Review for Religious - Issue 23.5 (September 1964)
Issue 23.5 of the Review for Religious, 1964.
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Online |
| Language: | eng |
| Created: |
Saint Louis University Libraries Digitization Center
1964
|
| Online Access: | http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/472 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| id |
sluoai_rfr-472 |
|---|---|
| record_format |
ojs |
| institution |
Saint Louis University |
| collection |
OJS |
| language |
eng |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus |
| spellingShingle |
Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus Review for Religious - Issue 23.5 (September 1964) |
| author_facet |
Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus |
| author_sort |
Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus |
| title |
Review for Religious - Issue 23.5 (September 1964) |
| title_short |
Review for Religious - Issue 23.5 (September 1964) |
| title_full |
Review for Religious - Issue 23.5 (September 1964) |
| title_fullStr |
Review for Religious - Issue 23.5 (September 1964) |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Review for Religious - Issue 23.5 (September 1964) |
| title_sort |
review for religious - issue 23.5 (september 1964) |
| description |
Issue 23.5 of the Review for Religious, 1964. |
| publisher |
Saint Louis University Libraries Digitization Center |
| publishDate |
1964 |
| url |
http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/472 |
| _version_ |
1798403623177158656 |
| spelling |
sluoai_rfr-472 Review for Religious - Issue 23.5 (September 1964) Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus Jesuits -- Periodicals; Monasticism and religious orders -- Periodicals. Issue 23.5 of the Review for Religious, 1964. 1964-09 2012-05 PDF RfR.23.5.1964.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 Constitution on the Liturgy by Vatican Council II 561 About the Constitution on the Liturgy by Paul VI 592 Persons and the Religious Life by Paul J. Bernadicou, S.J. 596 Work: A Becoming Process by Sister M. Judith, O.S.B. 604 Utilizing the Psychologist’s Report by Alan F. Greenwald 612 Decision-Making by Richard M. McKeon 616 Positive Examination of Conscience by Daniel L. Araoz, S.J. 621 Examination of Conscience for the Religious Woman by Sisters Vincent Ferrer and M. Elizabeth, S.P. 625 Ancient Abbess and Modern Superior by Sister Marie Estelle, &D.S., 633 The Need to Be Needed by;Sister Teresa Margaret, O.D.C. 644 Survey of Roman Documents 652 Views, News, Previews 657 Questions and Answers 660 Book Reviews 666 VOLUM~ 23 September 1964 VATICAN COUNCIL II Constitution on the Liturgy PAUL, BISHOP THE SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD TOGETHER WITH THE FATHERS OF THE COUNCIL FOR A PERPETUAL RECORD OF THE MATTER 1. This Council,* dedicated as it is to the things that pertain to holiness, has the following aims as its objectives: the steady growth of the Christian life of the faithful; the better adaptation to the needs of our times of those things that are subject to change; the fostering of whatever can contribute to the uniting of all believers in Christ; and the strengthening of whatever conduces to the leading of all men into the Church’s fold. It is because of these aims that the Council is convinced that it is also its duty to make special provisions for the renewal and the promotion of the sacred liturgy. 2. For the liturgy, through which, especially in the di-vine Eucharistic sacrifice, "the work of our redemption is continued," 1 is of the highest importance in bringing it about that the faithful by their lives express and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the genuine nature of the true Church. It is characteristic of the Church to be at one and the same time human and divine, visible yet endowed with invisible realities, devoted to action yet dedicated to contemplation, present in the world and yet * The original Latin text of the Constitution appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 56 (1964), pp. 97-138. In this translation, chapter titles, subtitles, and paragraph numbers are taken from the original. x Secret of the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. ÷ ÷ ÷ Vatican Council 11 VOLUME 23, 1964 561 ÷ ÷ ¥ot~:mt o~nci~ I! REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 562 a pilgrim in the world. These aspects of the Church axe so constituted that the human in her is directed and sub-ordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, action to contemplation, the present world to that future city for which we are striving.2 Those who are within the Church are day by day built up by the liturgy into a temple cou-secrated to the Lord, into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit) into the complete development of the fullness of Christ.4 At the same time the liturgy notably strengthens their power to preach Christ, and in this way it shows the Church to those who are outside her as the standard lifted up among the nations5 under which the scattered sons of God may be gathered together into unity0 to the extent that there may be one fold and one shepherd.7 3. Wherefore, this Council judges that it should call attention to the following principles concerning the pro.- motion and the renewal of the liturgy and that it should set forth practical norms in the matter. Among these principles and norms there are some which can and should be applied both to the Roman rite and to all the other rites. The practical norms, however, which are given below are to be understood as applying only to the Roman rite except in the case of those which in the very nature of things affect other rites as well. 4. Finally, this Council, in faithful obedience to tradi-tion, affirms that the Church considers all lawfully recog-nized rites to be of equal right and dignity; that she is determined to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way; and that she desires that, where neces-sary, they be carefully revised in the spirit of sound tradi-tion and given a new vigor to meet the circumstances and the needs of today. CHAPTER I GENERAL PRINCIPLES ON THE RENEWAL AND PROMOTION OF THE SACRED LITURGY I. The Nature o[ the Sacred Liturgy and Its Importance [or the Li[e o[ the Church 5. God who "wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:4) and who "at many times and in different ways formerly spoke to the fathers through the prophets" (Heb 1:1), when the fullness of time came, sent His Son, the Word become flesh, anointed :See Heb 13:14. sSee Eph 2:21-2. ~See Eph 4:13. nSee Is ll:12. nSee Jn 11:52. *See Jn 10:16. by the Holy Spirit, to proclaim the gospel to the poor, to heal the contrite of heart,s to be a "bodily and spiritual physician,’’9 and to be the mediator between God and man.xo For His humanity in the unity of the persgn of the Word was the instrument of our salvation. Hence in Christ "there came forth the perfect achievement of our reconciliation and there was given to us the fullness of divine worship." 11 This work of human redemption and of perfect glori-fication of God to which the mighty works of God among the people of the Old Testament were a prelude was achieved by Christ the Lord principally through the pas-chal mystery of His holy Passion, His Resurrection from the dead, and His glorious Ascension whereby "dying He destroyed our death, and rising, he restored our life." 12 For from the side of Christ sleeping on the cross in death there came forth the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church.13 6. Accordingly, just as Christ was sent by the Father, so He Himself sent the Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, not only to preach the gospel to every creature1~ and to proclaim that the Son of God by His resurrection and death had freed us from the power of Satan1~ and from death and that He had brought us into the kingdom of the Father, but also to continue the work of salvation which they proclaimed. This they were to do by means of the sacrifice and the sacraments around which all liturgical life revolves. Thus, by baptism men are grafted on the paschal mystery of Christ;13 they receive the spirit of adop-tion as sons "in which we cry out: Abba, Father" (Rom 8:15), and they thus become those true worshipers whom the Father seeks.1T So also, whenever they eat the Lord’s Supper, they proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes,is This was the reason why on that very day of Pentecost when the Church appeared in the world "those who welcomed the preaching" of Peter "were baptized." And they "continued in the teaching of the Apostles, in SSee Is 61:1; Lk 4:18. s St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Ephesios, 7,2; Patres apostolici, F. X. Funk, ed. (Tiibingen: H. Laupp, 1901), v. 1, p. 218. ~°See 1 Tim 2:5. a Sacramentarium Veronerme, C. Mohlberg, ed. (Rome: Herder, 1956), n. 1265, p. 162. ~ Roman Missal, Easter Preface. l~See St. Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 138,2; "Corpus Christianorum," v. 40 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1956), p. 1991; and the Oration after the Second Reading of Holy Saturday in the Roman Missal before the reform of Holy Week. 1’See Mk 16:15. ~See Acts 26:18. l"See Rom 6:4; Eph 2:6; Col $:1; 2 Tim 2:11. ~ See Jn 4:23. ~See 1 Cor 11:26. 4. 4. 4. Liturgy 4. 4, 4. REV[EW FOR RELIG]OUS the sharing of the breaking of bread, and in prayer .... They praised God continually, and all the people spected them" (Acts 2:41-7). From that time on, the Church has never failed to meet together in a body to celebrate the paschal mystery by reading those things "in all of Scripture that were about him" (Lk 24:27), by cele-brating the Eucharist in which "the victorious triumph of His death is once more made present," 10 and at the same time by giving thanks "to God for the indescribable gift" (2 Cot 9:15) possessed in Christ Jesus "to the praise of his glory" (Eph 1:12) through the power of the Holy Spirit. 7. For the accomplishment of so great a work, Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgi-cal actions. He is present in the Sacrifice of the Mass not only in the person of His minister ("It is the same [Christ] who now makes the offering through the ministry of His priests and who formerly offered Himself on the cross" 2o) but especially in the Eucharistic species. By His power He is so present in the sacraments that when anyone baptizes, it is Christ Himself who baptizes.21 He is present in His word, for it is He who speaks when the Sacred Scriptures are read in the Church. Finally, He is present when the Church prays and sings; for it was He who made the promise: "When two or three have gathered together. in my name, I am right there among them" (Mr 18:20). It is true to say that Christ always associates the Church with Himself in this immense work whereby God is per-fectly glorified and men are made holy. She is His beloved Bride who calls out to her Lord and through Him offers her worship to the eternal Father. Rightly, then, is the liturgy regarded as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ in which human sanctifi-cation is signified by sensible signs and effected in a way corresponding to those signs and in which public worship in its entirety is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members. Accordingly, every liturgical celebration, since it is a work of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a surpassingly holy action the efficacy of which is equaled by no other action of the Church on the same ground and to the same degree. 19Council o~ Trent, Thi’rteenth Session, October 11, 1551, Decree on the Eucharist, c. 5; Goncilium Tridentinttm: Diariorum, actorttm, epistolarum, tractatuttm nova collectio, ed. by the Gfirres Society, t. 7 (Freiburg: Herder, 1961), p. 202. ~°Council of Trent, Twenty-second Session, September 17, 1562, Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass, c. 2; Concilium Tridentinttm: Diariorttm, actorum, epistolarum, tractatuttrn nova collectio, ed. by the Gfirres Society, t. 8 (Freiburg: Herder, 1919), p. 960. a See St. Augustine, In loannis evangelium tractatus, VI, c. 1, n. 7; P.L., v. 35, col. 1428. 8. In the liturgy of this earth we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem towards which we pilgrims are journeying and where Christ sits at the right hand of God as the minister of the holy things and of the true tabernacle;22 together with all the troops of the heavenly army we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord; when we honor the memory of the saints, we hope for a share in fellowship with them; we wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until He our life will appear and we in turn will appear with Him in glory.:~3 9. The sacred liturgy does not exhaust the entire range of the Church’s activity. Before men can come to the lit-urgy, they must be called to faith and conversion: "How can they call on someone in whom they have never be-lieved? And how can they believe in someone of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear unless there is someone to preach? But how can there be preachers unless they are sent?" (Rom 10:14-5). For this reason the Church proclaims the news of salva-tion to unbelievers so that all men may know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent and that they may be converted from their ways by doing penance,z* And to believers also the Church must always preach faith and penance; she must prepare them for the sacraments; she must teach them to obey whatever Christ has com-manded; 2~ and she must draw them to all the works of charity, of piety, and of the apostolate, for it is by these works that it becomes clear that the faithful, though not of this world, are nevertheless the light of the world and are to give glory to the Father before men. 10. Nevertheless, the liturgy is the summit towards which the action of the Church is directed, and at the same time it is the source from which all her power flows. For all apostolic endeavors are ordered to the objective that all men, being made sons of God by baptism and faith, should come together in unity, should praise God in the midst of the Church, should take part in the Sacrifice, and should eat the Lord’s Supper. The liturgy, in its turn, urges the faithful who have been filled "with the paschal mysteries" to be "one in holi-ness"; z6 it prays that "they hold fast in their lives what they have grasped by their faith"f7 and the renewal in the Eucharist of the covenant of the Lord with men draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets ~See Ap 21:2; Col 3:1; Heb 8:2. See Phil 3:20; Col $:4. ~See Jn 17:3; Lk 24:27; Acts 2:38. See Mt 28:20. Postcommunion of the Easter Vigil and of Easter Sunday. Collect of the Mass for the third ferial within the octave of Easter. 4- 4" 4" Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 565 them on fire. From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, graces come to us as from a fountain; thereby there is achieved in the most effective way possi-ble that sanctification of men in Christ and that glorifica-tion of God which is the goal towards which all the other activities of the Church are directed. 11. But in order that this effectiveness be achieved in its fullness, it is necessary that the faithful come to the sacred liturgy with the right attitudes of soul, that they attune their minds to its voice, and that they cooperate with its supernatural grace lest they receive it to no purpose.~ Hence, in the celebration of the liturgy pastors of soul:~ must carefully see to it that not only are the laws for a valid and lawful celebration observed but also that the faithful take part in it in an intelligent, active, and en.. riching way. 12. The spiritual life, however, is not limited to par-ticipation in the liturgy. Though the Christian is truly called to pray in common with others, yet he must also go into his own room to pray to the Father by himself;2~ in-deed, as the Apostle teaches, he must never cease praying.80 Furthermore, we are taught by the same Apostle to carry about in our bodies the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh,al It is for this reason that in the Sacrifice of the Mass we implore the Lord "to receive the offering of the spiritual victim" and to make out of us "an eternal gift" a2 for Himself. 13. Devotional practices of the Christian people, pro-vided they conform to the laws and norms of the Church, are highly recommended, especially when they are ap-proved by the Apostolic See. Devotional practices of individual churches also have a special value if they are done with the permission of the bishops and in accord~tnce with legitimately approved customs and books. But since the liturgy by its nature is far superior to them, all such practices should be such that they harmo-nize with the liturgical seasons and that they are in ac-cord with the liturgy, are derived from it in some way, and lead the people to it. II. Education in the Liturgy and Active Participation in the Liturgy ÷ 14. It is the earnest desire of the Church that all the ÷ faithful should be led to that full, intelligent, and active ÷ part in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the Vatican Coundl H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 566 See 2 Cor 6:1. ~*See Mt 6:6. ~°See 1 Th 5:17. ~See 2 Cor 4:10-1. The Secret of the second [erial within the octave of Pentecost. very nature of the liturgy and which, by reason of baptism, is the right and obligation of the Christian people, that "chosen race, kingly priesthood, holy nation, and pur-chased people" (1 Pt 2:9; see also 2:4-5). In the matter of the restoral and renewal of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation of the entire people is the most important thing to be taken care of; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful draw a genuinely Christian spirit. Hence, in all their pastoral work pastors of souls must earnestly strive to accomplish this participation. But no real hope of realizing this can exist unless pas-tors of souls themselves are deeply imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy and have become masters of it. For this reason, it is absolutely essential that measures should first of all be taken to ensure the liturgical educa-tion of the clergy. Therefore, this Council has passed the following enactments. 15. Professors who are appointed to teach the course in sacred liturgy in seminaries, in religious houses of study, and in theological faculties must be properly trained in their work at institutions that specialize in this area. 16. In seminaries and religious houses of study the course in the sacred liturgy is to be ranked among the compulsory and major courses, while in theological facul-ties it is to be ranked among the principal courses; and it is to be taught under its theological, historical, spiritual, pastoral, and juridical aspects. Furthermore, the profes-sors of other courses, especially those of dogmatic theology, of Sacred Scripture, and of spiritual and pastoral theology, should take care to expound the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation from the viewpoint of their own sub-jects in such a way that the relationship of these courses with the liturgy can be clearly seen as well as the unity that exists in the training of priests. 17. Clerics in seminaries and religious houses should be given a liturgical formation in their spiritual life. This should be done through an adequate introduction that enables them to understand the sacred rites and to par-ticipate in them wholeheartedly and through the actual celebration of the sacred mysteries together with other de-votional practices that are imbued with the spirit of the liturgy. They must likewise learn the observance of the liturgical laws in such a way that life in seminaries and in institutes of religious is profoundly shaped by the liturgi-cal spirit. 18. Priests, both diocesan and religious, who are al-ready working in the Lord’s vineyard, are to be helped in every suitable way to achieve a better understanding of what they do when they perform their sacred functions, ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturg~ VOLUME 23, 1964 567 Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to live a liturgical life, and to communicate such a life to the faithful entrusted to them. 19. Pastors of souls must zealously and patiently pro~ mote the liturgical training of the faithful and their ac-tive participation, both internal and external, in accord-ance with their age, condition, type of life, and degree of religious background. In doing this, pastors will be ful-filling one of the chief duties of a faithful dispenser of the mysteries of God. In this matter, moreover, they must lead their flocks not only by their words but also by their ex-ample. 20. Radio and television transmissions of the sacred functions, especially in the case of Mass, are to be done with discretion and dignity under the direction and super-vision of a qualified person appointed by the bishops for that purpose. IlL The Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy 21. In order that in the sacred liturgy the Christian people may more surely derive an abundance of grace, the Church wishes to give careful attention to the general renewal of that liturgy. The liturgy is composed of un-changeable because divinely instituted elements and of other elements that are subject to change. These latter can vary in the course of time and they even should do so if there has crept in among them things that do not fully correspond to the inner nature of the liturgy or that have become less suited to it. In this renewal, both texts and rites should be so ar-ranged that they give a clearer expression to the holy things signified. As far as possible, these holy things should be able to be easily understood by the Christian people and to be taken part in by an active celebration proper to a community. Wherefore, this Council has set up the following general norms. ,4. General Norms 22. § 1. The regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church; that is, on the Apostolic See and, within the limits of the law, on the bishop. § 2. In virtue of a power granted by law, the regulation of liturgical matters within certain defined limits also be-longs ~o the various kinds of competent and legitimately established territorial groupings of bishops. § 3. Therefore, no other person whatsoever, even if he be a priest, may on his own authority add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy. 23. In order that sound tradition be retained while let-ting the way be open to legitimate progress, revision of individual parts of the liturgy should always be preceded by a careful theological, historical, and pastoral investiga-tion. Moreover, consideration should be given both to the general laws of the structure and spirit of the liturgy as well as to the experience derived from recent liturgical reforms and from the indults granted at various times. Finally, innovations should not be introduced unless the genuine and certain good of the Church demands them; moreover, care should be taken that the new forms should in some way grow organically out of the forms now in existence. Insofar as it is possible, care must also be taken that notable differences in rites should not be used in ad-jacent regions. 24. Sacred Scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. From it Readings are read which are then explained in the homily; its Psalms are sung; from its influence and inspiration come the liturgi-cal prayers, collects, and hymns; and from it the actions and the signs of the liturgy receive their meaning. Hence, in order to achieve the renewal, progress, and adaptation of the sacred liturgy, there must be fostered that warm and living love of Sacred Scripture which is witnessed to by the venerable traditions of both the Eastern and Western rites. 25. As soon as possible, the liturgical books are to be revised with the help of experts and after consultation with bishops from various parts of the world. B.. Norms Derived [rom the Hierarchical and Communitarian Nature o[ the Liturgy 26. Liturgical services are not private functions but celebrations of the Church which is the "sacrament of unity," the holy people united and ordered under the bishops.33 Hence, these services pertain to the whole. Body of the Church, both manifesting and influencing it; they affect individual members of the Church in different ways ac-cording to differences in rank, office, and actual participa-tion. 27. Whenever the rites, in accordance with their spe-cific nature, are compatible with community celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, it should be stressed that such a celebration in-sofar as it is possible is preferable to an individual and quasi-private celebration. This is particularly true for the celebration of Mass (although every Mass is public and social in nature) and for the administration of the sacraments. ~St. Cyprian, De catholicae Ecclesiae unitate, 7, G. Hartel, ed., C.Sa~.L., t. 3.1 (Vienna: 1868), pp. 215-6. See also Epistle 66, n. 8, 3 in the same edition, t. 3.2 (Vienna: 1871), pp. 732-3. ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 ,569 ÷ + ÷ Fatican Coundl 11 REVIEW FOR REL~GIOUS 28. In liturgical celebrations each person, whether minister or layman, who has a part to carry out should perform all and only those things which pertain to his function according to the nature of the rite and the liturgi-caJ norms. 29. Servers, readers, commentators, and choir members perform a genuinely liturgical function. Hence, they are to perform their functions with the kind of sincere piety and correctness which befits so important a ministry and which the people of God rightfully expect. Hence, they must be imbued, each in his own way, with the spirit of the liturgy; and they must be trained to carry out their parts in a correct and orderly way. 30. In order to increase active participation, acclama., tions, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and hymns should be encouraged on the part of the people along with bodily actions, movements, and positions. And at its due time, a reverent silence should be observed. 31. In the revision of the liturgical books, care should be taken that the rubrics provide for the parts of the people. 32. In the liturgy, apart from the differences arising from liturgical function and from holy orders and from the honor due to civil authorities according to the norm of liturgical law, no special distinction is to be given in the ceremonies or in the external display to any private person or class of persons. C. Norms Derived [rom the Didactic and Pastoral Nature o[ the Liturgy 33. Although the sacred liturgy is principally the wor-ship of the divine majesty, it also includes a great deal of instruction for the faithful;34 for in the liturgy God speaks to His people and Christ still proclaims His gospel. And the people in turn respond to God in song and prayer. Moreover, the prayers addressed to God by the priest who presides over the assembly in the person of Christ are said in the name of the entire holy people and of all who are present. Finally, the visible signs used by the sacred liturgy to signify invisible divine realities have been chosen by Christ or the Church. Hence, not only when the things are read "which were written for our instruction" (Rom 15:4) but also when the Church prays or sings or acts, the faith of the participants is nourished, and their minds are lifted up to God so that they may give Him their reasonable service and receive His grace in a more abundant way. ~ See the Council of Trent, Twenty-third Session, September 17, 1562, Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass, c. 8; Concilium Tridenti-hum: Diariorum, actorum, epistolarura, tractatuum nova collectio, ed. by the G6rres Society, t. 8 (Freiburg: Herder, 1919), p. 960. Wherefore the following norms are to be observed in the renewal of the liturgy. 34. The rites are to be distinguished by a noble sim-plicity; they should be brief and avoid useless repetitions; they should be within the comprehension of the faithful and, generally speaking, should not need much explana-tion. 35. In order that the intimate relationship between rite and words should be apparent in the liturgy: 1) In sacred services a richer, more varied, and more suitable Reading from Scripture should be brought back. 2) Since it is a part of the liturgical action, a more suit-able place should be given to the sermon as far as the nature of the rite allows; and this should be noted in the rubrics. The ministry of preaching should be responsibly performed with the utmost fidelity. Preaching should be principally derived from the source of Sacred Scripture and the liturgy, since it is a proclamation of the wondrous acts of God in the history of salvation, that mystery of Christ which is always present and operative among us especially in liturgical celebrations. 8) Instruction that is more directly liturgical is to be emphasized as much as possible. And in the rites them-selves, if it is necessary, provision should be made for brief remarks by the priest or the competent minister but only at suitable moments and in prescribed or similar words. 4) On the vigils of the more solemn feasts, on some of the weekdays of Advent and Lent, and on Sundays and feast days, Scripture services are to be encouraged espe-cially in places where there is no priest; in this latter case, a deacon or someone else delegated by the bishop is to direct the service. 36. § 1. The use of the Latin language is to be retained in the Latin rites, exception being made for particular cases provided for by law. § 2. Since, however, in Mass, the administration of the sacraments, and in other parts of the liturgy the use of the vernacular can frequently be of great advantage to the people, a wider use is to be given to it especially in the Readings and the instructional remarks and in some prayers and chants in accord with the norms for the matter to be laid down individually in the following chapters. § 3. These norms being observed, the decision on the use and the extent of the use of the vernacular is a matter for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority men-tioned in article 22, § 2 after consultation, if the case war-rants it, with the bishops of adjacent regions of the same language; what is done in this matter is to be approved or confirmed by the Apostolic See. § 4. The translation of the Latin texts into the vernacu- + + + Liturgy VOLUME 23~ 1964 ¯ 571 lar for liturgical use must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above. Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS D. Some Norms [or Adapting the Liturgy to the Character and Traditions of Peoples 37. Even in the liturgy the Church does not desire to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not involve the faith or the welfare of the entire community; rather she respects and fosters the cultural qualities character-istic of various nations and peoples. She studies with sym-pathy and, if she can, preserves intact the things in a people’s way of life that are not indissolubly linked to superstition and error; at times she even admits such things into the liturgy provided they fit in with the quali-ties of a genuine and true liturgical spirit. 38. Provided that the substantial unity of the Roman, rite is preserved, provision should be made in the revision of the-liturgical books for legitimate variations and adap-tations to different groups, regions, and peoples, especially in mission territories; this should be kept in mind as the occasion warrants when the structure of the rites and the rubrics thereof are drawn up. 39. Within the limits set down in the normative edi-tions of the liturgical books, it will pertain to the com-petent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in article 22, § 2 to specify adaptations especially with regard to the administration of the sacraments and to sacra-mentals, processions, liturgical language, and sacred music and art, in accord, however, with the basic norms laid down in this Constitution. 40. In some places and circumstances there may be an urgent need for a profounder adaptation of the liturgy which may involve greater difficulties. Wherefore: 1) The competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in article 22, § 2 should carefully and prudently consider what pertinent elements of the characteristic traditions of individual peoples can be appropriately ad-mitted into divine worship. Adaptations which are judged to be useful or necessary are to be proposed to the Apos-tolic See and introduced with its consent. 2) In order that this adaptation may be done with all the circumspection necessary, the Apostolic See will grant to this same territorial ecclesiastical authority the power, as the case requires, to permit and direct for a determined period of time necessary preliminary experiments among certain groups suitable for that purpose. 3) Since in the matter of adaptation, especially in mis-sion territories, liturgical laws generally involve special difficulties, experts in the matters in question should be used in drawing up such laws. IV. Promotion o] Liturgical Life on the Diocesan and Parish Level 41. The bishop is to be considered as the principal priest of his flock from whom the life in Christ of his faithful is somehow derived and on whom it somehow de-pends. Hence, all should have the greatest esteem for the litur-gical life of the diocese centered around the bishop espe-cially in his cathedral church; they should be convinced that the principal manifestation of the Church is had in the plenary and active participation of the entire holy people of God in these same liturgical celebrations, espe-cially in the same Eucharist in a single prayer at one altar where the bishop presides surrounded by his college of priests and by his ministers.~ 42. Since the bishop cannot always and everywhere preside in person over the entire flock in his church, he is obliged to establish groupings of the faithful; among these groups parishes organized locally under a pastor acting in the place of the bishop hold the preeminent place, for in some way they represent the visible Church as it is con-stituted throughout the world. Hence, the liturgical life of the parish and its relation-ship to the bishop is to be fostered in the thought and practice of laity and clergy; and effort should be made to develop a parish sense of community, especially in the common celebration of Sunday Mass. V. Promotion of Pastoral Liturgical Action 43. Eagerness for the promotion and renewal of the sacred liturgy is rightly regarded as a sign o1~ the provi-dential plans of God for our age, as a movement of the Holy Spirit in His Church; it is a distinguishing mark that characterizes the life of the Church as well as the general religious mood in which our times think and act. Accordingly, to give greater encouragement to this pastoral liturgical action, the Council decrees the follow-ing. 44. It is desirable that the competent territorial ec-clesiastical authority mentioned in article 22, § 2 set up a liturgical commission to be assisted by experts in liturgy, music, sacred art, and pastoral practice. As far as it is possible, this commission should be aided by some kind of institute of pastoral liturgy composed of members eminent in these matters, and not excluding laymen if circum-stances warrant. Under the leadership of the territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above, it will be the ~ See St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magnesianos, 7; Ad Philadelphe-nos, 4; ,4d Smyrnaeos, 8; Patres apostolici, F. X. Funk, ed. (Tiibingen: H. Laupp, 1901), v. 1, pp. 236, 266, 281. ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS duty of this commission to regulate pastoral liturgical action in its territory and to promote the research and the necessary experimentations whenever there is question of adaptations to be proposed to the Apostolic See. 45. In the same way there should be had in each dio-cese a commission of sacred liturgy to promote liturgical action under the direction of the bishop. At times it may be expedient for several dioceses to set: up a single commission to foster liturgical matters by com-mon consultation. 46. In addition to the commission on sacred liturgy, each diocese should also set up, as far as possible, a com-mission on sacred music and one on sacred art. It is necessary that these three commissions work to-gether in close collaboration; indeed it will frequently be best to join the three into a single commission. CHAPTER II THE SACRED MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST 47. At the Last Supper on the night He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood by which He perpetuated the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until He should come again; thereby He entrusted to the Church, His dearly beloved Bride, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacra-ment of holiness, a sign of unity, a bond of charity,3e a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.aT 48. Accordingly, the Church is greatly concerned that the faithful should not be present at this mystery of faith as though they were strangers or mute onlookers; rather, she desires that through a good understanding of the rites and prayers, they take an intelligent, devout, and active part in the sacred action. She wants them to be instructed by the word of God and nourished at the table of the Lord’s Body. Her wish is that they give thanks to God and that they learn to offer themselves by offering the spotless Victim not only through the hands of the priest but also together with him. She wishes that through Christ the Mediatoras they should day by day be perfected in union with God and among themselves so that finally God may be all in all. 49. Having in mind the Masses celebrated in the pres-ence of the people especially on Sundays and holydays of ~ See St. Augustine, In loannis evangelium tractatus, XXVI, c. 6, n. 13; P.L., v. 35, col. 1613. ~ Roman Breviary, Magnificat Antiphon of Second Vespers of Corpus Christi. ~ See St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarium in Ioannis evan-gelium, bk. 11, cc. 11-2; P.G., v. 74, col. 557--64. obligation, the Council has enacted the following decrees in order that the Sacrifice of the Mass may attain its full pastoral efficacy even in the form of its ceremonies. 50. The Mass rite is to be revised in such a way that there will be a clearer manifestation of the characteristic nature of its individual parts as well as of their mutual relationship so that a devout and active participation of the faithful will be made easier. Therefore, the ceremonies are to be made simpler, though their substance is to be carefully preserved; parts which have been duplicated in the course of time or were added to no great advantage are to be omitted; and, to the extent that it seems useful or necessary, there should be a restoration in accord with the ancient norms of the holy fathers of elements which fell into disuse through accidents of history. 51. In order that the table of the word of God be spread more plentifully for the faithful, the treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more fully so that during a pre-scribed number of years the more important parts of the Sacred Scriptures are read to the people. 52. Since it is a part of the liturgy, there should be great esteem for the homily by which in the course of the liturgi-cal year the mysteries of faith and the norms of Christian life are expounded from the sacred text. In fact, at con-gregational Masses on Sundays and holydays of obligation, the homily is not to be omitted except for a serious reason. 53. The "common prayer" or the "prayer of the faith-ful" is to be restored after the Gospel and homily, espe-cially on Sundays and holydays of obligation. In this way petitions in which the faithful participate will be made for the Church, for civil authorities, for those oppressed by various needs, and for all men and the salvation of the entire world,ao 54. In Masses celebrated with the people a fitting place should be found for the vernacular, especially in the Readings and the "common prayer" and also, as local conditions allow, for those parts which pertain to the people in accordance with the norm of article 36 of this Constitution. Nevertheless, measures should be taken to see to it that the faithful are able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them. Wherever a greater use of the vernacular seems to be de-sirable, the prescription of article 40 of this Constitution is to be observed. 55. High esteem should be given to that more complete participation in the Mass by which the faithful, after the priest’s Communion, receive the Lord’s Body from the same sacrifice. "See 1 Tim 2:1-2. ÷ + ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 Though the dogmatic principles enunciated by the Council of Trent remain intact,40 Communion under both species can be given to clerics, religious, and lay people in cases to be specified by the Apostolic See and when the bishops judge it wise. Examples of such cases are: To the ordained at the Mass of their ordination; to the professed at the Mass of their religious profession; to the newly baptized at the Mass which follows their baptism. 56. The two parts of which the Mass in a sense is com-posed, namely, the liturgy of the word and the Eucharistic liturgy, are so closely interrelated that they form but a single act of worship. Hence, this Synod strongly urges pastors of souls, when giving instructions, to be zealous in teaching the faithful to take their part in the entire Mass especially on Sundays and holydays of obligation. 57. § 1. Concelebration, by which the unity of the priest-hood is appropriately manifested, has remained in use even up to the present time in both the East and the West. Hence, the Council has decided to extend the permission to concelebrate to the following cases: 1 ° a) On the Thursday of the Lord’s Supper both at the Mass of Chrism and at the evening Mass; b) at Masses during councils, bishops’ conferences, and synods; c) at the Mass for the blessing of an abbot. 2° Also, with the permission of the ordinary to whom it belongs to judge of the opportuneness of concelebra-tion: a) at conventual Mass and at the principal Mass in churches when the welfare of the faithful does not require the individual celebration of all the priests present; b) at Masses during any kind of meetings of priests, whether diocesan or regular. § 2, 1 ° It belongs to the bishop to regulate in his diocese the discipline of concelebration. 2° But each priest will always retain his right to cele-brate his Mass individually, but not at the same time and in the same church [of concelebration] nor on the Thurs-day of the Lord’s Supper. 58. A new rite for concelebration is to be composed and inserted in the Pontifical and the Roman Missal. CHAPTER Ill THE OTHER SACRAMENTS AND THE ++ SACRAMENTALS ÷ 59. The purpose of the sacraments is to make men holy, to build up the Body of Christ, and finally to give worship Vatican Council REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 576 ’*Twenty-first Session, July 16, 1562, Doctrine on Communion under Both Species and on the Communion of Children, cc. 1-3; Conciliura Tridentinum: Diariorum, actorum, epistolarum, tracta-tuum nova collectio, ed. by the G6rres Society, t. 8 (Freiburg: Herder, 1919), pp. 698-9. to God; and because they are signs they also give instruc-tion. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it; hence, they are called sacraments of faith. They confer grace; but in addition the act of celebrating them very effectively disposes the faithful to receive that grace in a fruitful way, to worship God properly, and to practice charity. Hence, it is of the greatest importance that the faithful easily understand the sacramental signs and that they should frequent with the greatest eagerness those sacra-ments which were instituted to nourish the Christian life. 60. The Church, moreover, has instituted sacramentals. These are sacred signs having some resemblance to the sacraments by which effects, especially those of a spiritual nature, are signified and obtained through the Church’s impetration. Through the sacramentals men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and the vari-ous occasions of life are sanctified. 61. Accordingly, in the case of the faithful who are well disposed, the liturgy of the sacraments and of the sacra-mentals brings it about that almost every event in life is made holy by the grace flowing from the paschal mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ from whom all the sacraments and the sacramentals derive their power; and there is scarcely no proper use of material things which cannot be directed to the purpose of making men holy and of praising God. 62. In the course of time, however, some things have crept into the rites of the sacraments and of the sacra-mentals by which their nature and purpose are obscured for our times. Hence, it is necessary that some things in them be accommodated to the needs of our age. Accord-ingly, the Council makes the following decrees with regard to their revision. 63. Since it can frequently be very advantageous to use the vernacular in the administration of the sacraments and of the sacramentals, a greater place should be allowed for this in accord with the following norms: a) In the administration o1: the sacraments and of the sacramentals, the vernacular can be used in accord with the norm of article 36. b) As soon as possible, the competent territorial ec-clesiastical authority mentioned in article 22, § 2 should prepare local rituals in accord with the new edition of the Roman Ritual but adapted to the needs of individual re-gions, including language needs; when these have been examined by the Apostolic See, they are to be used in the regions for which they were prepared. In composing these rituals or special collections of rites, there should not be omitted the instructions given in the Roman Ritual at Liturgy VOLUME 2~ 1964 ÷ ÷ ÷ Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the beginning of each rite, whether these be pastoral and rubrical or whether they have a special social import. 64. The catechumenate for adults divided into several distinct steps is to be restored and put into use at the dis-cretion of the local ordinary; in this way, the period of the catechumenate intended as it is to secure proper instruc-tion can be sanctified by sacred rites performed at succes-sive times. 65. In mission territories, to the elements contained in the Christian tradition there may also be added the initia-tion elements in use among each people to the extent that these can be adapted to the Christian rite and are in ac-cord with articles 37-40 of this Constitution. 66. Both rites for the baptism of adults are to be re-vised, not only the simpler one but also the more solemn one because of the restoration of the catechumenate; and a special Mass "For the Conferring of Baptism" is to be inserted in the Roman Missal. 67. The rite for the baptism of infants is to be revised and adapted to the actual condition of infants; the parts of the parents and of the godparents as well as their duties are to be brought out more clearly in the rite itself. 68. In the rite of baptism there should be included adaptations to be used at the discretion of the local ordi-nary when there is a large number to be baptized. There should also be drawn up a shorter Ordo which, in the absence of a priest or a deacon, can be used by catechists, especially in mission territories, and by the faithful gen-eraIIy when there is danger of death. 69. In place of the rite which is called the "Way of Supplying What Was Omitted in the Baptism of an In-fant," a new one should be made in which it is more clearly and suitably indicated that an infant baptized with the short rite has already been admitted into the Church. Similarly, for the case of converts to Catholicism who have already been validly baptized, there should be drawn up a new rite in which it is indicated that they are being admitted to communion with the Church. 70. Outside of paschal time, baptismal water can be blessed in the very rite of baptism by an approved, shorter form. 71. The rite of confirmation is also to be revised so that the intimate relationship of this sacrament with the whole of Christian initiation may appear in a clearer light; ac-cordingly, the renewal of the baptismal promises should fittingly precede the reception of this sacrament. When convenient, confirmation can be conferred during Mass; with regard to the rite outside of Mass, there should be prepared a formula to serve as an introduction. 72. The rite and formulas of penance should be re- vised in such a way that they bring out more clearly the nature and effect of the sacrament. 73. "Extreme unction," which may also and more fit-tingly be called the "anointing of the sick," is not a sacra-ment intended only for those who are at the point of death; hence, the appropriate time for receiving it is al-ready certainly present when anyone of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age. 74. In addition to separate rites for the anointing of the sick and for Viaticum, there should be drawn up a con-tinuous rite in which the anointing is given after confes-sion and before the reception of Viaticum. 75. The number of anointings should be accommo-dated to the occasion; and the prayers belonging to the rite of the anointing of the sick should be revised in such a way that they correspond to the varying conditions of the sick persons who receive the sacrament. 76. Both the ceremonies and the texts of the ordination rites are to be revised. The addresses given by the bishop at the beginning of each ordination or consecration can be made in the vernacular. At the consecration of a bishop the imposition of hands may be done by all the bishops present. 77. The rite for celebrating matrimony as it presently exists in the Roman .Ritual is to be revised and enriched so that the grace of the sacrament is more clearly indicated and the duties of the couple emphasized. "If any regions use other praiseworthy customs and ceremonies in the celebration of the sacrament of matri-mony, this Synod earnestly desires that they be re-tained." 41 Moreover, the competent territorial ecclesiastical au-thority mentioned in article 22, § 2 of this Constitution is free, in accord with the norm of article 63, to compose its own rite adapted to the usages of places and peoples; but the law should remain intact that the assisting priest should ask and obtain the consent of the contracting par-ties. 78. As a rule matrimony is to be celebrated during Mass after the reading of the Gospel and the homily but before the "prayer of the faithful." The prayer for the bride, which should be suitably amended to stress the equal obligation that both spouses have of mutual fidelity, can be said in the vernacular. If, however, the sacrament of matrimony is celebrated outside of Mass, the Epistle and the Gospel of the nuptial ,x Council of Trent, Twenty-fourth Session, November 11, 1563, On Reform, c. 1; Concilium Tridentinum: Diariorum, actorum, episto-larum, tractatuum nova collectio, ed. by the Gbrres Society, t. 9 (Frei-burg: Herder, 1924), p. 969. See also Rituale Romanum, tit. VIII, c. II, n. 6. Liturgy VOLUME 2.~, 1964 579 + ÷ ÷ Vatican Council 11 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 580 Mass are to be read at the beginning of the rite; and the blessing is always to be given to the spouses. 79. The sacramentals are to be revised, regard being had for the primary norm of an intelligent, active, and easy participation of the faithful and for the needs of our time. In the revision of rituals in accord with the norm of article 63, there may also be added new sacramentals as necessity may require. Reserved blessings should be very few in number and be made only in favoi- of bishops and ordinaries. Provision should be made that some sacramentals at least in special circumstances and at the discretion of the ordinary can be administered by qualified lay persons. 80. The rite of the consecration of virgins contained in the Roman Pontifical should be subjected to revision. Moreover, a rite for religious profession and for renewal of vows should be drawn up in order to achieve greater unity, moderation, and dignity; apart from any exception granted by particular law, this rite is to be used by those who make their profession or renewal of vows during Mass. Religious profession will laudably be made during Mass. 81. Funeral rites should give a clearer expression to the paschal quality of Christian death; they should also be better adapted---even from the viewpoint of the liturgical color used--to the circumstances and traditions of indi-vidual regions. 82. The rite for the burial of infants is to be revised and given a special Mass of its own. CHAPTER IV THE DIVINE OFFICE 83. When Christ Jesus, the High Priest of the new and eternal covenant, assumed human nature, He introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung in the heavenly dwelling places throughout all the ages. By joining to Himself the entire human community, He as-sociates it with Himself in the singing of this divine song of praise. He continues this priestly work through His Church which ceaselessly praises the Lord and intercedes for the salvation of the entire world not only by celebrating the Eucharist but also in other ways, especially by praying the Divine Office. 84. As is known from ancient Christian tradition, the Divine Office is so arranged that the entire course of day and night is made holy by the praise of God. When this wonderful .song of praise is fittingly performed by priests and other persons deputed for this purpose by the Church’s enactment or by the faithful praying together with the priest according to the approved form, then it is truly the voice of the Bride speaking to her Spouse; what is more, it is the prayer o[ Christ with His Body to the Father. 85. Hence, all those who carry out this work are [ul-filling a duty of the Church and share in the highest honor of the Bride of Christ, because as they offer these praises to God they stand before His throne in the name of the Church. 86. Priests engaged in the pastoral ministry will offer the praises of the Hours with greater [ervor i[ they have a more vivd realization that they must heed the warning of Paul: "Pray without ceasing" (1 Th 5:17); the work in which they are engaged is such that effectiveness and pro-ductiveness can be given it only by the Lord who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). It was for this reason that the Apostles, when instituting the deacons, said: "We shall devote ourselves completely to prayer and the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4). 87. In order that the Divine Office be better and more per[ectly per[ormed by priests and other members of the Church, this Council, continuing the renewal so happily begun by the Apostolic See, has made the following decrees with regard to the Office of the Roman rite. 88. Since the purpose of the Office is to sanctify the day, the traditional sequence of the Hours is to be restored in such a way that as far as possible an actual time of day corresponds to the Hours; at the same time account must be taken of the circumstances of modern life which espe-cially affect those engaged in apostolic work. 89. Hence in the renewal of the Office, the following norms are to be observed: a) Since, according to the venerable tradition of the entire Church, Lauds, the prayer of morning, and Vespers, the prayer of evening, constitute the two hinges o[ the daily Otfice, they are to be regarded and celebrated as the principal Hours; b) Compline is to be so composed that it fits in with the end of the day; c) Matins, although in choir it is to retain the char-acter of night praise, is to be so adapted that it can be recited at any hour of the day; and it is to consist of fewer Psalms and longer Readings; d) The Hour of Prime is to be suppressed. e) In choir the Little Hours of Terce, Sext, and None are to be retained. Outside of choir it is permitted to choose the one of the three which best corresponds to the time o[ the day. 90. Furthermore, since the Divine Office as the public prayer of the Church is a source of holiness and a nourish-ment for personal prayer, priests and all others who take part in the Divine Office are earnestly exhorted in the Lord to attune their minds to the words they utter when ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 581 4. 4. 4. Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~8~ performing it; to achieve this in a better way, they should secure for themselves a better background in the liturgy and the Bible, especially the Psalms. In continuing this renewal, the venerable treasures of the Roman Office are to be so adapted that those to whom it is entrusted can more easily draw greater profit from it. 91. In order that the sequence of Hours mentioned in article 89 can really be observed, the Psalms should no longer be spread throughout a single week but over a longer period of time. The work of revising the Psalter, already happily begun, should be finished as soon as possible and should take into account the style of Christian Latin, the liturgical use of the Psalms (chant included), and the entire tradition of the Latin Church. 92. The following are to be observed with regard to the Readings: a) Readings from Sacred Scripture are to be so ar-ranged that the riches of the divine word may be easily accessible in a more abundant way; b) Readings to be taken from the works of the fathers, doctors, and ecclesiastical writers should be better selected; c) Accounts of martyrdom and the lives of the saints are to be in accord with historical fact. 93. As far as it is useful, the hymns should be restored to their original form; and whatever savors of mythology or is unsuited to Christian attitudes should be removed. As occasion offers, other selections may be made from the treasury of hymns. 94. In order that the day may be truly sanctified and that the Hours themselves be recited to spiritual advan-tage, it is preferable that the Hours be recited at the time which best corresponds to each canonical Hour. 95. Communities obliged to choir, in addition to the conventual Mass, are bound to celebrate the Office each day in choir. In particular: a) Orders of canons, monks and nuns, and of other regulars bound to choir by law or by their constitutions must recite the entire Office; b) Cathedral or collegiate chapters must recite those parts to which they are bound by general or particular law; c) All members of the above communities who are either in major orders or solemnly professed (with the ex-ception of lay brothers) are bound to recite individually those canonical Hours which they do not pray in choir. 96. Clerics in major orders who are not bound to choir are obliged to recite the Office daily either in common or individually according to the norm of article 89. 97. The rubrics should specify those times when a litur-gical service may be fittingly substituted for the Divine Office. In individual cases and for a good reason, ordinaries can dispense their subjects, wholly or in part, from the obligation of reciting the Office or they can commute it. 98. Members of any institute of the state of perfection who recite any part of the Divine Office by reason of their constitutions are performing the public prayer of the Church. The public prayer of the Church is likewise performed by those who by reason of their constitutions recite any Short Office provided it is composed after the pattern of the Divine Office and has been duly approved. 99. Since the Divine Office is the voice of the Church, that is, of the whole Mystical Body, as it publicly praises God, it is recommended that clerics not bound to choir and especially priests who live together or when meeting together should pray in common at least some part of the Divine Office. All who pray the Office either in choir or in common should perform the task entrusted to them as perfectly as possible with regard both to internal devotion of soul and to their external way of acting. Moreover, it is better that the Office when done in choir or in common be sung, according to the possibility o~ the occasion. 100. Pastors of souls are to see toit that the principal Hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in churches on Sundays and the more solemn feast days. It is recommended that lay persons also recite the Divine Office, either with priests or in common by themselves or individually. 101. § 1. According to the age-long tradition of the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the Divine Office. But power is given to the ordinary to allow in individual cases the use of a vernacular trans-lation (made according to the norm 6f article 36) to those clerics [or whom the use of the Latin language is a serious hindrance to a worthy praying o[ the Office. § 2. In the celebration of the Divine Office even in choir, nuns and members (whether non-clerical or women) of institutes of the states of perfection can be granted by the competent superior the use of the vernacular provided that the translation is an approved one. § 3. Provided that the translation is an approved one, any cleric bound to the Divine Office fulfills his obligation if he recites it in the vernacular with a group of the faith-ful or with those mentioned directly above in § 2. + ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 583 + + Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS CHAPTER V THE LITURGICAL YEAR 102. The Church regards it as her duty to celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse by devoutly recalling it on certain days throughout the year. Each week on the day she has called the Lord’s Day, she keeps the memory of the Lord’s Resurrection which, together with His Pas-sion, she also celebrates once a year by the great solemnity of Easter. Moreover, during the cycle of the year she unfolds the entire mystery of Christ from His incarnation and birth to His ascension and the day of Pentecost and to the awaited day of fulfilled hope and of the coming of the Lord. By thus recalling the mysteries of the redemption, she opens up to the faithful the riches of her Lord’s power and merits. In some way they thus become present at all times, and the faithful, by contact with them, are filled with grace. 103. In this annual cycle of the mysteries of Christ, the Church gives special honor and love to Blessed Mary, the Mother of God, who is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of her Son; in her the Church admires and extols the surpassing fruit of the redemption and joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless image, what she herself de-sires and hopes wholly to be. 10a,. In the annual cycle the Church has also inserted commemorations of the martyrs and of other saints who, having been brought to perfection by the multiform grace of God, have already reached everlasting salvation in heaven where they hymn the perfect praise of God and intercede for us. In celebrating the entrance of the saints into eternal salvation, the Church proclaims the paschal mystery as it is achieved in these holy persons who have suffered and been glorified with Christ. She proposes the saints to the faithful as examples who draw all men to come to the .Father through Christ, and through their merits she pleads for God’s benefits. 105. Finally, during the different times of the year ac-cording to her traditional discipline, the Church com-pletes the formation of the faithful by means of pious practices for both soul and body and by instruction, prayer, and works of penance and mercy. Wherefore, this Council has decided to make the follow-ing decrees. 106. By an apostolic tradition that took its origin from the very day of the Resurrection of Christ, the paschal mystery is celebrated by the Church on every eighth day. This day is rightly called the Lord’s Day or Sunday; for on it the faithful should come together in a body to hear the word of God, to share in the Eucharist, to recall the passion, resurrection, and glory of the Lord Jesus, and to give thanks to God by whom they have been "born again into a life of real hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pt 1:3). Hence, Sunday is the original feast day which is to be proposed and emphasized to the faithful in such a way that it may become in reality a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations, unless they truly be of the greatest importance, are not to have precedence over Sunday, for the latter is the founda-tion and center core of the entire liturgical year. 107. The liturgical year is to be revised so that the tra-ditional customs and discipline of the sacred seasons are preserved or restored in accord with the conditions of our times. Their characteristic quality is to be retained in or-der to give the proper nourishment to the piety of the faithful as they celebrate the mysteries of the Christian redemption, especially the paschal mystery. In cases where adaptations are needed because of local conditions, these should be made according to the norm given in articles 39 and 40. 108. The minds of the faithful should be directed pri-marily to the feast days of our Lord in which the mysteries of salvation are celebrated throughout the year. Accord-ingly, the Proper of the Time is to retain its rightful prece-dence over the feasts of the saints so that the entire cycle of the mysteries of salvation may be duly recalled. 109. Both in the liturgy and in liturgical instructions, greater consideration is to be given to the twofold nature of the season of Lent which, by recalling or preparing for baptism and by penance, disposes the faithful for the cele-bration of the paschal mystery by having them devote themselves more earnestly to the hearing of the word of God to prayer. Accordingly: a) The characteristic baptismal elements of the Lenten liturgy are to be used to a greater degree; certain of these which come from an earlier tradition are to be restored as may seem good. b) The same thing is true with regard to the peni-tential elements. In instructions, besides pointing out the social consequences of sin, there is to be impressed on the minds of the faithful the proper nature of penance which detests sin as an offense against God; the place of the Church in penitential activity is not to be neglected, and prayer for sinners should be insisted on. 110. The penance of the season of Lent should not only be internal and individual but also external and social. The authorities mentioned in article 22 should encourage and recommend penitential practices in accord with what is possible in our times and in different regions and with the circumstances of the faithful. But the paschal fast is to be kept sacred and is to be ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 585 ÷ ÷ ÷ Vatican Council II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 586 celebrated everywhere on Good Friday and extended, where possible, to Holy Saturday so that the joys of Easter Sunday may be attained with an uplifted and clear mind. 111. According to the tradition in the Church the saints are honored and their authentic relics and images are held in veneration. The feasts of the saints proclaim the wonderful works of Christ in His servants, and they pro-vide the faithful with fitting examples for imitation. Lest the feasts of saints take precedence over the feasts which recall the mysteries of salvation, many of them should be left to be celebrated by individual churches, nations, or religious families; and only those feasts should be extended to the entire Church which commemorate saints who can truly be said to be of universal importance. CHAPTER VI SACRED MUSIC 112. The musical tradition of the universal Church con-stitutes a precious treasure which is greater than the ex-pressions of the other arts chiefly because sacred song, since it is joined to words, forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy. Indeed, the greatness of sacred song has been praised by Sacred Scripture42 and by the holy fathers and the Roman Pontiffs who in recent times, beginning with Pius X, have clearly explained the functional role of sacred music in the service of the Lord. Accordingly, the holier will sacred music be, the more closely it is linked with lit.urgical action, whether by adding delight to prayer or by fostering unity of minds or by enriching the sacred rites with a greater solemnity. Moreover, the Church approves all forms of true art which have the required qualities and admits them into divine worship. Hence, keeping in mind the norms and precepts of ec-clesiastical tradition and discipline and considering the purpose of sacred music which is the glory of God and the sanctification of men, this Council has made the following enactments. ll3. Liturgical action receives a nobler form when the divine functions are solemnly celebrated with song and with the assistance of sacred ministers and the active par-ticipation of the faithful. With regard to the language to be used, the provisions of article 36 are to be observed; with regard to Mass, those of article 54; with regard to the sacraments, those of article 63; and with regard to the Divine Office, those of article 101. 114. Great care is to be taken to guard and increase the 4-"See Eph 5:19; Col 3:16. riches of sacred music. Choirs should be tirelessly pro-moted, especially in cathedral churches. Bishops and other pastors of souls should zealously see to it that when a sacred action is to be performed with song the entire con-gregation of the faithful is able to contribute their proper active participation in accord with the norm of articles 28 and 30. 115. Great importance is to be attached to the teaching and practice of music in seminaries, in novitiates and houses of studies of both men and women religious, as well as in other Catholic institutions and schools; to achieve this formation, the teachers in charge of teaching sacred music are to be carefully trained. It is recommended that higher institutes for sacred mu-sic be established as the opportunity offers. Composers and singers, especially boys, are also to be given a truly liturgical formation. llfi. The Church recognizes Gregorian chant as spe-cially suited to the Roman liturgy; accordingly, other things being equal, it should be given the principal place in liturgical ceremonies. However, other kinds of sacred music, especially polyph-ony, are in no way excluded from the celebration of the divine functions so long as they are in harmony with the spirit of liturgical action according to the norm given in article 30. 117. The normative edition of the books of Gregorian chant is to be completed; moreover, there should be pre-pared more critical editions of the books already published since the restoration of St. Pius X. It is also desirable that an edition be prepared consisting of simpler melodies for use in smaller churches. 118. Religious singing by the people is to be encouraged in an intelligent way so that the voices of the faithful can ring out in sacred and devotional services as well as in liturgical actions according to the norms and precepts of the rubrics. 119. Since in certain regions, especially in mission terri-tory, there are people who have their own characteristic musical tradition which is of greatlimportance in their re-ligious and social life, due esteerri is to be given to this musac and a statable place ,s to be g, ven to ~t both m shap-ing their religious outlook as welllas in adapting worship to their native genius as indicatedl!n articles 39 and 40. Hence, diligent care should be t.aken in the musical for-mation of missionaries so that, as far as possible, they will be able to foster the traditions of music of their people both in the schools and in the sacred services. 120. In the Latin church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem as the traditional musical instrument, the music of which is able to add notable distinction to the Liturffy VOLUME ~87 Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Church’s ser¢ices and to be a powerful means of raising men’s minds to God and higher things. But at the discretion and consent of the competent ter-ritorial authority as stipulated in articles 22, § 2; 37; and 40, others instruments may be permitted in divine worship insofar as they are or can be made suitable for sacred use, are in harmony with the dignity of churches, and really contribute to the edification of the faithful. 121. Musical composers who are imbued with the Christian spirit should regard themselves as called to cul-tivate sacred music and to increase its riches. They should, however, produce compositions which have the qualities of genuine sacred music, which can be sung not only by large choirs but also by smaller ones, and which encourage the active participation of the whole con-gregation of the faithful. The texts intended to be sung are to be conformed to Catholic doctrine and for the most part are to be drawn from Sacred Scripture and from liturgical sources. CHAPTER. VII SACRED ART AND SACRED FURNISHINGS 122. The fine arts are rightly ranked among the noblest activities of human genius; this is especially true with re-gard to religious art and its highest form which is sacred art. These arts of their nature are directed to the infinite divine beauty to he expressed in some way by human works. They are the more closely bound to God and His praise and glory to the extent that their only intent is to achieve the aim of helping men to turn thir minds de-voutly to God. Accordingly, the Church has always been a friend of the fine arts; she has consistently sought their noble service and has trained artists for the special objective that the things pertaining to divine worship, as signs and symbols of supernatural realities, might be truly worthy, becoming, and beautiful. Moreover, the Church has always regarded herself as a judge of the arts, discerning among the works of artists those which were in harmony with faith, devo-tion, and traditional religious norms and were to be con-sidered as suitable for sacred use. The Church has been particularly careful that the sacred furnishings should serve the dignity of worship in a worthy and beautiful way. She has admitted the changes in material, style, and ornamentation which were intro-duced in the course of time by the progress of technical art. Hence it has pleased the fathers to make the following decrees concerning these matters. 123. The Church has not regarded any one style of art as peculiarly its one, but has admitted the styles of all ages according to the natural talents and circumstances of peoples and the needs of various rites; and thus she has created through the course of centuries a treasury of art which must be preserved with great care. The art of our times and of all peoples is also to have free exercise in the Church on condition that it provides the sacred buildings and ceremonies with due reverence and honor. In this way it will be able to add its voice to that admirable chorus of praise sung in honor of the Catholic faith by great men of past ages. 124. Ordinaries should take care that in their fostering and encouragement of a truly sacred art, they seek for noble beauty rather than for sumptuous display. This also holds true with regard to sacred vestments and ornaments. Bishops should take care that the house of God and other holy places are kept free from the works of artists which are contrary to Christian faith, morality, and devo-tion and which offend the religious sense either because of their .depraved forms or because of the insufficiency, me-diocrity, or pretence of their art. When churches are built, diligent care should be taken that they are suitable for the celebration of the liturgical ceremonies and for the active participation of the faithful. 125. The practice should be maintained of placing sa-cred images in churches for the veneration of the faithful; nevertheless, their number should be moderate and they should be positioned in a fitting order so that they do not disturb the faithful nor foster devotion of doubtful ortho-doxy. 126. In judging works of art, local ordinaries should hear the opinion of the diocesan commission for sacred art and, if necessary, that of others who are experts as well as that of the commissions mentioned in articles 44, 45, and 46. Ordinaries should be vigilant to see that the sacred fur-nishings and valuable pieces of work are not alienated or destroyed, for they are the ornaments of the house ol~ God. 127. Bishops, either personally or through suitable priests gifted with a knowledge and love of art, should see to it that artists are imbued with the spirit of sacred art and of the sacred liturgy. It is also recommended that schools or academies of sacred art for the training of artists be established in those regions where it seems practical. All artists who, prompted by their talents, wish to serve the glory of God in the Church should always remember that they are engaged in a kind of sacred imitation of God the Creator for the edification of the faithful, for their piety, and for their religious formation. 128. Along with the revision of the liturgical books ÷ ÷ ÷ Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 589 Vatican Council H REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~90 mentioned in article 25, there should also be, as soon as possible, a revision of the canons and ecclesiastical statutes concerned with the external things pertaining to sacred worship, especially those which treat of the fitting and well-pl.anned construction of churches; the form and con-struction of altars; the dignity, placement, and safety of the Eucharistic tabernacle; and the suitability of sacred images, embellishments, and decorations. Whatever fits in less well with the liturgical renewal should be amended or abolished; whatever favors it should be retained or intro-duced. In this matter, especially with regard to the material and form of sacred furnishings and vestments, power is given to territorial conferences of bishops in accord with the norm of article 22 of this Constitution to adapt matters to local necessities and customs. 129. During their philosophical and theological studies clerics are to be given training in the history and evolu-tion of sacred art as well as in the sound principles on which works of sacred art should be based; in this way they will be able to appreciate and preserve the Church’s venerable monuments and to give advice to artists who are producing works of art. 130. It is fitting that the use of pontificals be reserved to those ecclesiastics who have episcopal rank or have some special jurisdiction. APPENDIX DECLARATION OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL ON CALENDAR REFORM This, the Second Vatican Council, recognizing the im-portance of the desire that many have to assign the feast of Easter to a fixed Sunday and to have an unchanging calendar, has carefully considered the results which could follow from the introduction of a new calendar and now makes the following declaration: 1. This Council is not opposed to assigning the feast of Easter to a fixed Sunday of the Gregorian calendar pro-vided those whom it concerns give their assent, especially the brethren who are not in communion with the Apos-tolic See. 2. This Council likewise declares that it does not oppose the projects directed toward introducing a perpetual cal-endar into civil society. However, of the various systems which are being elabo-rated for the establishment of a perpetual calendar and its introduction into civil society, only those are unop-posed by the Church which retain and safeguard a seven-day week with Sunday and without the introduction of any days outside the week so that the succession of weeks is kept intact, unless in the judgment of the Apostolic See there are extremely weighty reasons to the contrary. Each and every one ol the matters contained in this Con-stitution was decided by the lathers of this Council. And We, by the apostolic power given to Us by Christ, together with the venerable fathers, approve in the Holy Spirit, decree, enact, and order to be promulgated what has been decided in this Synod for the glory of God. Given at St. Peter’s on December 4, 1963. 4- 4- 4- Liturgy VOLUME 23~ 1964 591 PAUL VI .Concerning the Constitu-, tion on the Liturgy ÷ ÷ ÷ Paul VI REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 592 APOSTOLIC LETTER GIVEN ON OUR OWN INITIATIVE DECREEING THAT CERTAIN PRESCRIPTIONS OF THE CONSTI-TUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY APPROVED BY THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL SHOULD BEGIN TO TAKE EFFECT. The* sacred liturgy and its diligent preservation, pro-motion, and, when necessary, renewal have always been a matter of great concern to the supreme pontiffs who have been Our predecessors, to Ourselves, and to the pastors of the Church. This is shown both by the great number of well-known documents that have already been published and by the Constitution on the matter which was unani-mously approved by the Second Vatican Council in a sol-emn session held on December 4 of the previous year and which We have ordered to be promulgated. This concern for the liturgy flows from this considera-tion: "In the liturgy of this earth we share in a foretaste of’ that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem towards which we pilgrims are journeying and where Christ sits at the right hand of God as the minister of the holy things and of the true tabernacle; to-gether with all the troops of the heavenly army we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord; when we honor the memory of the saints, we hope for a share in fellowship with them; we wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until He our life will appear and we in turn will appear with Him in glory." 1 And so it happens that as the souls of the faithful give this worship to God, the principle and source of all holi-ness, they are drawn and as it were impelled to acquire ¯ The original Latin text, entitled Sacrara liturgiara, is given in dcta dpostolicae Sedis, v. 56 (1964), pp. 139--44. ¯ Constitution on the Liturgy, article 8. this holiness, thereby becoming during tiffs earthly pil-grimage "emulators of the heavenly Sion." -~ Hence, it is easy to see that in this matter there is noth-ing We desire more than that the faithful and especially priests should first make a profound study of the Consti-tution We have already mentioned and then form a firm resolution to carry out its prescriptions in a fully con-scientious way as soon as they go into effect. Since~ there-fore, from the nature of things the knowledge and divulga-tion of liturgical laws is a matter which should begin at once, We strongly exhort the heads of dioceses together with their sacred ministers, those dispensers of the mys-teries of God,z not to delay in seeing to it that the faithful entrusted to them, each according to his age, state of life, talent, and education, should come to realize the inner strength and power of the sacred liturgy and should de-voutly take part, both internally and externally, in the Church’s rites.4 As is evident, there are many prescriptions of the Con-stitution that cannot be put into effect in a short time since before that can be done ceremonies must be revised and new liturgical books prepared. In order that this work may be done with the required intelligence and care, We are establishing a commission whose principal work will be to see to it that the prescriptions of the Co~stitution on the Liturgy are perfectly carried out. Nevertheless, among the norms of the Constitution there are some which can be made effective even now; it is Our wish, therefore, that they be put into execution without delay so that the souls of the faithful may not be further deprived ol~ the fruits of grace to be expected there-from. Therefore, by Our apostolic authority and on Our own initiative, We order and decree that from the coming First Sunday of Lent, that is, from February 16, of this year of 1964, the following matters are effective, the usual suspension period being waived. I) With regard to the prescriptions of articles 15, 16, and 17 concerning liturgical formation in seminaries, in schools of religious communities, and in theological facul-ties, We desire that programs of studies for these institu-tions be drawn up at once so that beginning with the com-ing academic year these prescriptions will be carried out in an orderly and careful way. II) We also decree thatin accord with the prescriptions of articles 45 and 46, there should be set up in each dio-cese a commission which under the supervision of the Hymn for Lauds on the feast of the dedication of a church. aSee 1 Cor 4:1. See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 19, + + ÷ The Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 593 ÷ ÷ ÷ Pbul VI REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 594 bishop will have the task of increasing knowledge of the liturgy and of protnoting it. With regard to this point, it will sometimes be desirable that several dioceses have a common commission. Furthermore, insofar as it is possible, every diocese should have two other commissions, one for sacred music, the other for sacred art. It will frequently be desirable in individual dioceses to unite these three commissions into a single one. III) We also put into effect from the date given above the obligation according to article 52 of having a homily at Mass on Sundays and holydays of obligation. IV) We prescribe that there should be put into immedi-ate effect that part of article 71 according to which the sacrament of confirmation, if desired, can be conferred within Mass after the reading of the Gospel and after the homily. V) With regard to article 78, the sacrament of matri-mony is ordinarily to be celebrated within Mass after the reading of the Gospel and the giving of the homily. If matrimony is celebrated outside of Mass, the follow-ing points are to be observed until a completely new cere-mony has been drawn up: at the beginning of this sacred rite, after a brief exhortation,’~ the Epistle and the Gospel of the nuptial Mass are to be read; then there should be given to the couple the blessing which is found in the Roman Ritual under Title 8, Chapter 3. VI) Although the Divine Office has not yet been re-vised and renewed in accordance with article 89, still to those who are not bound to choir We give permission, ef-fective without the usual waiting period, to omit the Hour of Prime and to choose from the Small Hours the one that best fits the time of day. While granting this, We are fully confident that the ministers of sacred things will not in any way relax their inner devotion; hence, if they diligently carry out the duties of their priestly office out of love for God alone, they can rightly be considered as spending the entire day with their minds joined to Him. VII) Also with regard to the Divine Office, in indi-vidual cases and for an adequate reason, ordinaries can dispense their subjects, wholly or in part, from the ob-ligation of reciting the Office or they can commute the obligation to another.6 VIII)-Once more with regard to the praying of the Di. vine Office, We declare that the members of any institute of religious perfection who .by reason ol~ their laws recite, any part of the Divine Office or a Short Office that is See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 35, § 3. See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 97. modeled on the Divine Office and has been duly approved are to be considered as publicly praying with the Church.~ IX) Since according to article 101 of the Constitution those who are bound to recite the Divine Office may be allowed in various ways permission to use the vernacular instead of Latin, We think it good to specify that the various vernacular translations are to be prepared and approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical au-thority in accord with the norm of article 36, §§ 3 and 4; what is done by this authority must be duly appi’oved or confirmed by the Apostolic See in accord with the same article 36, § 3. And We prescribe that this is always to be observed whenever a liturgical Latin text is translated into the vernacular by the legitimate authority We have already mentioned. X) Since according to the Constitution (article 22, § 2) the supervision of liturgical matters, within established limits, comes under the competency of various kinds of legitimately constituted territorial groupings of bishops, We decree that for the time being these are to be national groupings. In addition to residential bishops, all who are men-tioned in canon 292 of the Code of Canon Law have the right to be present and to vote at these national confer-ences; coadjutors and auxiliary bishops may also be called to them. In these conferences, legitimate passing of decrees re-quires a two-thirds majority of a secret vote. XI) Leaving now the matters pertaining to the liturgy which We have changed in this apostolic letter or have ordered to be done before the usual waiting period, We wish to note in conclusion that the direction of the sacred liturgy is within the competency of the Church alone; that is, within the competency of this Apostolic See, and, in accord with the norm of the law, of the bishops. Hence, no one else, not even a priest, is permitted to add, remove, or change anything with regard to liturgical matters,s We order that everything We have decreed in this motu proprio letter be held as valid and legal, all contrary things notwithstanding. Given in Rome at St. Peter’s on January 25, 1964, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, in the first year of Our Pontificate. PAUL VI See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 98. See the Constitution on the Liturgy, article 22, § 1, and article 2~,§ ~. The Liturgy VOLUME 23, 1964 595 PAUL J. BERNADICOU, s.j. Persons and the Religious Life Paul J. Bernadi-cou, S.J., is a mem-ber of Regis Col-lege; 3425 Bayview Avenue; Willow-dale, Ontario; Can-ada. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS If we come to understand the role 6f persons in Chris-tianity, we will be in a position to assess their role in the spirituality which underlies and motivates the religious life. For religious life is basically an intensified living of Christian spirituality. As such, it takes its shape and model--no matter what the varying emphases of the dif-ferent institutes--from the life and teaching of Christ our Lord. From authentic spirituality based on the teaching of Christ, therefore, we derive the charter for the proper place of persons in the life of a religious. The necessity to clarify so central a theme in the Christian life as the role of persons manifests the easy confusion to which man~ falls prey. Even in religious life, a life of the counsels dedi-cated to the closest possible following of Christ’s own program ahd pattern of life, we can easily mistake the means for the end; we can forget to love persons in our endeavor to purify our love. Religious can become the victims of their formation and purification and as a result find themselves caught in a multiplicity of detailed rules and in an exactness of observance that deprive them of a clear view of the desired end of their way of life: to love people deeply, truly, and universally. We can too easily substitute our initial concern to apply the means and never arrive at the end. In a life as authority-centered and regulated as is that of a religious, scrupulous care for the disciplinary rules of the institute and a desire to please the ever-present superior may absorb the forefront of attention; we forget to relate and justify these means in the larger context of Christian spirituality: the love of persons. Or perhaps the needed purification by means of the self-imposed suffering of mortification and abnegation--now discovered for the first time--too fully occupies the mind! of a young religious: the stress on what he can and must do here and now to correct and improve his conduct as a professional Christian (that is, a religious). This together with a certain diffidence on the topic of love can become too permanent a state of mind. So a time of reevaluation must occur. The indoctrination in and emphasis on penance and prayer during the formative years are meant to lead one to a fuller and truer Christian love; they interiorize and actualize the life and vision of hith by helping one transcend his thoughtless and selfish fixation. But they are not ends in themselves: we must love persons--actually and genuinely--or cease to be our .vital, integral, devel-oping selves. And so the central role of persons and the topic of love, which in the early stages of one’s formation are frequently considered too fraught with the possibility of self-deception and of a casual approach to celibacy, must be reinvestigated, then reintegrated into the domi-nant focus of spirituality. The New Testament, the authoritative document for Christian spirituality, attests the indispensable role of persons in the Christian life. From beginning to end, the New Testament unites the two commandments of the Old Law (love of God and love of neighbor) into the single commandment of the New Law: love for the hu-man person. This in fact is the form of the new command-ment given us by Christ. Thus St. Paul makes love of one’s fellowman--bearing "the burdens of one another’s fail-ing"-- the fulfillment of the law of Christ (Gal 6:9). And for St. John charity--love one for another--is the unique command given us by the Lord (2 Jn 5). In the Christian scheme of life, "If a man boasts of loving God, while he hates his own brother, he is a liar. He has seen his brother, and has no love for him; what love can he have for the God he has never seen?" (1 Jn 4:20). In the New Law, hu-man persons and interpersonal concern take on an in-estimably richer, supernatural significance for man. When Christ united the two commandments of the Old Law and placed their full realization in our super-natural love for human persons, He did not remove "one jot or flourish" from that law (Mt. 5:18). His new com-mandment is not a deletion or betrayal, it is a fulfillment (Mr 5:7 ft.). For He came as the truth teaching us more surely the way to the more abundant life (Jn 14:6; 10:10). In this respect, He has inaugurated a new age and a new covenant merited for us by His sacrifice on our behalf (2 Cor 5:15 ft.). His sacrificial death has founded the new community foretold by the prophets (Rom 1:2 ft.). This new community born in the Spirit raises the human per-son and human dialogue to a participation in God’s own life and supernatural creativity (see 1 Cor 2 and 12). The new, undeserved, incomparably richer dignity ~rso~s VOLUME 2)~ 1964 ÷ ÷ ÷ P. ]. Bemadicou, S. 1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS which Christ has won for the human person was the wofl~ of His love-motivated incarnation (Phil 2:5 ft.). In this mystery of love which we will never fully fathom or sui[i-ciently appreciate, Christ joined both God and man and thus made feasible the fusion in His person of ~the two commandments of the Old Law. For He has told us that if we know Him, we also know and love the Father (Jn 14:7 ft.). And Christ we tome to know and love in our brother. In an unsearchable depth of wisdom and love that is His as the Son of God, Christ has chosen to identify Himself with the human person of our fellowman, par-ticularly if he be in need: "Believe me, when you did it to one of the least of my brethren here, you did it to me" (Mr 25:40). Precisely in this mysterious union of man and God we discover the awesome dignity of the human person: each person mediates Christ to us. This is a focal revelation in the new age founded by Christ. It is, therefore, by loving our fellowman--so Christ has willed-that we respond to the love of the God who has first loved us (1 Jn 3:16; 4:19). Appropriately, we return God’s love by loving our neighbor in need. In our empti-ness, in our very non-existence, it was through our fellow, man that God first called us into existence and expressed His intent to love us forever. Through our family and larger social ties, God brought us into life, cared for us, raised us to the stature of men, and even presently in., structs and exercises us in His mysteries of love whicix are the earthly foreshadow of our heavenly glory. In par-ent, teacher, priest, friend, associates, and superior, God. daily expresses His love and leads us to Himself and the happiness of total friendship. By our most intimate hu-man contacts and friendships, God would entice us to the depth and durability of His friendship. We Christians and especially we religious are a chosen people--not of course by our own merit since He chose~ us before ever we chose Him (Jn 15:16). We have received the very best our fellowman could give us--the good news of Jesus Christ in its entirety. However inadequately we may have been taught or loved, we are the undeserving recipients of an insight into the ways of God and into the glorious destiny of the human person. And we have re-ceived these greatest of earthly gifts through the instru-mentality of our fellowman. Fittingly do we make our return of love for this great largess by our recognition of God’s presence in the human family which has conveyed it to us. Beyond our most wishful dream or expectation, the human person is the giver of life to us. And so the unique dignity and inmost reality of each person is that he is Christ for us. Our habitual capacity to live this insight--though we cannot hope to fully com-prehend its rich import--is the measure of the Christian conviction within us. It is, in fact, according to this stand-ard that Christ our exemplar will judge us: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit down upon the throne of his glory.., and he will divide men one from the other .... Then the king will say to those on his right hand, ’Come, you that have received a blessing from my Father, take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food, thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you brought me home, naked, and you clothed me, sick, and you cared for me, a prisoner, and you came to me’ (Mt 25:31-6). If we take Christ as seriously and committedly as He means to be taken, we will endeavor to increase our re-spect and reverence for each person since each has the potential to be an unique epiphany of Christ among us. Our hope and effort as representatives of Christ’s causeb no matter what the form of our apostolate, whether con-templative or active--will be directed towards encour-aging each person we meet to achieve his full stature and self as a person: to mirror forth his never-to-be-repeated image and trait of Christ. We love each person not merely from a motive of loving Christ or His law, as if the true worth of a human person were found in a consideration extrinsic to his real sell:. No. In each person we love or would love the quality, the mark of his deepest, most genuine self: his capacity to show forth Christ in a way that no other can. In the Christian view of man, this is the authentic self of the hu-man person; for we live in the new age of the Spirit merited for us by Christ in which man has the inestimable call to be a member of His Mystical Body. The effect of our love enters more deeply into another than mutual encouragement and kindness. It is stronger and more curative than any balm we might pour into the wounds of our stricken neighbor, for we do not cause goodness to grow in each other simply by reason of a kindness adminstered and appreciated. Our love is much, much more profound: similar to and more intensive than parenthood in the natural order, our love actually fath-ers forth the Christness in another. Our Lord has told us: "I have a new commandment to give you, that you are to love one another; that your love for one another is to be like the love I have borne you" (Jn 13:34; also Jn 15:12; 17:11; 1 Jn 3:11). He means these words more surely and effectively than we generally allow ourselves to realize. Christ has actually chosen to express His love through that of His disciples: "Believe me when I tell you this; the man who welcomes one whom I send, welcomes me; and the man who welcomes me, welcomes him who sent me" (Jn 13:20; see also Mt 10:40). Our love thus reaches ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 23, 1964 ,599 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 6O0 down into the inmost recesses of each other and-in a way we cannot fully understand---actually causes the very Godlife within another. We are father to the Christ in each other. Our supreme human privilege and responsi-bility as members of Christ’s body, the Church, is to bring each other to life in the Spirit. God’s people, the com-munity of the faithful, live in and communicate the Spirit to each other. Perhaps we best grasp the nature and function of our supernatural community in the Spirit if we compare it to the natural level of our incorporation into society. At this natural level, it is our association in the society of man that permits us to become real, vibrant, and human. It is only by reason of multiple and diverse interpersonal relations that we come into the world at all, are nourished, trained, and educated in the ways and values of human culture and civilization. We are very much the product of our mutual dependence in the natural sphere; this interdependence is the necessary avenue to our becoming a man and sharing in the goods of man. With the new life in the Spirit which follows upon our baptism into the Church of Christ, the function of inter-personal dependence takes on a new depth and fullness. We are custodians of the Spirit and bear it each to each. Because we live in the new age won by Christ, our human exchange of love prepares and disposes us and actually effects our entry into the life of total happiness in the fullest friendship we are capable of--the love of God Himself. The purpose of human love and friendship in this new community of the Spirit--most especially one would think of a religious community--is to witness and glimpse that complete love which is to come when the Spirit lives fully among us. Our love one for another awakens us to the love of God Himself. Assuredly, the supernatural efficacy of our love is pos-sible only because God works through those who live in His Spirit. If our love is like that of the heavenly Father (Lk fi:3fi), it is because we have learned how to love from God Himself (1 Th 4:9). And we have come to recognize the love of God for us only because the Spirit, sent us by Christ, opened our hearts to God’s love (Rom 5:5; 15:30). He loves us because He has taken us as His sons: "Beloved, let us love one another; love springs from God; no one can love without being born of God and knowing God" (I Jn 4:7). And we return our filial love for the Father who has first loved us in our concern for our brother with whom Christ has identified Himself (Mt 25:40); for all of us together form the Body of Christ (Rom 12:5-10; 1 Cot 12:12-27): "And you are Christ’s body, organs of it depending upon each other." Since the love of the Father is in us as a result of our new life in the Spirit, we are expected to imitate the works of His love. We may be indifferent to no man; as far as with God’s grace we are able, we are to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect (Mr 5:48). With Christian con-viction we acknowledge and revere the potential Christ in each---especially in the needy and distressed who by Christ’s own choice are more closely configured to Him. Christ’s command of love goes even further: "But I tell you, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute and insult you, that so you may be true sons of your Father in heaven, who makes his sun shine on the evil and equally on the good, his rain fall on the just and equally on the unjust" (Mt 5:43-48). Christ expects our love to go beyond that of good pagans who love those who love them. Because we have faith in Christ’s mysterious words, we transcend our superficial impression of another even though we die to self. In fact, our radical capacity to transcend selfish interest and mere natural insight and inclination is the index of the depth of our faith in Christ and His good news. The measure of our love for the human person in need--even though he be our enemy--is the sure yardstick of our love for Christ; it bears absolute testimony to our sincere persuasion of His truth. The central role of human persons, the indispensable role for human love in the life of a Christian must give us pause. Is our religious dedication leading us where we will most surely find Christ? Do we honestly look for Him in an outgoing love and concern for our fellowman in need: in our readiness to help and cheer the less gifted or suffering members of our religious family; in our thirst for racial justice; in our efforts to help those who can most use our apostolic presence; in our prayers and penance for the world’s poor and oppressed; in our par-ental concern for the young entrusted to our care; and in all the other multiple contacts with human need and misery that call forth our Christian love for the dignity of the human person. Is ours an authentic witness to Christ in a clear love of and dedication to the world of persons and community? A Christian love for people is the only adequate motive for our use of the means religious life provides. In this perspective, penance and prayer are desirable curbs on selfishness and a needed pruning for a more abundant harvest of love. Each institute and every individual in an institute decides under the guidance of the Spirit and proper authority on the measure of prayer and penance, of action and contemplation appropriate to their form of apostolate. But a clear perception of the goal--a deeper and truer love--acts as a constant corrective to an im-mature or excessive reliance on means. Separation, silence, + + + VOLUME 2.~, 1964 60! + ÷ ÷ P. ]. Bernadicou, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS recollection, and self-denial would be perverted from their function if we were to think we might by reason of. them love God directly in a total isolation from His iden-tity with human persons--as if He were an abstract prin-ciple or remote authority whose only wish is that we serve Him in an exact observance of impersonal rules and o1~ our own scrupulosity. If we esteem the unique value of hu-man persons in our spirituality, we assure a touchstone of orthodoxy and authenticity--more than this, of a healthy balance, sanity, and integration of personality. Suffering surely has a place in the Christian economy. Whether accepted in its received forms or self-imposed: it has value as a means to the end of loving Christ in all, especially the needy. To take up our cross daily and fol-low Christ means sloughing--and it is painful--our worldly views and values in order to love human persons as Christ loves them. This is undeniably difficult; it is a light cross only for those who have made it habitual and who consequently raise it with conviction; then it cer-tainly brings the peace of Christ and the only genuine suc-cess of the human person. Never should suffering take the form of a stop in love-- this is the only pointless suffering and it is the suffering of hell. However unintelligible in its experienced presence, suffering is an aid to greater love, to a love that is deeper, truer, and more universal. It is meaningful because it can force us out of ourselves to a compassion and communion with human persons and on to a total absorption in the person of God, our final and fully satisfying love. The most cloistered religious knows he can find God only by loving mankind. The sequestered life of the contemplative is not a frustrated attempt to escape humanity, much less a guilt-driven attack on self; it is, rather, an intense apostolic life of prayer and penance out of love for one’s fellowman. The Church has therefore named St. Teresa of Lisieux as the foremost patroness of the missions be-cause hers was a genuine Christian spirituality of dedi-cated concern for the human person in need. An appreciation of the role of persons and human love is also the essential basis for any adequate theory of a Christian humanism. Our apostolic involvement in the world of the temporal community takes its ground in the realization that Christ has strengthened and elevated man’s community to a participation in the very family of God. The Christian apostle cannot overlook the social, cultural, and political substratum which makes it possible for him to forge the interpersonal dialogue by means of which the members of Christ’s people communicate the Spirit to each other. Christianity does not set a damp on our natural desire for love and happiness; it is our completion and sublime exaltation into the higher world of community in the Spirit. By our honest and earnest attempt to live and love in the Spirit, we come to share in the hundred-fold and the foretaste of heaven. In this earthly consolation alone--freely given and undeserved--is the hard-won reward of the mature religious and the greatest triumph of the human person. In an active love for the human per-son we already share on earth in the eternity of love and friendship. 4. 4. Persons VOLUME 23, 1964 SISTER M. JUDITH, O.S.B. Work: A Becoming Process Sister Mary Ju-dith, O.S.B., writes from St. Joseph’s Convent; 2200 South Lewis; Tulsa, Okla-homa 74114. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 604 Man must become. How many complications, mistakes, frettings could be avoided if man could simply be; it is this business of becoming that touches the mainspring o[ man’s set of human problems. Despite some medieval superstition that sisters, by vir-tue of some grace of state, simply and miraculously are, the fact remains that they must suffer their share of becoming. What should they strive to become? Each, according to her unique potential, should become a person, whole and holy. There exists no scarcity of directives for her becom-ing process: writers, preachers, lecturers bombard her with a dizzying abundance o[ books, articles, sermons, and speeches about humility, obedience, maturity, and allied virtues. Development of these traits, however, is not ac-complished in some chaste vacuum or by some mysterious process of intellection; it rather takes place as the sister peels away the days of her life. Unromantic as the fact may seem, over one half of the waking hours of these days is spent in work. Therefore, it is in her work that the virtues take root and grow; it is largely in work that she will become. Other situations of her life--like making vows, forming a meaningful rela-tionship, experiencing the death of a loved one--may pro-duce more highly colored experiences; but the continuity and stability which must underlie the development of ma-turity are found chiefly in her workaday world. And so that part of her life should not be divorced from her "re-ligious" life. Nor is it enough to dismiss it with the pietism: "Make your work a prayer." That part of a sister’s life which drains her talents, her physical and psychic energies, which fills most of her waking hours, lays claim to a pene-trating investigation; for "work environment will color a man’s thoughts, determine his habits, crystallize his atti-tudes, facilitate or inhibit physical and mental health, and increase or decrease the effectiveness of his general social adjustment." 1 If worka is to be a significant means of becoming, two aspects must be recognized: the bbjective reality and the subjective reality. And two definitive actions must be taken: the initial choice and its accomplishment. The objective reality is that vast block of work to be done, the unceasing needs of society and of the Church: the needs, in other words, of the here-and-now Body of Christ which is ignorant, hurt, sad, lo~t; disfigured. Facing this overwhelming objective reality, the Christian sister (the adjective is employed advisedly) approaches with the subjective reality of her pittance of energy and talent, her temperament, background, and natural interests. With this unique outfit of characteristics, she will advance to teach, cure, comfort, lead, and make beautiful. In this approach is made the first definitive action: choice. Two persons are involved in such choice: the in-dividual person and the moral person or community. First, the individual person. Too often, a sister is re-luctant to make a choice; part of the so-called security of religious life resides in a form of irresponsibility that pa-rades as docility or obedience. Sometimes, too, a sister in misinformed piety subscribes to a yesteryear’s theory that misery is the gauge of merit, that the more miserable one is in her work of obedience the more meritorious that work is. In neither case is the sister involved in the action of choosing, which action admittedly includes risk but which is imperative in becoming. The sister who realizes that grace builds on nature chooses. She knows that "each soul is intended to animate a particular body .... [that] each soul has or is a substantial relation to a particular body." ~ This sister realizes, then, that she must exercise that faculty of soul called will or choice so that her soul can animate her body. A soul cannot enliven a non-think-ing, non-willing set of fleshed bones. She must determine where God expects her to use His gifts to her, not wait un-til a superior dictates a position for which the sister might or might not have suitable abilities. The sister who wills faces an almost unequaled demand for exercising honesty. Honesty, or humility, hard come by for most persons, is particularly difficult for women, sisters not excepted. Yet is it other than to humbly desire "to serve Him by means of the gifts He has entrusted to 1S. N. Stevens, American Management Association, Prod. Series, No. 119. u Although the principles expressed in this paper may be applica-ble to manual, social, and intellectual work, this study is geared to a consideration of professional or semi-professional work. a Jacques Maritain, The Person and the Common Good (New York: Scribners, 1947), p. 22. ÷ ÷ ÷ Work VOLUME 23, 1964 605 Sister M. Judith, O.S.B. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 60g [her]?" Arid can one serve without a previous admission of those gifts? The tested proof of honesty comes in such evaluation and admission. Ability and interest tests, though possibly an aid in determining one’s area of con-tribution, remain impersonal and surface. One may, for example, possess a genius for organization but lack the "toughness" to withstand the censure inevitably laid against one in authority. Tests cannot illustrate this. Or she may love children singly but be unequipped physically to handle them en masse in a six-hour day classroom situ-ation. One thing balances against another. And, too, al-lowance must be made for acquiring traits. For example~ other things being equal, a sister may be able to learn fac.. tual content, to perfect a method, to acquire patience. Tests cannot indicate such potential. In the final analysis, then, in the honest act of choosing, the sister must go into her own heart, close the door, and! confer with her Self. No breast-beating or confessing of faults can call forth honesty equal to that demanded in, the inventory experience of admitting and declaring the gifts of God which one bears in one’s Self. How painful it can be, say, for a sister to announce that, yes, she does think she is equipped to be a superiorl Or that, no, she really is not suited to administrate the hospital, thank yOU. Willing such as this rescues the sister from anonymity, that menace which currently terrifies the world and which, if anything, is a more urgent threat to sisters whose very routine and habit can become allies to anonymity. While her choice, therefore, establishes her independence as a person with a unique contribution, it at the same time diminishes her "separateness" insofar as it enables her to share the cream of her talents in the total work of the community.4 To feel and to have others feel that one is important and that the traits one possesses are valuable is a basic human need. If such recognition in any group is important, how much more so is acceptance in a religious community. The primary significance of a religious com-munity is that it is an eschatological sign of heaven insofar as it is a group of persons living together in love. Not toleration but acceptance and approval precede love. "No more fiendish punishment could be devised," claimed Wil-liam James, "than that one should be turned loose in so-ciety and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof." ~ In fact, the reasons that a person, as person, ¯ ~ W. W. Marston in Emotions o! Normal People says that one of the nearest things to a person (in the case of consciousness) is his "poor outfit of powers and virtues. In naked isolation, they seem small and cheap. To be idle is to shut these poor powers in; to work is to open them up, to unite them with greater powers’ and a cause." * William James, Principles o] Psychology, Vol. 1 (New York: Holt, 18g0), p. 2g~t. seeks to live in community are first that she feels the "inner urge to the communications of knowledge and love which require relationship with other persons," and that, sec-ondly, she needs the help which "she ought to be given to do the work of reason and virtue, which responds to the specific feature of [her] being." 6 Therefore, the exercise in becorning that stems from evaluating one’s potential and choosing to some degree its actuation does not result merely in a better-mileage-per- hour program; it also results in a more-love-per-person community. This brings a consideration of the role of the second person, the community. It will produce nothing but frus-tration for an individual sister to decide how she can best serve Christ’s Body unless the community provides free-dom for and approval of such action. There must be a free exchange between a community and its individual members. On the one hand, the sister is bound to the com-munity because, in a certain fashion, that whole provides the framework in which she is enabled to become a person. In fact, Maritain maintains that "the person is duty-bound, in justice, to risk its own existence for the salvation of the whole when the whole is imperilled.’’7 The sister should not, then, act as a spoiled child, demanding that her ambitions be satisfied at any cost. Between the individ-ual and the community there must be a mutuality of ex-change and benefit. Even in the mathematical order, six is not the same as three and three. One is always part of two; wholes are made up of wholes. So the whole com-munity is made up of whole individuals. "It presupposes the persons and flows back upon them, and, in this sense, is achieved in them." Without this flow, there is no community. If a commu-nity refuses to redistribute human goods (one of which is wholeness) and just "takes in," it will achieve, insists Maritain, no emancipation except that of the "collective man." And that is communism. There must be commu-nity, not communism. There must be individual persons, not a "collective sister." Granted this, what, exactly, is expected of the commu-nity? Basically, to recognize the rights of the individual sister to know and to become herself, and to loosen, if necessary, the structure to permit the sister to make her choice and live it out. Even in communities strictly geared to one specific work like, say, teaching, there is room for the functioning of various sets of talents. Even in that narrow area there may be classroom teaching, supervising, administrating, researching, professional writing, special-ized teaching. e Maritain, The Person, p. 37-8. 7 Maritain, The Person, p, 59. 4- 4- 4" Work VOLUME 221, 1964 607 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister M. ~ludith, O.S.B. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Important as choice making is, however, the test of be.. coming inheres in the continuity of the work. If the sister accepts the risky right of choosing, she must also take on the burden of making sure that the accomplishment of the work is also an accomplishment of her Self as a person, as a religious woman. As a person, she must be able to exercise her unique gifts, talents, energies and to make a contribution in gen-eral to society and in particular to her relatively small world of work and love, her community. As a woman, she must be able to bring up to conscious-ness her masculine qualities and to bring to full play her own set of feminine qualities. For if any human being is to reach full maturity, there must be a synthesis of both masculine (animus) and feminine (anima) traits. Who is unacquainted with the woman who is too "fe-male"? Feelings govern her decisions, spontaneous reac-tion supersedes human response, tears come easily as do fits of temper and flights of fancy. And who has not found sisters in this category? On the other hand, as communities of religious women are presently organized, a woman must take on some duties ordinarily staffed by a man. This may wrench the sister’s masculine traits into an undisciplined development. Who has not witnessed the woman in whom dependability has turned to scrupulosity, courage to self-martyrdom, impartiality to unfeelingness, justice to cru-elty? Even without statistical support, it would be safe to calculate that the incidence of such virtue-run-amuck is high among sisters. G. G. Jung claims "that no one can evade the fact, that in taking up a masculine calling, studying, and working in a man’s way, woman is doing something not wholly in agreement with, if not directly injurious to, her feminine nature." Threats to a woman’s anima balance vary, of course, not only according to the work but also according to the per-son involved. In, say, certain administrative jobs, there exists, objectively speaking, a definite threat to the best. part of womanliness. Perhaps a conscious or unconscious realization of this fact is responsible for the growing trend in religious communities of working with men. Men school principals, lay advisory boards, male hospital administra-tors promise to become the rule rather than the exception. Some sisters, however, can function even in these positions without hurt to their feminine natures. No outside force, system, or test can predict the effect of certain jobs on cer-tain personalities; the individual sister must face these threats to mature personality-synthesis. She alone will know if a work is thus suited to her, if it allows for her Self’s becoming a person who is a religious woman. On the other hand, most of the work sisters are in-volved in provides ideal situations for combining anima and animus traits. Teaching, nursing, doing social work summon her feminine traits of subjectivity, sympathy, tenderness, and understanding. These same works also require, in "varying degrees, exercise of her masculine traits of objectivity, courage, cooperation, dependability, justice. Therefore, most sisters should be able to discover a work suited to development of self. Only if she is able to accomplish becoming in her work will she be able to withstand the onslaught she opens up upon herself by her initial choice. She approaches her work with a fund of sympathy. She tri~s to relate herself to the sorrows of Christ’s Body in the world by her feeling. But suffering, ignorance, ugliness are seemingly endless. She helps cure a patient today, and tomorrow his bed is occupied by another. She teaches English to forty students this year, and the next year forty-one file to replace them. She dismisses one unwed motherand must hold open the door to the next one trudging up the walk with the old story, the old weight. Year after year. It’s like seeing one’s self poured out into a sieve. In the face of this, a woman whose animus traits remain suppressed will likely resort to various neuroses or con-stantly seek different work in the futile hope that she can some place effect a lasting contribution. A woman whose anima traits are overpowered by the fury of overdeveloped masculine traits will, perhaps, react by developing a pro-tective hardness. It is the woman who has achieved, or is achieving, a personality synthesis who can make a real, conscious adaptation to such realities. It is she who is natu-rally equipped, too, for deep faith; she perceives that God provides, that the Body of Christ will be transformed, that God wills her to spend herself toward this omega point of creation in His plan. This is the faith the sister, in be-coming a whole person, must live by in meeting the ostensi-bly insurmountable suffering in the world,s To assume choice and accomplishment of work is to as-sume a weighty burden. It is, in fact, impossible to carry withottt aid. Evaluatory support comes to the individual in a process known as feedback. Moral aid comes in a system of living together known as community. Developed originally in connection with electronic com-puters and other servomechanisms, feedback has since been applied by psychologists to human beings. The im-portant feedback feature is its loop pattern: it loops back or feeds bacl~ to its starting point. For example, energy, starting from a person, is directed outward to some work. 8 Esther Harding in The Way o! All Women discusses this effec-tively. Although she finds psychological or anthropological answers to most problems, she admits that the overwhelming amount of sor-row a woman meets can be met "only by something which we must call a ’religious attitude.’ " ÷ ÷ ÷ Work VOLUME 23, 1964 6O9 + + Sister M. Judith, O.S.B. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 610 Some indication of progress is then fed back to the person. Perception of this progress then increases or diminishes the amount of energy the person can again direct outward to that work. Feedback, if convergent (favorable), increases energy; if divergent (unfavorable), it decreases both psy-chic and physical energy. "Nothing succeeds like success" describes the effect of convergent feedback. If, say, a teaching sister recognizes from student response, peer respect, and principal com-mendation that she is successful in her work, she will in-crease her efforts. The convergent feedback creates more energy. It alleviates anxiety, builds self-confidence, and leads to accelerated effort. This is a simple, psychological fact. To desire to work without recognition is neither natural nor virtuous. There is a difference, however, in the favorable feedback needs of an immature and a ma-ture sister. The immature sister depends too constantly and too heavily on spoken or written approval. Her need becomes insatiable; and, with a pause in City of Saint Louis (Mo.), http://www.geonames.org/4407084 http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/472 |