Review for Religious - Issue 23.4 (July 1964)
Issue 23.4 of the Review for Religious, 1964.
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sluoai_rfr-471 Review for Religious - Issue 23.4 (July 1964) Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus Jesuits -- Periodicals; Monasticism and religious orders -- Periodicals. Issue 23.4 of the Review for Religious, 1964. 1964-07 2012-05 PDF RfR.23.4.1964.pdf rfr-1960 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 Allocution to Seminarians ~ by Paul V1 385 Confession and Religious Life by Jean Galot, S.J. 390 Confession: End-Time Phenomenon by Angelo P. O’Hagan, O.F.M. 404 Penance and Freedom by Paul J. Bernadicou, S.J. 41 l Sacrament of God’s Power by J. M. R. TJllard, O.P. 420 Temporary Religious Vocation by Herbert F. Smith, S.J. 433 Classical Spirituality by Tliomas Dubay, S.M. 445 Vocation and Vision bT Ian Travers-Ball, S.J. 467 Retreats for Nuns by Sister Vera Marie, O.C.D. 473 Ignatian Contemplation by Eugene Maio, S.J. 481 Three Poems by Sister.Gilmary, O.S.F. 487 Survey of Roman Documents 488 Views, News, Previews 496 Questions and Answers 503 Book Reviews 507 VOLUMe- 23 Nu~E~ 4 ’July 1964 PAUL VI Allocution to Seminarians The* impressive ceremony we are engaged in speaks for itself. Its solemnity shows the importance of the rea-sons which induced Us to select ~his date of November 4, the feast of St. Charles Borromeo, and this place of the Basilica of St. Peter’s where the Second Vatican Coun-cil is being held, and to entrust the celebration to His Eminence Cardinal Pizzardo, Prefect of the Sacred Con-gregation of Seminaries and Universities. This extraordi-nary act of thanksgivi,ng to God and this deep petition for the grace of God is intended to be a worthy com-memoration of the fourth centenary of the institution of those schools found in every diocese which are called seminaries and which are directed toward the [ormation of students who are preparing for ordination to the priest-hood and for the subsequent worthy exercise of the priestly ministry. Work o[ Grace It is well known that the institution of seminaries is due to canon eighteen of the twenty-third session of the Council of Trent, dated July 15, 1563. The decree was quickly carried out by zealous promoters. Among the first of these was St. Charles who, after he had been named archbishop of Milan, showed himself the readiest of all to apply the enactments of the Council of Trent to his diocese and to his province. Convinced as he was of the decisive importance of seminaries, he soon founded sev-eral of them; without a doubt he was the first to give his principal seminary an imposing building located in the heart of the city, a building that is regarded today as one of the classic buildings of the magnificent Milanese Ren-aissance. After necessary restorations have been made, * This is a translation o[ an allocution given in St. Peter’s to a group o[ seminarians on November 4, 1963. The official Italian text, entitled ll grande rito, is given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 55 0963), pp. 1030-5. ÷ ÷ ÷ Paul VI VOLUME 23, 1964 ÷ ÷ Paul VI REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS it awaits its reopening for its centuriesqong and providen-tial work.1 This afternoon in this same basilica--now being used as the Council hall--the historical origin and the eccle-siastical significance of the institution of seminaries will be discussed by Cardinal Stefan Wyszyfiski, archbishop of Gniezo and Warsaw, to whom We are grateful for adding the prestige of his experience and his dignity to the in-terest of the subject matter. The esteem which all of us should have for seminaries and the profit which seminary teachers and students in particular should derive from this centenary commemora-tion will be considered in Our forthcoming apostolic epistle addressed to the bishops of the entire Church. The opening words of the document are Summi Dei Verbum, and it was prepared with the expert collaboration of the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities. This document, as befits the seriousness of its subject matter, is a considered and lengthy one, the first of its form and importance of Our pontificate. To it We have entrusted many but not all the things which We thought should be mentioned on such an opportune occasion about a sub-ject that is so vast and so important. Hence it is not necessary that We spend a great deal of time speaking on these matters during this ceremony: Our apostolic letter will tell you of Our thoughts and Our desires in this connection. Nevertheless, We do not wish to forego the opportunity of saying a word to Our well-loved seminarians whom We see present at this sa-cred rite and to whom at this time We wish to extend Our paternal affection, considering them as also repre-senting all their fellow seminarians in the Church of God. With St. Paul, beloved seminarians, We would say these words to you: "We speak frankly to y.ou and our heart is wide open to you." 2 We regard you as genuine and generous representatives of those young men who among the decisive choices which must be made at the time of the first clear view of life and of the first revelation of what love truly is have dis-covered the best choice, one which prevails over all the rest--recall here the words: "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field; the man who found it buried it again; out of sheer joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field." s We are speaking of young men who among the gifts that life lavishes and youth so avidly desires have understood that there is one gift that is worth all the others--and here recall those other words: 1 See [G. P.] Giussano, [lstoria delle vita, virtCz, morte, e miracoli di Carlo Borromeo (Milan: 1610)], 1, II, V. ~2 Cot 6:11. s Mt 13:44. "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant of fine pearls; when he finds one of special quality, he goes and sells everything he has and buys it." 4 These are the young men who among all the clangorous or enchanting sounds that surround them have singled out one sound only-- that of a voice of incomparable tone, mysterious but un-mistakable, both serious and gentle, mild yet strong. It is a quiet and a hidden voice that sounds--almost tor-mentingly- within the secrecy of the conscience; but it also sounds--peacefully~utside the person in the trust put in the calm and reliable counsel and advice that inter-prets the inner voice, calls it divine, and says that it is indeed addressed to youth who have no fear of great things but only of evil and mediocre ones. It is a voice that is both an invitation and a command; it is a voice that is as simple as a sigh and as profound as life: it is the voice of Christ who today--today more than ever--says: "Come and follow me." ~ You young men who are listening to Us, have you heard that voice saying: "Come and follow me"? It is a voice that goes on to add: "I am the light of the world; the man who follows me will not wander in the dark but will have the light of life." ~ You know well that this dialogue is called vocation. Each one of you guards it in his heart as the secret of his life, as the shaper of his future, as the power of his ac-tion: "Come and follow me." Here today, acting precisely as the Vicar of Christ who first directed it to the disciples who were to become His apostles, We permit Ourselves to repeat the vocation call to you who are here present, to your companions, and to all youth of the present and the future who have the grace and the courage to hear it; and the call is this: "Come with me and I will make you fishers of men." ~ Greatness of Ecclesiastical Vocation This is the same as saying that the work of redemption is not carried out in the world and in time without the ministry of dedicated men who by an oblation of total human love actuate the plan of salvation of infinite divine love. Had God so willed it, this divine love could have spread and could have bestowed salvation by itself. But the plan of God is a different one; in Christ God will save men through the service of men. God has given to the world not only a revelation and a religion but also a Church, an organic society, an articulated community where some brothers work for the salvation of the other ~ Mt 13:45. ~ Mt 19:21. eJn 8:12. 7Mk 1:17. Seminarians VOLUME 23, 1964 ¯ ÷ ÷ ÷ Paul Fl REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 388 brothers. He has instituted a hierarchy and a priesthood; the message and the power of the salvation of Christ reaches a place when the priesthood of Christ comes there. The Lord has willed to make the spreading of the gospel depend on the number and the zeal of the gospel laborers. This is why the call to the service of the gospel is of incalculable importance: the drama of the salvation of the world is involved in it. The gift of vocation, to be sure, is God’s secret; but, beloved sons, let it not be mean-ness of spirit, laziness, cowardice, indifference, or im-purity that deprives it of the youthful souls whom the plan of God’s mind would have made pure and strong for the service of His kingdom. Fortunate are you, my sons, because you know these truths and convert them into a courageous and humble experience. Fortunate are you because you know the spe-cial attraction that the ecclesiastical vocation has today. It is not family custom, certainly, nor the desire for a quiet life in a good benefice, nor the prospect of clerical honors, nor the will of others superseding and dominat-ing that of the candidate, nor even a pessimistic disgust for an unendurable world, nor the frustration of ruined hopes that mark out the path that leads to the seminary; and neither is it the more noble motives of culture or of art--though of themselves these can be harmonized in a subordinate place with the genuine motives--which im-pel a young man to become a priest. The genuine motives that make seminarians of you are the paradoxical ones of the follower of the Christ who said: "The man who wishes to be my follower must leave self out of the picture; he must take up his cross and follow me." s Today, vocation means remlnciation, it means unpopularity, it means sacrifice. It means a preference for the interior over the exterior life. It means the choice of an austere and un-remitting perfection instead of comfortable and mean-ingless mediocrity. It means the ability to hear the im-ploring voices of the world, the voices of innocent souls, of suffering souls, of those who are without peace, without solace, without guidance, without love; at the same time it means the strength to silence the alluring and soft voices of pleasure and of egoism. It means a realization of the difficult but stupendous mission of the Church, now more than ever bound to teach man his true nature, his goal, and his destiny and to reveal to willing souls the unutterable riches of the love of Christ. It means, young men, to be young: to have a clear eye and a large heart. It means to accept as one’s program of life the imitation of Christ, His heroism, His holiness, His mission of goodness and salvation. No other way of looking at life offers an ideal that is more true, more gen-s Mk 8:34. erous, more human, or more holy than the humble and faithful vocation to the priesthood of Christ. Program for Life: The Imitation of Christ Beloved sons, it is not bombast nor mere rhetoric and above all it is not deceit nor deception that give the Church the boldness to speak in such a way. Rather it is the knowledge that the Church has of your hearts and of the graces which the Lord has poured into your souls; it is the esteem that she feels for you; it is the hopes she places in your youthful years and your generous dreams. And perhaps, my sons, you realize that the Church would not dare to present you with such lofty and diffi-cult prospects if she lacked the practical possibility of being close to you when she announced them and of being ready tO help you win and achieve them. If the Church had not developed her art as a teacher of souls and if she lacked the places and the means to exercise that art, she would not be able to speak to you with such frankness. But today--and it will be even more so in the near fu-ture- the Church has made herself capable of exercising her sublime mission as the educator of future priests be-cause the Church has instituted her seminaries for this purpose. The seminary is the school of interior silence in which the mysterious voice of God speaks; it is the training ground for the practice of difficult virtues; it is the house where Christ the Master lives. Do you recall this scene? Two of John’s disciples heard him refer to Jesus who was passing by on the bank of the Jordan with the words: "There is the Lamb of God." Thereupon the two followed Jesus. Jesus turned around and, having no-ticed they were following Him, asked them: "Who is it that you are looking for?" And they said to Him: "Rabbi (which means a teacher), where are you staying?" And He answered them: "Come and see." 9 Young men, it may happen that the same question should rise from the uncertain and~ upset depths of those souls of yours which have perceived that Jesus is the only Savior of the world and that it is He whom you seek and who seeks you. It may happen that to your lips may come the question: "Master, where are you staying; where can we find you, 0 Christ the Lord; where can we know and hear you, Jesus; where can we be united to You so that we may take on the same mission as Yours?" If such should happen, remember that through the voice of the Church, of your bishops; of your superiors, and of your teachers, the answer is always the same: "Come and see." And the holy door of the seminary will open before you. So may it be, amen. OJn 1:38-9. ÷ ÷ Seminarians VOLUME 23~ 1964 389 JEAN GALOT, S.J. Confessionand the Religious Life Jean Galot, S.J., is professor of dog-matic theology at Coll~ge Saint-Al-bert; Eegenhoven- Louvain, Belgium. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 390 The frequency* of confession in religious life entails the danger of routine. There exists the ever-present risk of confessing through habit, "repeating the same accusa-tions without arousing a deeply contrite attitude. An effort to render the weekly confession the expression of an intense spiritual life, of a love which reveals its ardor through the desire of purification is therefore necessary and should always be renewed. ~ln Encounter with Our Lord Confession can only assume its true value in Christian eyes when it is envisaged as an encounter with our Lord. Whatever is true for Christians is all the more true for religious since their way of life is destined to insure a more intimate union with Christ. It is their duty, then, to attempt a personal meeting with Christ in the sacrament of penance. Through the priest who receives their avowal and gives absolution, religious should recognize Christ in the act of listening and forgiving. It is correct to say that this encounter with Christ illumi-nates the sacrament .by revealing its true meaning, its grandeur, and its supernatural beauty. If confession too frequently engenders a kind of lassitude or if we are un-able to bestir our soul, it is because our confession is too often carried out as a simple encounter with self, entailing no more than the cataloging of shortcomings which are subsequently recited to a man. While he may be aware that the priest is acting as God’s representative, the penitent may consider exclusively the confessor’s human character and reactions. To place oneself in the presence of only another human being is to restrict confession within limits * This article, which first appeared as "Confession et vie reli-gieuse," Revue des communaut~s religieuses, v. 35 (1963), pp. 164- 80, has been translated by Raymond L. Sullivant, S.J.; 4 Mont~e de Fourvi~re; Lyon V (Rh6ne), France. and human imperfections from which it should be free. Such a circumscription amounts to stifling and discourag-ing a thrust which should emerge and freely ascend. It is absolutely necessary to su.persede the human level. The examination of conscience is not made simply to achieve knowledge of oneself but to enable the penitent to present his misery to Christ, to implore assistance and healing from Him. We should never terminally arrest our glance on self; our scrutiny must penetrate self and ex-plore our own conduct only as actions preliminary to a movement which has its fulfillment in t,he Savior. The religious who truly wishes to adhere to Christ perfectly will strive most ardently for visual contac~ with Him. It is Christ’s look turned on us which arbuses a genuine awareness of sin. Before we search Him oust with our eye, I ¯ the Lord is already there looking at us. Consider the scene of Christ and Peter at the moment after the denial. "At the very instant," Saint Luke tells us, "asI he [Peter] was still spea,,king, a cock crowed, and the Lordlturning looked at Peter (22:60-1). The crowing of the dock is only an exterior sign. What penetrated Peter’s sot~l was the look of the Master. Peter suddenly understoo~t his fault. As long as he pretended not to know Jesus! Peter had an incomplete awareness of what he was’~loing. Christ’s glance, when it came to rest upon the a~ostle, revealed the latter’s offense to him. The Master~’’sI love had just been wounded and the tender sadness ofI His eyes bore witness to the fact. The Lord’s appearance enlightened Peter. When the apostle went out to weep over his fault, he was, not simply confronted by self; he.t~zas pursued by Christ s look and his contrition responde~ to it. The Spirit ot Faith ] | Confession must be animated by a strong spirit of faith if it is to be a genuine encounter with the Lord. Faith alone discerns the invisible reality of the sacrament and discovers Christ in His representative, theI priest. Conse-quently, the first step in preparing for confession should consist in renewing the disposition of faitl~. The mystery of the Church, in which divine grace is transmitted by visible signs--and Christ uses a man as H~s wstble representauve for bestowing ti~s pardon--is expressed in confession. Pardon and grace involve more than mere acts of secret and invisible relations between God and the soul; they are granted through the mediation of the Church, which thereby exercises her sublime role. The penitent should thus recognize this mystery of the Church m the Driest who hears h~m and grants absolution. When confessing, the pemtent approaches ,Christ in I-I~s Mystical Body. The intervention of the Church in be-stowing pardon ~s the more justified ~n that the s~nner has ÷ ÷ ÷ Confession VOLUME 2~ 1964 39! ÷ ÷ ÷ ~ean Galot, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS struck a blow against her. By his fault, he has harmed the ensemble of the Christian community. He has offended Christ in His Mystical Body; thus, it is Christ in this same Mystical Body who awaits the request for pardon. The religious who by his profession is actively engaged in the mission of the Church should have a most sensitive consciousness of the wrong that his sin has done to this Church which he is obliged to serve with all his strength. Thus he should more deeply desire the sacrament in which he asks pardon of the Church and from which he obtains reconciliation. Indeed, as soon as a consecrated person has experienced a weakness or committed a fault, he should raise his eyes toward God, imploring the mercy of His pardon. But this contrition, existing in the secret of the penitent’s heart, should end in a repentant avowal, ex-pressed to the priest, in order that absolution be accorded him through Christ in His Church. It is precisely this presence of representation of Christ in His Church for which his attitude of faith is appealing. For the Church, the extension of Christ and unceasingly animated by His spirit of holiness, is shaped by human fiber and retains human weaknesses. The priesthood has not abolished the human imperfections of man; conse-quently, he is human, that man in whom the face of Christ is not sharply discernible. Nevertheless, we must believe that through this man the perfection of Christ’s pardon is transmitted. It often happens that religious of both sexes suffer from the shortcomings of the confessor. The latter may often be too hasty, sometimes he is too long; he may be unfamiliar with the religious life, deficient in understanding, too severe or too demanding, and so forth. But the faults of the confessor should not prevent the penitent from seeing the authentic mouthpiece of Christ in him. Man must stimulate his faith since the less we are naturally inclined to find Christ in the priest the more we must strain toward a supernatural attitude through the vigor of that faith. We must bear in mind that confession’s essential result does not lie in the confessor’s word of exhortation but in the divine pardon which absolution procures. A religious may lawfully expect to receive appropriate encouragement or a warning suitable to his personal situation. Experience attests to the valuable helps toward sanctity which the words of the priest may engender in the case of sustained effort on the part of the penitent. But encouragement is not the primary end of the sacrament. Whatever may be the attitude of the confessor or the quality of comfort he may supply, Christ never fails to communicate His divine strength, a force superior to any human encouragement; it is capable of supplying for all the confessor’s oversights. It should be pointed out that many sisters, having painfully experienced the confessor’s shortcomings, hap-pily found therein a motive for praying for him and, in a more general sense, for all priests. It has been observed that Christians receive the priests they deserve. In fact, Christians should obtain from God, by their prayers, good and holy priests. They have a responsibility toward the holiness of the clergy. Making an analogy, we can say that, to a certain extent, religious receive the confessor they deserve, that they have a duty to pray for the confessor and for his holiness. They should pray most especially that he address to them the words which our Lord wishes them to hear in confession. The Examination o[ Conscience and the Resolution In religious life, the examination of conscience should be made in depth. This does not mean that it should be detailed to infinity. Consecration to our Lord demands a greater effort toward perfection in every aspect of moral conduct. Since Christ has expressly requested the total gift of self, he expects a generosity which knows no reserve and which is manifested by delicate attention. An in-terior voice suggests numerous acts of love to the conse-crated soul. Consequently, when preparing for confession, the religious should ponder to just what extent he has re-sponded to the slightest invitation of grace. Confession should not, therefore, be limited to what can be considered a sin in the strict sense. Anything which has displeased our Lord, even if such acts cannot, properly speaking, be considered either mortal or venial sins, the fervent religious will tend to confess through a desire for greater purity and with a sensitive awareness of the de-mands of divine intimacy. This means that even simple imperfections will be included.1 A certain number of moralists esteem that an imperfec-tion cannot be sufficient matter for the sacrament of penance. Consequently, some confessors require that there be an accusation of sin in order to give absolution--at least an avowal of past sins. There is, nevertheless, general agreement that imper-fections can be mentioned in confession. Will not the approval of this practice lead to a broader theory? If im-perfections can be the object of the accusation, it would seem normal that they be the object of absolution. It is difficult to imagine that slight faults are confessed for the sole purpose of giving the confessor a better under-standing of the state of his penitent’s soul. Where, in fact, does one draw the line between venial sin and an imper-x Simple imperfections refer to human acts which are lacking in perfection. A "positive" imperfection is the voluntary position of a less perfect but nevertheless morally good act; for example, the violation o[ a rule which does not oblige under sin. 4. 4. 4. ConIession VOLUME 23, 1964 393 .lean ~alot, .$.~. REVIEW EOR RELIGIOUS 394 fection? The peniterit accuses himself of imperfections with a view to submitting them for sacramental absolu-tion. How can absolution affect what is not properly a sin? The response to this question is similar to that given to explain why we confess venial sins. It is true that sin in the strict sense means mortal sin, and it was for this that the sacrament of penance was instituted. In the case of mortal sin, absolution produces the most complete result. Venial sin is only called sin by anaiogy or imperfect re-semblance. By virtue of this analogy it can be the object of sacramental absolution. Now, an. imperfection, too, has an analogy, an imperfect resemblance to sin, from the fact that it displeases God. By this title, it would seem that it can be the object of absolution. There is place for divine pardon and, consequently, for sacramental pardon in any action which displeases God. If such is the case, there is no longer reason to consider an imperfection, at least a positive one concretely mani-fested in an attitude or a determined act, as insufficient matter for absolution. Nor is there need for either the penitent or the confessor to question whether the charge amounts to an imperfection or a venial sin. Thus the de-sirable practice of accusing oneself of imperfections is fully justified since these are taken away by the sacrament along with sin. The religious is encouraged to mention certain imper-fections in confession, certain infractions of the rule, for example. This is proof of the sensitivity of his affection for the Lord. Some imperfections such as those which im-pede the development of faith, charity, prayer, and union with God are relatively serious. Since he is particularly called to strive for perfection, the religious will take care to accuse himself of omissions, being alert to note not only the evil committed but also the good omitted. Certain refusals of generosity can pro-foundly displease Christ because they doom the soul to mediocrity. The religious, who should be extremely sensi-tive to the Lord’s love and all its demands, should ask pardon for any half-hearted response to His requests. Among the omissions which almost require accusation are some which have an exterior aspect: to avoid rendering service to another, to withhold one’s collaboration .when it is needed, to neglect the neighbor in time of hardship, to fail to pray more when one has need to do. so. Other omissions are more aptly characterized by their interior aspect: lack of charity in the appreciation of another, fail-ure to make an effort to appreciate the neighbor and to assess him with great understanding, neglect in seeking recollection and in allowing one’s trust to weaken, failure to entertain supernatural joy. If the examination of conscience is to be made in depth, one must consider the motive which provoked our faults and imperfections. The motive is. the indicator of our in-terior dispositions, and it is often more significant than the fault itself. Thus, it is more suitable to say that a given impatience resulted from an obscnre grudge, that a bit of gossip sprang from jealousy, that a severe attitude has its origin in pride, than simply to mention these offenses. Attack the very root of the evill The Danger oI Routine It is particularly in the avowal of faults that the sacra-ment risks becoming routine since we are naturally in-clined to accuse ourselves of the same shortcomings time and again. There is nothing abnormal in this repetition. The human being retains his temperament with the same weaknesses and the same predispositions, and his way of life entails the same dangers and occasions of fall. He must struggle against tenacious weaknesses and the risk of be-ing led by tendencies and inclinations deeply rooted within him. The repetition of the same accusations in no way im-plies bad will, lack of contrition, or the absence of efforts at self-correction. A genuine effort is not always crowned by success, and good will may be blocked by obstacles of habit and character which are difficult to surmount. The religious, of course, should inquire whether his effort is sufficient and whether the struggle is pursued with ade-quate vigor. But all this does not mean that he should hesitate to repeat the same failings in confession, for it is possible to obtain greater strength through the sacrament and the renewal of ardor for the combat. He must take care to mention only those faults or imperfections for which he has sincere contrition and which he intends to avoid in the future. The accusation should not be made unless it is accompanied by a strong purpose of amend-ment. It can also be made with the purpose of obtaining renewed courage to accomplish this good intention. There are divers ways of combating routine in accusa-tion. We can, for example, emphasize a particularly im-portant point and give a brief assessment of the past week, while mentioning those areas where our effort should be intensified and more lasting results sought. Confession does not entail providing an outline of ou~ spiritual life; the negative aspect is more properly in-volved here. But it may well include an indication of the evolution of the struggle against our habitual faults. Instead of being a simple enumeration of our failings, the avowal is more correctly the expression of our life, of bringing into sharp focus a love which reveals to what extent it has been successful in eliminating its weaknesses. ÷ ÷ ÷ Conlession VOLUME 23, 1964 395 ÷ ÷ ÷ lean (~alot, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~;96 Such a confession harmonizes with the fabric of the spir-itual life and stimulates our effort to resist the inclinations which are most difficult to conquer. From one confession to another the penitent may rightfully expect a gradual improvement. Variety purposely introduced into the accusation con-stitutes another remedy. In the case of venial sins and imperfections, there is no obligation to recite them all. The penitent can therefore employ the liberty which he is allowed. It is not always desirable to want to "tell all" and to fail to do so is not a matter of cowardice or neglect. A confession which is voluntarily limited to a specific area may well be an index of a high degree of fervor and zeal for self-correction. Such limitation provides greater liberty for detailed examination which may, in turn, facilitate discerning certain shortcomings, regretting them more sincerely, and combating them more effectively. Thus a religious may do well, for a certain time, to con-centrate his examination on his prayer life. Later, he may consider his interior charity, relations with associates, his apostolate, his attitude toward humility, and so forth. He will then be less tempted to take satisfaction in general accusations which entail a vague degree of contrition and imprecise resolutions. Each examination of conscience would then take on a degree of freshness since its object would not be the same as that of previous confessions. A more serious reflection would be required and the peni-tent would avoid the routine pattern. Routine can further be avoided by the disposition of soul which animates the accusation. When making the avowal of his faults, the religious should put himself in the presence of Christ and address his confession directly to Him. The avowal will then be full of love and contri-tion. The awareness of the dialogue with Christ prohibits a mechanical accusation. We resume here the funda-mental principle of the sacrament which we discussed earlier. It is a question of an encounter with Christ, with Him who offered us His love and who gave us the call to our religious life of intimacy. An encounter with Him whom we love can never be banal or routine. The Avowal o[ Past Faults The avowal of past faults raises a, doctrinal problem: how can sins which have already been forgiven be the ob-ject of sacramental absolution? Divine pardon could not have been incomplete at the moment of the first absolu-tion. Yet, if it was complete and definitive, how can absolution be given a second time---or how can a new absolution be effective? We well know that divine pardon erases sin and renders the sinner pure and spotless. Nevertheless, the practice of confessing past faults has by custom become a part of confession; and this practice, since it is admitted by the Church, must have its justifica-tion. It is particularly frequent among those who wish to inject more fervor into their confession, notably among religious. But fervor should be enlightened; and we must therefore resolve the doctrinal problem by understanding how faults, which have already been pardoned, may again be submitted for absolution. It is true that the pardon is complete on God’s part. It is equally true that the sinner’s culpability is entirely taken away. The culpability, which constitutes the state of sin, disappears; the penitent regains his state 6f inno-cence and his friendship with God. Nevertheless, even if every absolution produces this effect without restriction, there is a more particular effect of absolution which is proportional to the interior disposi-tion of the penitent. Sin had provoked a disorder within the soul involving an attachment to terrestrial goods. This disordered attachment is not necessarily suppressed by confession and absolution. Confession, of course, does imply a return to God, a preference deliberately accorded to the Lord. But a certain attachment to creatures may remain which will only disappear by a progressive purifi-cation or by a growth of generosity expressed in love. Absolution tends to incite this purification of disordered tendencies and concentrates the affection on the Lord. But these effects are produced only to the extent that the peni-tent has a proper disposition in respect to them. Repent-ance may be characterized by a greater or less degree of depth, a greater or less intensity of love, more or less firmness of the will in turning from evil. After having obtained absolution by repenting the first time, a new avowal in which the penitent strives for more perfect contrition, stimulated by a greater love, may be made. Absolution can exercise its effect of purification and of reconciliation more completely in the renewed act of repentance; it may also strengthen the detachment from sin more effectively and reinforce the soul’s adhesion to Christ in more integral fashion. Even though the absolu-tion bears on sins already forgiven, it will not be without an object since it reaches the interior dispositions of the soul; and these dispositions can facilitate greater action. Although the absolution is identical on God’s part, suc-cessive pardon brings about a more complete transforma-tion on the part of man. Such are the conditions required for the confession of past sins to be fruitful. The good result must be the prod-uct of more fervent contrition and a more resolute will to break every attachment with evil. The’ routine accusa-tion of past faults would have scarcely any usefulness in accomplishing this end. + + + Confession VOLUME 23, 1964 4. 4. 4" REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS There is certainly no reason to .compare present dispqsi- ¯ tions with those one may have had at the time of the first accusation. It suffices to ask pardon sincerely for the bffense committed and to suppress as completely as possi-ble the attachments and indulgence which the offense expressed. On the condition of this sincere desire, absolu-tion will contribute to the realization of more complete purity, a supernatural state to which only grace can lead. The confession of past faults is not recommended for those who tend toward scrupulosity--unless a very general avowal is made. The scrupulous person would be inclined to reconsider former accusations because he doubts the integrity or the precision of his statement of former faults as well as the quality of his disposition at that time. Re-newing an avowal motivated by scruples can only be harmful. In case the intention which motivates the renewal is unclear, mixed with confusing sentiments, or influenced by restlessness, one should abstain from the repetition. In regard to the contrition itself, it is essential to be sure of our faith in the pardon of divine love and to avoid any-thing which might compromise that faith. The confession of past faults should result not only in a more sincere contrition but also in increased confidence in the merciful goodness of our celestial Father. Contrition Frequent confession should be accompanied by an ever-increasing degree of contrition on the part of the penitent. Indeed, contrition is the penitent’s most important con-tribution to the sacrament. It is more important than the avowal or penance. For the avowal can only be the ex-pression of contrition, and the penance is its extension. Despite its importance, it is possible to neglect contrition; for it is more interior, less material, than the avowal and the penance. It may happen that the penitent, when pre-paring for confession, may reflect only on faults to be mentioned, failing to arouse a sincere repentance. He may approach the sacrament with a list of accusations but with-out having adopted an attitude of regret and without having sufficiently implored pardon. A more intense contrition is linked to the progress in love which one vows to God, to the development of inti-macy with the Lord: The closer a soul is to God the more afflicted he is by regret resulting from falls. ’Thus saints are animated by intense repentance; they consider them-selves great sinners and. implore divine pardon with great insistence. The simple fact of the practice of frequent confession by religious indicates that in the case of souls whose state of life brings them into closer proximity to God the aware- ness of their state as sinners should also be sharper. Fur-thermore, since this proximity is to Christ, friend and spouse, the contrition should be colored by a disposition of friendship and tenderness. The religious should con-sider sin as the great obstacle which raises a barrier be-tween his intimacy and the divine friend. Herein recon-ciliation takes on its meaning: the sacrament is the meeting of the love which repents with the love which has been offended. The shadows which have darkened the intimacy are dissipated in the light of this faithful en-counter. The lack of delicacy which has troubled the good relations disappears in the sincerity of the repentance and the imploring of pardon. Christ desires to give Himself once again to the soul struggling to open itself to the plenitude of this gift. Since the religious has the habit of selbexamination and self-discipline, he must take care that his repentance does not degenerate into sentiments which are not noble. He must resist the temptation to resentment, the regret of faults on account of the humiliation they have pro-voked. Resentment results from the disappointment of dissatisfied pride at having to recognize limitations and weaknesses. Far from deploring the shame or humiliation aroused by sin, true repentance willingly receives it, re-joices at this means of despoiling self, and brings its re-grets to bear on the offense which has wounded the divine love, on the disappointment inflicted on the hopes of our Lord. The proper assessment of weaknesses and shortcom-ings can have the excellent result of overthrowing the idol which every human makes of himself. To surrender to resentment amounts to re-erecting the idol. Authentic contrition is focused entirely on God, is happy to accept the degradation of one’s self-love in order to open the heart to grace in humble love. Contrition, in order to be the expression of love, must be the contemplation of the Lord rather than the observa-tion of self. It is nourished by a deep understanding of sin as an offense against divine love. Saint Paul considered sin as a sadness inflicted on the spirit of love which fills the heart of Christians; the religious, called to a more in-terior life, is invited to develop a sensitive consciousness to "grieving the Holy Spirit" (Eph 4:30). True contrition must not, furthermore, be confused with any other simple sentiment. If the Council of Trent defined it as a "grief of the soul," it was to prevent its identification with a simple emotion since contrition is an attitude of the will. Let the penitent regret his faults sincerely, even if he experiences no feeling of sorrow. The sign of sincere repentance is found in the good intention, in the resolution to avoid th~ fault in the future. Man is not master of whether he is to feel the emotion of regret ÷ ÷ ÷ Contession VOLUME 23, 1964 399 ÷ ÷ ÷ lean Galog, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 400 or of sadness; but he does have the power to turn his will in the direction of the good, towards love. Contrition expresses this voluntary orientation. The Penance The role of penance is emphasized in the doctrine, of the sacrament of confession. The act is considered es-sential to the effect of the sacrament since the penitent thereby provides his contribution to this effect. In the ancient Church penance often appeared to be the most im-portant element, and it was usually a rather severe one which could be prolonged for a period of years. Today it is reduced to something rather insignificant; often a short prayer which can be recited rapidly after confession. Here, too, routine may enter in, depriving the penance of its value. It behooves the religious to appreciate the merit of the penance. What is it, really? It is the reparation which the sinner is invited to make to our Lord for the sins com-mitted. The former thereby unites himself to Christ’s redemptive act itself. The penance par excellence, that which is the basis of all others, is the one which Jesus presented to His Father on the cross for the sins of the world. However modest the penance imposed by the priest may be, it is destined to unite the penitent to the sacrifice of the cross; and its grandeur derives therefrom. If one is tempted to consider the penance disproportionate to the faults committed, he should remember that it is associated to the immense reparation offered by the Savior. It thereby acquires a more proportionate value in relation to the grace of pardon. Even a very short penance may cause the religious to reflect on his personal ineptitude, his incapacity to obtain pardon by his own merits; and it should stimulate him to be more confident in the re-demptive merits of Christ. It should also help him to as-sociate himself more closely with Jesus’ reparative act. Penance thus illuminates the internal content of the sacrament. Divine pardon is gratuitous; it is accorded through the merciful goodness of our heavenly Father. Nevertheless, it requires a counterpart: the reparation pro-vided by Christ in the name of all humanity. Absolution is given in virtue of this reparation. It mobilizes the entire force of love involved in the sacrifice of Calvary in order to apply its fruit to the penitent. Consequently, absolution should incite gratitude not only for the mercy of the Father but for the generosity of the Savior who, by His death, is the principle of all pardon. Penance should also foster a reparative intention by helping us understand that, sinners though we may be, we should collaborate through sacrifice in obtaining divine pardon. Penance is therefore to be received as the sign of a coredemptive attitude. Christian life is thus placed within the perspective of reparation offered not only for personal sins but also for those of the world. By virtue of his vocation, the religious is the more deeply committed to the redemptive drama and should, consequently, grasp more easily a sense of satisfaction for sin. Religious life is a consecration founded on the sacri-fice of Christ as a complete offering of human nature, and this consecration participates in the oblation which Christ made of His life to the Father. The vows of poverty, chas-tity, and obedience express a personal gift which could not be considered outside the framework of the redemp-tion. This is a gift which prolongs the supreme gift of Jesus on Calvary, from which it draws its force and its generosity. The religious is intimately committed to the great work of reparation for the sins of mankind through satisfaction offered to the Father for the salvation of all men. Sacramental satisfaction facilitates this entrance into the redemptive perspective which is so essential to conse-crated lives. The attitude is a stimulant to the reparative love which should animate such an existence. Penance should, then, exert an influence on the entire life of the religious. It should animate him in all his activities and thoughts to contribute to the immense task of the sanctification and salvation of men. The penitent should make an honest effort to understand that it is not sufficient simply to recite a prayer in the guise of satisfac-tion after confession but that he is invited to offer by his entire conduct a more substantial reparation and that this reparation, united to that of Christ, is efficacious for his own faults and for the faults of others. The Apostolic Intention Although the sacrament of penance does indeed effect the remission of personal sin, it is not limited to the needs of the individual. As an expression of the life of the whole Church, the sacrament has, consequently, an apostolic objective. We have just considered the sacrament from the standpoint of its contribution to the redemptive work. Imperious reasons demand that the religious take into account the apostolic value of penance. He has been called to a way of life in which the struggle for greater purity is imposed by frequent confession. Now this requirement for greater purification does not have the sanctity of the individual as its only aim, but it also looks to the holiness of the entire Mystical Body. The religious should strive to contribute to the growth in purity of the entire Church. The common good will incite him to confess his faults, to implore divine pardon, to make reparation, with the aim of developing necessary attitudes among all Christians. In an age when the masses appear to lack a sense of sin ÷ ÷ Confession VOLUME 23, 1964 401 Jean Galot, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ,t02 and seem to be incapable of recognizing the seriousness of their faults, the obligation of assuming a more sensitive awareness of offenses committed against God enters into the mission of the religious. Frequent confession offers an efficacious means to such an end. The consecrated person’s example must give witness that the sense of sin intensifies as the love of God in-creases, that the sacrament of penance is a sign of love and fervent intimacy with the Master, that striving for ~eater purity through divine pardon is only an expression of the will to please our Lord more. Such an attitude testifies to true humility, demonstrating that the desire for perfec-tion is rooted in a lively recognition of the sinner’s state and in a hope for divine healing and deliverance. The par-able of the pharisee and the publican teaches this same truth. It is for us to apply it. Holiness always begins with the modest avowal of faults committed and a suppliant re-pentance. By translating this truth into action, the re-ligious will teach the necessity for the humble love which should characterize the sacrament of penance. His assidu-ous frequentation of the sacrament will indicate that re-course to absolution is not reserved to the heavenly Father’s prodigal sons but that it is even more suitable for the faithful ones. It is desirable that the religious be motivated to cooper-ate in the sanctification of the entire Christian community by his confession. It is certain that he will thus very fruit-fully adopt more sharply defined apostolic intentions. By. the courage and sincere purpose of his avowal he will make an attempt to obtain the courage to confess for those Christians who are deterred from the sacrament by fear or shame. By the fervor of his contrition he will seek the grace of repentance for others. He will offer his con-fession to Christ to draw others into the path which leads to the sacrament, especially those souls who have the most urgent need of it. Confession and Spiritual Progress The sacrament of penance is not only a means of taking away sin; it is also a force which brings a very definite con-tribution to the Christian’s spiritual progress, and, of course, to that of the religious. The sacrament is first of all a help to man because it enables him to enter the way of truth, to acknowledge his sinful nature, and to assess the quality of his relation with God. We humans tend to judge ourselves with too much indulgence, to overlook our faults and errors. Confession frees us from the blind-ing bonds of self-love and stimulates us to evaluate our conduct clearly. The result is a liberating truth. Self-ac-cusation helps break down bad habits and illuminates the path to be followed. The sacrament supplies a sincere and loyal climate for the spiritual life. The victory of light over darkness is assured. Penance also provides the force for a new vivifying thrust. The grace communicated through absolution is not only that of pardon, erasing sin and restoring inno-cence. Grace has the power of resurrection as well; it takes its strength from the mystery of Easter. There is no doubt that this resurrection finds a more spectacular application in the case of a soul brought to life from the spiritual death of serious sin. A veritable resuscitating force is op-erative here within the formula of sacramental absolution. The penitent receives a surge of life from the triumphant Christ who renews the penitent in his very being. The religious receives an upsurge of energy on his journey toward perfection. There are, of course, other means to spiritual progress; daily Communion is the most effective one, and the many forms of prayer also contribute to sanctity. Yet the sacra-ment of penance keeps its specific role, and it is irreplacea-ble in the struggle which the religious must sustain in order to correct his faults and overcome his weaknesses. It is the only means by which several essential aspects of spiritual development can be assured: purification of the heart, renunciation of occasions of sin, domination over irregular attachments, progressive triumph over egoism and pride. The religious may have the impression that he is losing ground in spiritual combats, and this feeling of failure may increase until it becomes overwhelming. In such cases, penance provides a means for the continual renewal of effort in the struggle against discouragement. The sacra-ment invites the penitent to develop firmer confidence in the Lord, to count on sacramental grace rather than on his own strength. This confidence cannot be in vain since the sacrament, by implanting the life of the resurrected Christ in the soul, tends to make the struggles of the religious against Satan the personal combats of the Savior. The medicinal and fortifying power of the Redeemer takes possession of the soul and raises it above self, enabling it to make progress such as it could never accomplish alone. The sacrament is a veritable fountain of transcendence. Finally, penance accelerates spiritual advancement by drawing closer the embrace of God in the beatific vision. Christ Himself described the grace of pardon as the return of the prodigal son to the paternal home, as a merciful embrace. Confession implies this filial return to the Father; absolution mysteriously effects the welcome. For the religious, the child of predilection, the sacrament of penance is the way of unceasing return to the heavenly Father, the means to the constant enjoying of His unfail-ing mercy. + + + Conyession VOLUME 2.$, 1964 403 ANGELO P. O’HAGAN, O.F.M. Confession: End- Time Phenomenon Angelo P. O’Ha-gan, O.F.M., is pro-fessor of Sacred Scripture at St. Pas-chal’s College; 90 Albion Road; Box Hill, E. 11, Vic-toria; Australia. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The first Christians, among whom the inspired New Testament came into existence, have a certain normative importance for all later Christians. The cry heard so often nowadays, "Back to the sourcesl" presumes this, and justly so. For although in one way the primitive Christian response to God’s revelation in our Lord was only one among many, yet in another way the religious experience enshrined in the New Testament is so organically part of God’s revealing process, so much its vehicle, that the Church has rightly seen in it a pattern, a norm, a yard-stick for all other ages. Christians continually rethink their own response to Christ in the light of the early Christianity found in the New Testament. However, certain points in our modern religious practice are not at all easily made meaningful in this way. The attempt to make them so begins by raising considerable problems. One such point would be our present-day practice of confession, especially of frequent confession. The purpose of this article, then, is to make our modern confessional usage more meaningful through an examination of some early Christian religious atti-tudes. Confession: History Declared: Old Testament. The word normally used for "con- + fessing" in the 01d Testament embraces the several ideas of praise of God, thanks for His benefits, and admission of human insufficiencies. Old Testament confession would best be described as a prayer addressed to God de-claring before men both God’s steadfast mercies and man’s continual sins. So in Genesis 32:11 Jacob says: "I am not worthy of all the kindnesses and the constant solicitude which you have shown your servant." The "kindness’ and the "constant solicitude" which occur so 404 often in Old Testament confessions were technical terms (h.~es,e_d and ’~em~t) and recalled immediately to the He-brew mind actual events such as the Exodus, the Cove-nant, and the conquering of the Land, by which God had intervened and transformed human happenings into sal-vation history. Perhaps the most developed of this sort of national confession is Nehemiah, Chapter 9, with its liturgical overtones. However, that the same notion of confession took in the individual’s private sins as well is clearly seen in the Psalms; for instance, Psalm 39 (40): 12-3 and Psalm 50 (51). New Testament. The New Testament is heir to this Old Testament mentality. Confession still declares ’sal-vation history but now centers on the Christ event as the true successor of all previous history. Christ is the inter-vention par excellence of God in man’s affairs (Heb 3: 1-2). During Jesus’ own lifetime it was just those who accepted Him as one sent by God who had their sins for-given. So in Luke 7:36-50 Christ says to the penitent woman: "Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace." See here the New Testament faith as a profession/confession true to its Old Testament roots: a profession of Christ as the savior and a confession of one’s need to be saved, of the state of sinner (see also Lk 5:8; 15:21; 18:13-4; 19:8-10). This ambient of faith is uniformly (Mk 6:5-6) required. The story of the paralytic let down through the roof (Mk 2:1-2) has: "Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, ’Son, thy sins are forgiven thee’ " (Mk 2:5). No sins have been mentioned, no pardon askedl However, their faith is not limited to a firm expectation of the cure; rather, it is a conviction that Jesus is the emissary sent by God to save His people from all forms of Satan’s thraldom. Pro-fession and confession are both implicit in it. Confession: History Declared Closed: Old Testament. God’s interventions in man’s affairs were termed "visitations." They were confessed to have both a benign and a punitive aspect: God mercifully fur-thered His plan of salvation, yet at the same time His de-struction of evil remained terrible and aweinspiring. This second aspect particularly came to be connected with the awaited "Day of the Lord." As disillusionment with the promise of earthly history grew, Israel’s hopes for justice slipped over into an age which ended history; that is, into the end-time, the eschaton. The Great Assizes of the Day of the Lord became an end-time expectation (Ez 38-9; Za 14) and were linked in late Jewish writings (for example, Dan 7 and its derivatives) with the comin.g Messiah. Our Lord’s message. All this lies behind the urgent preaching of the precursor to the Messiah (Mt 3:1-12). The penance, that is, the change of heart he called for, was conceived as a fleeing "from the wrath to come" (Mt + 4. End-Time Phenomenon VOLUME 23, 1964 405 ÷ ÷ ÷ A. P. O’Hagan, O .F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 3:7). Moreover, our Lord Himself, taking up formally the message of the Baptist (Mk 1:15), was personally acutely conscious of the end-time pressing in, and this even more so because He saw Himself as the inaugurator of this end-time’s first hour. That was the meaning Christ saw in His temptations (Mr 4:1-11) and in all His exor-cisms and cures where He defeated the kingdom of the devil (Acts 10:38). St. John’s Gospel catches this convic-tion of our Lord when it presents Him saying: "The hour is coming, and now is here, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God .... the Father... has granted him power to render judgment, because he is the Son of Man" (Jn 5:25-27). The Synoptics attest this same con-sciousness in Christ by the prominence they give to the Son of Man figure and the prophecies of the end of this age (Mk 13 and parallels). Early Church. This sense of end-time urgency passed from Christ into the early Church. The first Christians were convinced that the eschaton had begun (Gal 4:4), that Christ had judged sin and conquered death and so was already reigning, the glorified (resurrected/ascended) Lord. That was the faith they professed: the old formula enshrined in Philippians 2:11 means "Jesus Christ is Lord" (see 2 Tim 4:1; 1 Jn 4:14-5). Romans 10:9-13 ex-pands the formula a little, and Romans 6:1-11 expressly links faith in Christ with freeing from sin in baptism. Further, the primitive custom of baptismal con[ession is illustrated by the narrative about Gandace’s eunuch where the connection with the forgiveness of sins becomes clear if the symbolism of washing is recalled (Acts 8:35-7; see 1 Tim 6:12). This connection is more obvious in Acts 19:18: "... believed.., openly confessed their practices" of sinful magic. Early Christianity’s feeling of end-time urgency was colored and heightened by an atmosphere o[ tension. This tension was not neurotic nor even merely psycho-logical; it was religious, cosmic, eschatological. It was generated by Christianity’s present polarity, that is, the poles of fulfilment and unfulfilment: the kingdom has already come, yet it is still to come; Christians are saved, yet they must work out their salvation in fear and trem-bling; Christians are declared sinless, yet they are con-stantly exhorted to sin no more; and, most to the point, Christians are saints, as 1 John 5:18 has it, yet they are sinners, as the very same epistle says in 1:8-10. The duration of this tension is the interim moment lasting from the first to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Such duration engendered the need to continue professing one’s conviction, to reaffirm one’s belief, to repeat one’s confession of faith. Again, this form of duration implied new forgiveness of sins for new converts, of course, but more relevantly continued repentance and forgiveness of sins for those already believing, whether they sinned again or not. Their original confession, since it was done with Christ at baptism, had become part of the event of salva-tion and so escaped from the chronology of merely human events. With the whole "little while" of Christianity’s present interim it had acquired in a sense a closed-off unity guaranteed by the reigning Savior. Wherefore Christians’ whole lives could be conceived as just exten-sions of that moment of baptism/confession/forgiveness. Their constant attitude was: "I am a sinner saved by Christ." Scriptural texts springing from just such a mentality are easily found. 1 John 1:8-9 has been mentioned al-ready. Again, Luke 17:10 seems to the point here: "When you have done everything that was commanded you, say, ’We are unprofitable servants.’ " And significantly com-bining in the same Christians justness and sin, James 5:16 reads: "Confess, therefore, your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be saved. For the un-ceasing prayer of a just man is of great avail." Indeed, there is no doubt at all that in the primitive Church believing Christians sinned not only often in small things but also sometimes in very great matters. The incestuous man whom St. Paul punishes in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 is proof enough of this. 2 Corinthians 7:8-10 offers an example involving many of Paul’s Corinthian con-verts who need to repent again. 1 Timothy 5:19-21 deals with sinful presbyters. And Apocalypse 2-3 certainly re-flects a Church in which human weakness and sin were commonly found. In view, then, of sin in Christians, the Church when teaching felt the need to emphasize that our Lord’s power was still present in the Church and present in an active and effective way. It was continually present, working in the interim through human agency. This is the sacra-mental idea, of course: a divine moment clothed and ex-pressed in a human moment. Such a conviction was em-bodied in the preaching of the early Church as reflected in the Gospels. So Matthew 16:19: the keys of the king-dom; Matthew 19:28: the apostles judges in the end-time; John 20:21-3: "As the Father has sent me, I also send you.... whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them." With the mention of sacrament we come close to the roots of our present-day confessional practice in the Church, since the actual sacramental sign chosen is found to be radically part of the whole scriptural and early Christian way of thinking we have been describing. The sacrament most properly so called, the rnustdrion of the Pauline Epistles, is God’s redemptive work which cul- End-Time Phenomenm~ VOLUME 23, 1964 407 A. P. O’Hagan, O .F .M . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ,t08 minates and is summed up in the Christ event. The sacra-mental mode is, therefore, the proper mode of existence of the end-time in general. Nevertheless, because of the ambiguity inherent in this interim form of the eschaton, the Church always felt the need to select certain particu-lar deeds and words, already of their nature symbols, and to fill them with a new meaning. So the Supper: "This is my Body," for example. The implied reenactments, re-assertions, were felt to bridge the gap, to link the poles, remove the tension, to witness to the unity of the redemp-tion- fact/process. In a sense they showed in miniature what has happened and will happen to the whole. This must all be broadly linked to what has been said about confession and it must be utilized in understanding the actual sacramental sign itself. We are all familiar with the idea that the sacramental sign of confession has been taken from the courtroom. However, this does not go far enough. For the roots of the sign are in Jewish, scriptural, and early Christian thought where confession was con-nected with the heavenly lawcourt, with the Great Assizes of the Day of the Lord: its sacramental sign was an end-time symbol (see Mt 19:28). The Last Judgment has already begun, as the above cited John 5:25-30 makes clear. Nor is this merely a meta-phor. In Acts 2:16-20 St. Peter quotes Joel’s apocalyptic words about the Day of the Lord as being then fulfilled. Indeed our baptism and our confession of faith have taken us into this end-time sphere of the Judgment; to St. Paul a Christian’s conscience, suneid~sis, stood him constantly before God’s throne (for example, Rom 2: 15-6; 9:1). Yet, because of the two-directional nature of our present interim existence, Christians always felt the need to reiterate and to anticipate, that is, to act out sacra-mentally the implications of their confession. So Christ was confessed and pictured in the sacramental symbol as our judge with God, but simultaneously as our advocate with God. This being so, the Christian could sacramentally stand before the already final judgment seat as a sinner certainly, but as a sinner confident of be-ing acquitted ol~ his guilt through Christ’s expiatory death. Of course it is hardly necessary to recall here that among the first Christians awareness of the imminent consummation took the form of a lively expectation of precisely the Judgment. Romans 2:1-16 and 14:9-12 ex-emplify this sufficiently. More to the point is the constantly recurring idea expressed, for instance, by Matthew 10:32: "Everyone then who confesses me before men, I will ac-knowledge him before my Father in heaven" (see Jn 12: 42-3; 2 Tim 2:10-3; 2 Jn 7-9). Again, Luke 9:26 uses the terminology of the Last Judgment as does Apocalypse 3:5; 20:11-5. Concrete application of this early Christian feeling for the sacramental symbol is found in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5. To cope with the case of an incestuous man, Paul sets up a spiritual tribunal modeled on the tribunal of God: "I indeed.., passed judgment in the name "of our Lord Jesus Christ on the one who has so acted--you and my spirit gathered together with the power of our Lord Jesus--to deliver such a one over to Satan for the de-struction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Timothy 5:19-21 does the same. Again, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-34, Paul under-lines the end-time significance of the Eucharist, since in it we "proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes"; and therefore, says 1 Corinthians 11:28, 31, a man must judge himself lest God’s judgment already begin to come upon him, lest the Christian assemblies be no longer a symbol of the ultimate gathering together into the king-dom but a symbol of the herding together of the damned in face of condemnation by the Judge. But once more it is 1 John which gives us the most detailed reflection on this early Christian attitude: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from every kind of wrong" (1:9). "But should anyone commit sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just; and he is a propitiation for our sins" (2: 1-2). "And the world with its lust is passing away" (2:17). "Dear children, this is the last hour..." (2: 18). Such a way of thinking tended to turn all early Christian confession into an end-time act, symbolizing and embodying the great Judgment of God. Our confessional practice today is the result of nineteen centuries of growth in the Church. We have to dig down deep to uncover the roots of our present customs and to develop our feeling for the essentials. For instance, our frequent formal confession might appear a modern in-novation; yet did not the very earliest Christians do es-sentially the same thing when they repeated their bap-tismal confession? For they then professed Christ as savior and themselves as sinners who were keenly aware that all of these repetitions were done in the sacramental sphere, that is, that they partly escaped from mere human time and that they were bound together into one before the judgment seat of God through Christ’s act of redemption. Again, confessions consisting of past sins could seem pointless. However, these too have deep roots and reflect the ever existing need of the Christian to shrink up his interim existence by sacramental repetition: at the same moment he is both baptized and judged. His time is now partly, sacramentally, the end-time; and to confirm and show this he chooses and acts out an end-time symbol. Similarly, our acts of contrition, our recitation of the End-Time Phenomenon VOLUME 23, !964 409 Confiteor, even our apologies to our brothers in Christ, our acts of humility, and ~0 many similar things~all of these acquire deeper value through being linked more consciously to the broader sacramental outlook of the earliest Christians, to their simpler, more unified view of the religious life. Finally, with such roots as these our confessions can never be reduced to the status of a mere ascetical instru-ment by means of which we ourselves gradually eliminate our imperfections. No, today we still do what the first Christians did: we confess under the end-time symbol of Judgment that Christ has come to fulfil history by saving the world; we stand before the final tribunal declaring: "I am a sinner, but a sinner saved, for my Lord Judge is also my Redeemer, Jesus the Christi" + + ÷ A. P. O’Hagan, O .F .M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 410 PAUL J. BERNADICOU, s.J. Penance and Freedom Is a life of penance compatible with Christian human-ism? True, penance seems necessary in the initial stages of religious conversion in order that we may prove our good will and stabilize the rule of the spirit over our sense appetites. But does a continuing life of penance manifest a healthy Christian respect for nature and temporal val-ues? Or, to put the question another way: can a life of Christian penance be a happy one here as well as here-after? Surely there have been periods of an unorthodox stress on penance in the history of Christian spirituality. From the earliest days there have been those whose penitential life has unwisely cut them off from society and even, in the case of some of the early hermits, from the Church itself. And always there have been those whose reputation for holiness seemed too closely associated with the severity of their penances rather than with the charity in their lives. In the practice of Christian asceticism, are the inclina-tions of nature and grace always to be opposed? Do not many young people today take exception to Christianity and especially the religious life precisely because it seems so unnaturally penitential, so humanly unsatisfying? Must penance always play a role in Christian spirituality? And if it must, need it always stand in opposition to genuine human freedom? A careful study of what St. Ignatius of Loyola has said and implied about the role of penance in Christian spir-ituality supplies us with a very satisfying answer to our question. There is no doubt that he considers penance an essential and continuing means in the Christian life. And yet an adequate understanding of the modulations in his doctrine on penance may also convince us that it actually fosters the Christian humanism to which it may seem op-posed. St. Ignatius might be said to systematize the implicit teaching of St. Paul on the role of Christian penance. For both of them, voluntary penance is our call upon God to free us from our sins and the fatal despotism of our evil inclinations. It betokens the sincerity of our petition for Paul J. Bernadi-cou, S.J., writes from Regis Col-lege; 3425 Bayview Avenue; Willow-dale, Ontario; Can-ada. VOLUME 23, 1964 411 ÷ ÷ ÷ P. ]. Bernadicou, Sd. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the grace we need in order to achieve our genuine human selves. It signifies our free cooperation with God’s grace in an effort to resolve our human paradox: Inwardly, I applaud God’s disposition, but I observe another disposition in my lower self, which raises war against the disposi-tion of my conscience, and so I am handed over as a captive to that disposition toward sin which my lower self contains (Rom 7:22-23). Our free acceptance of penance marks our willingness to be freed by God’s grace from the tyranny of our lower self; it asserts our free choice for a life of liberty in the Spirit (Rom 8:12 ff.). Or, in the words of the Gospel, penance is the death we must die in order to live (Jn 12:24 ft.). St. Ignatius wisely begins by stating the necessary con-nection between interior and exterior penance (82).1 In-terior penance is sorrow for my sins with the firm purpose of sinning no more; and exterior penance must flow from this inner disposition as its external manifestation in deeds. Exterior penance may take many different forms: deprivation of what we may want and normally need in the way of sleep or food, infliction of bodily pain, and so forth; in fact, "the more we do this, the better the penance, provided only we do no harm to ourselves and do not cause any serious illness" (83-5). Most importantly, St. Ignatius tells us that we per-form exterior penance in order to secure three effects: l. To make satisfaction for past sins; 2. To overcome oneselL that is, to make our sensual nature obey reason, and to bring all of our lower faculties into greater subjection to the higher; 3. To obtain some grace or gift that one earnestly desires. Thus it may be that one wants a deep sorrow for sin or to weep much over his sins or because of the pains and sufferings of Christ our Lord; or he may want the solution of some doubt that is in his mind (87). It is upon these three effects that we shall concentrate, for they underlie the philosophy and rationale of penance for St. Ignatius.2 The three effects may seem to be independent. In the mind and practice of St. Ignatius, however, they are bound and ordered together. They are the three aspects in every act of penance which relate it to one’s past, present, and future. The first effect applies the act of penance as a satisfaction for one’s past offenses; the second effect of the 1 The numbers in parentheses refer to paragraph numbers in the spiritual Exercises, as found, for example, in the translation by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Westminster." Newman, 1963) used throughout this article. -~ Most of the ideas and references here presented owe their origin to an excellent article by Franqois Roustang, S.J., "P~nitence et libertY," Christus, v. 12 (1956), pp. 487-506. same act of penance marks one’s present effort at ordering himself under supernaturalized reason; and the third effect looks to the future reward of greater order within oneself and of fuller union with God. It must be realized that all three effects are always and simultaneously pres-ent in every act of penance; however subliminally, they characterize every additional deepening of our conversion to Christ. There may be greater or lesser awareness of one effect rather than another as one progresses in depth of Christian living; but it is always a question of the degree of emphasis on one or the other effect rather than of not including or of transcending one of them. These three effects of penance may thus be considered as the corresponding ends of the three classical ways of the spiritual life: the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. One may think of the three ways as successive stages of a Christian’s development, synomymous with the beginner, the proficient, and the perfect. In this sense, the terms are identified with the aspect of penance which predominates as one progresses in supernaturalized vision. In reality, however, all three ways--like their correspond-ing effects--are essential to each act of penance at every stage because they existentially relate a person’s growth in grace to his historical presence: his past, present, and future. It is again simply a question of varying stress on one effect and way rather than on another as one advances in love of God. The first effect of penance--the desire to make satisfac-tion for our past offenses--characterizes the purgative way. We would combat the dream of Adam within us, our illusion of independence. We therefore declare war on our innate refusal to recognize the rights of others and of God Himself, which has expressed itself in our sins and evil inclinations. Thanks to God’s grace of conversion, we willingly accept our part in the suffering of Christ so that joy and triumph will be ours "when his glory is re-vealed" (1 Pt 4:13). Penance is the link between sin and its reparation. It is the task we must perform if we would honestly see and admit to ourselves what we are--slaves to sense appetites and merely temporal values. We accept it consequently as the just penalty for our faults and we desire it as the necessary means of our salvation. In its heroic form--since, as we have indicated, the purgative way continues into the highest reaches of Chris-tian commitment--our desire to satisfy for sin expresses a wish to complete in our flesh "the debt which the afflic-tions of Christ leave still to be paid, for the sake of his body, the Church" (Col 1:24). As a fully dedicated follower of Christ, we would repair with Christ the damage of sin~ur own and that of others. Even in the last years 4- 4- 4- Penance and Freedom VOLUME 23, 1964 413 P. ]. Bernodicou, S.]. REV]EW FOR RELiGiOUS of his life, St. Ignatius, like all the Christian saints, did penance in reparation for sin because it offended his Lord. The second effect of penance consists in ordering our sense appetites under reason; it corresponds to the illumi-native way of the spiritual life. We humbly acknowledge the power of our sense appetites over our will to serve God. St. Paul has given this experience its classical ex-pression: My own actions bewilder me; what I do is not what I wish to do, but something which I hate. Why then, if what I do is something I have no wish to do, I thereby admit that the law is worthy of all honor; meanwhile, my action does not come from me, but from the sinful principle that dwells in me (Rom 7:15-17). We want to be governed by the Spirit (Rom 8:19) so that we may be our real and fullest selves. A struggle expressed in voluntary penance will finally allow the Spirit to reign in us. Here again penance points the way to victory, "that is, to make our sensual nature obey reason, and to bring all of our lower faculties into greater subjection to the higher" (87.2). We would release our spirit from the whims of sense desire and mere temporal prudence; we would give supernaturalized reason the primacy of order and dominion over our sense appetites. St. Ignatius gives us sage advice. Far from suggesting that we simply hold the line during this time of desolation, he urges us to take the offensive against our attachment to sense appetite and lower reason. We are told to accent our desolation by penance (319) so that we not only withstand the attack of Satan in our flesh but vanquish him totally. Once more we hear the echo of St. Paul: "I buffet my own body, and make it my slave; or I, who have preached to others, may myself be rejected as worth-less" (1 Cor 9:27). This is to discover our real nature; we are creatures dependent upon God’s grace for mastery over ourselves. St. Ignatius specifies that penance means sacrificing even what is suitable for oneself in the way of food, sleep, or pleasure (83-5). Such is the price of our victory over Satan. For his whole effort is to keep our attachments alive and virulent. He whispers in a thousand ways that our bodies cannot bear the rigors of penance (89): How will you be able to sustain a whole life of such penance, away from the enjoyment of relatives, friends, and possessions, living in such solitude without letup~when you could certainly save your soul without running so great a risk? (Letters, v. 1, p. I01). Satan would have us forget, adds St. Ignatius, the con-solations and joy which God gives to those who live for Him. We must therefore directly oppose Satan and our flesh (350). We cannot afford to put our confidence in the flesh because Satan wants its victory; he wants to keep us his by our unregulated love of transitory things. We must therefore rise above our sense appetites and natural rea-son. In order to lead us outside ourselves to love, Christ would have us hate ourselves (Lk 14:26 ft.), that is, domi-nate our sense desires and temporal prudence with super-natural vision and motivation. Satan, on the’ other hand, would lead us to hate by conspiring with our selfish sense desires. "Believe me When I tell you this: a grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die, or else it remains nothing more than a grain of wheat; but if it dies, then it yields rich fruit" (Jn 12:25). Still, we must humbly guard against excess in penance; our love must be discreetly measured to our capacity and our grace (83-5). Health is very important if we are to be instruments of Christ’s word: With a healthy body, you will be able to do very much; with a sick body, I do not know what you will be able to do. A body in good health can help greatly in doing very much evil and very much good: a great deal of evil in those who have a de-praved will and bad habits, a great deal of good in those whose will is totally dedicated to God our Lord (Letters, v. 1, p. 108). We must be humble enough to recognize that there is no saving life in our own works (Rom 3:24 ff.). Our acts of penance only indicate our compliance with God’s action. His Spirit alone awakens us to supernatural life; It alone can bring us to desire and request genuine life. It gives birth in us little by little to an affection deeper and stronger than our sense appetites and temporal reason. Penance does not effect our salvation; it merely opens the door to God’s action. But God asks no more, and now His power will be made manifest in our weakness (1 Cor 1:27). It is in this way that we establish order within ourselves. The flesh and its sensible forces have lost their power to harm us; we have ordered them under the dominion of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:17; see Gal 5:16,22 ff.). Our free use of penance has unmasked our false security and illusory independence; it provoked an instability which revealed and repaired our inmost need. We have found our real self at the price of combat against our lower appetites; now we enjoy genuine human security and peace under the Spirit. The third effect of penance is to maintain the order of supernaturalized reason. This effect correlates with the unitive way. It is the more or less stable state of Christian command over our sense powers and lower reason which allows God to visit us with His grace at His own good pleasure (229, 87.3). ÷ 4. Penance and Freedom VOLUME 23, 1964 415 4. ÷ P. J. Bernadicou, Sd. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Two contrary excesses must be avoided. On the one hand, we cannot despise our sense powers. They are an essential part of our human equipment and must be main-tained, respected, and reverenced as talents entrusted to us by God. Nor on the other hand should we glory in the peace of soul which we now experience as if it were our own doing. In both cases we should take the opposite tactic from Satan. He may try to push us to extreme penance by encouraging us to think that the more we take away from the body the more we contribute to the spirit. Or he may tempt us to pride in the gift of peace and self-control which God in His mercy has bestowed. Or he may attempt to lead us to false humility; if, for ex-ample, God our Lord has given us a gift, either in our work, plans or desires, he puts it into our head that to recognize it is to sin by vainglory because we speak of ourselves .... And so by sug-gesting humility to us, he leads us to a false humility, to an extreme and depraved humility (Letters, v. 1, pp. 101-2). This state of supernaturalized order is the result of experimentation with penance. It is a very personal and individual balance between the unique grace and unique nature of each person. Provided care is taken not to fall sick, the more one retrenches from a sufficient diet, the more speedily he will arrive at the mean he should observe in the matter of food and drink. There are two reasons for this: First, by thus using the means to dispose himself, he will often experience more abundantly within the soul lights, consolations, and divine inspirations by which the proper mean will become evident to him. Secondly, if he perceives that with such abstinence he has not sufficient strength and health for the Spiritual Exercises, he will easily come to understand what is more suitable to sustain his body (~l~). Supernaturalized order in man achieves a harmony be-tween (1) his submission to the power of the Spirit from above and (2) his respect and reverence for his God-given nature here below. True peace and serenity, gifts from the hand of God, are the result of one’s stabilization and inte-gration of this mean in his own personal response to his individualized grace. As a result of this experience of order, we also will learn wisdom and discretion in mastering ourselves; it shows us the right measure of our cooperation with the work of God. For our faith-enlightened reason will keep us continuously open to the influence and love of God. It teaches us not to depend upon our acts of penance as if of themselves they could merit our justification: we can never win the eternal happiness of heaven since it is always a gif.t from the hand of God. Nor, on the other side, need we fear God’s action in us: He always wants what is best for us. The state of supernaturalized order--the para-doxical. exercise in Christian humility and confidence-- avoids the two extremes of proud self-sufficiency and of cowering fear of God’s demands. It keeps us humbly turned towards God, as He would always find us, with a reserve of oil for our lamps (Mt 25:4), confidently expec-tant of His love. This is human freedom in its fullness.’ Because we have hoped in God, we ourselves have become as gods (Jn 10:34); we enjoy the freedom of His sons (Rom 8:14- 17). In the three ways of the spiritual life, penance has been the middle term effecting the transition. It takes us in each instance from the slavery of sin to a new liberty under grace. But, as was remarked earlier, we do not definitively establish ourselves in the second or third way no longer to be concerned with the first or second. With differing degrees of emphasis, all three ways and effects of penance will always be essential to the ever continuing conversion which marks our earthly growth in Christian commitment. Penance finally becomes a form of Christian joy here on earth when, as in the case of the saints, it is transformed into an expression of love for the Crucified. Our suffering out of love for and dedication to Christ becomes a suffer-ing of joy. "We continually carry about in our bodies the dying state of Jesus, so that the living power of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies too" (2 Cot 4:10). Pain can no longer be distinguished from joy as in all pro-found human experiences of communion in suffering with our beloved. Our happiness is to suffer for Christ whom we love; we would prove our love and lighten the burden of pain; we would share His suffering. Penance wins for us this joy of identification with Christ. Thus united with Christ, we also share in His work of redemption and in the glory of His resurrection. For 6ur works are done by God who is in us (Jn 3:21), and therefore merit as the works of Christ Himself. There is no greater joy. Penance. therefore plays an indispensable and continu-ing part in Christian spirituality; indeed, without it one cannot attain his full stature as a man. It lifts us beyond our sense inclinations and temporal evaluations to the full:realization of our human and Christian dignity. With-out it we’are but stunted, self-centered caricatures of our-selves, neither genuinely social nor rational in our orienta-tion to life-and surely not images of God. Penance facilitates~.our entry into the larger world of community with men and in the Spirit, for it is a stepladder over the heap, and obstacle of our sense attachment to. a false self.¯ ¯ Penance consequently nurtures the,humanism to which ÷ ÷ ÷ Penance. and Freedom 4" 4" 4" P. ]. Bernad~cou, ¯ ~ SJ. ~REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 418 it at first seems opposed. If we understand and practice the orthodox psychology of penance expressed by St. Ignatius, it will lead us to the discovery of our full dignity as free men and sons of God. An Addendum A practical addendum is in order: how does a religious learn and put into practice the proper psychology of penance? As in all other aspects of ascetical training, there would seem to be no ordinary substitute for competent spiritual ¯ instruction and direction throughout one’s formation. In the noviceship and beginning years, one needs wise ex-ample and motivation in order to perceive that life will emerge from the death of Christian penance. Today’s youth rightly expect that religious profession not stifle their natural talent and initiative. The religious instruc-tor must be prepared to show by word and example that a life of Christian penance, far from being an obstacle, is an incentive to and requisite of genuine humanism. More subtle directives and guidance are required in the maturing years of a religious. One needs the firm and knowing grip of an expert in orthodox Christian asceti-cism if one is easily and efficiently to effect the transitions to a life of ordered sense inclinations and to a stable state of faith-enlightened reason which humbly and confi-dently waits upon the invitations of the Lord. One’s ap-proach to penance must be carefully modulated to the measure and call of grace, avoiding the various shoals: fear of penance, extreme penance, pride, false humility. A competent guide must have experienced the transitions himself, reflected on them, and yet be cognizant of the variations in human personalities. For while a religious must always practice a holy docility to Spirit-guided au-thority in the hierarchical Church if he is securely to find God’s providence for himself, he also needs to discover his ¯ own true mean for grace and nature. Each person is unique; hence we should expect the supernaturalized order of grace and nature to be differently expressed in each person. A knowing director encourages safe but flexible experimentation so that each religious under his care may find his individual norm for harmony between grace and nature. Even the religious--rare though he be--who has an adequate theoretical grasp of the role .of penance in Christian spirituality needs the practical as-sistance of a spiritual guide in order to have an assurance of discerning the true Spirit: in the subtle movements of the soul, the illusions of Satan are rife. It must be emphasized that penance is not to be prac-ticed in an univocal manner as if it were everywhere and always applied in the same way. In the Christian view, as expressed by St. Ignatius, it must be carefully modulated to the developing needs of each person. Spiritual direction of a very high competence would seem to be the normal means intended by Providence for our orthodox instruc-tion in and integration of Christian penance into our lives. To be professional Christians--religious--requires that we take every available means to insure our success in this our first concern. + + + Penance and Freedom j. M. R. TILLARD, O.P. Religious Life, Sacrament of God’s Power J. M. R. Tillard, O.P., is professor of dogmatic theology at Dominican House of Studies; 96 Empress Avenue; Ottawa 4, Canada. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 420 In the Dominican ritual for religious profession, there occurs a short phrase that is startling and provocative. While the novice lies with his face to the ground in an attitude of adoration, he is asked by the prior: "What are you seeking?" And the novice replies: "The mercy of God and yours." Then he pronounces his profession for-mula with his hands in those of the prior. It is a simple scene, and yet this question and its answer contain a re-markable theological profundity. They reveal one of the essential ’dimensions of religious life as it exists at the heart of the mystery of the Church of God. But it is a dimension that is often kept in the background; at times some even seem to forget it. As a matter of fact, we have gradually become accus-tomed to consider religious life only from the side of man, to see it only as a generous and radical effort put forth by certain of the baptized to achieve an evangelical per-fection that is as total as possible. As we have indicated in our other articles, this is certainly a fundamental as-pect; religious life is even defined by this efficacious tend-ency towards baptismal perfection. Nevertheless--and this is the point we would now like to clarify--this human effort finds its true meaning only when it i~ plunged in the dazzling light of the absolute initiative of God. Reli-gious life is human generosity, the willing though some-what fearful striving of one who wishes to realize a perfect gift of himself; it is the ascetic and never adequate labor of a weak creature seeking to strip himself of everything that separates him from God. But before being all this, religious life is divine generosity, a gift of the almighty power of God’s mercy and steadfast love (as expressed in the untranslatable biblical phrase h.,es~e_d w~-,~me~t_). In the inmost depths of the pilgrim Church and hence in the inmost depths of the world of man, religious life repre-sents a sign, a sacrament, of the power of the God and Father of Jesus Christ. The Seal ol the Paschal Power To understand and penetrate this, let us first ask a question: What is the baptismal perfection to which re-ligious life constantly tends? First and essentially, it is the impregnation in us and the sealing o] us with the Pasch ol the Lord lesus in its two inseparable moments oI death and resurrection. All of Christian tradition has expressed this mystery of the evangelical mystique in terms of imi-tation of Christ. It is sufficient in this connection to recall the counsel of Paul to the faithful of Corinth and of Thessalonica: "Show yourselves imitators of me as I am of Christ" (1 Cot 1:11); "You set yourselves to imitate our example and the Lord’s" (1 Th 1:6). Peter makes the same affirmation: "Christ suffered for you and thereby left you an example so that you could follow in his steps" (1 Pt 2:21). All this was expressed in an incomparable way by Ignatius of Antioch at the very beginning ~f the Church’s entry into history: "Be you imitators of jesus Christ as He Himself was of His Father" (To the Philippians 7:2). And in his own martyrdom he sees the final earthly flowering of this imitation: "The one I seek is the one who died for us; the one I desire is the one who was raised up for us. My childbirth is near .... Permit me to be an imi-tator of the Passion of my God. If anyone has God in him, may he comprehend what I want and may! he have pity on me, knowing what constrains me" (To~ the Romans 6:1-3). It is, however, important to comprehend what this "imitation of the Lord" means. Certainly, it implies on the part of man a generous and personal effort inducing him to utilize all his vital forces in order that his life might be as faithful a resemblance its possible of the life of Jesus; and this can extend even to the joyful welcome of martyrdom. But this is not primarily a conquest by strength of arm, a mobfl~zauon of a.ll one s energies for the reproduction of an external rood, el that is transcend-ent and actually always inaccessible. It is rather a mystery that is completely interior. It is a mustering of oneself in order to permit one to be gradually fashioned by the paschal power of the Lord who wishes to "assimilate" us to Himself, to make us become Him, to lead us to an ever more realistic and total communion in His death-resur-rection. Baptism and subsequently the Eucharist have sown in us, as it were, a paschal seed that seeks to over-come us. Christ wishes to imitate Himself in us. The Pasch of the Lord with its two moments of death and resurrec-÷ ÷ ÷ Sacrament God’s Powe~ VOLUME 23, 1964 42! 4, 4, ~. M. R. Tillard, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS tion seeks to impress itself on every believer in somewhat the same way as the seal presses down on wax and leaves its image there. And this Pasch contains all the divine power with which the Lord Jesus was filled on the morn-ing of His triumph. When this power encounters man, it brings to him all the profundity of the "mercy" of the Father: it not only forgives sin, it also bestows the benefits of the new life, benefits which are those of "communion." So it is that after the example of Paul and then of Augus-tine and of St. Thomas Aquinas, we must affirm that in the mystery of sanctification everything comes from the power of God as unfolded and manifested in Christ Jesus. If to sanctify oneself means esse.ntially to "reproduce" Christ in oneself, this is not a matter of copying an ex-ternal model but of an imitation through "active com-munion" with the Lord who seeks to assimilate us to Him-self. Radically, "to imitate Christ" is to permit oneself to be penetrated by the power of His Pasch. It is here that our vows come into view. Above we gave the example of a seal and wax; the more malleable and pliant the wax is, the better the image that is impressed on it. So it is, too, that the more man is "receptive," "pliant," "docile," the more is the image of Christ im-pressed in the depths of his heart. In the face of the pas-chal power of God, man should be "in a state of poverty." And the three vows are precisely concerned with creating in us this "state of poverty." Moreover, in their inmost essence all three of them (this point will be considered in another article) are reunited in the evangelical mystery of "poverty of heart." For what is obedience except the most absolute of poverties, that of one’s own will? What is chastity except the poverty of one’s heart and one’s body? And material poverty is at once the sign and the nourish-ment of that poverty of heart which puts man in the state of perfect disposability in the face of the power of God. The vows lead us to perfection less by the heroic acts they lead us to perform than by the "detachment" which they effect, by the great abyss of poverty they form in our heart, by the malleability which they produce in our life and which permits the Pasch to impress itself on us. Thus it can be seen that remarks like this: "There is as much heroism in the mother of a family as in a religious; hence the life of the latter has no usefulness" are puerile and without a pertinent foundation. Nor should one be quick to cry "negativism" at this, to say that there is in this a sanctioning of a theology of the annihilation of the creature. It is far from being this; for in this we rejoin the entire mystery of the emptying of Christ, of His abandoning all His divine dignity, of His descent into the death of the Suffering Servant. But this descent emerges into the radiant light of the glory of God. Our vows do impoverish us--it is their very purpose. They effect in us a moment of death, and tradition com-pares them to a martyrdom. Nevertheless, this death is not a destruction nor a negation pure and simple nor a plunge into nothingness. It is a paschal death, a death "in the emptying of Christ." It is then a death that is an invitation as the death and dissolution of a grain of wheat are an invitation of the ripened ear. The more there grows in us the detachment from everything that shuts us within ourselves and that hence prevents us from giving ourselves to God, the more and to the same measure is there inscribed on this void the image of the Lord Jesus rising up from death and pervaded by the glory of the Father. Nothing in fact has been annihilated. The pro-found riches of our nature and of our personality have not been trampled underfoot; this would be an odious sacrilege that would ruin the creative plan of God and would remove the soil in which the supernatural is en-rooted; it would remove that foundation the value of which the supernatural assumes in order to lead us to go beyond ourselves. It is somewhat like the case of wax which is not de-stroyed when it is kneaded in order to make it soft for the seal. By the free act in which one forever and with a formal refusal of every possibility of revocation puts his own will under the desires of God, one gathers up all this richness and puts it in its true place in the presence of Him who is its ultimate s6urce. But this source is a power of love ceaselessly seeking to go outward and be-yond. Hence the state of interior poverty created by the vows appears to us to be quite simply the untying and the unloosening of the net which imprisons in our solitary souls all the values which we possess. And God knows how binding a web this net is: to a certain extent we resemble springtime buds, compact, tightly shut, enclosed in a waxy (over. In order for the branch of blossoms to emerge from them, it is necessary that the interior force of life open them to the vivifying action of the sun and put them in the presence of the source of all plant life. Our vows do something of the same kind. By putting our own will in a total and radical disposability with regard to the will of the Father (and this is very hard and painful for us, requiring at times a courage close to that of martyrdom), we create in ourselves a state of total welcome before the amazing power of the divine love. It is similar to the way that the death of the Suffering Servant caused in the hu-manity of Christ the mysterious call, the remarkable power of welcome the response to which was His glorifi-cation as Lord on the morning of the Resurrection. For God respects the freedom of His human creature; He does not impose His power of love; He prefers to induce in 4" 4" 4" Stwrament ol God’s Power VOLUME 23, 1964 423 ÷ ~. M. R. Tillard, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the heart of man a climate of voluntary poverty, a great void into which His love is allowed to insert itself. Briefly, then, the vows of religion are on our part a generous com-mitment that aims to create in us day after day the climate of that total disposability, of that radical self-poverty, and of that malleability which allows the Pasch of the Lord to impress itselt on our heart, thereby "assimilating!’. us to Christ Jesus. This, then, is religious life: the mystery of the divine power in the voluntary poverty o[ the human heart. Hence, before being a sign o[ human generosity, it is es-sentially a sign, a sacrament of the power of God. The Power of God in Religious Life .. In the pilgrim Church religious life really represents a constant demonstration and proclamation of this power of the agapd of God when the heart of man is willing to welcome it. So it is, too, that with regard to our brothers who are non-believers or Christians entrenched in a sterile mediocrity our generosity is quite simply the means which allows God to reveal His power. This point is important and deserves elucidation. In all truth, all of us are sinners. Unless we give way to pharisaism (itself a sin against the truth), we must clearly recognize that in the roots of our being we are no better than those around us. True, our dispositions are good and we have an ardent desire for the Lord. But who of us would dare to affirm that as good or even better dis-positions are not found outside our cloisters and:our reli-gious houses? Let us not be quick to say (as unfortunately is often done) that young men or young girls who are thoroughly good have decided not to enter religion be-cause they lacked generosity. One could reply (and ex-perience quickly shows that the reply is correct) that a good many men and women have entered religion be-cause they doubted their own generosity and because they feared they did not have the courage which Christian life in the world demands today. Faced with our infidelities and with disgust at the sight of our sins, do we not often ask ourselves why we are the ones committed to a "pur-suit of perfection" which eludes us while a layman whom we know to be infinitely better and more charitable than ourselves is called by circumstances to spend his energies in a situation the mediocrity of which is a burden to him? Why is it that we are the ones who have at our disposal the marvelous means of evangelical perfection, that the vows are though we often squander them while there are thousands of Christians who would profit .more from them than we do and who wear themselves out carrying on the severe struggle of the gospel in an atmosphere of spiritual rarefaction? The only possibility of answering this lies in placing oneself within the full plan of God. The calls of the Lord are mysterious, but they take place against the back-ground of a unified pedagogy. In everything God does, He shows forth His power and hence, says the Bible, manifests His glory. Paul makes this more specific: the power of God is shown forth in the weakness of man. And he continues: "So it is that I find my joy and pride es-pecially in my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Hence I am content with my weaknesses, with contempt, hardship, persecution, and frustration en-dured for Christ; for when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor 12:9-10). Throughout all of salvation history, the glory of God manifests itself especially in the fact of being able to lead human impoverishment, even that of sin, to surpass itself in salvation. Following the lead of Hosea, the prophets of the Old Testament expressed this by the allegory of the bride who is always unfaithful but never-theless always loved and saved (Hos cc 1-3; Ez 16:1-63; Is 54:1-10). "Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, my love shall never leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says Yahweh who has mercy on you" (Is 54:10). The sudden, unmerited conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus is another proof; the re-markable apostolic zeal that spread the Church through-out the civilized world sprang up in the heart of a stub-born persecutor of the first ecclesial community. More profoundly still, the Pasch of Christ Himself is the victory of the power of God over death which biblical tradition describes as the sign and fruit of sin. It is at this point that religious life is to be found. The power of the Pasch of Christ to which, as we have shown, the vows in a radical sense have linked us is .revealed through our weakness, through the painful failures that bruise us. We are sinners, and those who watch us live quickly discover it if they are at all clearsighted. In our communities, even when they are very fervent and when they are based on constitutions that are strongly evan-gelical, they see, as it were, embers that are still smoking ready to burst into flame at the slightest breeze: little per-sonal rivalries, the tendency to compare one’s own order with others in order to emphasize the perfection of the former, disguised refusals to adapt oneself to the actual Church by accepting reform on certain points, the phari-saical tendency to place the entire network of observances over interior fidelity, the constant temptation to seek out a bourgeois level of material life on the fallacious pretext of health or of relaxation. And what is the condition of the individual life of each religious? It is true that, ordinarily, scandalous lives are rare; but rare also are the lives of ardent holiness. There + + + Sacrament oJ God’s Powe~ VOLUME 2~ 1964 ÷ ÷ J. M. R. Ti~iard, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS are some who, after the enthusiasms of the early years of the apostolate, soon settle down into a sufficiently medi-ocre existence strongly resembling the self-satisfied daily routine of a minor public official. For many, the institu-tions of religious life become less a constant appeal to self-forgetfulness than a little world of spiritual comfort while one waits for the world of eternal and beatifying repose. As for the others (let us hope they are numerous) who continue to seek a total fidelity to the call of the Lord, their lives have periods of fervor and then of dis-couragement, their outbursts of ardent charity and then their relapses into a dull interior lassitude. The mystery of our fidelity is that of a life of serpentine windings through the jagged landscape of our misery and our sin. There is little resemblance between ourselves and those accounts of the Second Nocturn--too beautiful to be true --which are so overlayed with heroism that they often provoke us to interior revolt. At the end of days com-pletely filled with apostolic work or devoted to prayer, even then we still feel in ourselves the throbbing pulsa-tion of sin; and we always fear that our fidelity will not last. On the level of both the community and the indi-vidual, we are like men marching on a body of water covered by a thin sheet of ice; at each step we take, cracks appear all around us; and we fear that everything will give way under our feet and plunge us into the water. And yet this ice does not give way; if there are times when our foot does go through the ice, still we never see the entire surface disappear taking us with it. And why is this? Because the power of God is always there. By our vows, freely made and daily reaccepted (even in our pe-riods of least intensity), we have handed ourselves over to the action of the paschal power so that it might im-print on us the image of the Lord Jesus. God is faithful. If we persevere in our seeking an ever increasing open-ness with regard to the overflowing of His agapd, He will not cease to pardon us, to raise us up again (even if we have fallen very low), and to make us find--beyond our misery--a share in the Resurrection of Christ. Since we are still in the state of the pursuit of perfection, our very faults become the seed bed of grace: we emerge from them all the more convinced of our own misery and at the same time we are more brotherly with regard to the weakness of others and astounded by the completeness of divine love. On both the community and the individual level, this is what explains how God can make our lives, weak though they be, bring forth an authentic evangelical fruit. It is the fruit of the action of His power in us and through us. For what counts on our part ~s not so much the hero-ism of our acts or the intensity of their human quality as it is the state of total disposability towards the power of the Lord in which our vows have put us. In this way we become, in the Church and in the world and with all the realism of our sinful condition, witnesses par excellence of that which God wishes to achieve in and through the hearts of men when they give themselves entirely to the action of His power. In other words, through our radical poverty (simultaneously and inseparably that of our vows and that of our sins) we permit the divine power to reveal itself today in the world of men. Religious Life, Sacrament of This Power Our religious mystery, then, viewed in its entirety from our side, comes down to a mystery of poverty. This must be insisted on, because it is rare that the profundity of poverty as seen from a genuinely dogmatic angle is taken into view, consideration of poverty being limited to its position on the ascetical level. We are the meeting place of two poverties which represent the two faces of the existential situation of man as he encounters His God. First, there is the poverty that is voluntary, freely chosen, and daily reactualized; this is the poverty of our vows. It hands us over to the entire good pleasure of the living will of the Father; and it makes us, as it were, the well-cultivated s0il in which can germinate the fruits of the divine power. But there is another poverty which is the inheritance from the first sin, which is never totally eradi-cated from our hearts, and which our vows toward the pursuit of perfection make even more inescapably evi-dent. It is true that more than other men we are in a position to experience the terrible and painful separation that exists between man’s good intentions and the weak-ness of the same will under the sting of temptation. Basi-cally, we experience the bitterness of sin and the weight of its drama more than those who are called "great sin-ners" (and who often are less responsible for their crimes than we are for our peccadillos). By the second of these poverties (that of sin), we are in communion with all our brother human beings. This is a dimension immanent to the existential condition of man as he faces God and his brothers. As we have already remarked, radically our link with sin is no less strong than theirs. In their sins we see (unless we have fallen into pharisaism) an outline of our own sin. But they, on their part, discover in our miseries their own poverty as sinners; we appear to them as being in a profound sense their brothers in this common situation. And we should not---let me emphasize this point--fear to appear to them as such. Among many religious men and women there exists a hidden temptation to a hypocrisy that has nothing evangelical about it: the refusal to appear as sinners in the eyes of others. Obviously, there is no question here of ÷ ÷ ÷ Sacramento] God’s Power VOLUME 23, 1964 427 4. ]. M. R. Tillard, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ostentatiously publishing the catalog of one’s sins or of parading the regrettable matters that can occur. But neither can it be a matter, under the pretext of evangeli-cal witness, of hiding behind the false mask of an im-passive being who remains unshaken by the assaults of sensuality or pride, or jealousy or anger. It is necessary that whose who are around us and come into contact with us should perceive that in us also the struggle of grace goes on, that we are not "supermen" immersed without difficulty in an angelic universe. They must see, then, that we are solidly with them in the fierce combat of the light against the darkness, of the new life against death. And above all (this is said deliberately) it is necessary that they hear from our own lips the humble admission of our struggle. By this is not meant a confession that is made for the sake of appearances but one that springs forth from the depths of our heart. Nothing is accomplished by pretending to others (often after pietending .to oneself) that one already possesses sanctity. On the contrary, what evangelical truth demands is that on the exterior of our lives there should show through our pursuit of that holi-ness, a pursuit that is realistic, generous, and faithful in spite of obstacles. The world (especially the world of to-day) abhors affectation, falseness, theatricality. But (and this is the reverse of the coin) the poverty of sin in us should be transparent to the divine power. The Pasch of the Lord who makes life come out of death must blaze before the eyes of our brothers. Thereby we become for them the signs of hope, witnesses to the action of God in the darkened hearts of men. When we speak of the moment when those who are in contact with us discover us as brothers truly sharing their situation as sinners, we do not mean to say that this discovery should justify their conscience and allow them to say: "I am not as bad as I thought; it is useless for me to torment myself; my com-fortable and cozy life is good enough." On the contrary, our communion with them should lead them in their turn to allow themselves to be invaded by the paschal power of the Lord Jesus and to lead them to put them-selves in a state of welcome. For it is necessary that under our situation as sinners they should see the active work of the divine power to which our vows have made us en-tirely open; they should see it transforming us to the imitation of Christ. In other words, the mercy of God which we came to seek in religious life should shine forth through us in its precise formality as transforming, as-similative, paschal but always in alliance with our fi-delity, with our active and generous consent, and hence with our interior poverty. It is thus that the very real gap between our misery and what God nevertheless accomplishes in and through us becomes in the Church of God a wonderfi~l factor revelatory of the power of the agap~ of the Father. This, it seems to me, is the characteristic quality of the witness which the Lord expects from those who devote themselves to His service in religious life. It is not so much a witness of the greatness of human love for God as it is rather a witness of the persistent extravagance of the love of God for men. It is less a witness to human heroism than a wit-ness of human transparency to the plan o[ God. This does not mean falling into quietism; as we all experience, in order to maintain oneself in a state of welcome and of poverty, it is sometimes necessary to mobilize all one’s vital forces and literally to battle against oneself. Never-theless, the success of this battle depends on God. This is why (and our vows proclaim it) the more man creates in himself a radical disposability with regard to the all-powerful action of the Father and the more he consents to put his personal will within the hands of God, the more does his life become positively similar to that of Christ and the more does sin die in him by a death sprung up from the Resurrection. The marvels of devotedness and of concrete achievements which the different religious communities, in spite of the weaknesses of their members, have sown throughout the entirety of their long history and in all places (think, for example, of the important role they played in the Church’s missionary expansion and their work for the relief of human suffering) proclaim to the world the good news of salvation: God has raised up His Son who died for sin, and the power of that Pasch is still active. Power of God, Poverty of Man, and God-centered LiIe Let us go yet further in our reflections. We have pre-sented the vows of religion as being essentially vows of spiritual transparency, of total interior poverty in the face of the.Lord. Is there not in this a contradiction of what tradition affirms and of what we ourselves have explicitly said;, namely, that religious life is characterized by an intense commitment of the baptized to what we have called the absolute for-God? The contradiction is only apparent, and a clear idea should be had of the matter. Only the atmosphere of radi-cal interior poverty as here discussed makes possible the commitment to the absolute for-God and hence the con-stant effort of man to surpass himself. Once again, the mystery of Christ gives us the ultimate answer, an answer not of reason but of pure faith. Christ was not mere pas-sivity to,the.force of the power of the Spirit of the Father working in Him. He gave Himself to His commitment; He sacrificed. His entire life in order that the plan of sal- 4- 4- 4- Sacrament ot God’s Power VOLUME 23, 1964 429 ]. M. R. Tillard, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 430 vation might be realized in and through Him. But the Gospels, especially that of St. John, show us that at the root of this commitment was His filial transparency in the face of His Father, His existence as the perfect Servant of Yahweh. His entire ministry, including His death-resurrection as well as the pentecostal gift of the Spirit, is summarized in this one short sentence: "My aim is not my own will but the will of him who sent me" (Jn 5:30). Moreover, from all eternity in the divine zone of His mystery, He is the Son in the situation of "filial poverty" in relationship to the Father who in God is ultimate source and origin. Christ was committed because He was poor. Without that poverty He could not have saved us. We are here in the atmosphere of the covenant and hence of love--love in dialogue. In genuine love, the more one’s will is renounced (without annihilating it, for then there would be no love), the more one passes into the will of the other. This, however, is not something that is merely passive as though comparable to violence exercised by a stronger person who "enchains" the other. On the contrary, it implies a positive and free act: a per-son embraces the will of the other, makes it his own, and makes it flow into his own life so that it may become the activating force of his acts. It is a mystery of profound communion. This will of the other, marvelously and joy-fully accepted by us, impels us to work with all our strength so that the deepest intentions of the other may reach their fullest accomplishment. The mystery of Christ is to be found in such a perspective. God the Father in His agapd makes His own the profound cry of men for salvation; He makes it a part of His own heart, makes it His own concern to the extent that in order to satisfy it He sends His only begotten and dearly beloved Son. In the reality of His human nature, Christ in whom are focused all men makes His own this salvific plan of the Father, this will to respond and to initiate salvation. It passes into that humanity and makes its entire life un-fold under its dynamism. His total poverty, His kenosis as St. Paul terms it, is, then, without a doubt a richness for man. It is completely paschal; certainly, it implies a moment of death but it ends by pouring out into the glory of the Resurrection where in all truth the human creature finds its unique fullness in the power of God. Moreover, this poverty impels His humanity to exert all its energies to accomplish that which at one and the same time and indissociably is the plan of the Father and the glorification of man. In the light of faith and under the full force of the dynamism of baptismal charity, the same mystery .aims to realize itself in us; and it is to this that our .vows order us. The poverty they create in us permits the paschal power of the Father to impress itself in the depths of our liberty and to seal in it the Lord Jesus. Bu.t at the same time this liberty which is in no way violated (since it is freely and willingly that we say yes to the call of God) "imitates" that which was the reaction of the freedom of Christ before the invasion of the divinity. It put itself entirely in communion with that of the Father and de-voted its entire life to the arduous work necessary for the concrete realization of the divine plan of salvation. Here again, then, poverty implies fecundity and conditions this fecundity. It ends with the surpassing of man. But this surpassing, it is clear, cannot be defined as Corneille understood it. It is not the excelling of a superman, nor is it even that of a man in perfect possession of all his energies. It is the surpassing of a "poor man" who allows the power of God to make use of him and who offers his vital forces to the mysterious action of the One who is able to make of a weak instrument a vessel of election. Here we may be permitted to emphasize the place of prayer in the apostolic commitment of religious. We are astonished to note that modern communities of the active life are often those where prayer, true prayer, is absent. Prayer is replaced by prayers, the recitation--often me-chanical-- of ready-made formulas; often there is even common meditation made from a book read aloud for the entire community. In this way many religious, although faithful to their "exercises of piety," reach the state where they no longer truly pray. Moreover, in many institutes where up to now the tradition of prayer has been main-tained there can be discerned a certain stir of impatience with regard to what is considered as time lost to "dream-ing." Nevertheless, true prayer seems to us to be the atmos-phere necessary for the realization of the mystery of pov-erty that we have attempted to describe here. This is not that shriveled kind of prayer that is entirely concerned with the perfect performance of a definite technical method. But it is the prayer of openness, a placing of all of one’s self in peaceful presence in the fact of the Lord: it is a poor prayer. It is not the prayer of a voluntarist who keeps on in spite of everything; neither is it the prayer of the restless who ceaselessly count over their in-tentions and their needs. Rather it is the prayer of one who throws himself at the feet of His Lord as friend meets a friend and who often has nothing to say except that he is happy to be with him and near to him. A really com-mitted religious life, one that genuinely strives for the absolute of the for-God as we have presented it, cannot dispense with the time of prayer, with the time of deep-ening interior poverty. Otherwise, it degenerates into activism; little by little, it loses its religious basis, its ÷ ÷ ÷ Sacrament ot (~od’s Power VOLUME 23, 1964 transparency with regard to the Pasch. In all this interior tumult, God cannot send the death of the Lord and its resurrection blossoming. It should be a matter of lively hope that under the influence of the Council religious communities will carefully study the problem of apostolic prayer. In place of multiplying formulas (often artificially pious and signs of an antiquated spirituality), litanies, particular examens, novenas, and so forth, it is necessary that they return to silent prayer, reserving vocal prayers to the slow, peaceful, and contemplative recitation of some Hours of the Divine Office (in particular Lauds and Vespers) in common with the entire Church. And I refer here to the Divine Office and not to the daily repe-tition of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. The new liturgical laws, the now authorized use of the vernacular open up on this point remarkable possibilities. Let us dare to hope that our community prayers will cease to be hackneyed and become authentic times of poverty of heart. Then our communities will accomplish with greater fullness their vocation to be signs and sacraments of the paschal pow City of Saint Louis (Mo.), http://www.geonames.org/4407084 http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/471 |