-hand knowledge. Even spiritual directors may have been misled into believing in a vocation that later proves not to have been genuine. When this discovery takes place during the years of pro-bation, it is not abnormal, for such religious to return to secular llfe. But after years of professed life this discovery can only be excep-tional. If it were not so, it would mean that no one could have a sufficient human guarantee of a religious vocation, in spite of the official sanction of the Church contained in the very acceptance by the institute of the perpetual vows. This would go against the whble Catholic idea of a vocation. It would come to mean that, counter to the very belief of the Church, the approved religious institutes are hardly a safe way to Christian perfection. And so it can only be due to abnormal, personal or extrinsic, circumstances that religious failed 86 March, 1951 ¯ WHY DO THEY LEAVE to test sufficiently, during the years of probation, the genuineness of their vocation. They Lost Their Vocation Apart from such rare and exceptional cases’, the reason why pro-fessed religious leave will more often be different. It will rather be because theg lost their vocation. Yes, that is possible. What do we mean by saying so? Nothing else but.that the three signs of a religious vocation mentioned above no longer exist. They may have existed in a remarkable degree. At the time they constituted a guar-antee of perseverance in a genuine vocation. But then a moment came, generally not before more or less conscious and guilty neglect of rather important duties, when a gradual decline of.the physical, mental, and moral fitness made the fidelity to the duties of the reli-gious state harder and harder. Till one day these religious find themselves nearly without desire for their state of life and tired of the many duties and occupations that have become almost mean-ingless to them. When natural and supernatu.ral aptness for the religious life have dwindled close to unfitness, it is hard for men to maintain a right intention in the state of life t6 which they were secretly unfaithful. It is then only one step ’for them to give up the desire of an ideal that is no longer their own. And another step to translate into action a listlessness that is but the reverse.side of a hidden new longing which has taken root in their hearts and driven out the former intention. Such religious leave bechuse they lost their vocation. Does this happen without any fault of their own? In some blatant and rare cases the loss of a vocation certainly involves grievous faults. That is beyond doubt when serious and repeated breaches of the vows, to the scandal of outsiders as well, lead to the ’dismissal. These breaches may be entanglements in money matters, or consist in infidelity to the second vow, or in more or less open revolt against obedience. But it probably may also happen without definitely grievous faults. Regular and protracfed unfaithfulness in relatively small ma~ters of religious observance may gradually lead to a kind of tiredness of the religious state which .becomes an ever growing unfitness. Only if this infidelity be persistent over a long period of time does it thus lead ~o disaster. God’s grace is faithful and powerful and may easily prevent the worst. But when grace is resisted habitually and persistently, that infidelity may well strike the death blow to a religious vocation. 87 ANONYMOUS Revieu; for Religious When a vocation is lost before the final profession, there is more likelihood that it could and did happen without grave sin. The idea of temporary vocations which some theologians of the spiritual life are inclined to accept would favor the possibility of such cases. God may in His Providence prepare some people for the role He wishes them to play in the world by granting them the grace of a few years of religious training. There are many cases of men and women who tried the religious life and were led to give it up, but remained forever grateful to God for the years they spent in the cloister. But after the last profession when religious have bound themselves for ever, and when the Church, in Christ’s own name, has accepted their self-oblation, the idea of a temporary vocation is well nigh excluded. Not absolutely, it is true, because it is possible, though not probable, that Providence prepares one for a plan of His own by a long religious training. His ways are not ours. Every-human rule is open to exception. In Terms o~: Human Psycboloqq The loss of a religious vocation translates in terms of spiritual theology what on the level of human psychology we hear expressed more bluntly by various reasons such as: they are not happy; theg have enough of it; the[l can no longer. Have we not heard some-thing like that after a fellow religious left? They were not happy in the religious life which did not suit them any longer. They felt themselves like square pegs in round holes, out of place, out of tune with their surroundings, their occupations, their duties. How could they be happy in a state which, they dislike and for which they are unfit? That feeling of unhappiness was not just a passing im-pression or temptation. It had grown into a habitual painful state, an obsession with the idea of out-of-place-ness which left them no rest nor peace. Who will wonder if they came to acknowledge to themselves that "they have had enough of it"? It is possible for men to endure passing interior trials valiantly. Both natural courage and the strength that comes from God’s grace enable them to stand the purifying test of interior tedium and moral fatigue. That trial allows hope; sooner or later it passes and leaves deeper and firmer happiness. But when there seems to be no end to the feeling of unhappiness, when natural courage fails, even health at times partly failing as well, and when, because of unfaithfulness to God, grace does not come to give strength to those who refuse it, small wonder that they grow tired, over,tired, of an effort which 88 March, 1951 ~rHY DO THEY LEAVE? seems vain and meaningless, too tired to sustain it any longer. "They can no longer." When these religious con. less to themselves that something has snapped in their spiritual resilience, irretrievably, they are but a hair’s breadth from "letting things go." That psychological downfall did not, of course, (ome all of a sudden. Its gradual preparation was slow, spread over many months or years. For quite a time they may hav~ been walking, or staying, just on the edge of the precipice. Had they been faithful to God in p?ayer so as to hear and accept the ¯ warning and the help of His never-failing grace, they would have had the light and the courage to withdraw from that state of danger. But unfaithfulness to regular duty cut them off from that source of strength. Left to themselves in their pitiful condition of weariness and loneliness they came to tell themselves that it really was too much, they could no longer. They dare to make this self-avowal because meanwhile another light dawned in their unhappy minds. They need not be religious to save their souls and serve God. In the world as well they can be good Christians, do their duties, and gain. their heaven. Rather than drag on an impossible life in the cloister, be happy and serve God in the world! Have they not been told: "Better be a good Christian in the world than a bad religious’"? They begin to see they must and will have the courage to face the situation and to change. Rather than cowardly hide to themselves and to others the real state of things and insincerely carry on a hypocritical staging of a religious life, they will have the courage to leave. And so they decided to leave. Disappointment Why then did they leave? If we read through the phrases they tell themselves and others to justify the step they take, their reasons will probably come down, in spite of surface differences, to one and the same: they felt disappointed with the religious life. The real, perhaps ~lmost unique, reason why some religious leave is, in the last instance, their disappointment with the religious life. They dreamed of an ideal life of service of God and of the neighbor: prayer, devotion, self-sacrifice, apostolate. They found a prosaic reality far remote, on the face of it, from the ideal of their dreams. Ordinary duties, long and at times dry prayers, painful and harassing community life, uninteresting and difficult fellow religious to live with, ungrateful and often monotonous work with little interested 89 ANONYMOUS Re~ieu~ for Religious and uninteresting people, and their best efforts and merits often, apparently, unappreciated and unrecognized. Yes, there is a difference between the ideal of the religious life, such as it is seen through the eyes of enthusiastic candidates, and the reality of the ordinary daily duties in the cloister. To young ideal-ists the religious observance looks attractive. When, in the actual practice of that life, religious stop at the surface only, the partly romantic interest soon wears off. Unless they penetrate deeper into the h~dden meaning of it all and discover in a genuine interior life nourished with prayer and silent sacrifice the hidden Treasure for whose sake they sold all their belongings, religious miss the point of their vocation. It was understood, of course, in their youthful dreams too, that a religious vocation implled many a sacrifice. But these very sacrifices wer~ made to look so attractive and interesting that they became just one more thing, somewhat unpleasant yes, which they were to carry off in their magnanimous stride towards the ideal. But in the reality of the life in the cloister once the novelty of the exterior duties has worn off and with it much of their natural charm and interest, what remains standing out above the rest is pre-cisely the painful side of uninteresting, unappreciated, ever recurring little (and at times bigger) sacrifices which these duties mean to self-love, self-esteem, self-satisfactlon. Unless then a deeper and more powerful attractiveness of the service of God and of men has replaced the former superficial charm, and has transformed the unpoetical reality of daily duties and sacrifices into the mysterious communion of divine love, human hearts are apt, if not bound, to feel disap-pointed. It is perhaps the common experience of religious that the reality of their vocation is very different from what they expected it to be. But it can be different in two ways. It is either much more beauti-ful and more worth-while than they ever dare to dream it; though this beauty is generally different than their half-worldly’ minds once upon a time liked to fancy it. Or it is much less interesting and much more painful than they formerly imagined. Much better or much worse! Much better, if faithful to the grace of their vocation they succeed in unearthing the hidden greatness and happiness of a life of union with God, an anticipation of what He prepares for them in a measure surpassing all human understanding. Much worse, if unfaithful to the call of daily graces, they do not enter into the deep meaning of their vocation and stop less than half-way on their 90 March, 19 51 WHY DO THEY LEAVE ? march to the ideal. All they .find is the soon uninteresting, painful, boring, and finally unbearable burden of many meaningless duties. Can they feel otherwise than disappointed? Unseen--Unreal? If some religious lose their vocation, lose their fitness for its real life and grow disappointed, it is because they leave out of their lives the very substance of that vocation: the supernatural interior life of grace and of self-sacrifice which is the love of God. The religious life, limited to its superficial aspect only, is unable to satisfy the deepest aspirations of human hearts. For those for whom the unseen reality of the religious vocation is close to unreal, it is hardly possible not to feel deeply disappointed and soon to grow disaffected towards the religious life. Sometimes the disappointed religious unwittingly deceive "them-selves into believing that their disappointment does not lie with the ideal religious life such as it should be, but with the reality they found instead of it. Neither superiors nor fellow religious are found to be as they should. If only the institute were what its constitu-tions and laws claim it to be, they would not have been disappointed. There may be some good faith in this frame of mind. But it lacks realistic sense. Where is the human institution without short-comings? Are not these very deficiencies the matter out of which religious humility and perfection are built up? Had these religious not lacked the interior spirit, they Would have been able to see the great reality hidden under at times defective appearances. They would not have been blind to the great good that, next to the defects, is visible to every eye. That hidden reality does not disappoint. The feeling of disappointment and disaffection need not always be acute. Even when it is only partial but goes together, in rather shallow souls, with the need for a change that has been called the characteristic unsteadfastness of our war and post-war times, it may lead to the same result, the loss of the vocation. This need of a change works all the more effectively when after a considerable num-ber of years in the religious life a certain detachment from human ties has naturally followed on the actual separation from relatives and friends. If meanwhile no new higher attachment has taken the place of the old ones, as is the case in the disappointed and disaffected religious, then some sort of feeling of "being in the air" easily makes the balance of hesitation topple over. Perhaps it is the working 91 ANONYMOUS Reoieta ~:or Religious together of these different psychological factors that is actually the more frequent reason why some religious !leave. Why Do We.Sta~? They leave. We, with God’s grace! stay. Perhaps we must conclude the above reflections by briefly answering another question that may have been sleeping at the back 6f our minds from the first and is by now wide awake: Why do u~e stay? We stay, because we believe in the grac! of our vocation. He who chose us knew whom He was choosing and He is faithful. We stay, because, with the help of that grace, we sincerely endeavor to make and to keep ourselves ever more fit, naturally and supernaturally, for the life and the duties to which He called us. We stay, because day by day, with the help of His grace, we work and pray and sacrifice to preserve our vocation. For in spite of passing weakness and for-getfulness, of neglect and of failing, of humbling faults, we know that He reads our hearts and sees the sin.cerity of our desires, even when they are hidden under negligence an’d human frailty. We stay, because we are happy in His service. With the help of His grace He led us to discover something of the hidden Treasure that is His love, His very Self. He helped us see and experience, at times clearly, at times in a hidden manner, through the veil of faith, the great joy and happiness of sacrifice out of love. He helped us discover Him, our Love, on the cross. He let us experience the puri-fying and deepening effects of trial and suffering which He sends in many different ways, but always as the cross-shaped sign of His love. Our love grows greater and stronger and deeper when te.mpered in the crucible of sacrifice. Even the natural joys and the natural hap-piness of the religious life--for there are these as well--are purer and nobler and more thoroughly satisfying when our hearts have shared in Christ’s sorrows. Because of this great and unshakable happiness, we shall never, with the assistance of His grace, have enough of it. For unlike merely human happiness and greatness, which always bears the risk of saturation and fatigue, the spiritual joys of the Lord, experience has shown us, sharpen our hunger the more we happen to taste’ of them. Even for our share in His sacrifice we shall never say: "It is enough, or too much." His grace helped us experience that the greater our actual share in His cross, the keener our hunger and thirst after justice. With the help of His grace we shall always be able to accept the small and large crosses He chooses for each one of 92 March, 1951 BOOK REVII~W$ us. Never shall we say, "We can no longer" because we know that He never asks for any sacrifice without also giving strength and happiness. We stay, because we are not disappointed with the religious life and we know that, with the help of His grace, we sha.ll never be. The Lord does not disappoint! The human realities of the religious life do and will, no doubt, remain human, that is, imperfect in many ways. We know that only too well, from ourselves to begin with, and much more from ourselves than from our fellow religious around us. But we also know that these very imperfections are not disap-pointing because we see them and at all times wish to see them in the light of His love that transforms them into the precious material out of which He builds true, unseen greatness. We are not disappointed because we love our vocation, such as it is, with the persons and the places° and the duties and the circumstances which His loving Provi-dence chose and chooses ’for ds. In the light and warmth of His love, radiating from His and our cross, we know that "it is good for us to be here." That is why we stay. With the heIp of His grace we shall stay on, and work and pray and sacrifice, till we hear another call of His; when He will invite Hi~ faithful servants into His own home. Meanwhile, in our prayers and sacrifices we shall pray that His mercy accompany the unfortunate ones who left and the more privileged ones who stay.--Quid retribuam? What shall I render in return? Book Reviews CATHOLIC SOCIAL PRINCIPLES. By John F. Cronln, S.S. Pp. xxvlll -~- 803. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1950. $6.00. Appendix~II of this book contains a 37-page annotated reading list. The length of the list is significant. It explains why many of us have experienced an increasing hollow feeling as we looked forward through the years to the day when we might.become well-informed about the social teaching of the Church. Through these same years .we have seen books and articles on the social question follow one another with such rapid succession that we wondered whether we should ever be able even to skim the surface of this literature. Realizing the Church’s desire that we know her social teaching, and 93 BOOK REVIEWS yearning to fulfill this desire, yet we had to ask ourselves with a cer-tain helplessness, "What can one do to learn even the essentials?’ One thing to do is to read this book. It will counteract the hol-low feeling with at least the wholesome food of accurate general in-formation on "The Social Teaching of the Catholic Church Applied to American Economic Life" (the subtitle). , So many and such comprehensive reviews of Catholic Social Prin-ciples have already appeared that it is unnecessary for me to give a detailed picture of it. The book is divided into three parts that move logically from the general to the particular. Part I gives general principles of Catholic social teaching: explaining the foundation, rejecting unsound theories, and culminhting in an exposition of the ideal social order. Part II considers concrete aspects of the social probiem (capital, labor, wages, unions, property, functions of Church and State) in the light of generai p~inciples. Each chapter of these first two parts begins with a compilation of pertinent au-thoritative statements, espec’ially those made by Po~es and hierar-chies. Part III surveys various attempts by American Catholics to formulate a salutary social program. There are three appendices, as well as an Index of Authorities and a General Index. The method of treatment is both expository and critical. The tone is moderate. "Extremes beget extremes," writes Father Cronin, "whereas modera-tion wins adherents." He should win many adherents. Experts in various phases of Catholic teachin[l might suggest improvements in Father Cronin’s book when he touches on their respective fields, but they could hardly question its general excellence. I am content to recommend it without any reservation to religious superiors, teachers, and those engaged in the social apostolate. In fact, I would recommend it to everyone, but I thinkthose I have men-tioned would profit especially by reading it. And I should like to confirm this general recommendation with a number of quotations, but I have only sufficient space to refer to the question of our dealings. with workers. On this subject, which is certainly of great interest to all of us, Father Cronin writes (p. 360): "Problems connected with a living wage and the dignity of labor should be a special concern of priests and religious who are in the position of employers. In the past, our record in this regard has not always been good. Church institutions have at times been no-torious both for low wages and arbitrary practices, such as the dis-charge of workers who have given most of their lives to an institu- 94 March, 1951 BOOK REVIEW8 tion, and who are let out either because of old age or a change of administration. Cynics have remarked that some in our midst apply vows of poverty to workers, even though Canon Law makes no pro-vision for vicarious acceptance of religious vows. Undoubtedly, such situations occur with the best of motives. Church institutions rarely have adequate funds, so that their administrators understand-ably try to economize in the attempt to have the most money for the primary purpose of the venture. This would be especially true for schools, institutions of’ charity, and even some parishes. Yet charity should not be served at the expense of justice. We should give good example in regard to the social teaching of the Church as well as in matters of piety. "Many bishops now require that wages and working conditions be considered in letting construction contracts. It would be most desirable that when bids are let, the award go, not to the lowest bidder absolutely, but to the lowest bid from a reputable firm which pays decent wages and treats it workers fairly. Likewise, the Church as employer cannot afford to lag behind in other phases of industrial relations, such as proper hours, working conditions, grievance ma-chinery, seniority provisions, protection from arbitrary discharge, se-curity for old age, and such normal features of reasonable employ-ment. These are usually matters of justice, not works of superero-gation. We should be more reluctant than lay employers to seek excuse from such obligations on the grounds that we cannot afford to meet them."--G. KELLY, S:’J. THE NUN AT HER PRIE-DIEU. By Roberf Nash, S.J. Pp. 298. The New-m~ n Press, Wes÷mlnster, Md., 1950. $3.00. This meditation book for Sisters contains an introductory chap-ter and forty-six meditations. The meditations are constructed along the lines of preludes and points; but the two preludes are called "Setting" and "Fruit," and the points are simply called "parts." Each meditation has three parts; and each begins with a preparatory piayer and ends with a summary of the points and a tersely-stated (sometimes only half-stated) thought called a "tessera.’" There is no colloquy; the nun is left perfectly free to formulate her own Oh’s and Ah’s at the conclusion of the meditation. The meditations contain too much matter for a single hour of prayer. The author recommends making them in parts, then re-peating; hence the book should furnish food for prayer for approxi- 95 BOOK REVIEWS Reoiew for Religious mately a year. The content is solid; the subjects are diversified; the treatment is sufficiently bright to ward off sleep during the time of preparing points. The book seems particularly apt for those who fol-low the method of "reflective reading" in making their meditation. And for those who prefer other met.boris of prayer to formal medita-tion it should be an excellent spiritual reading book. --G. KELLY, S.d. RECRUITING FOR CHRIST. By Godfrey Poacje, C.P. Pp. viii ~- 193. The Bruce Pu’bllshin9 Company, Milwaukee, 1950. $3.00. I opened this book with genuine enthusiasm. I had heard of Father Poage’s splendid work in the promotion of religious and priestly vocations and I had seen his excellent booklets, Follow Me and Follow Him; and I expected something superb. But I closed the book with a feeling of disappointment. There is much wheat; but there is not a little chaff that should have been carefully removed before the book was published. The Introduction describes the tremendous need for more priests, Brothers, and Sisters,. and insists that there are vast numbers of latent vocations to meet this need, but these vocations must be fostered. The author concludes the Introduction by saying that it is already too long. I should say that it is too short. It is the best part of the book, and never once in the succeeding chapters does Father Poage rise to the same height. Subsequent chapters discuss the meaning of vocation to the priesthood and the religious life, the signs of such vocations, and ways of finding them among both boys and girls. There follow chapters offering suggestions to priests, teachers, and religious supe-riors for the successful promoting of vocations. There is an appendix on vocational clubs, an 1 1-page annotated bibliography of vocational literature, and an index. The book is replete with illustrative sto-ries taken from the experience of the author and of other successful promoters of religious and priestly vocations; and its main value consists in the lessons that can be learned from these actual experi-ences, The suggestions for teachers and priests should be very helpful; but I think that much of the chapter entitled "Suggestions for Supe-riors" will hurt or embarrass superiors, especially women. For example, there is the section dealing with the apparel that girls are 96 March, 1951 BOOK REVIEWS told to bring to the postulancy. It was with "bashful, bachelor eyes" that Father Poage (who seemingly had obtained the lists by pretending to be a girl aspirant) scanned these lists; and it is unfor-tunate that bashfulness did not guide his written comments. Concluding the paragraph about ill health as a barrier to a reli-gious vocation, Father Poage states summarily, "Invalids are not wanted." Besides sounding too harsh, this statement seems to need qualification. One purpose for which St. Francis de Sales founded the Visitation Order was to give certain types of invalids an oppor-tunity of serving God in the cloister. I do not have the exact words of the constitutions at hand, but the Catholic Encyclopedia says: "He exl~ressly ordered the reception at the Visitation not only of virgins but also of widows, on condition that they were legitimately freed from the care of their children; the aged, provided they were of right mind; the crippled, provided they were sound in mind and heart; even the sick, except. those who had contagious diseases." This is not the least of the charities for which the Catholic world blesses Francis de Sales. And I,,believe there are other institutes that are willing to waive certain physical disabilities in otherwise acceptable candidates. Regarding illegitimacy, Father Poage writes: "An invalid union makes the child illegitimate. This is an impediment to the priest-hood and religious communities." This is partly an oversimplifica-tion of the canon law on illegitimacy and partly incorrect. A child is legitimate when conceived of either a valid or a putative marriage. Moreover, if one who was born illegitimate makes solemn religious profession, he is by that fact legitimated, "and this would remove the irregularity for receiving Holy Orders without the need of a dispen-sation. As for entrance into religion, canon law does not make illegitimacy an impediment. I believe this should be specially noted, because many religious seem to have an erroneous notion in this mat-ter, When illegitimacy is an impediment to entrance into a certain institute, it is so by reason of the constitutions of that institute and not by reason of the. general law of the Church. And, even when an institute makes illegitimacy an impediment, superiors in the United States can generally obtain a dispensation from the local ordinary. It is understandable that a book which offers almost innumerable practical suggestions wouId offer some that would be open to dis-agreement. Father Poage calls attention to the fact that girls often enter the novitiate with the habit of smoking and he suggests that 97 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious superiors "obligingly set aside a smoking period for those who need it." Perhaps the phrase "for those who need it" places this sugges-tion beyofid controversy; yet I am inclined to think that those who need it would be rare indeed and that they might very obligingly do their "tapering off" before they enter the postulancy. Father Poage and I would practically reverse positions regarding ,association with the opposite sex before entering religion. He believes that aspirants to the priesthood or the religious life should cease associating with the 6pposite sex. And he apparently means not merely regular company-keeping with one individual but even dances and parties that include both boys and girls, for he tells one girl: "This does not mean you are to cut out" all fun and gaiety. Have a good time-~but with the girls and not the boys!" No doubt one could give good arguments to substantiate this view from documents of the Church and from the practice in some countries of having boys in apostolic schools and seminaries from their tender years. The Church encourages this, it is true. Nevertheless, normal social life at home or in a ~boarding academy or college is not the same as life in an apostolic school or seminary. And, at least generally speaking, it is part of the normal life of our high school and college boys and girls to attend parties and dances. A prospective vocation which could not hold out through such normal and wholesome associations would hardly be a true religious vocation, it seems to me.. Obviously, I am not saying that there is nothing incompatible between planning to enter religion or a seminary and at the same time continuing an exclusive companionship with an individual of the opposite sex. Nor do I sponsor the advice that a boy or girl who has not heretofore associated with the opposite sex should "have a fling at it" before going to the novitiate or the seminary. But I see no need of discontinuing wholesome and general mixed-group rela-tionships merely because one is thinking of or planning on entering religion. Others may, and very likely do, think differently. The point is worth discussion. A final comment--a"fixed idea" of mine, if one will have it that. Throughout the book and even in his generic explanation of "voca-tion," Father Poage limits the term to a call to the religious life or the priesthood. In doing this he is conforming to a very widespread and popular notion of vocation. Yet I think that this restricted use of the term is both theologically inaccurate and psychologically harm-ful. Theologically, the term should embrace all states of life: and 98 March, 1951 BOOK REVIEWS psychologically it is immensely beneficial to use it as referring not only to the priesthood and the religious life but also to marriage and the single life in the world.--G. KELLY, S.J. PATROLOGY, I: THE BEGINNINGS OF PATRISTIC: LITERATURE. By Johannes Quasten. Pp. xvlii -I- 349. The Newman Press, Westminster, Md., 1950. $S.00. Up to the present, our patrologies have usually been works pub-lished in a foreign language and then translated into English. Now it is a pleasure to welcome a patrology published in English. It is also a pleasure to welcome a patrology which is the last word in sci-entific scholarship, interestingly written, and ~vhich always keeps, to the fore the needs of English-speaki.ng leaders. This first volume covers the beginnings of patristic literature. After an introductory chapter, the author takes up the Apostles’ Creed and the Didache, then the Apostolic Fathers, Apocryphal Lit-erature, Christian Poetry, the Acts of the Martyrs, the Greek Apolo-gists, Heretical Literature, ’and Anti-Heretical Literature. The opening chapter is an admirable introduction to patrology and an up-to-the-minute and scholarly guide to research in this field. Besides dealing with the concept and history of patrology, the con-cept of a Church Father, and the language ’ of the Fathers, it gives bibliography on the various branches of Ancient Christian Literature and on the doctrine of the Fathers, and lists editions and translations of Patristic texts. Then in each succeeding chapter an outline is given of the respective authors; each individual work’is studied and analyzed; to this is added information dealing, with the text, trans-lations, and studies of the documents; finally the outstanding fea-tures of the theological thought of the documents are discussed. Certain aspects of the work call for special consideration. An outstanding feature is its thoroughness. There is no document, in this early period or no problem concerning these documents for which one has not now a competent guide. A feature that is most welcome is the generous coverage of the theological thought of the authors. Thus--to illustrate--the thought of Irenaeus is presented on the Trinity, Christology, Mariology, Ecclesiology, the Primacy of Rome, the Eucharist, Scripture, Anthropology, Soteriology, and Eschatology. Finally, a new feature (which has long been desired) is seen in the copious excerpts from these ancient writings. The author is not content with telling what a certain writer thought, but 99 Book REviEws Review for Religious he lets him tell us in his own words. This isa feature that partly explains the interest and readability of this volume; it is this that makes the book not merely something which we use to consult, but something which we want to read for the joy found in reading it. It is easy to see how a book of this kind can be of great help to religibus. Those engaged in teaching patrology, dogma, or liturgy have a work that will aid them in research and in preparing their classes. No longer need we despair of having a patrology text that will interest students; no longer need the patrology manual be regarded as something as dry as dust. The religious engaged in teaching college have here a book that will have to be found on their reference shelf, a book "that will be very helpful in answering ques-tions about the Ancient Church. Finally, all religious will find here background for a better understanding of works which all through the ages have been spiritual classics; e.g., the Eetters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the Acts of the Martyrs.--ALFRED C. RUSH, C.SS.R. RELIGIOUS SISTERS. An English translation of Direcfolre des Sup.erl. eures and Les Adaptations de La Vie Religieuse. Compiled by A. .Pie, O.P. Pp. xli -~- 313. The Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland. $3.s0. Superiors, spiritual directors, and retreat masters who have good eyes will welcome this helpful, inspiring work. The book grew out of two symposia to help the religious women of France meet prob-lems created by modern conditions. The papers prepared by diocesan and religious priests werd first printed in La Vie Spirituelle. In the English edition the French article on psychology was replaced by the article by R. E. Havard, an English doctor. The book has five sec-tions: the theology of religious life, the office of the superior, the knowledge required by a Superior, the vocation and training of reli-gious and adaptations in modern religious life. When ~sked what she thought of the book, a religious superior who had read it answered that she had bought three more copies, in-cluding one for her Mother Provincial. She also said: "I found Religious Sisters most helpful, excellent. It is clear, complete, yet concise, and the high spirituality makes it a real inspiration. If I do not do a better job as superior now, I will not have the excuse I had before reading it. I cannot say any of the ideas were entirely new, but the detailed application of the principles and elements of reli-gious life were, in a number of instances, so new that I do not feel I 100 BOOK NOTICE$ have absorbed them in one reading." More readable print is certainly desirable and also a book of the same calibre that grew from American conditions, but in lieu of both, the book is recommended. The benefits derived will compensate for the temporary snow-blindness that results from reading the soft, light print.--J. BREUNIG, S.J. ,~OOK NOTICES OUR CHRISTIAN DIGNITY, by L. Semp~, S.J., adapted from the French by C, Vrithoff, S.J., is a little’work, comprising nine confer-ences in the form of dialogues between a priest and two young men, which could serve as a’highly informative and inspiring introduction to the grandeurs of the supernatural life. In a way that is both popu-lar and theological it presents the principal aspects of the Christian’s deification by grace, and at the same time make,~ them so many most potent motives for actu,.ally living up to the sublime dignity that it confers. Thus it would provide spiritual reading of the best kind: full of dogma for the mind and of consequent force and enthusiasm for the. will. (Catholic Press, Ranchi, India, i945. Pp. 98. Rs. i.) THE TWELVE FRUITS, by C. J. Woollen, is no mere theoretical explanation of the fruits of the Holy Ghost, but a concre.te, practical exposition of the effects which these fruits should produce in every Catholic. As a ’result, the book makes interesting and profitable spiritual reading. In dealing with the fruits a writer is faced with a real problem to distinguish patience from longanimitg and mildness or to show how continencg differs from ebastitg, but the author suc-seeds in making plausible distinctions between them. More. emphasis is placed on the fruits as effects to be produced by their possessor than on the benefits which accrue to him .from their, possession, though this second aspect is not entirely neglected. The chapter on patience is particularly well done. (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1950. Pp. viii ÷ 184. $2.50.) GUIDE IN MENTAL PRAYER, written ’by the Very Reverend Jo-seph Simler, fourth superior general of the Society of Mary (Marian-ists), was intended originally for use within that congregation. But others also came to know about it and to find it helpful, and now in this revised English edition it is mad~ available to all. No one ’book on mental prayer is ideal for all the very different mentalities of 101 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS men and women who cultivate that difficult art, but this one, simple, practical, and definite, should, it seems, prove very useful to many. It promises success to all who really have good will. A point that it emphasizes particularly is the importance of faith for growing in the ability to meditate. (A Grail Publication, St. Meinrad, Indiana, 1949. Pp. 167. $2.00.) In J~_SUIT BEGINNINGS IN NEW MEXICO Sister M. Lilliana Owens, in collaboration with two Jesuits, presents the first of a series entitled "Jesuit Studies--Southwest." The book is an ungarnished historical account. A hitherto unpublished diary of the mission of New, Mexico comprises half of the book. [El Paso, Texas: Revista Catolica Press, 1950. Pp. 176. $2:00 (cloth); $1.50 (paper).] A very valuable addition to .the literature on vocation is VOCA-TION TO THE PRIESTHOOD: ITS CANONICAL ~CONCEPT, A Histori-cal Synopsis and a Commentary, by .Aidan Carr, O.F.M.Conv. Dr. Cart investigates his problem from the po!.nts of view of history, theology, and canon law. His conclusions se~m to clarify and syn-thesize what was best in the pri.ncipal p.revio;is works on the subject. Directly or indirectly this study should be a precious aid to the many men and women who teach boys and thus have something to do with fostering and discerning divine calls to the holy priesthood. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1950. Pp. viii + 124. $2.00.) , BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS [For the most part, these notices ate purely descriptive, based on a cursory exam-ination of the books listed.] BOOKMAN ASSOCIATES, New York. Like Clean Winds. By Sister Louise Agnes Morin, C.S.J. An-other convincing contrast to I Leap o~;er the Wall. "The story of a Sister who entered the convent to give herself to God and was not surprised to find what she sought--a life of renunciation." The book is illustrated by Michael Lyn Genung. Pp. 63. $2.25. Savonarola. A verse play in nine scenes by Wallace A. Bacon. This play won the Bishop Sheil Drama Award of the. National Catholic Theater Conference in 1946. Pp. 128. $2.50. CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY PRESS, Washington, D. C. Orestes Brotonson’s Approach to the Problem of God. A critical 102 March, 1951 BOOK ANNOUNCHMHNT$ examination in the Light of the Principles of St. Thomas Aquinas. By the Reverend Bertin Farrell, C.P. A dissertation. Pp. xiii ÷ 140. $1.75. THE GRAIL, St. Meinrad, Indiana. The Familg Rosarg for Children. By Urban Paul Martin. A Sister of Charity has significantly illustrated the purpose, history, and method of praying the Rosary, as well as each of the fifteen mysteries. This booklet will help boys and girls understand and pray the Rosary. Pp. 71. $1.00. Watchu~ords of the Saints. A Thought for Each Day of the Year from the Writings 6f the Saints. Collected by Christopher O’Brien. Pp. 73. $1.50. Our .Ladg’s Slave.. ;The Story. of Saint Louis Mary Grignion De Montfort. By Mary ~abyan Windeatt. Illustrafed by Paul A. Grout. Pp. 201. $2.~. B. HERDER BOOK COMPaNY,’St. Louis, Mo. Art and Beauty. By Maurice De Wulf. Translated by Sister Mary Gonzaga Udell, O.P. In this volume a philosopher of re-nown considers the basic principles of art. Pp. ix q- 213. $3.00. THE NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Maryland. Catechism o~: the "’Summa. Theotogica’" o~: Saint Thomas Aqui-nas. By R. P. Thomas Pegu~s, O.P. Adapted from the French and done into English by Aelred’~q’hitacre, O.P. A condensation of the Summa in catechism form. A reprint of the work first published in England in 1922. Pp. xvi + 315. $2.75.’ Shepherd oF Untended Sheep. By Raoul Plus, S.J. Tia.nslated from the French by Sister James Aloysius. and Sister Mary Generosa, Sisters of Divine Providence. This is the first biography in English of a Vincent de Paul of the eighteenth century, John Martin: Moye, priest of the Society of the Foreign Missions of Paris, missionary to China, and founder of the Sisters of Divine Providence. Pp. xv 180. $2.50. ST. FRANCIS BOOK SHOP, Cincinnati 10, Ohio. Walk with the Wise. By Hyacinth Blocker, o.F.M. This book presents forty-eight storles from the live’s of the saints in very pal-atable capsule form. The treatment is marked by originality, fresh-ness, and a relevance to the present day that cannot b~ missed. Pp. x + 240. $2.75. 103 COMMUNICATIONS Reuieto for Religious THE SENTINEL PRESS, 194 E. 76th St., New York. People and the Blessed Sacrament. By Martin Dempsey. Our Lord never wanted the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament to stop in the vestibule. Father Dempsey shows how the Eucharist can influ-ence the entire lives of all: the bootblack, the doctor, the housewife, the college student and so forth. Should be good material for Forty Hours talks. Pp. 95. $1.50 [cloth] : 50 cents [paper]. JOSEPH F. WAGNER, INC., New York. Make Way for Mary. By the Rev. Ja’mes J. McNally. With a foreword by the Most Rev. Christopher J. ’WeldOn, D.D. A series of talks deriving from the Gospels of the Sundays of the year and showing the place of Mary in the Catholic’s life. Pp. 272. $2.75. Commun{cal:{ons Reverend Fathers: In reply to,y.o.ur note concerning information on the question of vocations from Catholic Colleges which appeared in the November issue Of R]EVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, the following is presented. The statistics are given under the headings suggested in the letter signed "A Teaching Sister" and represent, as requested, the last ten years. ~,, Education Contemplative Social WorE 1941 ~, 4 0 0 1942 6 0 I 1943 5 0 0 1944 , .6 I 0 1945 IO 0 0 1946 13 0 0 1947 9 0 3 1948 4 I I 1949 15 I I 1950 13 I I Total 85 4 7 Left II 4 0 74 0 7 Total to enter religious life 96 Number to leave IS Persevering 81 104 March, 1951 COMMUNICATIONS The facts have been listed for each year because we feel they are significant of changes made in 1940. During that summer, under the direction of our Very Reverend Mother Marie de St. ,lean Mar-tin, O.S.U., Prioress General of the Ursullnes of the Roman Union, a study of the Traditions of the Orderwas made in the light of con-temporary problems. (cf. Ursuline Method or: Education, Marie de Saint Jean Martin, O.S.U., Quinn ~3 Boden Company, Inc. 1946.) It might be well to sthte that these changes were not made all at once but gradually and not without difficulty-. Under the heading of, creating a Catbolic Atmosphere and assuming that we are striving to give a profound intellectual formation, they may be summarized thus: ~ 1. Religion Courses centered in Christ;’a course in Church His- . tory in junior year; a course in the spiritual life in senior year. 2. Liturgy: Missa Cantata and Compline sung daily by those who wish to participate; on Sundays and feast days Vespers and Compline. ~ ~3. Oppqrtunity for daily confession and spiritual direction. Daily meditations are made for those who wish to learn how to meditate; these are followed by special written ’ones and gradually, with help, many students make a daily meditation. 5. Guidance: each student is given or chooses if they wish a spiritual mother. 6. Sodality: limited to those who desire to lime an interior life and to participate in the apostolate. 7. Specialized Catholic Action.: Young Christian S~udents. It is to be noted that the statistics reveal .an increase .in religious vocations with the classes which were the first to graduate under the new policy.--MOTHER MARIE THERESE CHARLES, O.S.U. Reverend Fathers: In response to your invitation to correspondenc.e regarding the article on "The Deafened Religious" in the oNovember issue, I should like to share some good news. There is fenestration surgery now to cure the type of deafness known as otosclerosis. Any otologist can diagnose this mose prevalent kind of deafness. Nearly every large city has a surgeon trained by Doctor Julius Lempert of New York, who perfected the operation some twelve years ago. It consists in making a new window in the inner ear bone to connect with the auditory nerve. Although a most delicate operation requiring some 105 QUESTIONS AND/~NSWERS ’ Ret~ie~ for Religious time to recover, it is worth all the misery of accompanying sea sick-ness, due to drilling through the equilibrium center. I was losing my hearing for twenty-three years and wore-a hearing aid for twelve years. Doctor Howard P. House, 1136 West Sixth Street, Los Angeles 14, California, performed such skillful surgery on both my ears in successive summers, that I now have normal hearing. I was able to discard the hearing aid after the first operation. Much of the success would normally be due to the condition of the nerve, hence it is important to have the surgery done as soon as otosclerosis is detected, before the. auditory, nerve begins to atrophy. I find that this operation is comp.aratively unknown, so I should like to broadcast the almost miraculous .results to your readers. I cannot be grateful enough to God, Doctor House and my community for my return to normal communication. It is a new life. --S~STER M. CATHERINE EmEEN. S.H.N. ( ues ions and Answers ~7~ May a local superior who had been appointed for one year to fill out the incomplet.ed term of his predecessor, and who was then reappolnfed local superior for. one three-year term, be now reappointed for another immediate term ~:F three years in.the same house? If not, may he be ap-pointed for an additional two years to make up a’ fatal of six years? Canon 505 forbids the same religious to act as local superior of the same community for more than two terms of three years each. The emphasis in the text "term of three years" (triennfum) is not on the word term, but upon the entire phrase--term of three years. The Code does not forbid three terms of two years each, but excludes more than two terms of three years each in the same house, that is, more than six continuous years as local superior on the part of the same religious. In the case mentioned, therefore, the superior may be reappointed to a new term of two years, which will complete the six continuous years allowed him in the same house. 8 If a religious under temporary vows develops bad.health, or becomes a mentalcase, and, as a result, is refused perpetual vows, is the commun- 106 March, 1951 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ity to which he belonged bound to take care of him after sending him away.’? What if his physical or mental condition was doubtful during the novitiate and he was allowed to make his tempo’rary profession as a trial to see how he would make out? Once a novice is allowed to make his profession of~first tempo-racy vows, poor health, whether physical or mental, is no longer a reason for refusing either a renewal of temporary vows or the pro-fession of perpetual vows, much less al reason for dismissal (see can-ons 637 and 647, § 2). Hence superiors may not allow a novice t City of Saint Louis (Mo.), http://www.geonames.org/4407084 http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/205 |