Review for Religious - Issue 39.5 (September 1980)

Issue 39.5 of the Review for Religious, September 1980.

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Review for Religious - Issue 39.5 (September 1980)
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title Review for Religious - Issue 39.5 (September 1980)
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title_fullStr Review for Religious - Issue 39.5 (September 1980)
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description Issue 39.5 of the Review for Religious, September 1980.
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spelling sluoai_rfr-237 Review for Religious - Issue 39.5 (September 1980) Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus Jesuits -- Periodicals; Monasticism and religious orders -- Periodicals. Gallen ; Pennington Issue 39.5 of the Review for Religious, September 1980. 1980-09 2012-05 PDF RfR.39.5.1980.pdf rfr-1980 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 REview FOR Rg~.m~ous (ISSN 0034-639X), published bi-monthly (every two months), is edited in collaboration with faeully members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri, © 1980. By REview ~oR REI.~(~OUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A.: $8.00 a year: $15.00 for two years. Other countries: $9.00 a year, $17.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write REvmw ~oR R~.t.~ous; P.O. Box 6070: Dululh, Minnesota 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor September, 1980 Volume 39 Number 5 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REVlEW VOR REU~;IOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph’s College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. The Value of Stress in Formation Philip D. Cristantiello Dr. Cristantiello is a consulting psychologist to St. Joseph’s Seminary, St. Vincent’s Hospital School of Nursing, the Dominican Sisters of Newburg, and Elizabeth Seton College. He resides at 130 Sherwood Ave.; Yonkers, NY 10704. An earlier article, "Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development," appeared in the issue of September, 1978. One important concern in the work of fomenting vocations has to do with the number of candidates who are available. Another concern has to do with the quality of preparation that is offered to those who are accepted into formation programs. This article deals with the latter issue. It specifically ad-dresses the positive, constructive role which stress can play in the development of men and women in their religious vocation. I am to accomplish this aim by (1) briefly describing the current, stereo-typic posture so often maintained in the face of stress; (2) reviewing some research findings on the conditions which facilitate, or are integral to, human development; (3) relating these findings to goals in formation; and (4) offering a paradigm of "stress-by-design" in order to stimulate a more positive and creative perspective on the role of stress. Medical journals, newspaper reports and TV newscasts keep warning us about "the ravages of stress." The scientific community and the popular media have so closely linked stressful life events to the prospect of disease that many of us have become "sanctuary seekers" whenever stress appears on the near horizon. We are told that students in particular are one segment of the population which suffers from too much stress. Such warnings are especially sobering when joined with reports of the high incidence of driag abuse and suicide in student populations. With vocation numbers down, formation personnel may be understandably intimidated by such reports, and thus seek to maintain a low-stress climate in their programs 641 649 / Review for Religious, l/plume 39, 1980/5 of formation. It is, then, with both timidity and temerity that 1 attempt to disturb this prevailing perspective on the hazards of stress. In a society which produces many stress-induced diseases, the promotion of mental stability in students is one goal the psychologist can help to realize. His interest in the psychological health of students, however, is not simply a concern with the process of maintaining equilibrium. He may also advocate, for example, that students should not be protected from all types of stress in their learning environment. In this advocacy, the psychologist would be in-fluenced by a number of interesting research studies regarding stress in the course of human development. Langer (1969) studied cognitive functioning in children. His findings pointed to the principal role of affective and intellectual disequilibrium as a constructive force activating self-development. Katz (1969) noted that during the college years conflict and development go together. Students who experi-ence a greater degree of conflict than their peers ~lso report having engaged more frequently in creative activities, being more deeply affected by in-fluences (e.g., books and personal relationships), having increased their understanding of themselves and others, and in general having changed more. Heath (1968), reporting on his research into how college students mature, found that a certain amount of disorganization is indispensable to the matur-ing process. Students who did not show much disturbance over the years tended to mature the least. They entered college rigidly organized and left much the same way. He stated that: A person who fears and resists disorganization is no longer educable or "maturable." He remains stuck at the stable level of development he has achieved or, to avoid the pain of anticipated inner tumult and disintegration, regresses to simpler adaptive solutions (p. 254). While the work of Erik Erikson is so widely known that it need not be reported here, his comments on the important role of crises at various stages of human development is supported by the recent research of Levinson(1978) on adult life. Levinson’s findings revealed that the great majority of men experience a moderate to severe degree of tumult as they make the transition from one chronological stage of development to another. These findings are especially interesting in light of Selye’s research (1975) on the strains of adapt-ing to change. This biological scientist concluded that it is distress, not simply stress which is always damaging to the human organism. These studies strong-ly advance a basic proposition: some degree of stress (disequilibrium, conflict, disorganization, crisis) is a necessary prerequisite for progress to the next stage of personal development. If one accepts the proposition that some degree of stress is a necessary con-dition for progress to a higher level of functioning, a good question is, "How is this to be accomplished?" Writing on the subject of student-teacher rela- The Value of Stress in Formation / 643 tionships Nicholas Hobbs (1966) offered this answer: ... it is the task of the professor.., to get his students into trouble, good trouble, intellec-tual and affective trouble.., to teach his students the art of precipitating themselves into just manageable difficulties..." (p. 205). When a professor gets his students into "intellectual or affective trouble" (e.g., by exposing faculty assumptions in their thinking, challenging their values, or requiring new adult responsibilities of them), he will often’en-counter strong resistance. This may result in some students becoming angry or temporarily confused. It is unsettling for some of them to discover that previously accepted immaturities will no longer be tolerated and that their per-sonal knowledge of reality does not enjoy the status of de fide doctrine. A desire to avoid this type of defensive encounter with students is understand-able, and may be one reason why some faculty will not engage in disturbing students’ equilibria. Other faculty may worry that those of a more perverse nature may use Hobb’s injunction as a rationale to mask hostility to the young. Discomforts and fears such as these, however, must not eclipse the primary objective of keeping the student’s developmental process alive. Formation ultimately depends upon maintaining vitality in the student’s developmental process. There are two basic ways that this vitality can be lost. One is by stagnation. This occurs under conditions of stasis or static balance e.g., the absence of faculty challenge to the student’s intellectual equilibrium. The other is by stimulus overload. This occurs when there are too many stressors threatening the individual’s equilibrium e.g., an excessive number of difficult academic demands. Stasis rather than stress poses the more serious threat to students in formation programs. The cessation of a developmental process (stasis) will be less apparent than its disruption (stress) and thereby presents a more insidious problem for the formation team. In addition, it is through the mastery of new challenges that the student extends and validates his talents and learns that he can cope with life’s demands. Such experiences vitalize his sense of progress and build a foundation for needed resilience and response to future stressful events. This outcome is necessary for the establish-ment of a solid, gratifying sense of commitment to a vocation. At this point the reader might be willing to concede that perturbing events always are, or should be, part of.an individual’s normal experience. Such an acknowledgment would not be sufficient. It is not stressful life events per se that are at issue in this paper. An unfortunate happenstance can befall the stu-dent as it might to the average man in the street, Such events do not automatically become developmental lear.ning experiences. The individual may a) learn nothing, b) reinforce some maladaptive coping behavior, or c) learn something unrelated to the goals of his formation. Our point is that perturbing experiences have to be introduced into forma-tion programs with deliberate intent and design. This important point may be more fully appreciated if the difference between growth and development is understood. 644 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 Growth more properly refers to the enlargement or physical maturation of the individual’s parts. Development, on the other hand, refers more to the individual’s psychological sophistication i.e., the coordination of his increas-ing complexity.’ It is change in this latter sense that the formation team must be concerned with. The integration of the diverse processes of the candidate’s thinking, feeling and acting should not be left to chance circumstances in the passage of time. An example may help illustrate t.his point. It takes each of us about a dozen years to become a mature sexual being in the biological sense. Yet how many adults actually get beyond the level of a twelve-year-old in terms of their psychosexual maturation? Worldly experiences do not automat-ically act in concert to produce psychosexual maturity. Sanford (1966), who studied personality development during the college years, believes that a major obstacle to the individual’s continuing develop-ment is likely to be a premature integration of the constituent elements in his personality. He commented that: ... as adaptive capacities increase we would be wise to put less emphasis upon the hope for "natural growth" and more emphasis upon experiences that would lead the individ-ual to stretch himself (p. 38). The desiderata of the kind proposed in official bulletins on formation are not a natural outgrowth of passage through an institution or an organization’s program. Nor will each diocese or religious order reap a harvest simply by raising admission standards. While granting the importance of admitting capable .candidates, there is also need for the right environmental cir-cumstances to foster the actualization of their potential. If candidates are to become good and competent men, they must not only age enroute to their destination, they must also develop. Another point that needs to be emphasized is that the idea of perturbing influences has too often been interpreted in cognitive terms. We are all familiar with the perennial complaining of students about the suffering they endure because of the faculty’s academic demands. Yet scarcely any faculty member would be naive enough to assert that students, upon attaining the cognitive objectives of the course, would be ready to practice in their chosen ’ Sanford’s description of a high level of personality development is a useful model for formation teams to consider. See "Going Beyond Prevention," in Sanctions for Evil (N. Sanford and C. Comstock, eds., San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1971): ...a high level of development...is characterized most essentially by complexity and wholeness. In general terms I mean that a large number of different parts or features have different and specialized functions and also that communication among these parts is great enough so that, without losing their essential identity, they become organized;., to serve the larger purposes of the person .... This highly developed structure underlies the individual’s sense of direction, his freedom of thought and action, and his capacity to fulfill commitments to others and to himself. But the structure is not fixed once and for all .... He can go on developing while remaining essentially himself" (pp. 306-307). The Value of Stress in Formation / 645 vocations. Faculty members do well to recognize that as cognitive outcomes are reached it does not necessarily follow that there will be a corresponding development of appropriate affective behaviors. Any institution which believes that it fulfills responsibilities for students’ development by exposing its selected candidates to a curriculum, is operating on the basis of a misplaced optimism. The students’ affective dimensions, which include feelings, attitudes, beliefs and values, are important. They can support or impede personal development. They influence vocational aspirations, investment of energy and quality of commitment. No one chooses a vocation and succeeds at it simply on the basis of what he experiences on a cognitive level. Yet compared to efforts made by educational institutions to achieve cognitive outcomes, relatively little is done to encourage the kind of affective development which special vocations may require. Seminaries are among those institutions which declare themselves to be vitally interested in affective outcomes. Beyond this expression of interest one must look for two things. The first is evidence that the institution actually provides opportunities for affective development. The second is a systematic procedure for determining whether students follow through on such oppor-tunities. The provision of the first without the second will undermine the effectiveness of the formation program. For example, a seminary should not only require that students have a spiritual director, but should also have a pro-cedure for determining: a) whether students actually obtain spiritual counsel, and b) the impact of such an experience on their spiritual development. If a certain number of affective outcomes are considered a core part of readiness for ministry, a formation team must go beyond the mere declaration of intent. It must: I) have knowledge of the student’s current level of develop-ment, 2) decide how this development may be further enhanced, 3) provide criteria for assessing whether further development does in fact occur, and 4) decide at what stages and by.whom such assessments are to be made. If incon-sistencies between declared intent and actual practice are allowed, the forma-tion team capitulates to dishonesty, or, at the very least, insinc.erity. Admittedly, to set objectives and evaluate outcomes in the affective domain is not easy. The difficulties claimed to accompany such a task may account for why educators are sometimes content to relegate this aspect of development to the student himself. Actually, such difficulties can be kept to a minimum if ques’tions concerning the status of a given student’s development are regarded as a personal, but not sacrosanct issue. In other words, when a person opts for a special vocation, the occurrence or absence of personal development is no longer a private affair. The implementation of the principles mentioned above may be expected to produce stress. The evidence is clear, however, that stress is an essential ingre-dient for setting development in motion. With its demands of readaptation, stress rouses the individual from a contented state of equilibrium and thereby 646 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 activates the student’s talents. At this point it is important to clarify what is meant by stress in the context of disturbing the student’s equilibrium.’ Stress occurs when there is a loss in the student’s existing oriented state which requires him to adjust to changing conditions. This disturbance and activation of the student is linked to: 1. a percepuon that the challenge to his current oriented state will have an impact, i.e., the challenge is significant rather than negligible; 2. some degree of doubt about his ability to respond with success and comfort; 3. expectations that he face the challenge rather than avoid it. The adjustments to stress which the student has to make may be of a cognitive, affective or behavioral character or a combiiaation of these dimen-sions. I want to make clear that stress should not be regarded in terms of the word’s usage in physics where it denotes a force applied to deform a body, or forces of equal strength applied from opposite directions. It would be a mistake for the educator to think of himself as a stressor in these terms for two .reasons. First, the point being made is that the educator is to be disruptive, not destructive. Second, the educator must avoid being at loggerheads with the student lest it eclipse the climate for learning. One does not want to disturb students for the purpose of creating emotional wrecks or collapsing the student-teacher relationship. The problem for the educator, of course, is knowing how to produce the right kind and degree of disturbance for different levels of student maturity so that continued development will occur. We know, for example, that a primary stressor for man is the experience of uncertainty (Kagan, 1971). Uncertainty can be engendered in students by having them encounter situations which are unpredictable, inconsistent or discrepant from what they have learned to ex-pect on the basis of previous experience. The hope is that faculty will be creative enough to introduce appropriate amounts of uncertainty in such a way as to activate in the student a drive for mastery. More specifically, to spark the kind of stress which incites a s.tudent to increase knowledge, skill or talent. The fear is that such stressors may be absent altogether, or introduced in such a way as to incite only defensive maneuvers on the part of the student. Naturally, the person who seeks to disturb the student’s state of intellec-tual or emotional stasis would want to guard against unruly effects. The ob-ject is to be troublesome in a way that leads to outcomes which are ultimately propitious rather than intractable. While one cannot control the process of disturbing a student’s equilibria in any absolute sense, the likelihood of undesirable effects will be reduced if the following conditons are obtained. First, institutions should be encouraged to remain faithful to quality The reader will find a good discussion of definitions of stress in Sanity and Survival, by R. L. Woolfolk and F. C. Richardson, New York: Signet, 1978, pp. 4-8. The Value of Stress in Formation / 647 standards of admission. When admission boards accept weak candidates the stage is set for the faculty to begin attenuating their demands upon students. The faculty are quick to see that such students can’t cope as well and begin ¯ backing off from previously existing standards. Gradually, the institution’s climate begins to reflect a lowered level of expectation and an increased use of rationalization to defend the dilution of admissions and evaluation processes. Weak candidates are carried too long and efforts to decide which students will be advanced becomes less a matter of voting and more a process of ruminating. A subtle, unintended process of accommodation begins to take place in which the limitations of the weaker candidates, rather than the needs of the vocation, determine standards of acceptable conduct and ability. When this type of shift starts to occur, a faculty member who attempts to challenge a student’s equilibrium does so at substantial personal risk. He will be regarded by some as being inappropriately demanding. His reputation as a fair person will come under question. And if the student’s environment appears to lack consistency in the legitimacy of its challenges, it fosters a climate of ambiguity about which standards he must try to measure up to, and which standards can be safely ignored. A second condition is the availability of professional counseling services as a resource for both faculty and students. The faculty can use this resource for helping them assess the developmental status of each student and to identify areas in which he should be challenged to develop more fully. The students can use the same resources to help themselves cope with the emotional reverberations of dealing with the developmental demands of their chosen vocation. The consulting psychologist should have both the experience to understand and respect the vocation’s legitimate requirements and knowledge of the normal developmental life cycle of adults. A third condition is to know how to keep stress within reasonable limits. Toward this end the following can be used to guide one’s efforts. a) Delimit the area of challenge, rather than make it all encompassing. For example, a challenge directed at the cognitive level of the student’s functioning is more apt to be sustained when the student’s emotional relationships are not in a state of disarray. The student should not be subjected to stress in all areas of his functioning at once. b)Place a time limit on th.e challenge. Stress ~hould not be imposed without cessation in the same area of functioning for extended periods of time. c) Take the student’s physical condition into consideration. If a student’s physical health is temporarily below par, or if he characteristically functions at a lower level of well-being, an intensification of stress may make him vulnerable to exhaustion and illness. d) Remain in control. The person introducing the disturbing force should 1~48 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 not allow himself to get beyond the point of being able to stop the process. It is possible for a faculty member to get so emotionally invested in an idea of his role or enamored of a technique that his perspective and judgment become clouded. Discussion with a colleague or the psychological consultant can lessen such possibilities. e) Do not equate disturbing a student’s equilibrium with giving him negative criticism. One can also use positive encouragement to call a student’s current level of functioning into question and thereby stimulate further development. Gill (1978), in discussing affective development, illustrates this approach with the question, "Isn’t it time you began thinking about taking a further step for yourself?" (p. 76). f) Try to be a model i.e., the kind of person who can permit his own equilibrium to be disturbed in the interest of further development. g) Get to know your student. His reactions to stress will always be linked to his perception of a demand and his estimate of his own ability to respond. Try to note whether the quality of his perception and the accuracy of his estimates reflect appropriate variations as circumstances change or whether they show consistent patterns irrespective of altered circumstances. A consulting psychologist can help you assess the implications of your observations on this point. In conclusion, the point which I have tried to make is twofold. First, insti-tutional expectations will have a significant effect on student development only if they disturb the students’ prevailing level of adjustment. Second, these expectations should be directed to both the cognitive and affective dimensions of student functioning. The institution’s expectations must be clearly set forward and the faculty’s endorsement of them must be true. The student must not only see this at the outset of his entrance into a state of commitment to a vocation, but must be aided in keeping these expectations before him throughout his period of preparation. Expectations must so challenge the individual that he will experi-ence a significant degree of stress between what he is and what he is called to become. It must be clear that preparation for the vocation and its attendant responsibilities and privileges requires more than ordinary ability, more than ordinary sacrifice, more than ordinary goodness and understanding, and more than ordinary commitment. It must be equally evident that the institu-tion’s faculty will not be satisfied with those who hide from challenges and remain underdeveloped.~ If it becomes evident that the call for personal ~ While some students have to be weaned from the Oelief that stress is an unfair intrusion into their lives, formation personnel must also guard against their own acts of uncritical assent. Specifically, they should check the all too common tendency to take a novel idea and turn it into a gimmick with a "sacramental expectation of its efficacy." While I believe the concept of "stress by design" The Value of Stress in Formation / 649 development will be attenuated because of a decline in vocations, or that exemptions from it can be arranged because of protective relationships, the institution’s challenge will be an empty gesture. A formation environment without stress is as self-defeating as one with too much distress. A challenge to one’s equilibrium is, and always has been, the most reliable and effective incentive for personal development. A PARADIGM OF STRESS BY DESIGN One way of introducing stress by design is through the use of models who are worthy of imitation. The teacher/mentor involves the student in a stressful process of imitation in the following way: 1. The student is required to choose a person (either living or deceased) whose actions or products are of an exemplary nature e.g., a notably competent preacher, writer, teacher or artist. There must be some degree of consensus that the person chosen has performed with some degree of excellence. This person becomes the designated model. 2. The student then selects a representative sample of the model’s works and provides a written analysis of these works. This written report is evaluated by the mentor or some person chosen by him as having competence to evaluate the student’s work on the model. The student’s report must meet some standard of quality. 3. After the student’s work has been accepted his next task is to project how his model would produce another work e.g., a new homily, lecture or paint-ing. The student must describe this in detail based on his demonstrated knowledge of the model’s interests, style, values, and so forth. 4. Having made his forecast, the student is then required toproduce this piece of work. In short, he must produce a sample of work which imitates the model. While it is not expected that the executed work will match the level of performance of the model, the student must be encouraged to perform as closely as possible to the model’s standards of excellence. The finished work is evaluated by the mentor, other judges and if possible by the model himself. The use of a model can help the person in formation visualize levels of development in concrete terms. The student’s observations and analysis of ex-emplary modes of behavior can help him conceptualize a direction for himself. The tasks enumerated above, however, can do more than sharpen observations about directions of further development. They can also assist in to be of value, we must take care lest we view students as subjects to be manipulated in artificial ways. Instead, we should help them develop through those stressful situations (e.g., academic demands, evaluation, counseling) which are endemic to the process of formation. 650 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 the actual acquisition of new standards of performance and behavior. This oc-curs through the social learning process of imitation. Identification with a model can: a) stimulate the use of existing but currently constrained talents; b) facilitate the reinforcement of already learned and desired behaviors which are at present weakly established in the student’s repertoire of skills; c) inhibit undesired behavioral developments. The use of the Model Paradigm is appropriate to formation programs. An important ingredient in a Christian adult is the vitality of his potential for~ becoming more Christ-like at any stage of life. The realization of this potential depends upon two things: a capacity for further development and a model worthy of imitation. Thus, the idea of using a model to disturb the student’s current level of functioning to move him toward a higher one befits a Chris-tian concept of development. References Gill, J. J. "Affective Development." In Studiesin the Sp&ituality of Jesuits. V. X, Nos. 2, 3, 1978, American Assistancy Seminars on Jesuit Spirituality. St. Louis: 1978. ’Heath, D. H. Growing Up in College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1968. Hobbs, N. "The Art of Getting Students Into Trouble." In L. E. Dennis and J. F. Kauffman (Eds.), The College and The Student. Washington D.C.: American Council on Education, 1966. Katz, J. "Four Years of Growth, Conflict, and Compliance." In J. Katz, et al., No TimeFor Youth: Growth and Constraint in College Students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1969. Kagan, J. Understanding Children: Behavior, Motives, and Thought. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1971. Pg. 33-35. Langer, J. "Disequilibrium as a Source of Development." In P. H. Mussen, et al., Trends and Issues in Developmental Psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. Levinson, D. et aL, The Seasons of a Man’s Life. New York: Knopf, 1978. Sanford, N. Self and Society. New York: Atherton Press, 1966. Selye, H. Stress Without Distress. New York: Signet, 1975. A Journey of Faith: The Confessions of St. Augustine Thomas F. Martin, O.S.A. Father Martin is Formation Director for Augustinian students attending the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. His address: St. John Stone Friary; 1165 East 54th Place; Chicago, IL 60615. The Old Testament provides us with a model for the journey of faith that each person must make to the Lord. That journey can be seen to follow a fair-ly standard dynamic: first God calls, next the call is resisted or rejected and misery is the consequence, then conversion takes place, and finally there is covenant--union--with God. Whether we look at the story of Abraham, or Moses, or King David, or the prophet Jeremiah, or the host of other stories, that same dynamic of call, rejection, conversion, and covenant is found. The biblical model of the journey of faith has been lived out in a variety of ways in the lives of Christians throughout the ages. I would like to focus on one person’s recounting of that experience of call, indifference, conversion, and covenant: St. Augustine. His Confessions are a deeply personal and in-tense description of his own experience of that fundamentally biblical process. Call "You have made us for yourself; and our heart is restless until it rests in you" (1:1).* Augustine most beautifully articulates the fundamental experi-ence of God’s call of man unto himself. God places that call deep within the heart so that even before the call is experienced in the encounter with life, it is already resonating at the center of a person’s being. Throughout the Confes- * Quotations will be taken from the Image Book Edition of the Confessions, translated by John K. Ryan, 1960. 652 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 sions Augustine relates that deeper awareness of the call of God resonating within the self. "For there was a hunger within me from a lack of that inner food, which is yourself, my God" (3:1). A priori, there is within a need t.hat only God can fulfill. "Whatever lacked this name, [Christ] no matter l~ow learned and polished and veracious it was, could not wholly capture me" (3:4). The fact of God’s choosing Augustine breaks forth again and again in an inner awareness that the finite could not bring happiness: "You let nothing prove sweet to me that was apart from yourself" (6:6). Augustine experienced the call of God from the depths of his being and from those depths there flowed many signs in his life, in terms of people and events, of God’s enfleshing of that call. As an infant, Augustine was entered into the catechumenate. This would not lead to baptism until after thirty years of intense living, but Augustine could look back and see that God was already beginning his work. "You saw, my God, for you were already my keeper" (1:11)--so Augustine speaks of his infancy. There were many times when Augustine hid from his call and blocked out the signs of it but his mother Monica acted in his life as a perpetual reminder of it. She saw what Augustine did not, would not see, and, sometimes overardently, she reminded, chided, even nagged Augustine with it. He describes a dream that Monica recounted to him: "She saw herself standing upon a certain wooden rule, and coming towards her a young man, splendid, joyful, and smiling upon her, although she grieved and was crushed with grief. When he asked her the reasons for her sorrow and daily tears.., she replied that she lamented for my perdition. Then he bade her rest secure, and in-structed her that she should attend and see that where she was, there was 1 also" (3:11). Monica’s persistent tears and supplications for her son served as a sign that God’s call was there. Augustine related how "an exasperated bishop, frustrated by Monica’s never-ending entreaties that he talk to her son, finally lost his temper: ’Go away from me now. As you live, it is impossible that the son of such tears should perish.’ As she was often wont to recall in her conversatioi~s with me, she took this as if it had sounded forth from heaven" (3:12). In his Confessions Augustine looks back and retells his life and recalls the events that God used to show him that his call was present. At the time, Augustine was not aware of God’s intent, but in looking back he could see that his life was filled with incidents (10:35) which God used to lead him to himself. Indeed, .he very boldly sees the direct hand of God in these events: "’You worked within me, then, so that I might be persuaded to go to Rome, and to teach there rather than a( Carthage .... At Rome you set allurements before me by which 1 would be drawn thither. All of this you did .... To cor-rect my steps you secretly made use of both their perversity and my own" (5:8). Augustine did not hesitate to see these events of his life as the actual working of God calling him to himself. When he took ill in Rome and nearly died, he relates: "You caused me to recover from that illness" (5:10). From A Journey of Faith: The Confessions of St. Augustine / 653 Rome Augustine traveled to Milan. "All unknowing, I was led to him [St. Ambrose] by you, so that through him 1 might be led, while fully knowing it, to you" (5:13). Toward the end of the Confessions Augustine sums up strikingly his awareness that from the beginning God had called him, chosen him for himself alone: "I call upon you, my God, my mercy, you who made me, and did not forget me, although I forgot you. I call you into my soul, which you prepare to accept you by the longing that you breathed into it" (3:1). Resistance What is the mystery by which the call of God is thrown away, ignored, fled from? Why does a man choose misery rather than rest and happiness in the Lord? It is the mystery of sin, and Augustine deeply experienced that mystery: "I was far from your face in the darkness of my passions. Not on foot, and not by distance of place do we depart from you or return to you" (1 : 18). Just as God placed his call deep within the heart, seeking Augustine there, so also by the heart did Augustine flee from God. This fleeing caused him great misery because, in effect, it separated him from his very own heart: "Where was I, when I sought you? You were before me, but 1 had departed even from myself, and I did not find myself, how much less you!" (5:2). Augustine describes himself as being in "that disordered state in which I laid in shattered pieces, wherein, turned away from you, the one, I spent myself upon the many" (2:1). Time and again he recalls how he threw away God’s call: "1 sinned, O Lord my God..." (1:10). "... 1 departed from you. I broke all your laws..." (2:2). "That I might cling even more firmly to its very navel, my invisible enemy crushed me under foot and seduced me, for 1 was easy to seduce" (2:3). "We pursued an empty fame..." (4:1). "... 1 wandered away from you into a far country, so that I might waste it all upon lust and harlots" (4:16). How vividly Augustine describes his distance from the Lord and how firmly it took root in him as he became a Manichaean. "And so 1 fell in with certain men, doting in their pride, too-carnal minded and glib of speech, in whose mouths were the snares of the devil... ’Truth! Truth!’ Many times they said it to me, but it was never inside them" (3:6). In running away from the Lord, Augustine went deeper and deeper into darkness and so his wretchedness and misery increased. Thus, the rift within his heart grew deeper: "1 sought for you outside myself, but | did not find you, the God of my heart. I went down into the depth of the sea, and I lost confidence, and 1 despaired of finding the truth" (6:1). The deeper the pain the more he sought relief, and yet, since his searching was down a false path, he only found himself further imprisoned: "The enemy had control of my will, and out of it he fashioned a chain and fettered me with it. For in truth lust is made out of a perverse will, and when lust is served, it becomes habit, and when habit is not resisted, it becomes necessity. 654 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 By such links...a harsh bondage held me fast" (8:5). The more Augustine resisted, the deeper his pain and misery. Yet, he continued to resist and so the wretchedness of his state increased. "You have ordered it, and so it is, that every disordered mind should be its own punishment" (1:12). And so, Augustine poignantly cries, "I became to myself a land of want" (2:10). From these depths Augustine began to see that there was a road of light leading him out of his misery and sin. It was at this point that he began to experience his deepest misery-- resistance and vacillation. Seeing the light he still held back: "...just as a man who has had trouble with a poor physician fears to entrust himself to even a good one, so it was with my soul’s health" (6:14). "Tomorrow I will find it. It will appear clearly to me, and I will accept it" (6:11). "While I was saying all this to myself and the winds were shifting and driving my heart now this way and now that, time passed, and still I delayed to be converted to the Lord. From day to day I deferred to live in you, but in no day did I defer to die in myself. I loved the happy life, but I feared to find it in your abode, and 1 fled from it, even as I sought it" (6:11). As much as Augustine sensed his misery so all the more did he find himself trapped. The quicksand of his sin and turning from the Lord encompassed him all the more as he sought to break loose. "What torments there were in my heart in its time of labor, O my God, what groans!" (7:7). "A new will, which had begun within me, to wish freely to worship you and find joy in you, O God, the sole sure delight, and not yet able to overcome that prior will, grown strong with age. Thus did my two wills, the one old, the other new, the first carnal, and the second spiritual, contend with one another, and by their conflict they laid waste my soul" (8:5). Augustine’ was still not able to break loose. He found himself confronted with the truth but "... the way, the Savior himself, had become pleasing, but as yet I was loath to tread its narrow passes" (8:1). Conversion Afier years of struggle, darkness, and sin, there came that fateful day in the garden. Tormented by the struggle of vacillation within, Augustine flung himself down on the ground and gave free rein to his tears (8:12). "How long?" he cried over and over. "Tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not in this very hour an end to my uncleanness?" (8:12). It was in the midst of those cries and groans that Augustine heard that graced voice: "Tolle, lege! Toile, lege!" ("Take up and read. Take up and read" 8:12). Augustine knew not whence the voice came--a child playing? an angel’s call?--but he heard it as a command from God. So I hurried back to the spot where Alypius was sitting for I had put there the volume of the apostle when I got up and left him. I snatched it up, opened it, and read in silence the chapter on which my eyes first fell. "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurity, not in strife and envying; but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh and its concupiscences" (Rm 13:1_~’-14). No further wished I to read, nor was there need to do so. Instantly, in truth, at the end of this sentence, as if A Journey of Faith: The Confessions of St. Augustine / 655. before a peaceful Light streaming into my heart, all the dark shadows of doubt fled away. At last, Augustine comes to his senses, or better, is brought to his senses. The path is found, the light is seen: "Our darkness displeased us, and we were converted to you, and light was made. Behold, we were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord" (13:12). In reading the Confessions it is quite clear that Augustine’s conversion, although dramatically realized in the garden, was a step-by-step journey inex-orably leading him to that final moment, a journey that first turned his mind to a search for wisdom and finally turned his heart to the Lord. At age nine-teen he read an exhortation to philosophy entitled Hortensius. "This book changed my affections. It turned my prayers to you, Lord, and caused me to have different purposes and desires. All my vain hopes forthwith became worthless to me, and with incredible ardor of heart 1 desired undying wisdom. I began to rise up, so that I might return to you" (3:4)--the first step, a halting step, in a journey of faith to God. Another significant event in the process of conversion was the i:leath of a dear friend that tore apart the heart of Augustine. "My heart was made dark by sorrow, and whatever I looked upon was death. My native place was a tor-ment to me, and my father’s house was a strange unhappiness. Whatsoever I had done together with him was, apart from him, turned into a cruel torture .... To myself I became a great riddle .... Only weeping was sweet to me" (4:4). Augustine’s restless heart unconsciously told him that the human heart can never be fully at rest in what is merely human and that one’s love for what is human can only be "in God." "If you find 151easure in bodily things, praise God for them, and direct your love to their maker, lest because of things that please you, you may displease him. If you find pleasure in souls, let them be loved in God. In themselves they are but shifting things; in him they stand firm; else they would .pass and perish. In him, therefore, let them be loved, and with you carry up to him as many as you can" (4:2). Many steps toward conversion were prompted by a "significant other": first and foremost, Monica, the bishop, Ambrose, even the Manichaean bishop Faustus (in a negative way, see 4:12), all served that conversion, as did Simplicianus who touched Augustine with the story of the conversion of Victorinus (8:2); and finally Ponticianus who told Augustine the story of Anthony the Hermit. "Ponticianus told us this story, and as he spoke, you O Lord, turned me back upon myself. You took.me from behind my own back, where I had placed myself because I did not wish to look upon myself. You stood me face to face with myself.., the day had come when I stood stripped naked before myself .... 1 was overwhelmed with shame and horror, while Ponticianus spoke of such things .... There remained only speechless dread, and my soul was fearful, as if of death itself, of being kept back from that flow of habit by which it w.as wasting away unto death" (8:7). Monica, Ambrose, Faustus, Simplicianus, Ponticianus, and a host of others paved the 656 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 way for that moment in the garden when at last he would be set free. Covenant The conversion of Augustine touched that restless heart, quieting the misery and agony and healing the brokenness of sin. Augustine wrote, the Confessions around the age of forty-five, some twelve years after his baptism. The memory of the previous steps away from God and then back to him are still etched deeply into his heart. And yet what overshadows and heals those painful memories is the experience of loving union, covenant with the Lord. He cries: Too late have 1 loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved you! Behold you were within me while I was outside .... You have called to me and have cried out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light, and have shone upon me, and you have put my blindness to flight! You have sent forth fragrance, and 1 have drawn in my breath, and l pant after you. 1 have tasted you, and 1 hunger and thirst after you. You have touched me, and I have burned for your peace (10:27). Augustine feels the touch of God and all he can do is cry out in ecstasy. The moment of conversion set him free and now he is renewed. "Out of what deep and hidden pit was it called forth in a single moment, wherein to bend my neck to your mild yoke and my shoulders to your light burden, O Christ Jesus, my helper and my redeemer? How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be free of the sweets of folly" (9:1). The experience deepened within Augustine an awareness of his past sin as he saw the darkness of his life in the new light of Christ. As he prayed the Psalms, awaiting baptism, he experienced both deep repentance and trust. "1 shook with fear, and at the same time I grew ardent with hope and exultation in your mercy, O Father" (9:4). As he prayed Psalm 4 he exclaimed: For there, within my chamber, where 1 was angry with myself, where 1 suffered com-punction, where i made sacrifice, slaying my old self, and with initial meditations on my own renewal of life, hoping in you, there you began to grow sweet to me, and you gave joy to my heart, i cried out, as 1 read those things outwardly and found them within myself (9:4). Renewal, repentance, joy, peace, all these were deeply felt by Augustine as he let go of his past life and found new life in Christ. "We were baptized, and anxiety over our past life fled away from us. In those days I could not take my fill of meditating with wondrous sweetness on the depths of your counsel con-cerning the salvation of mankind" (9:6). This experience of the Lord reached a depth, or better an unspeakable height as, after his conversion, Monica and Augustine prayed and discoursed together of God’s wonderful works. "We ascended higher yet by means of in-ward thought and discourse and admiration of your works, and we came up to our own minds. We transcended them, so that we attained to the region of abundance that never fails..." (9:10). Both experienced the ecstasy of life in A Journey of Faith: The Confessions of St. Augustine / 657 the Lord, so that their longing for full and final resting in the Lord intensified. It was shortly after this that Monica died and did indeed attain that rest. These experiences of covenant with the Lord only sought to intensify Augustine’s awareness of how little in the present he could freely and fully taste the richness of God’s love, for he was still weighed down by his present humanity and past sinfulness. Twelve years after the conversion Augustine’s restless heart was still aware that he had not yet arrived at the end of his journey. He laments his condition that despite his (onversion he still must struggle. "For in your sight I have become a riddle to myself, and this is my in-firmity" (10:33). That is why Augustine, having left his wandering path far behind, knows that he must ever continue to confess: "Therefore, when we confess to you our miseries and your mercies upon us, we lay bare before you our condition, so that you may set us wholly free" (11 : 1). Only in the continu-ing confession will he find the strength and the life necessary not to falter again. "Let me not be my own life: badly have I lived from myself: I was death to myself. In you I live again" (12:10). This experience of call, of resistance to the call, of conversion, and finally of covenant in the Lord formed a great spiral sweep in the life of Augustine, leading his life into God’s life. Each stage continued to echo in the life of Augustine after his conversion. He still had to face the scars received during his wanderings from God. He could not take for granted the gift the Lord had so graciously given to him. Towards the end of the Confessions he prays that he may continue and continue the journey of faith he began that fateful day in the garden: Give me yourself, O my God. Restore yourself to me! Behold, 1 love you, and if it be too little, let me love you more strongly. I cannot measure so as to know how much love may be wanting in me to that Which is sufficient so that my life may run to your embrace, and not be turned away, until it be hidden in the secret of your face. This alone 1 know, that apart from you it is evil with me, not only outside myself but also in myself, and that for me all abundance that is not my God is but want (13:8). Augustine writes the Confessions to praise God and to encourage his readers to do the same as he did: to prayerfully enter into one’s depths, to sub-ject onb’s life to that inner light, and so discover there the gracious handof God at work. Like Augustine, we must embark on our own journey of faith. He provides for us a model of what the journey entails and where it leads.-- to God. Jealousy and Envy William F. Kraft The last article by Dr. Kraft to appear in our pages was "Emergence and Formation in Adulthood," which appeared in the issue of May, 1979. He may be addressed through Carlow College; 3333 Fifth Ave.; Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Though not everyone is chronically jealous, most of us have had jealous moments. People who have never experienced any jealousy are unusual, for authentic living, including religious living, opens us to the possibility of en-countering the destructive forces of jealousy. Even rarer is the person who has never been tempted by the demon of envy. Indeed, the demons of jealousy and envy lurk in the shadows, ready to seduce us, especially if we think we are not vulnerable to ’them, if we assume that we are beyond them. We know that jealousy and envy can impede and often destroy precious relationships, as well as violate our dignity and fracture community living. Our intention is to explore the worlds of jealousy and envy, to explicate their sense and nonsense, and to discern how these potentially destructive experi-ences can help us become healthier and holier people. Jealousy Listen to this sister. 1 don’t know what’s happening to me. I never thought 1 could feel so jealous. Sure, I’ve had a few jealous feelings in the past, but they were short-lived and not very intense. Now, I feel that I’m being devoured by jealousy, so much so that i’m getting sick of it. Sister and I were always friendly acquaintances, and about a year ago we became close friends. I was never so alive and happy or so close to anyone before. But about three months ago, things started to change, l started to get tense when I saw my friend having fun with someone else and soon I became anxiously angry when I thought she was having a good time without me. It’s so bad now that i just have to think thai she might be close to someone and I get depressed. 658 Jealousy and Envy / 659 My friend tells me that her relationships with others do not diminish our friendship; in fact she says that they should strengthen it. She says that by loving others we can love each other better. I know in my head that she is right, but my heart protests and becomes heavy. I want to trust her; I want to trust me. I know that my jealousy is destroying what I value most. What can 1 do? What can this sister do to break through her confinement and perhaps even learn from her bondage? And what about those of us who abstain from intimate relationships in order to prevent the pain of possible jealousy? How can we risk leaving our safe and sterile stand? Wherever we are on the con-tinuum of jealousy, how can we cope with, learn from, and transcend jealousy? We begin with understanding and accepting that a key dynamic of jealousy is insecurity. Because of my insecurity, I can neither accept nor cope well with real or imaginary rivalry. In extreme cases, I make everyone a rival. For various reasons which may be rooted in the beginning of my life, I can neither quite trust another’s love for me nor can I live securely without it. Being in such a bind, I feel compelled to be "too" carefulJto be cautious and suspicious, because I am fearful of losing the love I desperately need and feel unworthy of. Since I want .and need this other’s exlusive concern and atten-tion, our love determines whether or not I feel alive or dead. My tenuous security depends on our exclusive relationship. According to the research of Clanton and Smith, jealousy is usually caused from feeling excluded or from a fear of loss.’ Exclusion means that 1 feel that 1 am left out of an activity involving my partner and another. It is as if they are "in" and I am "out." 1 feel as though I am an ignored or unimportant third part of a triangle, and 1 react with anxious and usually silent protest. Though such jealousy is normally temporary, it nevertheless points to some lack of security. Think of this novice: I wished I didn’t feel the way 1 do, but 1 can’t help it. 1 am usually okay with our novice director except when i know he’s spending a lot of personal and special time with that other novice. Then I get jealous. I wonder what they’re talking about, or if the director likes him more than me. Most of all, I feel left out and sad. I know my director cares for me just as much, but | get unsettled when he’s caring particularly for him. The other novice and I get along pretty well, and 1 don’t get jealous when we are in a group. It just happens when he is alone with the director, and 1. guess 1 feel left out or not wanted. Needing exclusive affirmation, this individual is threatened by any kind of exclusion, and his fear of being excluded can go to such an extreme that he could become quasi-paranoid. He becomes suspicious of almost any activity that involves the director and excludes him. In order to lessen his anxiety, he may try to control the way the director lives, namely to pressure the director to be exclusively for him. Jealousy centered around a general fear of loss is more persistent than ~jealousy based on exclusion, which is contingent on a particular situation. 660 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 Rather than a passing feeling, this type of jealousy tends to linger and can even permeate one’s life. Instead of being an acute and minor wound, it tends to be a cancerous disease. Loss of face, or of self-esteem, is a frequent dynamic of such jealousy. "What will others think if 1 have no friends or partner" can be an irritating question. Some people feel they are no good or that something is wrong with them when they have no friends. If one’s self-esteem or worth depends too much on having a friend, or on an exclusive affirmation from another, then the real or potential loss of the partner can be devastating. The loss is not only that of a friend, but of one’s personal worth. Though the individual may try to blame his friend, he often blames himself, feels guilty because of his lack of autonomy. When I cannot live without you, 1 am a dependent person. Certainly a friend should mean a great deal; so if, for instance, he or she should die, mourning, perhaps for life, is appropriate. But one also has to go on living. When a person is dependent, he unconsciously uses his friend by leaning on and feeding off him. When the friend withdraws, or the individual fears that he will lose him, his very existence is threatened, for he fears that he will lose his very nourishment and sustenance. Since he feels that he cannot nourish himself, his loss means starvation. Actually, he is selling himself terribly short, and, at the same time, maximizing the worth and power of the other. In his more anxious moments, he feels like a child whose life is in the other’s hands. Thus, the insecurity underlying jealousy is often rooted in dependency and self-minimization. Individuals are especially prone to withdraw, often in resentment, if their relationships are based on dependency. Being so dependent, they probably have difficulty in listening to their anger, hurt, and jealousy, because their guilt silences the truth of such feelings. Or they might try to retaliate by giving the cold-water treatment, or by trying to make their friends’ lives difficult. They try to retaliate in indirect and passive ways because of their insecurity and consequent difficulty in dealing with their anger. Jealousy may also mean a fear of the loss of control. Especially if the indi-vidual is a compulsive and arrogant person, he may want to control the life of his friend, to rule him. He assumes that his friend needs him, that his life can-not be very meaningful without him. Ultimately, he acts as though he is his friend’s savior. He strives for perfect security by controlling everything in his life, including his friend, because he is actually insecure. Losing control of his friend when the friend takes an interest in someone else evokes feelings of jealousy. When a dependent, self-effacing person and a compulsive, arrogant per-son form a relationship, eventual jealousy and resentment are likely to emerge. Consider a dependent sister who is manipulated with sincere inten-tions by an unconsciously arrogant sister. Perhaps the arrogant sister feels called to help the other sister become more autonomous. Unconsciously, she Jealousy and Envy / 66"1 fosters that sister’s dependency on her to the extent that the sister can only feel "free" with her. The dependent sister can easily feel jealous when her source of sustenance is jeopordized, given to others, or intentionally withheld. If, however, she becomes truly autonomous, the "helping" sister will often withdraw or refuse to accept the new relationship of equality. She may even resent the formerly dependent sister’s freedom, and become jealous when she forms authentic friendships. Jealousy is often "masked jealousy." For example, if an individual is withdrawn or asocial, he may find himself feeling jealous of other people’s friendships. In his jealousy, he may try to reduce their friendships to "par-ticular friendships," labeling them unchaste, or saying that they violate com-munity living. Unconsciously, he really wants and perhaps needs such friend-ship. But instead of listening to the truth of his jealousy, he hides behind the mask of righteousness. Actually he feels unworthy of friendship, and in a futile attempt to ease his pain, he subtly condemns others and alienates himself from the healing of community. This individual’s underlying insecurity usually is rooted in poor self-esteem and a lack of basic trust. Actually (and unfortunately), he sells himself short, for he implies that he is not good enough, and therefore can lose love. Perhaps he feels unworthy of love. Seeking security too much outside himself leads to a precarious existence, for he tries to hold on too tightly and carefully, and therefore weakens and perhaps destroys his love. What can the individual do if he is jealous, or how can he help another per-son who is jealous? First of all, he can stop any destructive behavior motivated by his jealousy. Though this is not easy and may call for mortifica-tion, he can be careful to abstain from intentionally maligning or violating the other person. Then, he should listen to his feelings of jealousy, listen to what they say. For instance, "Am I insecure? Am 1 selling myself short? Am 1 too dependent? Compulsive? Do 1 really trust? If not, why not?" Frequently the insecurity of jealousy begins early in life, long before one enters religious life. The seeds of dependency, distrust, and especially rejection are usually planted in childhood and inadvertently nourished in adulthood by both self and others. To cope with and transcend jealousy 1 must love myself. Rather than feel-ing guilty for my feelings, 1 accept and learn from them. Love means letting be, to embrace one’s whole being unconditionally, to comfort one’s scared self. In love, one’s wounds will heal. Instead of feeling guilty and beating oneself so that he numbs the truth of his feelings, he can listen, and love, and begin to move on. Rather than being embarassed by, scolding, beating, or re-jecting the insecure and frightened child within oneself, the individual can sit next to, listen to, touch, and love that precious little person. Most important, the individual must ultimately depend on God-- ultimately on no one else. Though others are essential to love, they are not primary. When 1 make anyone other than God primary or ultimate, my 669 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 dependency impedes healthy and holy growth. Likewise, I am ultimately secured in God; no one, including myself, can save me from my existential in-security and my own peculiar anxieties. Experiencing God being in our midst and being the ground and reason for our being together is the redemptive vision that heals jealousy as well as other wounds. To be sure, it can be extremely difficult to heal especially when one feels re-jected and unworthy of any love--including God’s love. Even if I am con-vinced that I am worthless, I must constantly remind myself, even though it is only intellectual, that no matter what 1 feel, 1 am loved by God. Psychologically, what is in the mind can protect the heart and in time penetrate the heart. Spiritually, my belief encourages me to be vigilant with prayer and eventually leads to faith and the experience ot’ God’s healing love. The challenge is that even when one’s friend treats him unjustly, he should not feel jealous if he has healthy self-esteem and basic trust. Though he can, and perhaps should feel hurt, being hurt need not elicit jealousy. Rather than being blinded by the eyes of jealousy, the person can take a wise and sober look at what is going on. Rather than maximizing the love of any third person; and minimizing my own worth, the individual should try to see what is really happening. Ideally, in love, he can say to his friend: "I do not like what you are doing and I wish that you would stop because I feel you are hurting me and yourself. I feel that your actions can destroy our relationship which is very im-portant to me. Nevertheless, I will always be here for you in love regardless of what you do, because we are members of the same community of human-divine- kind." What should 1 do if someone is jealous toward me? The starting point is always to discern oneself. For instance, I have to ask honestly and truthfully if I have had any hand in the process. Am I promoting a sense of exclusion or loss, consciously or unconsciously? Knowing where I stand, only then can I begin to appreciate the stand of my friend, can I understand and appreciate his feelings, and how I have responded to them. For instance, have 1 un-consciously reinforced his dependency to make myself feel powerful? I can also try to appreciate how my friend has come to feel jealous. Seldom is a person insecure, dependent, or controlling, out of willfulness. More fre-quently, such a person has learned very early in life to act this way and has relatively little freedom to change. Understanding this, can I become the com-passionate person who helps my friend to bear his unjust burdens? Through such healing love, I can help him transcend his problems. 1 can invite him to become more of who he really is. Hopefully, my love will affirm our being in God’s love. Jealousy in me or in my friend can lead to constructive communication. Can jealousy help us to understand and appreciate each other better? Can we take the challenge of jealousy to affirm ourselves, to deepen our trust, and to help each other be? Rather than controlling each other, can we give each other the space and help to emerge? Can our struggle together in jealous love lead to Jealousy and Envy / 66:3 communion? Can we tame the jealous demons who try to destroy our com-munity- our union with and in God? Envy Sometimes envy is confused with jealousy, but, though in some ways similar, they are different. Jealousy is based on inter-personal relationships that involve a real or anticipated triangular relationship that engenders the threat of exclusion or loss which itself evokes destructive insecurity. In con-trast to jealousy which is based on being-with, envy is centered around "hav-ing." Envy implies coveting or desiring what another has. In short, envy in-volves feeling sad, irritated,, and insecure because I do not have what another individual has. I can covet any reality. For instance, I can covet personality traits (such as good looks), articulate speech, or the dynamic personality of someone else. 1 may want to have his functions, such as his job, position, or general perfor-mance level. Or I may feel sad because of the things he has such as clothes, money, or friends. Even the opportunities that another has had (that 1 have not had) may evoke sadness and perhaps some anger. Better opportunities in education, formation, leisure, work, community, and extra-community living may evoke intense and deep desires to have the same. Listen to this middle-aged sister: I get irritated when I see those young sisters being pampered. My God, some of them have not even made final profession. For example, they always seem to be going out at night, having a gay old time. They take two vacations a year, plus at least one retreat, plus weekend holidays, plus, plus, plus! You know how many vacations I have had in the past thirty-three years? 1’11 give you a round estimate: Zero! And another thing: they go to college full time and finish in four years, and most of them go to graduate school. Do you know how long it took me? Fourteen years of very hot summers along with the courses we sneaked inside the convent walls. And keep in mind, we had our regular charges plus all kinds of extra work. 1 suppose I shouldn’t complain, but i can’t help it. It’s not fair that we who have given so much are given so little. "They" just see us as workhorses and are only interested in what we can do. The younger ones have contributed relatively little and get so much more than we do~ Where would they be without us? Why can’t / reap some of the harvest? i wouldn’t mind going on a vacation, getting some formation, seeing a play. Why do they get the main meal and 1 get the crumbs? Though there is truth in what this sister says, the danger is that she max-imizes what she has done and did not have, and minimizes who she is and does, and what she did have. Sister can fool herself in yearning for counter-feits of happiness, and in neglecting to affirm and rejoice in the richness of who she is. Because of powerful and constant cultut~al pressures, we can be seduced by modern (and false) promises of fulfillment, and sadly sell ourselves short. We are conned into thinking that our value depends on what we have and do in this world rather than on who we are in God’s presence. 664 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 There are many reasons why an individual may overemphasize the value of "having." First of all, our culture places too much worth on having. Such cultural madness can reinforce my own madness, encouraging me to want to have more. In fact, I can end up measuring my worth according to what I have rather than according to who 1 am. Since in many ways the culture promotes envy, the individual must trans-cend his culture in order to transcend envy. He should be aware of how easy it is to be conditioned to assume that the measure of his worth depends of how much he has and does. Though he may know this intellectually, he may find it difficult, as evidenced by symptoms of envy, to believe that he is called to live poverty so that he can grow in freedom and joy. Another reason for being envious is that a person can sell fiimself short, and simultaneously maximize what others have. Especially if he has been taught to judge his worth according to what he has, he may always feel in-ferior, for there is always someone who has more. Or the person may strive compulsively to "look" superior by accumulating more and more. Actually, he lacks a sense of autonomy because his worth is based too much on outside factors rather than on internal processes. He focuses too much on the periphery of life rather than on his original self. The lethal danger is to forget the sacred ground on which he stands, becoming too concerned with secular trivia, with passing phenomena. He must admit the reality that the source of his worth and meaning of his life are not basically dependent on what he does and has, but ultimately on being useless, stripped for God. A similar dynamic of envy is that the individual may place too much em-phasis on how he functions. In a competitive age that stresses performance and success, he can become hyper-concerned with his production rate, par-ticularly in comparison to otliers. Especiaily if he has to be perfect or act in a certain way to feel accepted, he can easily be envious of people who seem to achieve more and better than he does. He may find himself always comparing himself, so that he only feels good when he is near the top. He settles only for the impossible: to be perfect on earth. Since he cannot (and should not) be "perfect," he lives ~vith a sense of loss and failure, which often evokes depres-sion. Besides direct envy, there are more subtle manifestations of envy. A com-mon, but indirect form of envy is shown through criticism of what others have. Rather than genuinely affirming or praising what another person has ac-complished or acquired, some people are always ready to criticize, or to manifest other forms of sour grapes. For example, if someone has earned a master’s degree, the envious person might say: "That’s nice. But master’s degrees aren’t what they u.sed to be." Or the envious person might say, "Yes, I know how that feels-- 1 got mine, too?’ Or, consider various responses to a person who is reading a novel: "I wish I had time for such reading." "Some people have all the time in the world." "Don’t you have anything better to Jealousy and Envy / 665 do?" Whatever the envious comment, it is always turned back to oneself in some sour fashion, instead of reflecting true rejoicing for the other. Whatever the person has or has done is leveled, denied, or demeaned. In these ways does the envious person try to make the other seem to have or to be less. To minimize and criticize what another has is a negative way of coping with the pain of envy. To say that you are not very intelligent or kind can be an indirect way of building myself up. Or to say that so-and-so dresses poorly can be a sutble and hostile way of trying to say that I dress well. In short, to have anybody lowered so that I can feel higher is a violation of the very idea of com-munity. A more directly negative approach is simply to want more for myself than the other person has. Keeping ahead of others is a very normal, though mad way of living. In helping myself and others to deal with movements of envy, again I begin with myself--listening to what my envy is saying. What are the manifesta-tions of my envy? What am I really envious of (or for)? And what if 1 really got~what 1 wanted? What difference would it ultimately make? 1 must climb the mountain of contemplation to listen to, and affirm the true source of my worth. Envy can actually be the occasion of my affirming the real source of my permanent security and happiness. The demon of envy can actually call forth the spirit of love. If I am envious, I should seek solitude for reflection and/or direction with another for purposes of discerning how and why 1 find myself valuing what I have or what I do over what I am. I should be clearly and consistently aware of the cultural values (within and outside of religious life) that foster envy and that militate against my sense of poverty. 1 can reflect on how my personal history and present life-style have promoted an overemphasis on externals. For example, how often did I sense affirmation in just being me? How often have I been rewarded only for successful performance, or punished for failure? Do I really live according to my professed hierarchy of values? Do I actually center my life around being in love with God and others? What im-pedes me? What can 1 do about the temptation to possess the world while los-ing my spirit? Rather than letting envy fracturg life and community, each one should be a true witness of poverty, which includes setting a value upon being that is greater than having. I can affirm that the true value of having lies in its service to being, that possessions are good when’ they are used to celebrate living. Envy challenges me to let go of things and to do nothing but be with God. To see through the seduction of envy is the springboard to a contemplative life. When another person is envious of me, I am challenged by this fact to accept and understand his envy, not to retaliate with hostility. For instance, 1 have to be careful not to expose his envy so bl~i~antly that I make him look like a fool. At the same time, I should also refuse to play games like feeding his en-vious appetite deliberately displaying what I have, perhaps also lowering him 666 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 and t.hus making him feel more envious. I try to accept him unconditionally in his envy, rather than to make a condition of my acceptance that he be without envy. I neither condone or condemn the envious person, but I see him as a community member whose envy is impeding us being closer together. Such acceptance (which does not reinforce envious behavior) invites him to relax and facilitates his letting go, his being at ease with me. His envy, however, does make for a difficult test of such unconditional acceptance. In reaction to the envious person, 1 can all to easily withdraw, become hostile in turn, or silently criticize him. Such approaches only serve to confuse the main issue, often making the envious person feel justified. Rather than feeding his hungry demons, 1 can appreciate his tenuous security and strive to be compassionate. I can acknowledge that we are all tattered threads of the same tapestry which God mends into beauty. In these ways, Igive what I want to receive when I really want to change the other person and myself. I treat him with love and in love rather than feed his envy by lowering or controlling him. In love, | experience our true worth as being the same in God. And, in love, l have no need to be envious myself because 1 acknowledge that we are all brothers and sisters. 1 discover that what is yours is really mine and that what is mirie is really yours. I realize that originally and ultimately we are one in God. Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development by Philip D. Cristantiello Price: $.60 per copy, plus postage. Add ress: Review for Religious Room 428 3601 Undell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 St. Benedict and Education Peter M. Collins Peter Collins is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Marquette University; 502 N. 15th St.; Milwaukee, WI 53233. S, aint Benedict of Nursia (C.480-c.547), the founder of Western monasticism, might be considered a leading educator in the Western world, yet was a relatively minor figure in the history of education in the West. An ex-planation of this paradox demands a clear distinction between the role of Benedict himself .and the place of the Benedictine monks in educational history. Life Since there are only two "historical" sources for the life of Benedict-- the Holy Rule’ and the second book of the Dialogues’ of Saint Gregory the Great (540?-604)--and since neither provides much of the kind of information sought by the modern biographer, the details of his life are at best scant. Benedict was born in approximately 480 in Nursia to wealthy parents, who sent him to nearby Rome in due time to pursue a liberal education in the Roman schools. Disgusted by the worldliness and vice he encountered, the young man fled to a lonely wilderness about thirty-five miles from Rome and, about the year 500, embraced a life of solitude in a place called Subiaco.’ ’ The Rule of Saint Benedicl, translated by Cardinal Ga~quet (N.Y.: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1966). All further references to the Rule will be to this edition. 2 Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Life and Miracles of Saint Benedict (Book Two of the Dialogues), translated by Odo J. Zimmerman, O.S.B., and Benedict R. Avery, O.S.B. (Collegeville, Min-nesota: The Liturgical Press, 1949). All further references to this work will be to this edition. ~ Saint Gregory the Great, Chapter I, pp. I-2; Dora Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monachism: Studies in Benedictine Life and Rule, second edition (N. Y.: Longmans, Green & Co., 1924), p. 3. 667 6611 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 Within about three years he began to attract visitors and soon had established in the neighborhood twelve monasteries of twelve monks each.’ Benedict’s next and last move, to Monte Cassino (about seventy-five miles from Rome), probably occurred about 525-530.’ Here he spent the rest of his life governing his monks. Not long before his death (which occurred about 547), he com-pleted writing the Holy Rule.6 Holy Rule Although Benedict drew heavily upon the writings of monastic as well as non-monastic predecessors, the "new elements put into his Rule...and the new combination of older elements, form a good title to the claim of original-ity.’’ 7 A combination of theoretical principles and practical regulations, this document embodied a clear expression of the author’s primary purpose of life: "First of all, to love the Lord God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength.’’8 The means to this end was the establishment of "a school for the services of God,"9 in which the monks were to be occupied in manual labor, reading, and the liturgy of the Church.’° The priority of the last named (Opus Dei) of these three is clear," and the spiritual or religious rather than intellectual pur-pose of the prescribed reading (lectio divina) is equally evident.~2 The third monastic activity (opus manuum) has caused interpreters difficulty since early times, partially bi~cause "... the hints and silences of the Rule and of Saint Gregory’s Life of Benedict become the more tafitalizing in proportion as they are more carefully noted .... ’"~ Whether or not Benedict was the first to introduce definite, formal monastic vows," he made clear provision for the vows of stability, conversion of manners, and obedience. ’8 Overlooking the problematic character of these three vows, we can interpret the first as signifying "... an irrevocable life in community, and in the community of his profession’"6 (avow obviously open to some exceptions);’7 and the second, as "abandonment of a sinful or worldly life, and the direction of our activity towards the supernatural’"8 in terms of ’ Saint Gregory the Great, p. 16. ~ Chapman disagrees with these dates, suggesting that Benedict left Rome in 496 and founded Monte Cassino in 520. See Dom John Chapman, Saint Benedict and the Sixth Century (London: Sheed & Ward, 1929), p. 146. 6 Butler, pp. 169, 162. ’ Ibid., p. 164. 8 TheRule, Chapter IV, p. 17. ~ Ibid., "Prologue," p. 6. ~° The Rule, Chapter XLIII, p. 78, and Chapter XLVlll, p. 84; see also Cardinal Gasquet in the "Introduction" to the Rule, pp. xxiii - xxiv. " The Rule, Chapter XLlll, p. 38: "Nothing... shall be put before the Divine Office." ’~ Dom David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), p. 6. ’~ Ibid. ~’ Butler, p. 122. ’~ The Rule, Chapter LVlll, pp. 100-01. ,6 Butler, p. 129. ,7 Ibid., p. 134. ,8 Dom Paul Delatte, The Rule of Saint Benedict (A Commenlary), translated by Dom Justin McCann (Latrobe, Pennsylvania: Saint Vincent Archabbey Press, 1959--first published in 1921), p. 389. St. Benedict and Education / 669 the Rule. ,9 The true spirit of obedience, the third vow, was obviously insepa-rable from humbleness of heart and the renunciation of self-will.’° Central to the "idea" or spirit of Benedict’s Rule were the virtues of humility and obedience." Also very important to the first abbot of Monte Cassino was the community aspect of the monastic life,’2 which manifested his genius for order and organization.23 The concept designated by the terms "balance," "mean," "equilibrium," "harmony," "middle path," and "measure" suggests a noteworthy dimension of Benedict’s principles. This refers to his ability to attain "the truth of supreme simplicity by reconciling and rising above extremes that seem opposed to one another.’"’ For example, Benedict sought to balance, or find the appropriate mean between, the capabilities of human nature and the action of grace, ’~ contemplation and ac-tivity, 26 rigorism and laxity,27 and joyousness of heart and gravity of purpose and bearing.28 Although the Rule represented a combination of principles and detailed regulations, its prime motifs and directions were highly unified. They include: "love of God as the ultimate end of man; humility, obedience and the spirit and actuality of community as highly significant means to that end; and the doc-trine of measure or balance of extremes which was to be grasped intellectually, applied theoretically, and lived concretely. Education As already indicated, in order to ascertain the educational implications of the Rule, a distinction must be made between Benedict and his Rule, on one hand, and later Benedictine monks and their interpretations and applications of that Rule, on the other. "Education" here will be taken to signify 1) the operation of schools and formal teaching, and 2) the work of scholarship, as such.~9 ,9 Butler, p. 137. 2o Ibid., p. 140. 2, Dom i. Ryelandt, O.S.B., Saint Benedict the Man, authorized translation by Rev. Patrick Shaughnessy, O.S.B., of The Moral Physiognomy of Saint Benedict (Saint Meinrad, Indiana: Grail Publication, 1950), pp. 10-1 I, 14. 22 The Rule, Chapter.I, p. 9. 2J The Count de Montalember! Monks of the West, vol. 1 (Boston: Patrick Donahoe, 18721), p. 426. 2, Knowles,-p. 15; see also Knowles, p. 14; Ryelandt, pp. 20, 59; Dom Justin McCann, Saint Benedict (N.Y.: She,d & Ward, 1937), p. 185; and Bossuet’s remark cited by Montalembert, I, pp. 434-35. 2~ Ryelandt, p. 15. 2~ Ibid., p. 36. 2~ Butler, p. 303. ~ Ryelandt, pp. 6-8, 95-96. For a general comment upon the Rule illustrating this principle of what Buber would call the "narrow ridge," one can see Bossuet’s remark cited by Montalembert, i, pp. 434-35. ~9 The separate treatment of teaching and scholarship is in no way intended to create a real division between them. The distinction is made simply to reflect the treatment of this topic as it is found in the literature; it is also made, of course, in light of the fact that the work of the scholar does not necessarily entail formal teaching. 670 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 A. Benedict and the Rule The two questions to be considered are the following: 1) did the Rule pro-vide for the monk’s undertaking the duties of a teacher (in the formal sense of classroom teacher)? and 2) did the Rule promote the life of a scholar for the monks? 1. The Rule and Formal Teaching A discussion of formal education is conspicuous by its absence in the above analysis of the Rule. That vacuum is perhaps not an entirely accurate reflection of the contents of the document; however, the extremely minor place of anything classified as "school education" justifies our reference to an omission. Two remarks are now apropos: a) the author of the Rule did refer explicitly to "a school for the services of God";~° and b) very young boys are accepted into Benedict’s monastery.~’ Although Benedict employed the term "school," there is no good evidence that it should be taken in any but the broadest meaning, and certainly not without its modifier "for the service of God.’’~2 That young boys did live in Benedict’s monastery at Subiaco is clear from Gregory’s account of Maurus and Placidus.~ Although these and other young boys presumably were pro-vided an education sufficient to enable them to participate intelligently in the divine services and to read the Scriptures,j" attention was given in the Rule only to the discipline of them. ~ Furthermore, Benedict did not even hint at the possibility that "manual labor" for some monks was to consist of formal teaching. While from the Rule numerous specific implications can be drawn for the schooling process, Benedict apparently was directly interested in "education" only in a very wide sense-- as the formation of persons in the image of Christ, persons motivated to know, to do, and to be, in the highest Christian spirit. Evidence for the fact that Benedict did not intend directly to make classroom teachers of his monks is found in the central purpose of the Rule and the omis-sion of any details regarding formal education. This, however, by no means automatically renders the work of a teacher inimical to Benedict’s vision of the monastic life.~6 ~o The Rule, "Prologue," p. 6: "We are therefore now about to institute a school for the service of God .... " ~’ Saint Gregory the Great, p. 16; see also Butler, pp. 322-24; and M.L.W. Laistner; Thought and Letters in Western Europe, A.D. 500 to 900 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1931 ), p. 93. ~2 Delatte, p. 19. " Saint Gregory the great, Chapter 3, p. 16; see also Augusta Theodosia Drane (Mother Francis Raphael, O.S.D.), Christian Schools and Scholars, or Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of Trent, new edition, edited by Walter Grumbly, O.P. (N.Y.: Benziger Brothers, 1925), p. 33. ~’ L.aistner, p. 93 ~ The Rule, Chapter LXX, p. 121. ~6 Sister M. Alfred Schroll, O.S.B., Benedictine Monasteries as Reflected in the Warnefrid- Hildemar Commentaries on the Rule (N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1941), p. 15. St. Benedict and Education / 671 2. The Rule and Scholarship References to scholarly pursuits, as such, were non-existent in the Rule. The monastic activities which arise in discussions of the possibility of the scholarly monk are reading and (manual) labor. The great importance of reading was made clear in many passages in the Rule.37 A specific ’kind of reading was also suggested: the Scriptures and the Church Fathers.38 Although there might be some reason for positing the tendency of this kind of daily activity to dispose at least some monks toward purely intellectual ac-tivities,~ 9 the reading prescribed was undoubtedly "devotional rather than in-tellectual in character and scope,’’’° "done for the benefit of the monk’s own soul.’"’ The fact that the "monks at first were neither priests nor scholars...-,2 provides further evidence (along with the purpose of the Rule and the kind of reading prescribed) that "reading" meant to Benedict not a pursuit of scholarship as such, but rather a perusal of primarily religious writers (inspired and otherwise) by the monks in order to enhance their union with God. "Manual labor" was also mentioned above as an activity associated with the question of scholarship in the monastery. The issue here is whether this ac-tivity signified."mental labor" as well as physical or manual labor. Although the matter is not completely clear, there appears little basis for anything other than a literal interpretation of labor manuum. The "proved learning’’’~ (interpreted as "prudence, tact, and a feeling for what is spiritual and monastic")" required of prospective deans of the monastery represented no exception to the conclusion that Benedict did not directly promote the life of a scholar’ for his monks, a position which, of course, does not necessarily invalidate later Benedictine developments in the intellectual life. B. Benedictine Interpretations and Applications of the Rule In comparing Benedict and Benedictinism, the questions arise whether the teaching and scholarly efforts within the latter represent appropriate exten-sions and developments of the Rule. Broaching those issues may assist us in better understanding not only true Benedictinism, but also the original docu-ment upon which it is founded. Although there is some difficulty in as’certaining Benedict’s whole and ~’ The Rule, Chapter XLVIII, pp. 84-87; Chapter XXXVIil, p. 71; Chapter IV, p. 20. ~ Ibid., Chapter LXXlll, pp. 123-24. ~9 Butler, pp. 333-34; and Knowles, p.’6. ’° Ibid., p. 32. " Dom David Knowles, The Benedictines (N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., 1930), p. 14; for a similar comment, see also Dom Hubert Van Zeller, The Benedictine Idea (London: Burns & Oates, 1959), pp. 65-66. ¯ 2 David Knowles, Christian Monasticism (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1969) p. 36. "’ The Rule, Chapter XXI, p. 52. " Delatte, p. 197. 67’2 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 precise intent in setting down his arrangements for monastic activities, one principle was certain and should be kept in mind in considering the teaching and scholarship of Benedictines: no particular kind of activity was to be pur-sued for its own sake by a monk. The Benedictine monk "does not exist to do this work or that, but to serve God and to save his soul.’’’~ 1. Benedictines and Formal Teaching The establishment of schools by the followers of Benedict is hardly a new topic to historians of education. Our attention now will be focused briefly upon the "Benedictine Centuries" and American Benedictinism before at-tempting to determine the consistency between these developments and Benedict’s Rule. The term "Benedictine Centuries" refers to the span of approximately six hundred years between c.550 and c.! 150, from the era of Gregory the Great to the rise of the new orders of monks and canons, the emergence of the univer-sities, the foundation of the orders of friars, and the development of scholastic philosophy and theology. "... during these centuries the.only type of religious life available in the countries concerned (Italy and the countries of Europe north and west of Italy--excepting the Celtic civilization) was monastic; and the only monastic code was the Rule of Saint Benedict.’’’6 Since Benedict’s rule was the only monastic code, and since, during the time of Charlemagne, "nearly all the schools which possessed more than a local im-portance were monastic,’’’7 practically all the schools of greater than local significance during Charlemagne’s reign were, in effect, Benedictine schools. Oneof the best known commentators on schools taught by the disciples of Benedict during this era is Cardinal Newman. In his unique style he characterized this conservative educational.tradition--these Benedictine teachers were experimentally oriented, not highly inventive, and given to preferring the old books and subjects--and the fittingness of this in its time.’8 Boniface Wimmer, the individual most responsible for the inception of American Benedictinism in 1846, envisioned a vital role for the Benedictine school.’9 In fact, the American Cassinese Congregation, with its headquarters at the Archabbey of Saint Vincent, Beatty, Pennsylvania, "took secondary 4~ Knowles, The Benedictines, p. 50; see also Montalembert, 1, p. 436. ’~ Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, p. 3. " Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, a new edition in three volumes edited by F.M. Powicke & A.B. Emden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 29. ,8 John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Benedictine Schools" in Essays and Sketches, vol. I Ii, edited by C.F. Harrold (N.Y.: Longmans, Green & Co., 1948), pp. 243-44, 311, 317. The ap-propriateness of this conservative tendency during the era in question is explained further by the editor, pp. xiii-xiv. ¯ 9 "Boniface Wimmer Outlines the Future of the Benedictine Order in the United States, November 8, 1845," in Documents of American Catholic History by John Tracy Ellis (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1962), pp. 284-85. St. Benedict and Education / 673 and higher education as their principle work .... The initial educational efforts, .under the leadership of Wimmer, were perhaps not totally unrelated to the later development in this country of the Benedictine Educational Association. This organization, re-named the Na-tional Benedictine Educational Association in 1919, held its first meeting July 8, 1918, at Saint Vincent’s.~’ Its general purpose was to increase excellence in American Catholic education in general and American Benedictine education in particular,s2 After each annual meeting, the proceedings were published.~3 Although the last meeting of the association was held in 1943,~’ the formation and development of this educational group does illustrate a genuine Benedic-tine interest in participating in the formal process of education. Having established the fact that the duties of formal teaching and the operation of schools have been an integral part of the lives of Benedictine monks through the centuries, there yet remains the question of the consistency of these efforts with the spirit and idea of Benedict as expressed in his Rule. In the words of a monk, ."The tradition of Benedictine education goes back far enough; the question is whether it has altered the Benedictine idea.’’ss According to a noteworthy opinion, the duties of a teacher do provide suitable activity for a monk.5~ Some of the reasons offered to substantiate the acceptability of formal teaching as a truly Benedictine enterprise (either sup-planting of supplementing the "manual labor" prescribed in the Rule) include the following: 1) its compatibility with living in community, 2) the fact that it stands the test of real work,~7 3) its religious character, and 4) the fact that it is a means of support bearing some relation to the labor expended (thereby safeguarding against idleness).58 Newman did not appear to be overly enthusiastic about a teaching career for the monk; he obviously envisions friction between the ideal calm and so Knowles, Christian Monasticism, p. 190. See also Norbert McGowan, O.S.B., "The Benedic-tine Fathers of the American Cassinese Congregation as a Factor in the Educational Life in the United States, 1846-1928," M.A; thesis, College of Arts and Letters, ,University of Notre Dame, 1929. s’ "Preliminary Meeting,’? P, roceedings and Proposed.,Constitution of the Benedictine Educa-tional Association, Archabbey of Saint Vincent, Beatty, Pennsylvania,, (1918), 3. ~2 Ibid., p. t4; and Report of the Proceedings and Addresses of the Secb’nd Annual Meeting of the National Benedictine Educational Association of the United States, ~aint Bede C~ollege, Peru, Illinois (1919), 3. sJ From 1919 to 1928 this annual volume was entitled the Report oftheProceedingsandAddresses at the A nnual Meeting of the National Benedictine Educational Association of the United States; in 1928 it became known~principally as the National Benedictine Educational Association Bulletin. ~ "For the Duration," The National Benedictine Educational Association Bulletin, Report of the Proceedings and Addresses. of the Annual Con ven tion of the National Benedictine Educational Association, (1943), 185. " Van Zeller, p. 69. so Butler, pp. 164, 376; Van Zeller, p. 45; McCann, p. 189 (f.n.); and Knowles, The Benedictines, p. 55. ~’ Butler, p~ 375. ’~ Knowles, The Benedictines, p. 55. 674 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 peaceful silence of the monk and the responsibilities of a teacher.~9 Among other reservations regarding full-time teaching for the monk are the follow-ing: 1) it absorbs too much time and interest, and entails a schedule which does not allow sufficiently for other monastic duties;6° 2) it demands, on some oc-casions at least, a contact with the world which may possibly become detri-mental to the monastic spirit; 3) it creates, due to academic vacations, an ebb and flow of work that is not wholly desirable;6’ and 4) it sometimes requires a long-term absence from the monastery (for example, in. order to attend graduate school). In light of these negative factors, one critic recently ex-pressed serious doubts that teaching in a large modern school or university can be reconciled with the monastic vocation.~2 What can we conclude regarding the compatibility of full-time formal teaching and the life of a Benedictine monk? The answer is somewhat complex and not agreed upon by all. Teaching as a monastic act.ivity has advantages and disadvantages, the need then being to weigh them against each other. At stake also is the need for this work to be.done as a service in particular cir-cumstances; however, the issue here concerns the long:term ideal rather than the demands or needs of the residents of a locale, or the demands of a special papal mission. Perhaps the question is not merely one of the fact of teaching in schools, but the kind of teaching (what subject or subjects--the presumption is that the school is Catholic or at least Christian) and the extent of the work. For ex-ample, teaching theology on a less than full-time basis would be a far different matter than teaching mathematics in a full schedule. In order to answer the question more completely, one would first have to ascertain the precise essence of monasticism, and then make further judgments in that light. Cer-tainly, for the Benedictine monk, neither teaching (nor any other activity) should be permitted to undermine the central purpose of his monastic life ac-cording to the Rule of Benedict. 2. Benedictines and Scholarship That in fact Benedictines did become intellectuals will be substantiated before entertaining the problem of the consistency of such .activities with Benedict’s ideal. Brief references will be made to the seventeenth and ~eigh-teenth century Maurists and, again, to American Benedictines. Responsible for one of the "golden epochs" of Benedictine history (1650-1720), the Congregation of Saint Maur, centered at Saint-Germain-des- Pr6s, set out to write the history of monasticism and of its saints, and soon found itself engaged in a work of general church history, local history, and French history. Although only about forty out of more than three thousand Newman, pp. 252, 303,307. 4o Knowles, Christian Monasticism, p. 242. Knowles, The Benedictines, p. 55. ~2 Knowles, Christian Monasticism, pp. 242-43. St. Benedict and Education / 675 Maurists were "whole-time publishing scholars,’’6~ during approximately the last thirty years of the seventeenth-century Saint-Germain-des-Pr~s was "the resort of the foremost representatives of the learned world in Paris .... "6’ The best known of the Maurist scholars of this era., Jean Mabillon (1632-1700), was one of the principals in the famous "Contestation" on monastic studies in France at the close of the seventeenth-century. In this noted encounter, Mabillon defended monastic scholarship against de Ranch, the abbot of la Trappe, who had restricted his Cistercians’ reading to the Bible and the strictly ascetical and devotional treatises of the Fathers and other spiritual writers.6~ The kind of scholarship undertaken by the ,Maurists was typical of that done by Benedictines prior to the close of the "Benedictine Centuries." The earlier scholarly Benedictines toiled primarily in history, the Scriptures, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the reconstruction of ancient docu.ments. "The phrase ’higher religious study’ is perhaps the best to describe the nature of .their work." 6~ On the American scene we find evidence of Benedictine scholarship in the establishment in 1924 of Saint Anselm’s, a Benedictine Priory for Research, in Washington, D.C.~7 Located adjacent to the Catholic University of America, the general purpose of this institution was to assist the monk to unite within himself a life of scholarship and a life ordered in accord with the Rule of Benedict.~8 Publication of The Placidian was assumed by the monks of the then new Saint Anselm P~’iory, and continued in the form of a journal until 1932. The reasons given for its discontinuation (except as a short bulletin) were the Depression, and the loss of monks to share the responsibility for publishing it.~9 The American Benedictine Academy, another landmark in the develop-ment of scholarly activities a~ong the disciples of Benedict in this country, was founded in 1947 to "invigorate the tradition of learned work in our day .... ,,70 One means chosen by the Academy "to establish cooperative scholarly work among American monasteries and convents’’~’ was the publication of a quarterly journal, The American Benedictine Review.~2 In 1961, the.Academy inaugurated a series of scholarly writings entitled Benedic-tine Studies, one purpose of this series being "to encourage American ~ Ibid., p. 154. ~ John Edwin Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 11 (N.Y.: Hafner Publishing Co., 1958), p. 295. ~ Butler, pp. 337-38; and Sandys, II, p. 297. ~ Knowles, The Benedictines, p. 33; see also Ibid., p. 52; Newman, pp. 280-81; and Rashdall, l l I, p. 441. ~1 "Foreword and Notes," The Placidian, l (December, 1923). ~’ "Reasons and Purposes," Ibid., 6-7. ~" "Notice to Our Subscribers," The Placidian, IX (April, 1932), 99-100. ’~ Cited from the Constitution of the Academy, in "Benedictine Studies" The American Benedic-tine Review, Xll (September, 1961), 284. 7, Ibid., 283. 676 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 Benedictiri~s to undertake original research and creative scholarship .... ,,7~ No further evidence would make clearer the fact that Benedictines have pursued the life of the scholar. Two notable remarks are in order, however: a) outstanding scholars have always been the exception rather than the rule among Benedictines, and b) the kind of scholarship engaged in by most Benedictines well-known for that activity was distinctive--primarily religious, literary, and historical. ~-The question considered above, regarding the consistency between teaching monks and the Rule, must now be posed concerning scholarly monks and the Rule. In light of the fact that the purpose of the reading prescribed by Benedict was devotional rather than scholarly, and that Benedict intended manual rather than mental labor as daily monastic work, have the Benedictine scholars been true to the Rule and the spirit of its author? Or has that idea been altered substantially? According to the common opinion, some place for scholarship in some sense can be justified as an "extension" or beneficial result of the essence of Benedictinism.TM Some ideal characteristics of the scholarly work performed by the monk must be noted. The efforts of the scholar must represent true work--that is, they must be "laborious, patient, thorough, and scholarship in the bestsense."7’,. Furthermore, this work must be productive, a contribu-tion to the world. It must be done largely "at home" to preserve the monk’s vow of stability, and it must not be so all-absorbing’as to interfere with the tenor of the monastic life and its inherent obligations. It must be an integral part of the monk’s life, not an adjunct.~ This work, for the most part, should be literary rather than apologetic or controversial;~ it also must be religious in scope.T8 These characteristics and qualifications of monastic intellectual endeavors are most consistent with the peaceful, calm existence of the monk portrayed by Newman. He approved of scholars in the monastery-- providing that the kind and amount of work did not interfere with therealization of the essential purposes of the monastic life." What can be ~bncluded regarding the compatibility of the scholarly life of a Benedictine monk and the Rule of Benedict? There has been controversy among the Benedictines themselves on the matter. As has been made clear, an ’~ Such a project had already been suggested by the National Benedictine Educational Association in 1927: see Report of the Proceedings and,4 ddresses of the Tenth A nnual Con vention of the Na-tional Benedictine Educational ,4ssociation of the United States, Saint V~incent College, Beatty, Pennsylvania (1927), 105. ’~ "Benedictine Studies," 285. " Butler, pp. 376-77; Knowles, Christian Monasticism, pp. 61,241; Knowles, The Benedictines, p. 56, citing the Constitution of the English Congregation; Delatte, p. 308; and Van Zeller, p. 68. ~ Butler, p. 377. 76 Ibid., pp. 377-78. " Knowles, Christian Monasticism, p. 241; Butler, p. 378. " K~owles, The Benedictines, p. 56, citing the constitutions of the English congregation. ’~ Newman, pp. 326-28, 300 (see also pp. 251,244-45,286). St. Benedic.t and Education interpretation of two of the three monastic activities prescribed by Benedict are in question--namely, reading and manual ’labor. The latter appears to be more directly involved, and the better opinion seems to be that intellectual labor can be substituted for Benedict’s manual labor, providing the conditions discussed above are fulfilled. Although the reading demanded by Benedict was clearly to be devotional and spiritual, it perhaps could not be divorced en-tirely from intellectual pursuits, since one can only will and love that of which he has some knowledge. Key considerations for the Benedictine scholar seem to be the precise kind of work he is doing, as well as the extent to which it absorbs his life. Central criteria, as in the case of teaching, are the manner and degree in which the activity hampers or enhances the fulfillment of the central purpose of the monastic life as set down in the Rule. The ambiguous answer suggested at the outset of this inquiry into the educational influence of Benedict has hopefully been clarified, but apparently not eliminated. The distinction between Benedict and later Benedictines, between the Rule and subsequent interpretations and applications of the Rule, seems to bear this out: to Benedict and his Rule we can hardly assert anything more than a triinor role in the history of formal education. However, the followers of Benedict did commit themselves seriously to formal teaching and scholarship in the name of Benedict and the Rule. Having justified to some extent (the matter is still somewhat problematic) for Benedic-tines certain kinds of teaching and scholarship pursued in a limited way in an appropriate context, we can conclude that, although Benedict did not himself directly promote, through the Rule, great teachers and scholars, he certainly did so indirectly. Furthermore, taking "education" in the broadest sense, as the intentional formation of persons thinking, acting, and being, toward clearly defined goals,.the Patriarch of Western Monks has to be accorded a place among the most ~influential educators in history. A Model Program for Individual Initial Formation of Apostolic Religious Women Jean Steffes, C.S.A. Sister Jean is directress of novices for her community. She resides at: Sisters of St. Agnes; I I 1 E. Second St.; Fond du Lac, Wl 54935. A woman who decides to enter the apostolic religious life, and ~vho has been accepted by a particular community, finds herself accepted into that com-munity’s formation program. This formation program allows the individual to experience gradual familiarity with the apostolic r~elrigious way of life, and with her own ability to live that life, before she commits herself to the com-munity, and the community commits itself to her. The formation period in religious life is often difficult for an individual since this new way of life is quite different from her previous experience. As Tickerhoof states: "... the very fact that a person enters a religious life-style means that he or she must reestablish identity. The situation is universal; religious communities cannot and need not escape it."’ Though a woman could have had responsible positions, a fine education, and many enriching experiences prior to entrance, she now finds herself a beginner who must learn about that to which she is aspiring. The entry period corresponds to a "second birth" into a "new life with a completely new environment and a completely new set of values."’ In a very real sense, then, the beginning religious will find herself reestablishing her ’ Bernard Tickerhoof, T.O.R., "Reflections on Religious Formation," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XXXI (January, 1977), p. 61. 2 Ibid. 678 Individual Initial Formation of Religious Women / 679 identity. She brings, her past with her intact; so, as earlier stages of growth reemerge in the process of her formation, they become aligned with her present, new experiences. Though the "identity crisis" is usually attributed to the years of adolescence and early adulthood, the crisis does not occur as a separate stage in one’s life. It is part of a lifelong process of personality development. Whenever we try to understand growth it is well to remember the epigenetic principle which is derived from the growth of organisms in utero. Somewhat generalized, this prin-ciple states that anything that grows has a ground plan, and that out of this ground plan the parts arise, each part having a time of special ascendance, until all parts have risen to form a functioning whole/ Erikson applies the principle of epigenesis to the development of per-sonality: Personality, therefore can be said to develop according to steps predetermined in the human organism’s readiness to be driven toward, to be aware of, and to interact with in-stitutions.’ In the epigenesis of a personality, Erikson cites eight stages of growth, all of which are interdependent. He notes (1) that each item of the vital personality to be discussed is systematically related to all the others, and that they all depend on the proper development in the proper sequence of each iiem; and (2) that each item exists in some form before "its" decisive and critical time normally arrives.~ The first stage, occurring in early infancy, centers around the crisis of ¯ basic trust versus basic mistrust. This stage determines how the individual will look at the environment which surrounds him and whether or not he will establish a healthy sense of self-esteem. The mother or mothering person determines much of th~~ outcome of this first stage. In this sequence, once the first stage is experienced, the next stage arises, only to be replaced in its turn by the next. The second s’tage, centering on the person’s sense of willfulness, usually takes place in! tlie period up to four years, the crisis being one of autonomy versus shame and doubt. The third stage, that of initiative, brings individual spontaneity into conflict with the developing sense of guilt and oc-curs in the years between three and seven. The fourth stage includes the (risis of industry versus in°~eriority and corresponds to the individual’s early school years. The fifth stage, with its crisis of identity versus identity confusion, begins in early adolescence and extends into ~,oung adulthood, and often beyond. In the sixth stage the crisis of intimacy versus isolation appears; this occurs toward the end of the preceding crisis, in later college years and early adulthood. The seventh stage, involving the crisis between generativity and ~ Erik H. Erikson, Identity: Youth andCrisis(New York: W.W; Norton & Company, Inc., 1968), p. 92. ’ Ibid., p. 93. ’ Ibid., pp. 93 and 95. 680 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 stagnation, encompasses the years of parenthood and includes productivity and creativity. The eighth and final stage centers on the choice between integ-rity and despair and is characteristic of old age.6 This paper is concerned with the development of a model program which can be used in helping a woman through crises appropriate to her personality development as she orients herself to the apostolic religious life. Since the entry to religious life presents a radical change for an individual, stages of per-sonality development previously encountered appear for reassessment in view of the woman’s new life-style; likewise, stages presently and yet to be en-countered can be prepared for. Of those that enter religious life, in almost every case (the only possible exception being the later vocation of one who has somehow achieved a well established religious character and style prior to entering his community) the young individual is in or must go through some form of the identity crisis... In the identity crisis the individual is fighting for a sense of integration, the need to be at home with oneself, the need to feel essentially complete and adequate. Failure will create identity confusion, the sense of being un-finished, with nowhere to go from here, the feeling of inadequacy, the feeling of lingering maladjustment.’ One of the major challenges confronting the entrant, as well as the forma-tion personnel who interact with her, is to understand the appropriation of religious identity not as an isolated occurrence but as vi.tally related to her life-long personality formation and development. Since the crises of trust, autonomy, initiative, and industry would generally have been dealt with by the time anyone enters a community, these would likely be reassessed as inter-dependent parts of the identity crisis which she experiences as a result of enter-ing religious life. What this means is that the only data with which a person has to deal in the identity stage is the data he or she has experienced in life up to that time. The earlier stages of growth often reemerge in the person, along with their problems and their strong points." The program presented in the following pages is concerned with the crises of trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, and intimacy, as these relate to a woman’s formation in an apostolic religious institute. The counseling progranl developed here considers the theoretical nature of each parti~:ular crisis, the purposes of dealing with that crisis, as well as the content, strategies, and techniques that are helpful in resolving the crisis. Trust The first crisis to be encountered is that of trust. "The new religious, much like the young child, enters the new environment somewhat unable to function independently.’’9 The manrier of living in an apostolic religious house is dif- Tickerhoof, ’~Formation," pp. 59-60, Ibid., p. 61. 9 Ibid., p. 62. ’ Ibid., p. 60. Individual Initial Formation of Religious Women / 681 ferent from one’s past experiences; the surroundings also are not ordinary. Most individuals do not operate on a regular schedule for formal prayer, shar-ing, and so forth, nor do most homes or apartments center around a chapel or prayer area. An apostolic religious community considers its works to be apostolates whereas the person entering a community has come from a job and career-oriented milieu that is quite different. Depending upon the size of a community, an individual may not know many of the members of the group to which she is coming. Though she is quite overwhelmed and unsure of herself, the woman is desirous of incorporating herself into the group. In order to do this, she needs help because she is not able to function on her own. "Basic trust in mutuality is that original ’optimism’ that assumption that ’somebody is there,’ without which we cannot live.’’’° "By trust I mean an essential trustfulness of others as well as a fundamental sense of one’s own trustworthiness.’"’ One of the documents of Vatican II, Renovationis causam, refers to the "climate of confidence" which must be built up by superiors and directresses in order to be able to lead beginning religious women "toward a complete gift of themselves to the Lord in faith .... -,2 Aschenbrenner, too, speaks of the need for "regular and good spiritual direc-tion in real openness and trust" ~ as essential for the initial formation of ap-plicants. Unless a mutuality of trust develops, the applicant’s survival in the apostolic religious life of a particular institute is doubtful and her ability to be an effective member of the group would be nil. The sense of trust, then, is the essential attitude the entrant must develop. Generally the first years of religious life, those of affiliation and pre-novitiate, are the period in which the need to establish this sense of trust is the strongest. The kinds of inter-action between the community and the affiliate or candidate will largely determine her basic stance. She either believes that she can basically trust her com-munity- and be trusted by it--or she believes that her community does not trust her, and so does not deserve her trust. Certain types of reading can help clarify one’~ position with regard to a sense of trust. During periods of affiliation and pre-novitiate, the individual could profit from self-help books such as I’m O.K., You’re O.K. by Thomas A. Harris, M.D. (Harper & Row, 1969); Passages by Gail Sheehey (E.P. Dut.- ton & Co., 1976), or Your Erroneous Zones by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer (Avon, ’° Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther(New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1962), p. 14. " Erikson, Identity, p. 96. ,2 Renovationis causam, January 6, 1969, in Vatican II, The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. by Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, NY: The Costello Publishing Co., 1975), pp. 634-655. ’3 George Aschenbrenner, S.J., "Towards Understanding Novitiate" (paper presented at the Sisters’ Formation Conference, Eastern Region, Washington, D.C., March 22-25, 1973, mimeographed), p. I. I$82 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, ~198015 1976). The contents of such books could initiate discussion helpful in deter-mining one’s stance in relation to self and to the community. Community history would be helpful, as would biographies of apostolic religious women of one’s own or other communities; such reading would allow the individual to develop a sense of the various interactions typical of the apostolic religious life and the kinds of responses one could make in differing situations. Qualities of trustfulness and mistrust, as exemplified in these histories and biographies, could be considered and discussed. John Powell’s A Reason to Live! A Reason to Die! (Argus, 1972) gives the faith background necessary to any kind of commitment to the Christian way of life, An understanding of faith is doubly important, for faith is, according to Erikson,the way the sense :of trust survives in adult life. Trust, then, becomes the capacity forfaith--a vital need for which man must find some institutional confirmation. Religion, it seems is the oldest and has been the most lasting institution to serve the ritual restoration of a sense of trust in the form of faith while of-feting a tangible formula for a sense of evil against which it promises to arm and defend man. ~’ Developing this sense of ti’ust depends for the infant on the quality of its interaction with the mother figure. In an apostolic religious community, this will depend on the quality and quantity of interaction ’which takes the place between the entrant and the formation personnel. Once the affiliate has been accepted, there should be graduated, though regular interactions between her and the corn’munity contact-persons. If the community sets up meetings that are too frequent, the affiliate may sense an over-eagerness on the part of the institute, whereas if the meetings are too infrequent, she may feel’ a lack of in-terest.’ Contact on a monthly basis seems a good norm for the first three to six months. Timing after that would depend upon the affiliate’s proposed length of affiliation and upon her current involvements. Interviews with a commu-nity contact-person, and later on with a sister-guide, should provide the kind of helping relationships that the affiliate needs to develop a feeling of progress which would correlate to her developing sense of trust. "Live-ins" in certain houses of the institute, consisting of other affiliates, candidates, and appro-priate formation personnel for weekends several times a year, would help to establish and deepen bonds with the community. ’Having a perpetually pro-fessed member of the community operate as a sister-guide to assist the affiliate in her vocational development provides another means of e~tending trust. As the transition from the affiliate phase of formation to the pre-novitiate phase occurs, the potential crisis of trust would be faced quite directly. At this point, the ~ candidate would come to live with the community in one of its local houses, or in a designated house of formation. Moving in with a group of pro- " Erikson, Identity, p. 106. Individual Initial Formation of Religious Women / 6B3 fessed sisters, one of whom would be her guide, would give the candidate the sense of being helped to learn what is necessary for her continued growth in the apostolic religious life. Throughout their periods of affiliation and pre-novitiate, affiliates and candidates should have a sister guide with whom they can talk, pray, and share on a regular basis, The meetings/conferences allow the sister-guide an opportunity to function in a direct and indirect helping role. Through some provision for one-to-one sessions with their guides the af-filiates and candidates know that they have an opportunity to talk honestly and freely, and so can grapple with any difficulties they experience, thereby developing trust in the context of present circumstances. The early stages of formation give the individual a chance to cope with the development of a sense of trust. Though the potential crisis is dealt with dur-ing this period, it is not necessarily finished, as trust should be an ever-deepening attitude. Successful resolution of the crisis can allow the aspiring woman to voice the formulation of identity: "1 am what I hope 1 have and give.’’’s With some sense of adaptation to the new environment, the individ-ual will begin to concentrate on her own individuality within that community. Autonomy The autonomy period refers to that time in which the person forms her in-dividuality as a religious. She looks inward; it is a time characterized by in-tense introspection. Suddenly the individual views self from an entirely new perspective He (she) is already a religious and this most often happens prior to any formal commitment such as vows, and, as a religious, now seeshis (her) life as somehow being very subtly changed.’~ Every level of the person would be affected by this new view of herself--her physical body, her mental processes, emotions, psychological aspects, inter-personal relationships, the sexual dimension of her life, and the spiritual dimension of her life’. As the spiritual dimensio~ begins to open, the beginning religious may feel somewhat lost. She needs something meaningful to which to cling, and yet she knows th’at things spiritual cannot really be seen or clung to. As she evaluates and judges her possibilities in the light of her own idealism, she is uncertain where to direct her energies or how to qualify her gpiritual experiences. She needs a sense of autonomy. This stage, therefore, becomes decisive for the ratio between loving goodwill and hateful self-insistence, between cooperatio.n and willfulness, between self-expression and com-pulsive self-restraint or meek compliance. A sense of self-control without loss of self-esteem is the ontogenetic source of a sense of free will." Ibid., p. 107. ’~ Tickerhoof, "Formation," p. 63. Erikson, Identity, p. 109. 684 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/5 The woman in formation struggles with her religious autonomy, the belief that she is a person capable of being an apostolic religious woman, able to maintain her own spirituality in relation to, and with the life and spirituality of, her community. Aschenbrenner, too, refers to the concept of autonomy when he speaks of the need for much less externally imposed structure. For-mal structure can bring about a certain type of unity; however, unity, order, and direction ¯.. come much less from external structure and more from spiritual direction: from one-to- one relationship in which the young religious is guided, helped, led to experientially learn the whole art and process of discernment of spirits as holiness, of knowing the Lord. ’~ A formation process that directs, guides, and counsels the beginning religious to understand how the Lord works in her rather than expecting her to deduce this from generally following a pattern of rules and listening to talks and lectures will hopefully produce young religious who will be interiorly reliable, inner directed peo-ple. They come to know experientially the law of the Lord written on their hearts (Je 31 : 1 will write my law on their heart). One, then, becomes dependable, reliable, and doesn’t need external structure, isn’t dependent on external structure.’~ The failure of a person to become autonomo City of Saint Louis (Mo.), http://www.geonames.org/4407084 http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/237

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