Review for Religious - Issue 45.3 (May/June 1986)
Issue 45.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1986.
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Issue 45.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1986. |
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sluoai_rfr-277 Review for Religious - Issue 45.3 (May/June 1986) Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus Jesuits -- Periodicals; Monasticism and religious orders -- Periodicals. Hill ; Giallanza ; Pennington Issue 45.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1986. 1986-05 2012-05 PDF RfR.45.3.1986.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 RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REview ~oR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1986 by R~v~w ~oR RELiGiOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U,S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $11.00 a year; $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (postage). Airmail (Book Rate) $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVtEW FOIt RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor May/June, 1986 Volume 46 Number 3 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW I~UGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J,S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW Folt RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Our Lady of Wisdom Donald Macdonald, S.M.M. ,, Father Macdonald’s "The Price of Poverty" appeared in this year’s January/February issue. Last May/June saw another Marian article by Father Macdonald entitled "Mary: Our Encouragement in Christ." Father’s address rdmains: St. Joseph’s: Welling-ton Road: Todmorden: Lancashire OLI4 5HP: England. ~ recall being kindl~, received in a convent, but the longer I stayed there the more uncomfortable I felt, because for apparently aesthetic and liturgical reasons ~there was no room in the chapel for a statue or picttire of Our Lady. It was frankly embarrassing to pass Our Lady presiding over a hymn-board ~n the corridor outside while i was free to go into the chapel without a blush. It°made no sense. One should not exaggerate the place of Our ..Lady but neither should she be underrated. So, in a generally compli-mentary book-review, the reviewer remarked that while the author rightly spol~e of devotion to Our "Lady as inseparably part of Christian life he "rather overstresses the idea of Marian m’~sticism." One wonders how he knows that, since mysticism touches levels of e~perience much of which must be left unsaid. Can anyone throw a tight ring around personal expe-rience particularly at those depths? On the day his engagement was announced, G. K. Chesterton wrote the woman he was to marry that "I think it is no exaggeration to say that I never s~iw you in my life without thinking that I underrated you the time before." t This is a superb compliment for anyone to receive, especially from a mindsas rich as Chesterton’s. Clearly he saw depths in the girl 321 ~122 / Review for ReligiouMs, ~Iiy-June, 1986 unseen by her butcher or dressmaker. Lo~,e, presumably,’ gave him the necessary insight: Such God-gi~en insight is needed to understand anything of Our Lady in the providen.~e of God, particularly if we accept that "insight is an attempt to think in the present a.... .breakthrough requiring much intellectual d~smanthng a, nd dislocationa .c.c..ompanied by a sense of surprise.., genuine perception .... He who thinks that we can see the same object twice has never seen. Paradoxically, insight is knowledge at first sight." 2 This is surely borne out by experience. Father Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, knew more ,of the faith than Bernadette Soub~rous, just ¯ as the superiors of the novice Catherine Labour+ had a wider experience of religiouslife than did she. NO ldoubt, too, biblical scholars in the time of Th~r’ese Martin knew more al6out Scripture than she did, but who today among the contemporaries of!those three girls could claim to approach their insights into the ways of God? Can anyone quantify their subsequent influence for God and for g~od? One spoke patois, another not 9t all publicly .u.ntil shortly before she died; while the third wrote of what she knew in three note-books onl~ because she was as.ked to. Eacti of these women’s lives was illumined by a vision of Our Lady who left her distinctive mark on all three, not least in their wholly sane, understated, selfless lives. What Bernadettelsaid of herself could be said of all of them including Our Lady "When 3~ou have finished with the brush you put it behind the door"--except th~at God has other plans. Their influence widens. The risk for thee c,ontempor~ry religious might be in leaving "the brush behind the door." What has been called "chronological snobbery" can obtain here to3. The insights of the latter part of the twentieth century are assumed to be superior to thos~ of peasant, country or middle-class ,y, oung women in nineteenth~entury France. Following the sam~ ~qogic, Our Lady can be dismissed as possil inevitably~limited by her lack today, and by her geographical God is present in each life. It is tliese women are to be conside ~ly a Galilean peasant girl whose insight was of formal ~ducation,~as this is understood locafion~ That assumption should be tested. this that makes the difference and by which red. Of each of the four women it could be said: "She was a woman uprig, ht, outright." "Her will was bent at God’](G. M. Hopkins, "Margaret Clither’ow" an unfinished poeo). The strengthl,.vulnerability and powerful pulse httracting them can be felt in that last monosyllabic line. There is no need of any Cultural baggage in order to sl~are what they see. Neither the water-tables feeding the wells of Nazareth n~or the politics of nineteenth-century France m.atter. Anyone in the company of these~ women may.be drawn by what Our-l_ady of Wisdom / 323 they see, glimpsing in each cage~perhaps "the Christ-ed :beauty of her mind" (G. M. Hopkins op. cir.). They travel light. The will of God is the point: "Let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38). Perhaps we cannow consider Our Lady as a reflection of the presence of God. The Gift of Wisdom It has always been difficult to speak of the presence of God not least because a finite mind is trying to express an awareness of transcendence. One biblical, tradition which attempted this was the ~Wisdom literature (includihg Job, Proverbs, Qoheleth, Ben Sira, Wisdom and some Psalms), Beginning in cultures outside Israel as basically advice to the young man Who would make his way in the world (a "Young, Upward Mobile Man’s Guide to the Galaxy" perhaps), when taken into Israel it was inevitably recast through belief in the underlying presence of God as the basis of reality. So "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" (Ws 9:10), that is putting God first as against the practical atheism .of the person for whom ’~’there is no fear of God before his eyes" (Ps 36). From this standpoint, God’s presence was seen in creation, the history of Israel and in individual lives under the guise of wisdom, latterly personified’in a. female figure. God’s presence as expressed in Wisdomwas to be seen everywhere:’ "She herself walks about looking for those who are worthy of.her .... in every thought of theirs coming to meet the~m" (Ws,6:16-17). "Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion; she is so pure, shepervades and.perrfieates_all things. She is a breath of the power of’God .... untarnished mirror of God’s power, image of his goodness .... Herself unchanging, she makes all things new" (Ws 7:24-27). "l resolved to have her as my bride, I fell in love with her beauty" (Ws 8:2). "My counselor in prosperity, my comfort in care and sorrow... I love those who love me; those who seek me,eagerly shall find me" (Ws~9:17). Slowly to reflect on those lines is to glimpse the intimacy and reality of God’s presence in a sacramental world. Such insight is a personal possession. They know of whatthey speak. So in the creation of the universe by God: "I was by his side, a master ~craftsman delighting him day by day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere in his world, delighting to be with the sons of men" (Ws 8:30-31). Such a universe, then, is no alien, monolithic force hostile to mankind but a place in which God is present, delighting to be with his creation. Experiencing life in this way, God’s presence is seen as delightful, as life now obviously has meaning since it is underwritten by God. "I came forth from the mouth of the Most .High and I covered the earth like mist .... Then the creator of all things instructed me .... He said, ’Pitch your tent in Jacob’.... I have breathed out a scent like choice myrrh... I am like a 324 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 vine putting out graceful shoots... ApprOach me you who desire me, and take your fill of my fruits, for memories of me are sweeter than honey, inheriting me is sweeter than the honeycomb. They who eat me will hunger for more.., they who drink me will thirst for more. Whoever listens to me will never have to blush, whoever acts as I dictate will never sin" (Si 24:38, 13, :17, 19-30). Again, such reflection on life in the light of faith findsGod’s presence everywhere awesome and mysterious, yet beautifully attractive. As the figure of Wisdom is now personified it might be dismissed as yet another imperfect image, a crutch to lean on when looking for God’s presence in the mystifying world. But surely there is no need nor is it intended to imagine anything at all. This is no television commercial with a female figure ,cavorting across the screen advertising some product. The insight given by Wisdom and remember, following Abraham Heschel, that insight is to see for the first time--is so much richer and nuanced and is to be understood on another plane: Insight not eyesight, and imagination is wanted now, to see beyond and above the imagery. The gift of Wisdom is meant to give just this taste for and insight into the presence of God in every aspect of reality. God is there in every moment eager to make his presence known. Having "pitched" his tent among us, his presence is such that once tasted one can only "hunger for more." Obviously:for the Christian this. speaks of Christ in every line, particu. larly as Paul and John present him, but, traditionally this was seen too in the person of Our Lady of Wisdom. Such Wisdom writings were to be found in the liturgy of her feasts. The personified figure of Wisdom was seen in’her, and as expressed in the liturgy, the faithful were invited to delight in her as a. supreme expression of God’s presence among us. Cen-turies of meditation on the Wisdom writings instinctively suggested Our Lady. It was a delightful, pleasant, accessible world combining the world of transcendence with the encouraging familiarity of a faithful mother. God’s presence as reflected in her indicated that potentially there were no heights we could not scale even though our insight was at best imperfect. It was a lovely atmosphere she brought with her as she was seen among us as one of us, rejoicing in God her Savior (Lk 1:47), and we with her. Few would deny that that is less so now. The atmosphere has changed. In Catholic liturgical, literary and devotional life the lovely, wondering, ever reiidy to be surprised insight of an earlier time seems to have been replaced by the prim, puritan regimentation of an old-fashioned school-room. Instead of an ever-deepening insight needing all the resources of Wisdom literature to try and express what was felt and experienced, today one has the impression that not afew of our pastors, teachers and cate- Our Lady of Wisdom / 325 chists who occupy the commanding heights and lower slopes of everyday teaching in the Church, have seen Mary once--and seen her "plain." They might have come ashore from The Mayflower yesterday. The approach to Our Lady today reeks of the catechical-center and schoolroom. It is all reminiscent of a certain type of teacher so accurately sketched by Charles Dickens, who asked a girl who had spent her young life with horses and knew and loved them, to describe one. She was incapable of coming up with the only answer he would accept: "Quadruped. Gramini-vorous. Forty teeth~ namely twenty-four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring .... Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks’ in mouth. Thus (and much more).’’~ How many of those who flock each year to the Kentucky Derby would recog-nize that either? Though the teacher is perhaps overdrawn, it does not mean that the point is overplayed. The issue was real and perhaps still is. To present Our Lady chiefly in terms of Model Christian or Model of Believers is not wrong but deadens a relationship. To speak of anyone in such categories isolates them from the rest’ of us. Models automatically distance themselves. They are to be looked up to, rarely made part of oneself. To speak principally of Our Lady in such terms is to put her on a pedestal in a most damaging way: apart from, static, of yesterday rather than today; whereas traditionally within the Catholic community she was of God and of us, truly a present inspiration as we delighted in her com-pany. So Mary, Model of the Church, while true, is of the classroom not of life. It is, too, not unfair to remark that when she is spoken of as "Woman of~Faith" or "Model of Believers," this carries strong overtones of the contemporary defeatism wherein faith, before it can~be reckoned as authentic, is laced with a strong solution of doubt. None really sees, so the best that can be done is to pool. insecurities, as even the best of us are in the dark. Our Lady, by association, is correspondingly diminished. Yet faith in biblical terms was never the vague hope that Someone might be there to make sense of life in an at times frighteningly puzzling world. Rather was it the bedrock assurance that God is there and we are real to him, even though often unfelt and unknown by us. Trust, therefore, is at the heart of the biblical reality, and on this the Jewish and Christian communities were built. The best of both communities enfleshed it. Our Lady too embodied the prophetic vocation, helping us in the task .of realizing that ~we live in the universe of His [God’s] knowing, in the glory of attachment" (Jr 1:5).~ So the community enjoyed her company, welcomed her and delighted to hear anyone speak well of her. She could appeal to anyone, whether from the cachot of Bernadette, the countryside ~126 / ReviewJ’or Religious, May-June, 1986 of Catherine, :or the middle-class household of Th6r~se. Today the colors are subdued, a pale reflection of what they once were. The use of the ’W, isdom writings to express what was felt about her has given way to such warmth as there is to a winter’s sunlight. Now she is almost exclusively spoken of as "Mary," and one cannot help feeling that much has been lost in the contemporary would-be organized Church that was freely available to everyone in an earlier, possibly more untidy home. The wonder of insight is missing. ~.It is, of course, explained that one owes it to non,Catholics to be careful in the way we speak of/to her. This is true. Yet it should be recognized that there are real differences between .us both in faith and atmosphere, stemming from faith as a way of life not an academic code. The ethos of the evangelical Protestant, for example, is not easily expressed in terms of Greek Orthodoxy’s devotional life. Both are valid traditions, but they are undeniably different. Yet if one has the good fortune of belonging to The Ecumenical Society of.the Blessed Virgin Mary it may prove a revelation to see and hear how easily Christians of every denomi-nation speak of her. I, too, very much value the invitation given me some years ago to belong to the Methodist Preachers’ Fellowship, and find within its integrity, respect and support that it is possible to speak of Our Lady. (The Methodist Neville Ward, it will be remembered, wrote in Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, a very fine book on the rosary). It is "megaphor~e diplomacy"---publicly shouting at one another--tliat is to be feared, not in expressing how one genuinely bdieves and lives within a context of respect and understanding: I wasat a Protestant school until I was twelve and have,the highest regard .for what I was taught there, The local minister would drive us in his car to Mass, unasked, on really_wet wintry Sundays--and he later became moderator of the Church of Scot-land. So perhaps I may claim first-hand experience of the Protestant ethos and .am far from unsympathetic to it. It is a strange paradox.that while the eighth chapter of Lumen Gentium and the later Marialis Cultus, to say nothing of the present Holy Father, express a recognizably Catholic feeling and continuity, so unlike much of current teaching and. devotional life, somehow there has been a break from what once was, and the person of Our Lady has been almost lost in the concept.. To see Our Lady then reflected in the feminine figure of Wisdom is to see in her a transparent reflection of the transcendence and immanence of God’s presence, She is n6where and she is everywhere. This may puzzle some who consider in so broadening her significance that it may somehow Our Lady of Wisdom / 327 lessen her value in the’community. This might be so if she is seen as just. one specific piece on the chessboard, somehow .to be welded into aft’overall strategy. But the reality of theoChurch, of course, is of a community created and indwelt by the Spirit of the living God. It is a living organism in which we each relate to’one another in 12hrist through grace-enlightened knowl-edge and love. Our Lady; supremely orie with the will of God, is therefore an influential channel of ttiat life: "And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped .in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy. Spirit" (Ek 1:41). Seen in this light; therefore, coming from the heart of the Christian community, she is never an inquisitive aunt, obtrusive neighbor nor cling-ing friend. Nor is she a static figure with. her own particular niche in the wall, to be referred to now and agai’n. As th6 lovely feminine figure of Wisdom Owing more to insight than eyesight or imagination is lost in the wonder of what she suggests, so too Our Lady. Sowhen G. M. Hopkins in a well-known poem comparing her to the air we breathe, spoke to her as, World-mothering air. a’ir wild .... Fold home. fast hold th3~i’child. he is talking of life and limitless freedor~ not limitation. He is not-advocat-ing a stranglehold distancing one from God, caught up in Mary’s apron strings in’a state of permanent adolescence. Rather does she, as ~lid Wis-dom, mediate the presence of God that perhaps has to be experienced to be understood. The traditional prayer, "Virgo respice, Mater, adspice, audi nos, O Maria... " perhaps.puts it at its simplest. One scarcely needs a translation to feel that prayer convincingly suggesting on her part atten-tion, anticipation, concern, fellow feeling, x+hich, while relishing her company, is at the same time an act of faiih in the underlying reality that "He who is mighty has done great things for me. and holy is his name"(Lk 1:49). Gift of The Spirit Perhaps the °point may~be further underlined by considering God’s presence as expressed in the experience of Spirit,, A thesaurus could find many words to ’express it life, breath, wind describing an intangible reaiity. As an expression-of God’s presence it indicates that it can be experienced everywhere but never held. The Spirit of God brought this universe into being, and the: same creative Spirit was responsible for the existence of the community of Israel, inspiring within it particular individ-uals to, perceive the presence and guidance of God~ So "God would speak with Moses face to face, as a man ~peaks to his ’friend" (Ex 33:11). As a result of this intimacy he was instrumental in helping to build the commun- ~121~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 ity. Similarly, on receiving the prophetic spirit, "Elijah arose like a fire his word flaming like a torch" (Si.48:1), empowering.,him almost single-handed to hold ca’fly Israel together against colossal! odds. This influence of the Spirit of God suggests that a man is taken out of himself, often despite himself. As Amos, probably the first of the writing prophets, put it: "The lion roars: who can help feeling afraid? The Lord God, speaks: who can refuse to prophesy?" (Am 3:8). Enlightened by the Spirit of God .withinthe community of Israel, such people were given such insightSnto their own age that in the name of God they felt compelled to speak and act. The eyesight of most of their contemporaries was blind to what their God-given insight enabled them to see in a world illumined by~ God’s spirit. As the Spirit of God dwelt within the heart-,of Israel so no less emphati-cally says St.~-Paul. was the Spirit present within the Christian cgmmunity. As God was present in the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem temple so Paul tried to open the eyes of the Corinthians to the° wonder of his presence among .them: "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you... God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are" (1 Co 3:16-17). God present among s~uch people individually and collectively points the wonder of it all in view of who they we?e: "not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful.., of noble birth" (I Co 1:26). Nondescript, marginal people for ~he most part--as was said of the unfortunate boxer. ’~not even a household name in his own house’--God evidently "chose what is foolish . . . weak . . . low and despised" (I Co 27-28). Enlightened by the wisdom and Spirit of God as a member of that community, Paul does not apologize for its surface crudi-ties as his insight enables him to see within to the Spirit’s indwelling presence. It is a creation of God, and like all his gifts "can only be under-stood by means of the Spirit" (1 Co 2:14). Reflecting long and often as he must have done on what was being created in and around himself, Paul comes to see that "the Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God . . . Now. " . fie have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us" (1 Co 2:10-12). This is a phenomenal insight as Paul wrestles with the almost inexplicable to aid the Corinthians’ self-under-standing. Their lives are radically touched and empowered by God, mo~Jing from the depths of his Spirit to theirs. Meaning little to others in view of their lack of status, they mean everything to God. And it was this same Spirit. which enabled Paul never to be quite beaten by the constant bread and butter inconsistencies, and. to see the reality beneath._ It is all, Paul reflects,, ~eminiscent of the wisdom of God which so often seems to stand logic on its head. lts linchpin is the crucified and risen Christ "whom God Our Lady of Wisdom / 329 made our wisdom" (1 Co 1:30) in the face of a disbelieving world. Such insight~does not come from the schoolroom or marketplace. It is a gift from God enabling "those’who are called... [to see] Christ thepbwer of God and the~visdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (I Co 1:24-25). This same pattern is true of Our Lady. She is to be understood ihen from within the community. An ostensibly nondescript person from unre-markable Nazareth if one considers the circumstances of her calling, yet the inner reality can only be gauged insofar as one is given to see what is meant when "The Holy Spirit will come upon ’you, and the power of the Most Highs:will 6ve’rshadow you" (Lk 1:35-36). The creative spirit of God which once brought this universe’into existence, now through her willing co6per-ation (see Lk’l:38), brings to birth a new creation in her Son. Such is the effect of the Spirit’s power and presence that "the child to b~ born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Lk 1:35). This is the defining feature of her life: Mother and Son are inseparably linked. One with him at birth, home and crucifixion, she is found within the early Christian community pray-ing. So it has been for centuries as she ~is seen among us preeminently lovable and faithful, empowered by wisdom and the Spirit. The Christian community has responded accordingly, as in every nation under heaven all generations have called her blessed (see Lk 1:48). Today in much contemporary .teaching and practice, the brush appears to have been put back behind the door. It is not without significance that this has happened at a time when the values of the numinous, transcend-ence, silence and worship are under severe pressure. Mainstream liturgy, teaching and devotion have virtually nothing to say of the contemplative. Such a need is fostered from the edge, not the center. When influential numbers of our pastors, teachers and opinion-formers generally, seem to lack any obvious feeling for the contemplative, it may beno surprise that they display or encourage little warmth for Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom. ~Vhen meaning has to be on the surface and immediately comprehended, it is perhaps inevitable that so rich and varied traditions of the Church, not least as regards Our Lady, have given way to a subdued monochrome world. : Let Your Gaze Become My Prayer Perhaps all of this may be finally summarized in a few lines from a prayer of St. Anselmto St. John the Evangelist, asking for the love of God: "Ifthen, sir, your gaze has more good in it than my prayer has devotion, let your gaze become my prayer."5 This is a very fine expression of the role of Our Lady, the saints and our fellow-Christians in the Church, one person 331~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 in Christ. with ourselves (see Ga. 3:25-28). The individual Anselm asks the aid of the evangelist .John, whom he sees in faith to be now wholly caught up in G6d:.So he asks th~it his own self in his prayer be taken up into sharing what St, John sees. °He speaks to John but looks beyond him following the evangelist’s gaze. Love has been described as two people looking in the same direction. What they see draws them togetherenabling them to live as one in a new reality. This we have here. Anselm’s prayer is felt to be inferior to John’s vision so he asks that "your gaze become my prayer." This, inthe main, is what is meant by Our Lady’s patronage. Filled from her conception with the ~,isdom and Spirit of God in vieW of her voc~ition as Mother of God, her whole being reflects the Orie who has mad~ her who she is as she rejoices in God her Savior (see Lk 1:47)i One person in Christ with her, the Christian; and anyone genuinely.asking her he!.p._;’_w..a..n._t.s_t_.o~be taken into her being and held by what she sees "Let your gaze become my prayer." So easy to relate to, inviting, the individual to come in his or her own way, her life is givenomeaning by her Unflinching attachment to the will of God in good days and bad. Such a person is no obstacle between us and God if her gaze becomes our prayer, as the words and images drop away before the holiness of God. One can, of course, with the apophatic tradition, which maintains that it is impossible to say anything of God other than that he is, try to put everything that is not God into a "cloud .of forgetting" leaving only a naked intent for God. So our Lord, sacraments, Our Lady, Scripture, saints--:-~ everything must go. "If you see the Buddha kill him." Well yes, but even the Engiish mystic who expressed this so supremely well, giving as the bottom line between oneself and God, "Worship God with all you have got. All-that- you-are-as,you-are worshipping ail-that-he-is-as-he-is," has his reality first defined in Christ, and must recognize therefore that "it is God for his own loving purpose who puts both. the will and the action into you" (Ph 2:13):6 Whether he adverts to it or not, the ontological reality underpinning his:every movement and prayer is Christ in whom "all things were created.. :. He isb(fore all things and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the Church,’ (Col. 1:16-18). Reality is thus held in the overarching Christ who reconciled us to God by "making peace by the blood of his cross.., by his death" (Col 1:20-22): Blood and death together are irrevocable, costly and messy (so much so that the sensitivities of the Jerusalem Bible translators cause them to omit "blobd"), ~butit was precisely in Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection that he can now "present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him [God]"(Col 1:22)? We are unforgettably marked with the sign of the cross, In Christ, therefore, is found ’the very oxygen enabling us to breathe the air Our Lady of Wisdom/~ 331 of God. One admires the climber attempting Everest, but one knows that he could not set foot on the lower slopes, far less reach the summit without-oxygen. It is never seen but it is always there, and in Christ we are sup-ported by a whole ~loud of ~vitnesses, prophets, apostles, saints among whom is preeminently the Mother of God. They interact with us in Christ in every moment of every day whether we are conscious of it or not. There is no need of mental images of Paul, Our Lady, or even Christ himself. Attachment to Our Lady in this context should not be seefi as a limiting form of prayer. To see her so is possibly to have a fixed, static view of Christian reality not unlike the wooden, materialist outlook of popular nineteenth-century science. The truth of science as glimpsed today is so wonderful and mobil~ that much of it cannot even be imagined, yet its beauty clearly enthralls many, light years away from the earlier approach. Immaturity ~s the problem. We are, for the most part, too pedestrian. But in this lies our salvation. Everyone in Christ is for us. It may be a sign of the times that in an .age full of self-assertion we find it hard to believe that anyone can be self-effacing. But the GOspel reality is just that, "For all things are yours." whether Paul, Bernadette, Catherine, Th~rEse or Mary, "or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s" (1 Co 3:21-23). We are, perhaps most of us, infants in Christ, with at best an.imperfect, grasp of God loving us i.n Christ, unable without wisdom and the Spirit to see the simplicity of ,Paul’s insight, holding all of reality in the present moment in-Christ. But we know the claim that the child has on Christ. And in this above all, surely he is at one with his mother. NOTES tMaisie Ward, Return to Chesterton, Sheed and Ward, 1952, p. 34. 2A. Heschel, The Prophets Vol. 1, Harper and Row, 1971, p..x6. 3C. Dickens, Hard Times, Chap. 2. 4A. Heschel, op. cit. Vol. 2, p. 267. 5B. Ward, The Prayqrs and Meditations of St. Anselrn--Pfayer to St. John the Evan- ’gelist (2), Penguin, 1975. ~ 6C. Woltors, The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works and The Epistle of Privy Counsel, chap. 4, Penguin, 1978 .... 7C. A. Anderson Scott’s plausible observation with regard to St. Paul in general is instructive: "The allusion to the blood of Christ, here (Rm 3:25) as in other passages~in Paul, is probably connected with...the overwhelming impression which Paul had received as a spectator of the Crucifixion." Footnotes to St’. Paul (CUP, 1935): Personality, and Religious Adjustments in Older Candidates Matthias Neuman, OS.B. Father Neuman, well known to our readers, whose latest contribution, "The Holiness of Saint Francis: Spiritual Vision and’ Lived Suffering,, ~appeared in the issue of September/October, 1985, contin’u6s to teach at Saint Meinrad Seminary; Saint Mein-rad, lndiana :47577. For the past four years my primary occupation has involved directing the pre,theology program in our s.,eminary. This special year-long program ffims to prepare a certai:n group of young men for entrance into a regular course of theological studies for priesthood. These are candidates who already possess their college degrees but who have had no course work in philosophy or theology--or any exposure to a regular spiritual formation program, The very existence of college-graduate or pre-theology years in seminaries bears witness to a significant shift in recent vocational patterns. Fifteen years ago my first-year theology course would have had one or two "older" individuals; they were routinely mixed in with the students who had graduated from various college seminaries. In a decade and a half those one or two have swollen to better than half the first-year classes in many theologates around the United States. This means that a significant portion of today’s priesthood candidates are waiting to "test" their possible ~voca-tions until after the college years and after some significant work and societal experience, A similar phenomenon appears among applicants for religious orders of women and men. Almost any meeting of formation personnel deals with some issue or problem concerning "older vocations." Indeed it is not uncommon for a formatiOn directress to be younger than several, of her charges. 332 Adjustments in Older Candidales / 333 While many observers applaud this shift in vocational process, and both priestly and religious recruiters have begun to plot ways of casting their nets in these newly-discover6d waters, the formidable challenges of providing a solid and effective regimen of formation should not be glosse~l over quickly. These men and women come to seminaries and religious houses at a considerably different stage in life than do graduates right out of high school or college. It will not suffice to merel~ ~transfer previous spiritual, academic and social formational methods to ~this new wave, for they bring quite different problematics for spiritual formation, academic programs and general adjustment to religious institutional life. The first year of formation in particular needs to pay.close attention to: l) the backgrounds of these people, 2) the life transitions they are experiencing, and 3) the adjustment problems they will most likely encounter. The first three sections of this article ~ill address these topics in more detail,~and the concluding section will offer some suggestions for helping the candidates themselves to manage this initial transition period more effectively. Backgrounds The ages of these older vocations may range from the mid-twenties to the mid-seventies. (Several were even ordained irf their 80s!) However the bulk of such callings has been in the 25-45 age bracket and I will focus most of my comments on that group. *~- ’ 0 Perhaps the first major item format.ion personnel should~-~recognize is that these people-~’even at age twenty-five generally possess a somewhat. solidified personality structure. This doesn’t necessarily imply that their personality structures are well-shaped oreven healthy, but simply that they have been hardened to an extent by the pressures of work, societal survival and recreational interactions. Educational research has tended to show that the first two years after college exert, a significant hardening, and even. a temporary halt, to attitudinal and conceptual growth. This can be seen as a natural result of mov~ngfrom the more fluid world of college into a societal context where work-pressures demand a~more fixed cast to one’s goals, plans and attitudes. Thus, these individuals differ from the far more malleable candidates trained in the seminary or academy systems of years past. Even though they are obviously considering a major career shift by investigating a priest-ly or religious calling, they usually retain a good deal of .their solidified personality structure. They may not-even be aware of how habitual they have become in. patterns 9f relationship, daily routines and general atti-tudes. Those who have lived alone for even two or three years have devel-oped private habits of socializing and personal recreation which mayclash 3~14 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 strongly with the regular demands of community living. These st~rongly formed !ife-patterns also emerge in the realm of spiritu-ality,. It is not unusual for these men and women to have already expe-rienced in a variety of ways a verY powerful presence of Godin their lives, a Eresence that has been both sustaining and nourishing, a divine presence that has been greatly responsible for calling them to a switch of life-tasks. Many older candidates attest to some kind of "conversion experience" that brought them to this new way .of life even if they had been "possibly considering it." for years. This conversion experience and presen~c.e of God usually has shaped.their personal .spiritualities to a great extent. In particu-lar, the styl~es o.f prayer they favor are generally associated.with the qualities of that particular presence of God, e.g., God in nature~and an individual mystical prayer, God° in a conversion from sinfulness and a prayer of penance, God in~ .familial tradition and a structured devotional prayer. Without. being reflectively aware of it,osuch reasong have usually con-jured up an image of either priesthood or religious life that is primarily an intensification of their personal spirituality. (For example, one young man, age 30, who was converted by his reading of the New Testament~defined the primary task of the priest as teaching the Bible to people.) A formation direct_or may find these candidates to have imperceptibly meshed together~a particular style of prayer, a favored presence of God, and an implicit image of priesthood or religious life. The tight interweaving, of these factors .can cause average to severe problems in the adjustment to a formation pro-gram; the tampering with one item (e.g., teaching different prayer styles or a v.ariant image of religious life) may be perceived by candidates as a threat to the spiritual background and religious experience that gave them their new spiritual impulse. Perhaps the most-common example of the above dynamic occurs in trying to instill a sense of the value and importance of common prayer. Few of my priesthood candidates come with much appreciation or experience of the Liturgy of the Hours. Living as individuals in society, they have usually forged strong patterns of private prayer. Introducing them into the common morning and evening prayer of the semin.a.ry occasions a crisis for some each year. Common prayer does not,meet their "personal needS"; it co~mpetes with private prayer; their former sense of closeness to God gets worn away. Some begin to feel very hostile toward the seminary for ruining their intimacy ,with God:and thus threatening their vocation. It will have to be a sensitive formation program that can "deconstruct" a. person’s reli-gious background, i.e. break it into its compon.ent parts, so that the indi-vidual may assimilate’in a healthy~way..the spiritual components of a sound priestly, or religious-order spirituality. Adjustments in Older Candidates 335 People who have worked for even a few years at a competitive job in the societal labor force will accumulate some, highly fixed patterns of routine daily life. The schedule of most jobs mandates some regularity. Daily and weekly habits of work, r~creation and friendships give rise to a network of personal supports that soften the challenges of life. These supports, or "strokes" in the recent psychological lingo~ help to carry a person°through ~the down times of regtilar living. Similarly persons who in an-intefise occupational setting, such as a social case worker, personnel rfianag~r or teacher, may have silently linked part of their adult identity to these supports. - One of the standard planks for a personal identity is the positive affir-mation we receive from the,. significant individuals in our lives (family, friends, mrntors, students)..We call on this affirmation regularly~if the pressures ~of our job consistently erode bur well-being and identity. The entranize into a seminary or religious house removes persons from both the comforts of their habitual routines and the necessary strokes of signifi-cant others. This abse~ce may give rise’to a profound gense of loneliness or even abandonment. Perirds of confusion and depression soon compliote matters even more. An insightful formation program needs to be con-stantly alert to these possibilities, and d~velop ways of ?egularly informing and assisting candidates to understand and’ process these and similar experiences. A report from a meeting of Midwest seminary rectors in 1981 summa~i"- ized nicely a g,bbd numbef of additional background issues which these priestly candidates bring to the seminary (and religious life). ,. Experience indicates that the can~didate who has made applicatipn for theology school without previous seminary experience possesses all or some of tile following characteristics: he has little or~’ no experiefice, in community living; he has not had or.has had little experience of spiritual direction and is concerned about his ability to use the direction offered him; he perceives’ himself as very much an outsider in the seminary com-munity; he is unfamiliar with the special language employed both in the professional life of the seminary, e.g., academics and liturgical practice, as well as commufiity living experiences; often he is a man of practical expe-rience. with varying ability to deal with issues on a speculative level; if he is older, he might well have an exaggerated sense of his age; he is more conservative in his spirituality particularly if a recent "conversion expe-rience" has led him to ~hear the call to priesthood; he has high anxiety conceriaing the de~cision which he has recently made to enter the seminary.1 Although much more could be said about background, I will limit my observations to the preceding comments. Formation personnel should 356 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 remember that these older candidates may be more mature and worldly-wise than ~th0se fresh .o~ut of college: but they bring their ~unique bevy of problems with them. Many of these difficulties are frequently connected to a hardened personal and religi6us identity and the unconscious manner in which various factors get meshed (e.g., prayer style, validity of conversion, and expectations). Frequently these problems boil to the surface when candidates get fitted into the regulated worlds of the ~eminary or religious community. (NB. Seminaries and religious houses may ~be psychologically highly regulated even without minute daily schedules. Long periods of the day may be free and unstructured, but those hours are also 7"filled" .with pow.erful academic, ministerial and spiritual expectations. Such a day is regulat.ed not by schedule but by official expectation.) None of the above.problems should be considered insoluble. In my experience the great majority of candidates can successfully negotiate these personal and religious challenges. But the formation program as such needs to positively assist.,these men and women to identify accurately what is happening in their lives. These transitional adjustments are not usually vocational crises, and sudden hostility toward the seminary, religious community or individual superior is not always a problem with authority. To understand what is happening emotionally a clear presentation to them of the range of personal transition going on needs to be conveyed. Multiple Transitions As the previous section mentioned, a young man or woman coming to seminary or religious community after several years of work and societal experience will confront a variety of transitions. Usually the candidates are somewhat aware and a bit apprehensive about the challenges ahead and they are ~bgnizant Of what they have "given up." Howeverl up6~ arrival at their new place of r~sidence they can be overwhelmed with the thrill of a new religious start..Having left the world where one struggled to survive religiously in a secular and cynical culture, they begome exhilarated in the environment of a supportive, like-minded community. Even the most dis, tant hopes of spirituality and ministry suddenly seem possible. (Every year each new group ,of candidates within .the first two weeks wants to add even ¯ more prayer services to the school’s. Eucharist, morning rand evening prayer.) Thus the man~, transitions of life get forgotten ina tidal wave of religious fervor, but the transitions are still going on silently and relent-lessly. In time they frequently turn that tidal wave into a scorched desert of barren feeling. The transitions’ are frequently more complicated and subtle than the Candidate realizes. The first transition is the move from a secular world Adjustments in Older Candidates / 337 with its pockets of popular religiosity into an encompassing ecclesiastical religious world. In the former situation faith and religious practice have served as powerful, value-laden forces ttiat supported, protected and nour-ished the individual; in the latter situation religious practice is :a constant, pervading element of almost every waking activity. An ecclesiastical reli-gious world often fails to separate the trivial and the important, the special and the ordinary, the cynical and the solemn. It’s religion twenty’four hours a day! One ~young man said, "I’ve talked more God-talk in the last six months than in my previous twenty~six years combined. It’s blowing my mind!" This religious overload takes its toll on the psychic system: the young man or woman may begin to feel he or she has lost that "something special" which faith provided. When all’is religious, nothing is religious! They may become distressed by their first in-close dealings with religious practices that are, routine, cynical and sometimes blatantly hypocritical. Their inexperience at differentiating motives and practices within a total ecclesiastical world can make them feel that the only way out is global rejection. The formation program needs to regularly help the candidates express and process their feelings towards the total religious community. Individuals obviously vary, but my students generally show signs in three weeks to a month of inner turmoil over their newfound ecclesiastical world. ,The transition to an ecclesiastical world will slowly induce other nega-tive ramifications. Young ,adult candidates begin the initial year with an amount of confidence they have built up in maintaining their faith com-mitment against diverse social presst]res. It is not unusual for some to have had to justify their vocational change to family, friends and coworkers; repeated justifications build in them a certain sense of well-being about their commitment. Other people publicly acknowledge them to be more religiously oriented for going to a seminary or convent. But upon entering the total ecclesiastical world, they soon perceive themselves as complete novices in more.ways than~one, They listen to conversations or classes filled with" church jargon and they soon judge themselves to know practically nothing about faith or religion. Liturgical customs befuddle them and they are embarrassed to ask names of objects, vestments or devotions that ¯ everyone else seems to know"intimately. Three months ago they were explaining many aspects of the Catholic faith to’ coworkers; now they can easily perceive themselves as religiously dumb or incompetent. This partic-ular transition may contribute to their conservative stance, which is really a means of salvaging some vestige of religious dignity from their past. This transition, likeo all of them, can be jolting, but it can also be worked through. ~i31~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 Another key transition is the movement from one fixed social setting to another. Seminaries and religious communities tend to be enclosed, regu-lated societies (by laws or general expectations or both). Daily schedules and societal routines, such as meals, common prayers and social relation-ships can be vastly different from the social style that older candidates have become accustomed to. The-predominance,of same-sex relationships causes real hardships to some; the absence of children or family settings may be bothersome; the lack of free, unstructured evenings or weekends or the lack of a car and its freedom disrupt.the previous.ways that individuals had dissipated tension. That tension now accumulates and begins to boil within. ¯ I have found that on6 of the largest and most troubling transitions for young adults is the entrance into a trainin.g’program where theend is preparation for a. public role, along with the public evaluation that role requires. The priesthood as public leadership in the Chtirch and the eccle-sial witness of a religious community both demand evaluations of, persons seeking to enter those positions. Many older candidates have never thought of their religious pursuit through this lens,~-having confined their religious practice to a predominantly interior, individual and privatized realm (as is the fashion ofmost religious practice in the United States).2 The communal environment of seminaries and religious communities is saturated by the air of evaluation. Evaluation procedures are everywhere in current practice: academic, personal, spiritual, and so forth. All individuals must evaluate themselves (and others).on an annual basis. Each priesthood candidate will undergo an overall evaluation by faculty, and formation personnel on such matters as intellectual competence, social skills, pastoral abilities and spiritual growth. Externalization of what has often been a highly privatized religious realm can be terribly upsetting for the young adult. Some simply cannot see that,such matters should be evaluated publicly; the intense individualism of their religious background and expe-riences reacts strongly. Others become oversensitized, fearful. They worry about expulsion for unknown: reasons or accusation .by some Grand Inquisitor. Still others .may become hesitant because they°’fail to separate the realm of public behavior and standards from interior faith and direc-tion. A criticism about their lack of social abilities~can be "understood" as a criticism about °the integrity of theif~faith. A good. formation program should work with candidates to help them both understand and interiorize the meaning and demands of assuming a public leadership role, or the public demands of community~belonging. One young man said, "I just don’t ~want to. be ste.reotyped~." I responded. "Sorry, it comes with the job." Many of these young adults who grew up in Adjustments in Older Candidates / 339 the age when traditional Catholic distinctions had slipped into shadows do not know the distinctions between "internal" and "external" forum. This must be carefully spelled out, and repeated from time to time. Even with all this, the appreciation of what a public religious leadership role demands does not occur without prayer, struggle and guidance through spiritual direction. The appreciation and interiorization of a public religious respon-sibility (beyond that of a private, personal spirituality) possesses all the elements of a significant conversion experience in life.~ To truly recognize the priestly ministry or the vowed religious life as constituting an ecclesial figureis also to accept thgse lifestyles as embodying~a responsibility to the whole Catholic world and Catholic tradition; this reaches considerably beyond a personal arid private" religious obligation. It requires an accep-tance and interiorization of public behavior, skills and attitudes which relate as much to the community of the Church as to my personal relatiom ship with God. Life transitions do pile up on the young adult who arrives at a seminary or religious community and seeks to discern a prssible calling to priest-hood or vowed life. We have considered several of the major ones: into an encompassing ecclesiastical world, from one fixed social setting into a quite different one, arid into a ~climate of higlfiaiablic evaluation. The anxieties generated by these transitioris can become severe, as the rii~xt section will show. For the l~resent fie simply need to note them and recognize that a Victic of directly addressing these transitions needs ~to be a constant com-ponent of both the formational and spiritual-direction program for these young adults. The Trauma of Transition For more than a decade the Alban Institute in Washington, D.C.I has studied the dynamics of "transition technology" in ministerial situations (e.g. from seminary to par!sh; from associate to pastor,,from one parish to another)) Leaders of the°institute recognized that those occasions when a person moves from one "known" social setting into a new and relatively unknown social setting constitute some of the most ~vulnerable periods in an individual’s life. Although many organized-church traditions have fre-q uently moved, individuals from place to place as a matter of policy, little has been.done to help them make effective transitions to their new ministry or enable them to manage the sometimes severe traumas which may occur. (Th’e "grace of obedience"~was thought to effect the desired rebalancing:) The research of the Alban Institute has shown tl~at beginmngs in a pastoral situation are important; that the first months of adjustment frequently determine one’s long-range adaptation and effectiveness in a new setting. 340/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 (In fact, more and more dioceses and religious houses are coming, to recognize the incredible influence of the first full-time placement.) Much of this research on transition technology becomes extremely relevant to young adults entering seminaries and religious communities for the first time. My particular seminary program deals with about thirty youngmen a year. l.would say it is.common for better than half of each group to feel some uncomfortableness over the transitions the$, experience. Their dis-comfiture may range from mild annoyance to severe personal upheaval. It is not unusual for an enthusiasm of the first weeks to slowly diminish and give wayto a growing diso’rientation. Some begin to.worry that they made a mistake, and the seminary .becomes a fearsome, t~rapping situation because their previous job has.been discontinued and their housing sold or leased. Others just ask over and over, "Why am 1 here?" and can’t seem to find a satigfactory answer. A few may worry that their entire faith is crumbling; they can’t explain sudden doubts which appeared where only months before there was absolute conviction. This time of doubt and dejection is frequently accompanied~by physical symptoms. Nagging illnesses like colds or upset stomachs pop up; physical weariness becomes the order of the day. Changes in bowel habits or sleep-lessness can increase anxiety. A transition experience cuts across all dimen-sions of life: physical, psychological, social and spiritual. We must understand the effects of social transitions on all these human areas,,and be ready to help people negotiate them. Psychologically, in a period of transition, by definition a young adult coming from secular societal life to the seminary or religious community, his or her daily patterns of life have all been removed, and new patterns do not immediately emerge. In certain aspects these individuals are like.immi-grants, slowly searching and experimenting for new roots. This time change may cause strong internal feelings to erupt. Some individuals Who previously held positions of authority and responsibility in the societal work force now feel the disorientation and worthlessness that lack of authority and status may bring. And there is no work or service in their new life to compensate. The sudden displacement of responsibilit.y may spark feelings of worthlessness or humiliation. (~Karl Marx had a valid insight in saying that a good deal of our personal identity comes from the socially significant work we do.) Lastly, the h~avy outpouring of psychic energy that goes with meeting new people, places and routines day after day leaves everyone tired and feeling a bit drained, and that weariness usually compounds the other negative feelings. This trauma of transition is not unusual, neither is it .a test that will, Adjustments in Older Candidates / 341 necessarily overwhelm a certain percentage of candidates. If these persons understand the probability of its occurrence at some time ~n their first year, do some preparation, and know some techniques of personal management, they are~able to handle it with a modicum of discomfort. One last point.should be watched: there it a quite normal dynamism of expectation which may w6rk havoc in situations of transitions, and I have frequently noticed it in pre-theology candidates. These young men often come from societal settings where they have been able to exercise some Christian service and engage in personal spirituality projects on a limited scale (perhaps in a parish volunteer setting or a Christian social-action group). When they enter the seminary and begin formal preparation for priesthood, their expectations escalate and they "assume" an immediate increase in Christian serviceand spirituality practices. But with full-time classes and school activities they are soon doing less actual ministry than before, and their personal prayer gets mixed up by the communal obliga-tions mentioned before.4 Psychologically their expectations are "gunning" the spiritual motor, so to speak, but socially they are in Park, and they find that they are grinding themselves down. This dynamic needs to be watched and worked with by formation personnel and spiritual directors. Older candidates need to formulate sl6~vly and patiently a "plan of identification" just as the Alban lfistitute counsels new ministers to work gradually towards formulating a plan of ministry for their new pastoral assignment.5 Just as six months is a recommended period of grace bef6re initiating parish changes, it is p]-obably a reasonable time-allotment for new-candi-dates before they attempt to assess (and escalate) any personal expectations they place o’n themselves. Suggestions for Personal and Spiritual Management The perception that older priesthood and religious candidates require qualitatively different kinds of formation programs is an ,idea that has already taken deep root among vocation and formation personnel. Signifi-cant strides have been made in many areas like course instruction and communityqiviiag requirements. I fiaerely hope to add a bit to this growing body of knowledge b~ suggesting some tactics and strategies to assist these individuals working through their initial adjustment or transition phase. These comments are more often applicable within the first six months of entry into seminary or religious community. The first strategy, in the line of preventive medicine, is quite simply knowledge, an awareness that some transition-anxiety will probably occur no matter how fine and enthusiastic the first weeks may be. There will undoubtedly be a great diversity in how individuals manage transitions; for ~149 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 some the adjustments may be slight, but few will have no problems what-ever. Simply to have in one’s awareness a basic grasp of the multiple transitions, and how these transitions produce p~rsonal stress will provide guidelines for interpretation and action. To diagnose a difficulty ~icc.urately. is the first essential task in any kind of counseling. In this instance it may offset the further anxiety that can result if the young persgn feel.s that his or her vocation or faith is disintegrating. A second level o.f strategy would articulate a set of tactics that °might assist the young adult inthe midst of transition stresses to cope with these pressures. These tactics are similar to managing any "survival situation.TM They can be briefly summarized: 1) Lowe.rpqrsonal expectations. Instead of escalating their demands upon themselves to pray more fervently, work harder and do more service to others,, efforts should be made to cut back on these eoxpectations temporarily. The key here is to conserve physical and psychological energy for the tasks of psychic self-preservation. These indi-viduals are already operating at a reduced, energy level (due to the drain that social transitions exert), and there is no way they can successfully meet escalatedexpectations. Repeated failures merely compound guilt and nega-tive feelings, 2) Increased rest. The bodily systems are the foundation for psychological and emotional health as well as for making accurate judg- ¯ ments. When emotions are depleted, the body needs rest to coalesce strength and rebuild proper balance. For a time one may have to sacrifice other elements in the daily schedule in order, to get some additional rest time. 3) Pay attention to building daily routines. One of the reasons for high energy drain in transition times is that ever~h.ing is. ne,.w (people, places, schedule, social expectations). An inordinate amount of attentive awareness goes into "meeting" new people and performing even simple daily tasks. Habit or routine is Of value precisely to relieve that constant outpouring. Seek to regularize daily work-times, eating .and rest habits, companions, and so forth. 4) Spiritual direction and counseling. It always helps to talk tlirough problems, especially with a person who can provide a wider frame ~of reference. It does take some humility to asks. for help, particularly when one wanted so much to get off to a fabulous start in a new career. 5) Remind yourself that perserveranc.e is a Christian virtue. The young adult might remember that he or she has ~already made a very significdnt personal decision (to seek a testing of priesthood or religious life) and that decision should be stuck to "in good times and in bad," as any promise ought to be. A third, strategy would be to:recognize that a dynamic similar to the grieving process needs to tran_spire in the person. For many of these older candid~ites there is a break and removal,from friends, supports and joys of Adjustments in Older Candidates living. A sense of loss may strike them~ sharply as the first bloom of seminary or religious-community life wears off. The classic stages of the grieving process denial, anger, bargaining,,depression, acceptance cab find analogues in this context: fighting the onset of discouraging feelings, anger at the institution or superiors, bargaining to find some accomodating way, and so forth. Formation personnel should help candidates to realize that such feelings may be part of the natural adaptive process and not simply a rejection or d~nial of their vocations to priesthood or religious life. At particular moments it helps to say clearly ~hat one must give oneself permission to be discouraged or angry or depressed. That~acceptance may be necessary if an individual is to work the grieving process to a resolution and a newfound balance. Finally, a major theme of the pre-theology or novitiate year, which can be successfully introduced when the candidates are a couple of months into the program, is that of Christian conversion. A goodly number of older candidates arrive at their respective ecclesia~stical institutions as the result of some form of conversion experience, and so they often feel that the major part of the conversion process is behind them. The theological understand-ing of conversion as lifelong, process, with the tougher steps still ahead, becomes more graspable as the first sheen of the year wears off and people settle into the long haul Of personal and ministerial formation, lndeed conversion becomes more challenging the deeper it penetrates into our hearts and souls. Later people may look back and realize-that the expe-rience which brought them to seminary or religious community only cracked the surface. The more difficult and richer stages lie yet in the future. The preceding strategies are some helps I have found in aiding candi-dates to grapple with and conquer the onset of transition anxieties in their first year of seminary or religious community. By no means are they meant to be complete and exclusive. The formation literature that deals with this new form of religious and ministerial candidate grows steadily in breadth and depth; these reflections are intended to be one voice in that continuing conversation. NOTES ~"Candidates Entering Schools of Theology Without Prior Seminary Experie.nce," Report of Midwest Catholic Seminary Rectors (Duplicated Copy-1981), pp. 2-3. 344 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 2John Coleman "The Situation for Modern Faith," Theological Studies 39 (1978), pp. 601-632. 3AIban Institute materials ’include a series of pamphlets and workbooks by Roy M. Oswald: Crossing the Boundary Between Seminary and Parish; The Pastor as New-comer; New Beginn(ngs: Pastorate Start-Up Workbook. 4A similar process can transpire in religious community candidates even though they experience common prayer as a part of their ideal. This happens when an individual has so meshed his or her religious self-identity with a particular form of private prayer, that they are perceived as inseparable. It can be more difficult to unravel these situa-tions in religious community settings because of the difficulty of finding some "sabbati-cal time" to do the rettiinking and revaluing. 5Ro3/M. Oswald, New Beginnings: Pastorate Start-Up Workbook (Washington, D.C.: Alban Institute Publications, 1977), pp: 33-65. 61 have dealt with these dynamics further in " ’I’m Just Making It’: Survival as a .Spiritual Value," REVlEW FOR R E~.~G~OUS 37 (1978), pp. 277-278. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions land II Address: by Patricia Spillane, M. S~ C. Price: 151.25 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. SL Louis, Missouri 63108 Extremism in Ignatius of Loyola Tad Dunne, S.J. Father Dunne, who previously taught systematic theology at Toronto’s Regis College, is now Director of Novices for the Detroit Province. He may be addressed at Loyola House: 2599 Harvard Road: Berkley. Michigan 48072. Retreats can be deceptive. Wewithdraw from our daily0meanderings and ascend to some lofty point from which we can see, from a spiritual perspec-tive, where our journey has taken us and where it is going. We may feel a need for an outlook quite opposite to oar culture’s, even extremely so in some sense, if we are to live a vibrant spirituality in the midst of the world. From that vantage point, we search the gospels for some absolute ideal against which to test our everyday activities. And usually we come away with a vision simple and uncompromising. Then we come down from the heights, and before long we start work-ing on a balance between these opposites: not too talkative, but not too silent; not a workaholic, but not lazy; don’t jump to conclusions, but don’t accept everything mindlessly either. We look back on our retreat from quite a different perspective than we had while we were in it. Then we saw ourselves as refusing to com, promise with the world; but now we feel maybe just a little more faithful or a little more loving, and we count that small gain as our humble best. IS this retreat desire for some spiritual extreme an illusion we amuse ourselves with while p.erc.hed far above the harsh realities of the city? Or is the opposite true: that our adaptations to everyday realities compromise something in us that is precious in the sight of God? Ignatius of Loyola was one person, among many others in our history, who pushed for the no-compromise attitude: ~6 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 Just as people of the world who follow the world love and seek with such great diligence honors, fame, and esteem for a great name on earth, as the world teaches (hem, so those who are progressing i9 the spiritual life and truly following Christ our Lord love and intensely desire everything oppo-site (GE 101).~ This sounds impressive, but many doubt that we can make such a ¯ black/white distinction today. Unlike Ignatius in his day, we perceive a certain continuity between religious values and secular values. Our society’s hospitals, its welfare systems, our efforts to eliminate poverty and to estab-lish political grounds for world peace all point to a growing convergence of what "the world" and what Christians intensely desire. Indeed, a case could be made that it is chiefly because of Christian values that the Secular City is gradually taking on humane, even spiritual goals for the human race. So should we regard Ig.natius’ contentious approach to life as just a temporary stance made necessary by the chaos of the Church and of society in his time? I would like to argue a strong "No!" Strong, because unless we see some practical usefulness to an "everything opposite,, attitude, we would lose our sense of what is radidal about being Christian. We would gradually grow accustomed to "the world" as it is, and lose our critical ’sense. We w6uld have no razor-edged criterion for weighing practical alter-natiVes in ourapostolates. But what exactly does Ignatius mean by "everything opposite?"Para-doxically, he also counseled balance in many areas of life. So we can legitimately ask in what sense ought we be spiritual extremists, and in what sense men and women of prudent balance? Although I focus m~inly on Ignatius, I have no doubt that most°of the spiritual giants in human history would know what Ignatius was talking about. A Dialectic of Desires First of all, this "everything opposite" attitude does not refer to external social or cultural realities. It does not mCan that we should be opposed to all modern institutions just because they are "of the world." In any cage, these are always a mixed product of intelligence and ~aliqe, of good will and stupidity, and so in their regard we try not to throw out the baby with the bath. What Ignatius is talking about is rather ~ithe inner realities of consciousness. The "everything" which ought to 15e opposite to the "world" means inner desires. The disciple’s desires ought to be completely opposite to the worldly penchant in us to "love and seek with such great diligence honors, fame, and esteem for a great name bn earth,~as the world teaches." Let me explain this more .fully. On the one hand, we revel in praise, we take pains to protect our Extremism ih Ignatius of Loyola/347 reputations, and we easily pour our energies into making a name for ourselves. On the other hand, rebukes chasten us, insults sting us, and injuries humble us. However, even when these humiliations are unjustified, we do have to admit that the shock to our pride does have a therapeutic element in it. In some small way, we need a come-uppance now and then. To be "put in one’s pldce" can shatter self-defeating illusions we cherish about ourselves. What is very important to notice here is thatwhat honors do to ore: sense of ourselves, and what put-downs do, "are completely opposite. It is these opposing senses of’ourselves, I believe, that Ignatius means°by "everything opposite." Wl~at Ignatius gives in the General Examen, he expands upon in the meditation on the Two Standards (SE 136-148).2 There he shows how different acquired tastes about lifestyle usually lead to quite deep and quite opposite longings abo~t one’s self-awareness. On the one hand. the taste for m0ney’leads to a desire for a great name. On the other, the taste for poverty usually leads to a longing for a certain anonymity the kind that frees a person to live without crippling self-concern. And beyond the great name anti th~ little name lie the r~al objects of one’s deepest love what Ignatius calls either a.life of pride or a life of humility. Learning the Dialectic of Desires ~ Now few people recognize that, in faCt, they long either for pride or for humility. In"one’s everyday choices,, most things seem morally gray, with-out serious consequefices., And yet they do add up to a direction in one’s life, a direction that sooner or later reveals whether a person is self-centered or not. So it takes some reI:le~tion to real’ize for oneself that underneath a great number of apparently harmless concerns there lurks one’s fundamen-tal inclination to pride. Likewise it takes some measure of self-reflection to notice the interior movements that in fact are a person’s desire for humility. Once both these movements are recognized,° we can see that they are entirely opposite pulls in consciousness. Moreover, we can then begin to recognize that this dialectic of desires fihderlies our every activity, and see how it profoundly determines the person we become and the stamp we leave on our world. Given the’importance of this self-education in inner movements, it is no wonder that Ignatius prescribes more meditations on the Two Standards than on any other in the Exercises. ~ Still, we must admit, despite repeated meditations on the Two Stan-dards and nur~erous exhortations on the value of resisting the pull to ownership and to be held in high esteem, even the spiritually mature do not easily maintain.such a dialectical attitu.de toward their inner movements. And so we must ask why an "everything opposite" attitude is so difficult to 348 / Review.[’or ReliL, ious~ May-June, 1986 live out. One reason is that we have failed to see the point of the Two Standards meditation. We may shave "done it" during a retreat and felt we got the point. Perhaps we understood Ignatius’ view of the spiritual struggle very well and saw its connection toomaking choices in life. So we act as though it is enough to grasp the concept of spiritual struggle; we sincerely hope to bring the concept to bear in our everyday situations. What we forget is that life is concrete, not abstract. The people and the situations around us are a profoundly mysterious jumble of grace and malice, requiring in-depth reflection every day. Mediiation is .not analysis. Nor is =t simply ar~ appreciation of an abstract vision. Rather, meditation should be an ongoing and strenuous exerc=se in understanding the interac-tion between our concrete surroundings and our inner struggles. Ignatius, in fact, appeals very little to the concept of struggle. By that I mean that he does not analyze the meaning of "acting a, gainst" considered as a principle from which actions can be determined. It is one thing to acknowledge that life is a struggle, but quite another to name exactly what we are struggling with each day. In his practice and teaching of discernment Ignatius seldom appeals to an abstract rule of life. Instead, he appeals to imagination and to history to show that life is essentially a dialectic of desires, because he wants us to realize it in our own lives. For example, in the General Examen, he asks that the candidate for the Society of Jesus "ponder" how helpful it is to imitate the humiliated Christ. Does "ponder" mean conceptualize and ar~.lyze here? Not at all. The candidate is asked to imagine spiritually advanced men and womer~ and to notice how in fact they "intensely desire" to be clothed exactly as Christ, because of the love they bear him. lgnatius does not tell the candidate to imitate Christ humiliated and poor. He directs him only t,~ im.agine what the loyal disciple desires. Likewise in the Two Standards, the retreatant imagines the "servants and friends" of Christ, how they are naturally attracted in the direction opposite to pride, and how they attract others in the direction of h~mility.’ I believe that ~Igriatius is trying to help the retreatant distinguis~h between several otherwise nameless, interior experiences. By focusing on the disciple instead of the Master, Ignatius clearly means to have us consider which Of our inner experiences, among the many that occur, corresponds to that particular attraction to Christ which the true disciple experiences. In other words, he wants us to discriminate among inner desires, not apply some facile, clean-cut rules about behavior. I said that Ignatius appeals also to history to teach us about these two pulls in consciousness. He does this in two ways. First, he directs a~tention Extremism in Ignatius of Loyola to the purposes which motivated Jesus in his work on earth so that we might better imitate him. True disciples "desire to resemble and imitate our Creator and Lord Jesus Christ... since it was for our spiritual profit that he clothed himself as he did" (GE.101 ). Notice that lgnatius calls Jesus "our Creator." This makes the choices of Jesus for poverty and humiliations a deliberate revelation of how we can best fulfill the purpose of our creation. Our Creator, Jesus Christ, came with this express purpose--to "give us an example that in all things possible we"might seek.., to imitate and follow him, since he is the way that leads us to life" (GE 101). For Ignatius, God desired to enter human history in person, taking on the only condition that truly gives life, a condition of poverty and humility. If there was any doubt which inner desire one can depend on, now we see clearly that Jesus Christ freely and wisely chose .poverty and humiliations. History now has a model-member to guide it~ Jesus Christ, not just Lord but Creator as well, in imitation of whose interior .desires we find real life. Ignatius appeals to history in another manner which;although it is less obvious in the texts, underlies everything in the General Examen and the Exercises. Like St. Paul, he boldly sets his own historical experience and that of his first companions as the measure of what abnegation means in the concrete. In Chapter. Four of the General Examen, which Ignatius wrote with the overall intention that novices accept the idea of abnegation,3 we find this reason given: "For where the Society’s first members have passed through these necessities and greater bodily wants, the others who come to it should endeavi~r, as far as they can, to reachthe same point as the.earlier ones, or to go farther in our Lord" (GE 81). In other words, the candidate is told that he is entering a community which is not leading itself; it is being led by God. Like Israel, the Society’s founding historical expe-rience is normative for the Society’s continuing style..Therefore for the simple reason that God moved the early companions to love poverty and humiliations in order to achieve the humility of Jesus, so too shOuld the later companions, because this is not just human work but the very labor of God nbt only in our psyches but in our history too. Isee two kinds of meditations which these reflections should prompt. First, we should learn for ourselves how to recognize when ~we are pulled toward humility and when towards pride. To do this, it may help to compare our~own inner experience to that of deeply spiritual persons. Their outwardly simple and self-effacing lifestyle is a manifestation of a militant obedience, to a deep and steady love within. Authentic people avoid applause, not because they are shy but because they are courageously maintaining a spirit which is very precious to them. Second, we should meditate on the various stories in which God acted ~ / Review for Religious, Ma.v-June, 1986 for the Church through Ignatius, or through any of the men and women who understood the struggle within. Their story is part of our history, and our story draws its meaning from that shared history. God indeed has entered history permanently, not only in the person of Christ Jesus but also in the hearts of our spiritual ancestors. Ignatius and his companions, in particular, recognized that their experience of begging and mockery gave them great joy. And why? Because they felt a concrete share in the expe-rience of their~Creat0r and Lord. Once they decided to form a community, they wrote constitutions with the purpose of structuring, as far as possible. a continual reenactment by its members of their’often difficult yet greatly joyful desires. We can read Scripture in the same way. By attending to the inner experiences which lay behind the texts of Scripture, we can recognize the two pulls of consciousness and the meamng of each, For example, when Jesus heard the woman cry out, "Happy is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursedyou!" he replied, "Not as happy as those who hear the Word of God and keep it!" (Lk 11:27-28). As I read it, this text says that the ~hief concern of a happy consciousness is inner obedience, not family loyalty nor pride in the fruits of one’s labor.- For another example, we hear the reading from Wisdom, "I esteemed her [wisdom] more than scepters and thrones:... I loved her more than health or beauty" (7:8-10). What else is this wisdom but, the constant desire to live with ,the regular humiliations that come with living in the truth? Once we understand that what we call "salvation" is in fact the outcome of a tension in consciousness, we can read any scriptural stories and recognize familiar inner movements in ourselves. In this fashion, by seeing our pres-ent experience in the light of the gospels, we can grow to love the humble, self-transcending path. An Empirical View of the Dialectic Having said all that, there .still remains a nagging question. Many deeply spiritual men and women in fact have meditated in this way, have lived in actual poverty, have been stung by the insults, and know the joy that can accompany these experiences, but they regard this as a persono! asceticism only. They possess only vague notions of what the humble way has to do with peace in the world and the ongoing struggle of cultural and political leaders, to achieve it. Perhaps they believe in the~principle that pride pulls down nations, but they have no mental frameworkfor under-standing how it does so. Nor do they perceive how anyone~’s humility might everbuild up a nation. As a result, while they may live out a dialectical attitude ih their personal.lives, they can make no connections between it Ertremism in Ignatius of" Loyola / 351 and contemporary political science, psychology, sociology and economics. And so they seem to ache for the world but know nothing about how to improve it. Our world, after all, is thoroughly empirical, unlike Ignatius’ world. which it seems, doted more on eternal verities. Were Ignatius alive today, 1 believe that besides appealing to imagination and to history, he would add a functional explanation of how the dialectic of desires underlies social progress and decline. That is, he would seek to explain how an inner penchant for doing without funds or fame works to bring about a redemp-tion in Christ Jesus that would mean something to this world. Or. to use his terms, he would explain what role ’,discernment of spirits" plays in "redeeming" the world: To work out that functional explanation of how discernment of spirits facilitates redemption, we have to express the movements of the good and bad angels in terms that the average person can find in experience; °There are two experi.ences in particular which we must point out. each repr_esent-ing a pull or drawing in consciousness on the side of Christ’s standard. First- is the experience of intending the truth. This experience relates to an extremely broad range of objects, and yet, as experience, it is quite distinct from many other kinds of inner experience. To "intend the truth" means to want to know reality, to search for answers to questions, and to respect the truth when we find it. This intending, this search, this respect, pulls against a counter-drift in us which settles for simple answers, for impressive words, for tricky, solutions, and for comforting illusions. Second is the experience of intending the good. This too relates to a ¯ broad range~ of objects and yet is quite a distinct feeling in consciousness. We ;’intend the good" when we weigh options for the sake of discovering what is objectively the best choice. In doing so, .we pull against ~ counter-tendency which seeks the merely satisfying, the subjectively comfortable. To want the truly good often means to choose a more painful path, but a better .one. And the criterion we use .to tell which is better is not only an examination of pros and cons.but also and chiefly, I believean expe-rience of fulfilled,or frustrated desire in our hearts. With these two experiences in mind--the intention of truth and the intention of good we can analyze how an "everything opposite" attitude works redemption in concrete situations, and how a failure to be strongly contentious prevents redemption from taking over. Let me illustrate this in several different areas of life. Some Illustrations To a great extent we all have difficulty with our feelings. Speaking for 352 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 myself, whenever I meet a stranger at a party, I seem to listen to our conversation with one ear and to my inner apprehensions with the other. It doesn’t work very well because I often say things I immediately feel foolish about. Just when I hope to make a good impression, 1 feel I make a bad one. This happens because my mind was not fully on what we were talking about. I was also thinking about how to feel accepted, and so I blurted out things unrelated tothe topic of our conversation. Things are not much better with friends either, particularly when it comes to dealing with anger. When a friend gets angry with ’me, I want to strike back or at least defend myself. But neither reaction helps me under- ’stand what has gone wrong, and this failure to understand only makes it that much harder to work out an amicable solution. The ideal, of course, is to be able to acknowledge the truth of my own feelings and the feelings of others. This means workifig both to name the feelings and to pinpoint what the feelings are focused on--not an easy task for anybody. Negative feelings in particular are often repressed, and yet they are our best indicators that something of value is going ~ wrong. Because they are meant to alert us to harm, we should take them seriously, making every attempt first to acknowledge them and then to understand what they are all about. But this requires a no-compror~ise attitude towards those, pulls inside us which spring to "defend our poor egos. Those pulls create illusions which seduce us and cushion us against taking the sometimes painful responsibility~of facing the truth and doing our real best. For another illustraton of how dedication to reality and to objective worth helps bring order and sense into an ot.herwise ch~aotic situation, consider how communities tend by nature to be self-centered. As a com-munity we may be very realistic and quite responsible where each other are concerned, but this does nothing to prevent us from being aloof and oblivious to outsiders. Every community tends to reinforce its owri biases, to congratulate itself on its victories, and to speak a language full of value judgments ’that no one questions. Members seldom wonder whence its resources come and where its garbage goes. They seldom question whether or not its enjoyments are paid for by the sweat and malnutrition of foreigners. Unfortunately, for all the values inherent in community, there is very little in community itself that directs it beyond itself. These powerful gravi-tational forces toward self-centeredness can be found in communities of all sizes: couples in love, large families, ethnic groups, labor unions, nations-- and even religions. But all such communities live among other communi-ties. They contain subgroups, and they belong to larger groups. Wittiout some cultural commitment to the larger, more common good, subgroups Extremism in Ignatius of Loyola / 353 cut back their good will and limit their creativity to what benefits them-selves alone. So the normal demand for large-scale cooperationis regularly sacrificed for some small-scale gain: first for this and then for that faction. Sadly and ironically, once this game of competition between groups begins, none of the groups benefits as much as each of them might have, had they all shared their wits and their good will with one another. Historically, self-centered communities have enlarged their vision and commitments only when they have been provoked from within by a prophet. Usually.the prophet gathers a select community of like-minded people together to become the leaven in the dough. But before the prophet speaks a single word or calls a single disciple, he or she bbeysan inner pull toward truths and values that run counter to the prevailing attitudes. Prophets have reputations for being contentious. They get that way because they already fight an interior battle between illusions that are familiar and truths that are strange, between old, accepted ways of treating people and new, more dignified ways. So they cry out to the people they love, calling them to realize that they are playing a no-win game with other groups. When prophets are successful, a reform movement will get under, way only insofar as it deals with the community’s concrete relations to other groups. The measure of its success will be the degree to which it demolishes any self-centered myths which its own authorities may propagate in the name of community strength or unity. But its members have to wake up intellectually. Only when they recognize these myths in themselves and wage an interior war against them will this peaceful revolution be~in. For my final illustration, I want to highlight the inner struggle that takes place in what we call the deep thinkers--scientists, historians, philo-sophers, and theologians, both the professional and the amateur. Contrary to popular opinion, deep thinkers often do not have an astronomically high I.Q. They work slowly but steadily. Nor are they born "bright;" they become aware of long-range implications and complex problems only by a steady fight against their minds’ drift toward the easy answers. Again, you can see my point. On the one hand, we all experience a pull " toward a bogus form of knowing; the kind that relies on memory, rhetoric and bluffing. On the other, we also experience an "entirely opposite" pull towards asking honest questions, and searching for the best explanations, fighting against any worry that someone else .might beat us to a solution. We all have felt the desire to belittle intellectual inquiry and to disregard journals of opinion; even as we secretly wish we had the staying power to work for a more than surface understanding of the world around us. We cannot excuse our anti-intellectualism on the grounds of mental 3~4 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 dullness. The so-called "dull" can be extremely bright when it comes to practical and immediate concerns, Here lies the road to pride again. On its own power alone; our intelligence would n~ver stop asking questions about anything, no matter how remote. But when, the fruits of our reflections are not immediate and palpable, then a prideful concern for our own welfare forces its way in and compels our intelligence to surrender. We yield to the forces in our consciousness that move us toward easy answers, silly responses, and. make-believe solutions. While we all recognize these pulls in ourselves, we should notice what happens when psychologists, histbriians, political scientists, economists and the like give in to them. Their shortsighted solutions to human crises ’make life more miserable not just for themselves but for countless other human beings. Yet no jury indicts them for malpractice. No preacher denounces them from the pulpit. Instead, we give them the benefit of the doubt that ~’they did their best." But upon their interior obedience to the canons of truth--an obedience monitored by themselves alone--hangs the future of anyone whom their theories, and policies’ touch. From this large-scale perspective, we can see better that every time someone settles for’merely partial answers to problems, he or she usually introduces a solution which itself needs fixing by someone else. Of course, this is only a general explanation of how bad situations get worse, but it does explain how a contentious spirituality can work to better the world we live in. Only an "everything opposite" attitude towards this downhill intel-lectual slide will regularly bring about ..intelligent and long-range solutions to the problems that beset God’s people. Conversion to the Dialectical Attitude "Everything opposite" means a conversion--one that requires some-times anger but often gentleness to maintain. It means recognizing that oners interior is a battleground of two opposing kinds of movements, whose :outcome has direct manifestations in one’s psychic health, one’s prophetic spirit, and one’s intellectual freedom. These, in turn~, have a direct .effect on:family harmony, social justice and on the broad philosophies and theories that shape out: human institutions. The conversion ought to be total,.because there is no event in our everyday lives which does not derive its meaning from how we responded to it. As Christians, we stand in a peculiar relationship to.~this conversion to a dialectical .attitude. The functional explanation givrn above, of how dis-cernment of spirits works to create a better world, could stand on its own without any~reference to Christ Jesus. This is an asset insofar as Christians can share a vision, a language, and a praxis with non-Christians--which Extremism in Ignatius of, Loyola we must certainly do if we are to tackle issues of social justice with any seriousness. Such cooperation can even be the beginning of a dialogue about ultimates in truth and goodness leading to the Good News of Christ Jesus. But a functional explanation by itself is also a liability insofar as Christians might forget to name just who it is who moves the soul to face the truth and do one’s true best. So it seems incumbent upon theologians and catechists to express the age-old doctrine of redemption in Christ Jesus and the Spirit in functional categories drawn from the dynamic~ of con-sciousness and the workings of history. This is a large order, but fortu-nately one already, being taken up by many today. A final word of caution: Such an "everything opposite" attitude is not learned overnight. It takes time to name which inner experiences corres-pond to "intending the truth" and which to wishful thinking; which to "inte,,nding the good" and which to securing the merely comfortable for ourselves. And we learn by our mistakes. But Without the slightest exag-geration we can say that in this matter there should be no compromise. Only an extremism about our inner movements can give us the day-to-day balanced judgment and love that redeem the world. ~ NO~ES ~ General Examen. This document was written by Ignatius for the purpose of teaching candidates for the Society, of Jesus what Jesuit life Would require. It was meant to be given:in a retreat setting, requiring some serious meditation. See George E. Ganss, ed., The Constitutions of the ~Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970) pp. 75-118. My references above refer to paragraph numbers. 2Spiritual Exercises. See Louis 3. Puhl, ed., The Spiritual~Exercises of St. Ignatius (Wes.tminister, MD: The Newman Press, 1959), References are to paragraph numbers. 3Joseph de Guibert, The Jesuits: Their St~iritual Doctrine and Practice (Chicago: Loyola UniverSity Press; St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1964) p. 141. The Spirit of Holiness Living in Us E. A. Ruch, 0 M.L Father Ruch teaches philosophy, at the National University of Lesotho (P.O. Roma 180; Southern Africa). He has just completed a study leave in France. Spiritual theology distinguishes three stages in our progress towards holiness: The purgative (cleaning) stage which consists essentially in a breaking-away from sin, not merely out of fear of divine punish-ment, but out of a God-given awareness of God’s love for us; The illuminative stage in which we grow in a personal understanding of who God is, an awareness which always culminates in the realiza-tion that "God is love"; The unitivestage which is a personal love-response to God’s love for us and thus a gradual transformation of ourselves into true children of God sharing in his divine nature. Holiness is infinitely more than just being a good man, someone who meticulously obeys the law of God. We live in a redeemed world, a world already reconciled with God, but in which we are called to "become the goodness of God" (2 Co 5:21). This is why the standards of holiness which Christ sets us are much higher than those of "the Scribes and the Pharisees" (see Mt 5:20-47). Jesu~ has come to complete the law, to raise it io a level which we cannot attain by our human strength. Indeed, he expects us to be "perfect as (our) heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). He wants us to become "fully developed, complete, with nothing missing" (Jm 1:4). He wants us to "be holy in all [we] do, since it is the Holy One who has called [us], and Scripture says: be holy, for I am holy" (I P 1:IS). We must not, therefore, confuse a high standard of moral purity with holiness. Moral purity is only the starting poittl on our way to holiness. The Spirit of Holiness / 357 Beyond our human struggle for justice and goodness, there is a gift from God which transcends all human limits. Let me try to exploin this by means of a parable. Let us suppose a diver who, having stripped off his everyday clothing, is preparing tb plunge into the pool. Undressing does not make a diver. It is only when he has left terra firma and confided himself tothe new element, viz. water, that his life as a diver begins; for it is only a beginning. Let us now follow the diver’s experience under water. He begins to discover the marvels of the underwater flora and fauna: a truly new world opens: to him. True, he also begins to discover the dangers of this life, but the beauties he discovers are more than a match for the risks incurred. More and more he finds pleasure in diving and in exploring this new world. And yet, every once in a while he has to return to dry land to refill his compressed air cylinders and to take a rest in his own, more familiar world. Let us now imagine such a diver being gradually transformed into an "aquatic animal," i,e, into a kind of new man, capable of living, breathing and working under water in perfect ease, not even wishing to return to his formerly familiar, yet highly toxic atmosphere of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Life under water has become a "second nature": it is now his "real" life and his original one would be considered as "abnormal." He is now a new creature "fully developed, complete, with nothing missing" who no longer wants to leave his newly acquired mode of existence, and who finds "life outside" meaningless, boring, heavy and poisonous. He now "lives and moves and has his being" in God. He has "become like him, because he sees him as he really is" (1 Jn 3:2). We have here a neat image of growth in holiness. First of all, God, through his Spirit living in me, prompts me, urges me to "take the plunge" and to be ’~baptized in the Spirit." He then begins the long process of revealing the beauties and risks of life in and with God. Finally he initiates that transformation into his own life which will only be completed in eternal beatitude, but which is already partially shared through faith in the joy of discovering the life of God in us. I would now like to show the role of the Holy Spirit in these three stages. The Purification When John the Baptist preached the metanoia; q.e. the "turning-around," the "about-face" which is required in our sinful life, he strength-ened his preaching with the effective symbol of immersion into the water of the Jordan as a sign of personal cleansing. But John also knows that he cannot achieve more than mere moral purity. He is still a man of the Old ~1511/ Review for Religious; May-June, 1986 Testament ("The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is" (Mt 11:11))~ We are called to much more than moral purity and John proclaims his role as Precursor of the one who will baptize "with the Holy~Spirit and withfire" (Mt 3:11). The symbol of fire a~ an element of purification is well known throughout the Scriptures: More effectively than water, because it goes to the hearvof the matter and not only to its surface, fire cleanses from within. It burns away the impurities as one,burns the chaff after winnowing (Mt 3:11-12).~ .~ Fire as a ~ymbol of the Holy Spirit is, of course, well known from the Pentecost event and the "tongues of fire." Another purifying force in spiritual life is the loneline.ss, suffering and silence of,the "desert experience." Like the people of Israel who have to be purified of their Egyptian habits through their forty years of wandering through the desert, so also Jesus himself was "led by the Spirit out into the wilderness to-be tempted by the devil" (Mr 4::1; Mk 1:12 and ~Lk 4:1). The Spirit will invite us too from time to time to retire into solitude and silence, because this is the precondition for hearing the voice of God which would become inaudible in. the hustle and bustle of our daily, life in our,~nervous and tension-filled world. And just as fire is painful when it burns away impurities, so ~the solitude of the desert is frightening. St. Teresa of Avila insists very strongly on the importance of "the grace of quiet" for spiritual life (Way of Perfection, ch. 33). St..John also points at another necessary purification: to bring the desires of the flesh under th~ control of the spirit: Unless ~ man is borfi through water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. What is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the ,.Spirit is spirit (Jn 3:5-6). Thus purification is part of a p(~ocess of acq~iiring a new life (see v. 3). "l:he real life is not the one given by the flesh; only’"the Spirit... gives life" (J~n 6:63). Above all, purification from sin is a condition for receiving the gift of ¯ theo~Holy Spirit. Therefore Peter announces to the people at Pentecost: You must repent ....and everyone of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus ’Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Ac 2:38). In reverse, the Holy Spirit is specifically given to the Apostles to,enable them to forgive sins: Receive~the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive they are for-given; ofor those whose sins you retain, they are retained (Jn 20:22). ~’ We are fighting a running battle against the forces of evil. We are the The Spirit of Holiness / 359 accused in an endless courtcase in which Satan is "the accuser of’our brethren.., who accuses them day and night before God"(Rv 12:10). But this a~:cuser has been "thrown down" (ibid) by the Holy Spirit who is our Advocate. Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth while the devil is the "spirit of disorder" ( I Jn 4:6) and of "falsehooi:l ~ind murder" (Jn 8:44).~ In our fight with the spirit of evil who tries to turn us away from God. the Advocate "will be with you forever, he will be continually at your. side. he will be m you" (Jn 14:17). ~hus the Holy Spirit appears also as the one who sustains us in our temptations, who provides us with arguments to beat the devil. Even when we fire facing evil earthly powers, we need have no worry, because "ttib Spirit of your Father will be speakir~g in you" (Mt 10:!8-20). Like a good advocate he will prove the "opposition" wrong(see Jn 1~:9-11), by convict-ing the world ofits sinfulness and consequently of the fact that without Christ’s victory the world is meaningless and lacks all ultimate purpose. In his epistle to the Romans St. Paulexplains this purifyi~ng role of the Holy Spirit by stating that the Hrly Spirit takes people who are living by "the law of sin and death" which is characterized by "the misdeeds of the body" (Rm 8:1, 13)and he makes them "spiritual": Your ~nterests. however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual. since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In ’fact. unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to hire. Tl~ough your ¯ body may be dead it is because of sin; but if Christ is in you, then your spirit is life itself because you have been justified: and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you (Rm 8:9-10). The Spirit does not only transform our soul and cleanse our mental habits our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions he also "spiritualizes" our bodies to prepare them for the resurrection. Our bodies became mortal "because of sin"; the cleansing from sin through Christ’s "Spirit living in us" is the cause of our immortality.~ What are the spiritual transformations which the Spirit operates in our souls? St. Paul opposes the spirituality and holiness of the Old Testament and that brought about by Christ’s Spirit living in us. The Spirit transforms our "spirit of slaves" livingin fear, into a "spirit of.sons" who have been "set free"(Rm 8:14-23; see 1 Jn 4:17-18). It is a new attitude with regard to the law that takes hold of us: we do right not because_ we are afraid, but because we love. On the other hand, and for the same reason, i.e. love, this freedom is never licentiousness, because we are living in the Spirit: If you are guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding to 360 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 self-indulgence, since self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit . . (Ga 5:16). In other words: the presence of the Spirit in us does not justify bad behav-ior, but should enable us to avoid bad behavior. Hence also Paul’s claim to the Corinthians that no on~ can curse Jesus and be in the Spirit of Jesus (1 Co 12:3). Paul’s whole apostolic life was dominated by his struggle to make the new converts realize this new dimension brought about by faith in Christ: an externally imposed Law is replaced by the promptings of the Spirit from within (see Ezk 36:26-27; Jr 31:33). The true Christian is doing good because the Spirit moves him from within his very freedom. Even our faith in the Gospel is the work of the Spirit and it is this faith, rather than outward observances that justify us (Ga 3:2). It is a pagan (or an Old Testament) attitude to do good or to refrain from doing evil out of fear of hell, or in order to curry God’s "favors," rather than out of inner convic-tions growihg out of love. A Christian attitude stems from the Spirit within us and from our readiness to let the Spirit become active and effective in us and through us. Since the Spirit is our life. let us be directed by the Spirit. We must stop being conceited,, provocative and envious... (Ga 5:25). The Spirit which he sent to live in us wants us for himself alone (Jm 4:5); (literally: ’The Spirit... yearns, earnestly for our love’). No one who has been begotten by God sins: because God’s seed remains inside him. he cannot sin when he has been begotten by God (1 Jn 3:9).2 But God will not sanctify us without us. It is from within our freedom that God acts and lives in us. We must collaborate with his promptings, for God has an infinite respect for our free will. Nor is it sufficient to have received, the Holy Spirit once and for all, like some kind of seal, medal or honorific title. He has to live in us. We have to grow in him by letting his influence in our lives become more and more continuous and pervasive. It is precisely this growth which supposes an inner cleansing. We cannot serve two master~; at the same time: one must diminish if the other is to grow. As long as our life is cluttered with worries, with sins, with ourselves, with the world, with pleasures and so forth, there is little room for God to grow in us. He is not going to sneak into our life, as we gradually clean out the house just ahead of him. We have to make a clean sweep before God arrives. But we are afraid of the apparent spiritual poverty, of the empti-ness, of the echoing hollowness within us. The Spirit gives us the courage to empty ourselves (see Ph 2:7) so.that we might experience God making irruption into our life. The blood of Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God The. Spirit of Holiness / 361 through the eternal Spirit, can purify our inner self from dead actions so that we do our service to the living God (Heb 9:14). In short: the first level of the Spirit’s action demands, but also produ-ces an inner cleansing, a reorientation of our lives, an openness to the guidance of the Spirit and a readiness to be transformed. Without this there simply cannot be any.growth in spiritual life, because without it we are not capable of putting ourselves into a listening attitude towards God, and without_ this listening attitude there will not be that inner enlighten-. ment whereby God wants to make’ himself personallY known to us. Enlightenment and Learning Si. John presents us the Holy Spirit as the’Spirit of truth: "I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate3 to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, becauSe he is with yo.u, he is in you... [he] will teach you everything and remind you of all 1 have said to you" (Jn 14:15-16, 26). This theme of the "world" which cannot see God ,recurs often in John. The world is blind to God because it is too much concerned with other, rela, tively unimportant things. The Word of God is the true light which many people refused to receive (Jn 1:9-13). But there are also those whb, throughout the history of salvation, have let themselves be enlightened by the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit inspired the prophets (see Lk 1:67; Ac 21:4; 28:25;...) and the writers of Scripture. He guides the lives of those he inhabits (see Lk 2:25-26) and he leads Jesus himself through his ministry (Lk 4:14, 18)oand makes him,utter prophetic words (Lk 10:21). Indeed it is the Spirit who, in the form of a dove, points at the Messiah as the voice of the Father is heard at.Jesus’ baptism (Mt 3:16-17; Mk 2:10; Lk 3:21-22i Jn 1:32-34; ~1 Tm 3:16). It is by the Holy Spirit that Jesus performs his m.iracles (Mt 12:28). In short: the Holy Spirit makes us become aware of Jesus,as the Messiah and of his redemptive role. This is why the Gospels are so 6utspoken against those who "sin against the Holy Spirit" (Mt 12:32; Mk 3:28; Lk 12:10) because this sin blinds us to the revealing and illuminating role of the Holy Spirit without which we cannot reach God nor pr.ogress in holiness. ("No one can say ’Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit" 1 Co 12:3). In other words, the sin against the Holy Spirit makes God’s essential work in our life, viz. our sanctification, impotent. Jesus has proclaimed the Good News to us: he is the Good News, but we are incapable of fully grasping what this means unless the .Spirit opens our eyes: It is for your own good that I am going, because unless I go, the Advocate 369/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 will not come t6 you; l~tit if I do go, I will send him to you .... I still have many things to say to you, but they would be too’ mucfi for you now. But " when’~the Spirit of trt~th comes he will leadyou to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himselfbut will only say what he has learnt .... Jn 16:7-15 (passim). ~ " ~- We clearly see the effect of the Spirit on the apostles at the moment of the Pentecost event!~ Now, the coming of the Holy Spiritdoes not imply the revelation of neff doctrines, but the creation of an inner receptivity and capacity for underst~hding the Good N~ws of Christ in a more personal way:. You have been anointed by the Holy One, and have all recei’bed the knowledge’.., you do not need anyone to teach you; the anoiming he gave you teaches you everything; you are anointed with truth, not with a lie... (1 Jn 2:20, 27). Thus the Holy Spirit generates faith, the ability to listen and to hear, in us and she convicts the "world" of its basicsin of unbelief (see Jn 8:21, 24, 26; 15:22). In reverse he convinces the believers of Christ’s divinity (see Jn 10:33; 19:7) because l~y returning to the Father in his human bo.dy, Jesus shows that his true home is in heaven (see .In 13~ 1; 20:17). Finally the Spirit gives to the believer the unshakable confidence in the power of God who has overcome the empire 6f evil. Thus, by revealing the glory of Christ and enabliiig us to b~elieve in Christ, he makes us listen to him who reveals to us the glory of the Father. The Acts of the Apostles have been called the "Gospel of the Holy spirit." They are full of incidents in which the Spirit illuminates the minds and heart~of~the apostles and of the believers. Let us me~’ely’mention a few of them almost at random. He gives to the believers the gift of speech in foreign tohgues (Ac 2:4), he inspires the words of the apostles (Ac 4:8.31), he gives Stephen an, irresistible power of argumentation against his detrac-tors (Ac 6:10) as Jesus himself had predicted (Mk 13:11; Lk 12:H-12). On several occasions the Spirit gives people the ability of predicting the future (Ac 21i,~; 11:28); he guides the decisions of the Church in admitting pagans (Ac-8:29, 40; ~10:19, 44-47; 11:12-16; 15:8),’in limiting the relevance of the Jewish laff (Ac 15:28) and in determining the mission of Paul to the pagans (Ac 13:2 sq; 16:6-7; 19:1). Occasionally he gives very precise g~uidelines for th~ apostolate (Ac 8:28). But ~bove all the Holy Spirit reveals himself internally to those who receive him, usually in baptism, by giving them the power of praising God in words-inspired by God himself [the gift of tongues](see Rm 8:26-27; Ac 9:31; 10:44; 19:1-7...). Indeed one could say that the Holy Spirit was clearly the power behind the expansion of the ~early Church. The Spirit of Holiness / 363 This power is usually revealed and released in a prayerful atmosphere. Throughout Acts, one gets the impression of a people moving about in an inner spiritual dynamism, open to God, ready to expect any kind of mira-cles. Of course they are_ ordinary human beings like you and me. They sometimes become almost obsessively enthusiastic (like the Corinthians), while others (like the Gala~tians) remain fearfully attached to traditions. In this they do not differ all that much from the Churchof today! But there does seem to be a genuine desire throughout the early Church to let the Spirit rule the life of the faithful. St. Paul himself tells us that he is not bothered by his weakness, precisely because he" knows that he can always let ttie Spirit and the power of God Speak and pray in and through him (Rm 8:26-27). He knows that he is not preaching his own ideas nor by his own power, but by the power of God (1 CO 2:3) and that "the Spirit reaches the’ depth of evet:ything, even the depth of God" (1 Co 2:10). This is why he chides Timothy for his timidity: God’s gilt was not a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power, and love. and self-control (2 Tm 1:7).~ And~just as the Spirit give~’to the preacher the words to preach, to the prophet the message to proclaim and to the teacher the doctrine to teach, so also he gives to the listeners the inner .power to understand with heart and mind, and the wisdom to apply what has been taught in their personal life: May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of ~lory, g~ve you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him (Ep 1:17,). Out of his infinite glory, may he give’you the power through his Spii’it for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ .may live in you through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love. you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth ... (Ep 3:16-19). By thus gradually growing, in God’s wisdom, we will be filled with the ’~utter fullness of Ggd" (ibid v. l~J). ,, But God ca~ only fill us with his wisdom, !f we have let ourselves be emptied of the wisdom of the "~orld." Hence,the purification stage.must precede and will itself grow in _proportion to the gradual~growth in "enlightenment." We can only grow "little by little" (Ws 12: !-2). Secondly we mus~ play our fa,irt by taking a humble, listening and receptive attitude in sile~ace ~nd. patience. And thirdly, the Holy Spir!t comes to each one of us personally, but always within the context of and for the sake of the whole Church, the Body of Christ (see 1 Co 14), because "God is Love" and v~hatever he does in us and through us,~in on13~ take place within a 364 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 love-relationship, This is why love is the greatest commandment, but also the greatest of all gifts of the Spirit: the gift which not only includes all others, but also the only one which is to remain forever (1 Co 13). We ’do not receive the Holy Spirit for our exclusive personal enjoyment, but for sharing him with others through apostolic action. As Jesus says to his apostles: You will r~ceive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and t~en you will be my’witnesses (Ac 1:8). More than half the passages in the Acts which speak about the Holy Spirit mention him in a directly apostolic context. This is also why the Holy Spirit is presented in such an intimate relationship with the Church that Peter can say: "It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves..." (Ac 13:28), while the Book of Revelation affirms: "The Spirit and the Bride [= the Church] say: ’Come’"-(Rv 22:17). A final point worth mentioning in the present context: If it is true that the illumination by the Spirit is proportional to our emptying ourselves of our own ideas, then it is easily understandable why the poor in spii-it are given preference in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:3),~ why "these things" have been hidden frrm the worldly wise and revealed to children (Mt 11:25) and why only children can enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18: !-4). Union in Love The Christian religion is not merely an ethics, i.e. a list of actions to be done or avoided. Jesus’ struggle with the Pharisees (see Mt 5:17 sq and 23:13-32), as well as St. Paul’s arguments to show the powerlessness of the Law to save us (e:g. Rm I-7) are proof enough of this. Nor is Christianity merely a beautiful doctrine dogmatically proclaimed a~d faithfully but blindly accepted: If I knew all the mysteries and all science, and if I had the fullness of faith... but without love, lam nothing (! Co 13:2). God wants to call us to a new life. I~e wants to change our identity from within, not merely our mode of external behavior. He wants us to be reborn "through water and the’Spirit’’ (Jn 3:5) so as to enable us to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is through the Spirit of Goal that this "rebirth" as children of God takes place: The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his ’suffering so as to share in his glory (Rm 8:!4-17; see Ga 4:6~7). The Spirit is our passport for our new. "ciiizenship," because we have been The Spirit of Holiness / 365 stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit of the promise, the pledge of our inheritance which brings freedom to those whom God has taken for his own to make his glory praised (Ep 1:13-14). Of course in this life we still know God only "dimly, as in a mirror" (1 Co 13:12), and yet e~,en in this limited way, God already reveals himself to us from within, from his presence in us through the Spirit: We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us (! Jn 3:24). We can know that we are li~ing in him and he is living in us, because he lets us share his Spirit (! .In 4:13). The Spirit is .an" experienced reality. Even the places and buildings where the early Church was gathering "were shaken" when they were "filled with the Holy Spirit" (Ac 4:3 I) and the Holy Spirit is often described as "falling on" people (Ac 10:44; 11:15). It is like falling in love: it is an experience difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced it. The kingdom of God is therefore not merely something to be expected in the life to come. We are already living in this kingdom, which can be identified with equal right with the Holy Spirit and with the Church, provided the Church is not merely seen as an administrative structure. St. Paul refers to our transformation into children of God as something already realized: We were buried with [Christ] in baptism [and we]’have been raised up with him" (Col 2:12-13). However, this new reality demands, right here and now, a new mode of life: Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life... and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God iri true righteousness and holiness (Ep 4:22-24). We are incorporated into the Spirit (Rm 8:1, 9. We are "temples of God"( 1 Co 3:16; 6:19). We have been ’Zraised up with Christ" (Col 3:1). It is for this reason that all "Paul’s moral instructions are so severe. Moral instructions and calls to holiness are one and the same for Paul, and they center, as .one can expect, on the two commandments of love of God and~ love of neighbor. Because of the Spirit dwelling in us, we are able to love God and to love our neighbor with the same kind of love with which God himself loves us: The love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Rm 5:5). The first thing that changes in our new, Spirit-filled life, is our relation- ~166 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1986 ship with God in prayer: The book of Genesis tells u..s .of Enoch~ who was livinga life of such ’intimacy with God that he was absorbed into God, that he vanished in him (Gn 5:24). The original familiarity with God as des-cribed in paradise is re,stored. We learn to relate to God truly a~ our Father because ,"God has Se.nt the Spirit of hi~ Son into our hearts crying ’A~bba! Father!’" (Ga 4:6; .see Rm 8:26). Our ~vorship is no longer tied to places, times, rituals, and’words, but becomes "worship in0 spirit a.n~d in truth (b~ecause) God is °soirit" (Jn 4:24). Above’ all, our worship ~s no longer dominated by fear because ° love will come ~o perfection in us when we can face the day of judgment without fear; because eVen in this worm we have ’become as he is. In love ~there is no fear’, but fear is driven out by perfect love" (1 J’n 4:17-18; she "~ Rm 8~21~29)~ So to pray in the Spirit of God (see Ep 6:18) means to pray in an attitude of fearless love: God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God and God lives in him (l Jn 4:16).~ This means thaLGod lives in us-and we live in him, but also that as a result weare transformed into God’s essentially loving nature. This transforma, tion will not only reveal itself in our relationship with God, but also in our relationship with our fellowman. We are living a lie if we claim to love God, to be a child of God, while not loving our neighbor: We can ,be sure that we are in God only when the one who claims to be living in him is living the same kind of life as Christ lived (1 Jn 2:5-6). Now God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into ,the world his’ only Son so that we could have life through him .... Since God loved us’ so much~ we, too should love one another ..... As long as we love one another, God will live in us ~’nd h~s love will be complete in us... (I Jn 4:10-12).. This whole,newdoving relationship is planted inu~ by the Holy Spirit living in us and e.nabling us to grow in him and thus to become more and more ,like Christ whose .Spirii he is. ¯ If we live by the truth .and in love, we shall "grow in all ways into- Christ ~, who is the head by whom:the whole body is fitted and joined together... "~ So the body grows until it has built itself up in love (Ep 4:15-16):~ . This body,,building itself up and. growing in love, is the Church. This is also why the gifts and charisms are to be used for "the common good" (see 1 Co 12:7; 14:3r4, 26) and are of no account without the cha,rity which~gives The Spirit of Holiness / 367 them meaning (1 Co 13). Jesus wanted us to be perfect "as our heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48) and he summarizes the whole Law and the Prophets in the commandments of love (Mt 22:40). Our growth in perfec, tion can therefore only be a growth in this twofold, love and this growth is essentially God’s work because we have been chosen by the prox)ident purpose of God the Father to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled by his blood (I P 1:2). The lives of the Saints are beautiful illustrations of this powerful and effective dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul. In all their differences, they have struggled through these three stages of growth in holiness. Some have put more emphasis, on their sinfulness and on the need for inner purifica-tion; others have spent most of their life trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into the knowledge of the mysteries of God, not only with their intellect but with their heart and their whole being: All have been led towards a life of intimate City of Saint Louis (Mo.), http://www.geonames.org/4407084 http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/277 |