Review for Religious - Issue 27.4 (July 1968)
Issue 27.4 of the Review for Religious, 1968.
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sluoai_rfr-495 Review for Religious - Issue 27.4 (July 1968) Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus Jesuits -- Periodicals; Monasticism and religious orders -- Periodicals. Issue 27.4 of the Review for Religious, 1968. 1968-07 2012-05 PDF RfR.27.4.1968.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 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITORS Ralph F. Taylor, S.J. John C. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to l~vmw FOR I~LmmUS; 6~ Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63xo3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph’s Church; 3=I Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ~9m6. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University~ the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1968 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS at428 East Preston Street; Bahirnore, Mary-land 21202. Printed in U.S.A. Second class post.age paid at Baltimore, Maryhmd. Single cop~es: $1.00. 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Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. JULY 1968 VOLUME 27 NUMBER 4 DAVID T. ASSELIN, s.J. Christian Maturity and Spiritual Discernment My purpose is to situate personal spiritual discernment in the context of faith-growth, that is, Christian matu-rity. From this viewpoint, to educate the faith is less a question of theological instruction than one of guided. spiritual experience. I am thinking of the teleioi of Hebrews 5:14, "the mat~[re who have their faculties trained by experience to discern between good and evil," an excellent summary of the Spirit’s work of restoration out of the chaos which resulted from man’s original attempt to determine good and evil for himself and on his own. The term could also be translated "the perfect," or, perhaps, "the personally fulfilled." Faith, throughout this discussion, should be under-stood in the sense of Vatican II’s Decree on the At~osto-late of the Laity: Only by the light of’faith [the impressive word is "only"] and by meditation on the word of God, can one always and everywhere recognize God, in whom "we live and move and have our being," seek His will in every event, see Christ in all men whether they are close to us or strangers, make correct judgments about the true meaning and value of temporal things, both in themselves and in their relationship to man’s final goal. ¯ Ex.cept for meditation on Scripture nothing is said in this text about the means of maturing the faith. The Council simply outlines the content of adult faith. What I should like to explore is an indispensable element in the process of maturation of this content. The truth of the matter is that faith is not primarily a source of answers to our questions but rather our answer to the Lord’s question; "Lovest thou me?" In other words, I take faith not as quest for answers (to our in-tellectual problems) nor as a set of answers (to the ques-tions of "others), but as the answer "of the whole person 4, David T. Asselin, S.J., is spiritual di-rector at Regis Col-lege; 3425 Bayview Avenue; Willow-dale, Ontario; Can-ada. VOLUME 27, 1968 581 ÷ ÷ ÷ D. T. Asselin, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 582 to the Lord inserting His Person and Spirit, and thus articulating Himself as the divine Word, in human life. My general proposition is that at the very heart of growing in faith we find, necessarily, a refinement and increase of the grace of spiritual discernment. Without discernment there is no growth in faith. Spiritual dis-cernment, therefore, is less a question of being intellec-tually clever than of being graced and called by the Lord to grow in knowledge of Him. All things serve the Lord of history; all persons are called to be the vehicles of His creative will; all men willy-nilly serve the God of human history’s purposes. Otherwise, they would not be introduced into ongoing incarnational history. However, not everyone, so far, seems to hear the call to know the Lord he se~wes, to know Him as a friend does a friend, as a son his father, a wife her husband. To know Him is the mark of spiritual growth and maturity. Faith-growth is God’s work. Man can do no better than collaborate with the divine initiative in his spiritual life. This seems to imply several things. First of all, as the spiritual point of departure, it de-mands an openness to being moved by God. This is the key to obedience as well as to all spiritual encounter. The fundamental Christian attitude, then, is that of a listener, one who is open to divine initiatives whatever they might be. It is radically and essentially a prayer-attitude, one that continues, or ought to continue, be-yond prayer into the apostolate and every other work or experience. The second implication is a need for some continual scrutiny and reflection in regard to the experiences inte-rior to 6neself in prayer and in all life’s situations. This self-examination is needed not merely to lay hold of juridically impt.~table faults but more importantly to grow in habitual discrimination and discernment-by-faith of the various, interior experiences and personal spiritual calls--impulses, inclinations, attractions, re-pugnances, assaults--that occur much more frequently than perhaps we either admit or spiritually discern. The third demand is a growing ability to recognize and respond only to those experiences which are dis-cernibly frotn the Lord. Here, in the area of concrete affectivity, are the contacts with the Lord’s divine initia-tives guiding the individual person or community. The difference between personal spiritual direction and spir-itual government of a community involves a difference in the mode of spiritual scrutiny and recognition of the divine will in the concrete. Whatever accidental dif-ference may emerge in the mode of reflection on ex-perience, both the community scrutiny and the ifldi- .vidual scrutiny lead ultimately to the possibility of a response which we may call "rightly ordered," a direct response to inner vocation that gives first place to answer-ing the.Lord’s question, "Lovest thou me?" In brief, these three requirements---openness to spir-itual experience, reflection on it, and response-ability to it--are basic elements in the growth of personal sensi-tivity to the initiatives of the Lord, or spiritual discern-ment.. Whether on the community or individual level, in order to achieve government, spiritual direction, or faith-growth, the cooperation of several is required. The director ’and the directed, the superior and the subject, the spiritual father and his "son,’~ must both be. humbly alert in a collaboration of listening to the Lord’s Spirit~ The basic relationship of spiritual direction and govern-ment is a structured team-work of director and directed in discerning the will of the Lord in concrete~ situations. Both, then, must be continually subordinated to the Lord’s Spirit and His word as the principal director. The hierarchy of subordination, in the context of spir-itual direction, is that of a human directo]: who by his calling is the servant of a relationship growing between the one directed and the Spirit of the Lord. In a sense, then, the human director takes his stand, spiritually, in the lower, not the higher, place. In this relationship of spiritual direction, destined to serve the Lord’s creative work in the individual and in the ~ommunity, the responsibility falls first on the Lord Himself, secondly on the group or the individual’ called to Him, and finally on the servant of their relationship, the spiritual director. If there" is any subordination to human direction in responding to God, this sub-ordination must be established by the Lord and guaran-teed. by Him (or by a convenant or pact freely entered into on the part of the subject). Growth in discernment of the action of God’s Spirit is, then, the thing which truly matures and estab-lishes in the faith a spiritual person or community. An authentic spiritual community is one which can be described in terms of its real awareness of being moved and directed by the Holy Spirit, on many levels. This awareness is not just found vaguely throughout the com-munity but according to the clearly defined functions of properly subordinated individuals. As we find in the Gospels, to be great in the community° of the Lord is to be the least and servant of all. The work of the one wh~)se responsibility it is to direct others is a work of assisting them, as individuals and as a group, to hear and respond better to the Lord’s initiatives in every ,situa-tion. This direction or government is a spiritual thing pre2 ÷ 4, Maturity and ¯ Discernment ~VOLUME 27, 1968 583 ÷ ÷ ÷ D. T. Asselin, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 584 cisely to the extent that it is collaboration with the Lord’s Spirit, the ultimate director and superior. The Lord’s indications, leads, initiatives, must be discerned as coming from Him and then followed, if a man is to serve the Lord in a way befitting man, that is by knowing the Lord he serves. There is, then, a need today to respect the importance and centrality of interior, personal, spiritual experience without undue fear of false mysticism or of the folly of the enthusiasts, quietists, alumbrados. Moreover, we must investigate the area of spiritual experience today because the Church is not only inviting ns but requiring us to do so, in the words of one who cries out: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Ap 2:11). The word "maturity" has been aptly defined by the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, who made extensive studies of children in their process of development. Mh-turity, he found, is simply an increase in the capacity to differentiate in a practical manner interior experiences and operations. If we adopt this definition, then the life of faith in a man is mature to the extent that it involves a capacity to reflect upon, understand, discriminate be-tween, and respond to, the inner spiritual stimuli that he experiences within himself. The Lord’s Personal Call It might be well here to suggest some relationships between general law or principle on the one hand, and individuated personal experience on the other. To di-vorce the two is to fall into legalism and moralism, or into a kind of situation-ethic. The problem is how to relate these poles. It is true that general law and principle rightly and concretely circumscribe each personal situation. But they do so only to the extent that this situation is common to all men, and not proper to this person as such. I mean that the situations of Peter and of Paul are cor-rectly guided by general principle only insofar as Peter and Paul are men, therefore impersonally considered, not insofar as they are distinguished from each other by name. Peter qua Peter is more than just a man. In this regard permit me to draw attention to the per-fect way of knowing a man, intimately and personally, which is the Lord’s way of knowing him, that is, by name. We read in Isaiah 43:1: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine." Or again, in John 10:3: "The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them forth." Scripture continually reveals the personal and intimate knowledge that the Lord has of each of His creatures: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you" (Jer 1:5); "Lord, you have pi:obed me and you know me, you understand my thoughts from afar, with all my ways you are familiar, even~ before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know the whole of it, where can I go from your Spirit, from your presence where can I flee" (Ps 138:139). Just as it is clear that the Lord knows and calls each man by name, it is equally clear that man becomes spir-itually mature to the extent that he can recognize and acknowledge who it is that is calling him, responding to . the Lord by name in all things: The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt. For they broke my covenant and I had to show myself their master, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the Lord. All, the least to the greatest, shall know Me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evil doing and remember their sin no more (Jer 31:31ff.). It seems clear, here and elsewhere in Scripture, that God is establishing with each human person as well as with His community a new spiritual relatiqnship of tremendous value which exceeds the expectations of authentic Chris-tian personalism today. In order to discover the meaning of Peter qua Peter, and of Paul as unique and distinct from Peter, in the context of universal salvation history (which, after all, is the task in which spiritual directors and superiors are, I believe, primarily intended to assist), it is necessary to discover the unique meaning, value, and orientation that is proper to Peter’s spiritual situation precisely as distinct from Paul’s, before the Lord. By what kind of logic is this sort of knowledge attained? Over and above the universal validity of general principle and law, Peter, as an unrepeatable, unique individual, must be guided by a logic that is other than the logic of general principle and universal law. In other words, there are two kinds of logic. One logic, which .we might call conceptual or proposi-tional, is the basis for reasoning in universally valid terms. The point of departure, the principle or the foun-dation from which the successive insights and conclu-sions proceed according to this logic will be an axiom. It begins therefore with a self-evident proposition. ÷ ÷ ÷ Maturity and Discernment VOLUME 27, 1968 585 D. T. As~elin, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 586 Logic o[ the Concret~ .There is another logic, however, the Jogic of con-crete, unique, and individual events and persons (which, inCidentally, is the w, ay God apprehends things). Here, . the human foundation or first principle will no longer be an axiom but an experience. As the logic of conceptual knowledge is based on axiomatic, propositions, so the logic of concrete knowledge is based on concrete ex-perience. Mature faith-response to the Lord’s word can emerge only from personal encounter with Him. I think it is the job of superiors and spiritual directors to point to those authentic experiences whereby the Lord is communicating Himself to individuals and communi-ties, thus guiding their spiritual growth and governing their development as Christian persons. This concret~ knowledge of the Lord and of His ways. can only be had, as the Vatican Council proposes, "by meditation on the word of God." Faith-growth is inseparable from prayer-life. Both are areas of fundamental concern to all who are called not only by the Lord’s, "Lovest thou me?" but also by His, "Feed my lambs and sheep." What, therefore, the individual as such ought to de-cide in the area of liberty and private responsibility cannot be fully determined by general principle or law. It is of vital importance, however, that what is decided be determined with spiritual certitude, not merely by guesswork, accident, or whim. This is precisely why reliable, that is, mature, faith-discernment of interior experiences and, events is important. Otherwise, we run a risk of considering these experiences as mere psycho-logical phenomena, avoiding the whole world of con-crete events in function of which spiritual discernment and maturity can take place. Rather, we must approach the world of private and group e~perience as filled with the glorious presence (shekinah) of the Lord, the indications of His will and concrete providence, and perhaps .the presence of an adverse spirit. Hence, it is only a faith-awareness and dis-cernment of these events which can lead to an under-standing of the individual or community relationship to the Lord, an estimation of their spiritual maturity, and a reliable ifi~rease in their personal freedom and re- + sponsibility. + No concrete choice can be well ordered in the faith + unless it coincides with the determination~ of the Lord ’of all human history. To be aware of these things in the concrete is the only way for a man to be "with it" spir-itually, or "where the action is." To be with the Lord of history, who revealed Himself as being so continually and intimately with us, we must be in personal corn- munication with Him in all things. Therefore, the particular experience that functions as a self-evident first principle for the logic of concrete individual knowl-edge is nothing short of a real experience of the Lord communicating Himself and uttering His invitation and call directly to a pers9n for his u.nique situation, Growth in discernment presupposes several elements. There must be, first of all, inner experience; second,. repeated reflection, on this experience; third, a dis-crimination between various experiences, not from the pbint of view of mere natural causalities (psychological or otherwise), but from that of personal faith in the Lord of concrete history; fourth, an evaluation of these interior experiences from this faith-standpoint; finally, the ca-pacity to receive and obey those movements which are discernibly from the Lord, or.at least clearly not inspired by an adverse spirit. This is the only way to be with the Lord, and where His action is, in reality. Only thus can a man truly grow as a mature person and find. fulfillment. He must find his own personal relationship with the Creator and Lord of all things, and place himself at His service unre-servedly. Experience, then, of encounter and contact with .the Lord, of listening to and of being guided by Him di-rectly, must lie within the capacities of ordinary Chris-tian faith-maturity. Otherwise, how could an adult Chris-tian enjoy an authentic spiritual calling? The only way a man can be divinely called to a personal vocation is "bY name," which means by a unique and personal en-counter with tbe Lord in terms of incommunicable inner experience. Surely our adult Christians, in the light of Vatican II, are not merely destined to serve the Lord, but intimately to know the Lord they serve. Surely their service must flow from a personal.knowledge of Him, a concrete knowledge which cannot be grasped from the-ology or from psychology or even from the mere absence of "impediments to vocation," but from personal ex-perience and prayer. There is question here of something mystical, at least on an elementary level, in the ordinary faith-growth of a Christian--something entailing immediate conscious con-tact with the person of the Lord. Hence, we confront today a mysticism that is to be recognized and fostered within the ordinary providence of God’s grace for anyone called to know Him. This kind of knowledge is what specifies the relationship between. God and His people, God and the individual, in the whole Judaeo-Christian history of vocation. I submit that today the discernmentof spirits, as it is called, is the most relevant focal, point in our spiritual ÷ Maturity and Discernment VOLUME 27, 1968 587 ÷ ÷ D. T. Asselin, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS heritage, because it is the concrete., logic of personal spiritual knowledge of las cosas internas, the "interior things," the life of inner spiritual experience. Only a refined spiritual discernment will guide a man to mature self-possession, freeing him from inner disorder in his choosing so that he may enjoy a growing, divine en-counter of faith in all circumstances. In this way, his faith-awareness will envelop, enlighten, guide everything else in his life, so that he will not be able to love any-thing ~r anyone save "in the Lord." It is only within this world of each man’s personal experience that his faith-response can be given to the evocative word of the Lord. " Today.in this age of personalism, of self-discovery, of fulfillment, of communication and dialogue, there is a dyifig interest, in any gospel that might limit itself to spiriyual absolutes and generalities, to moralism or trite devotionalism, just as there is a reaction against the spiritual anonymity of the" "lonely crowd" and. the impersonality of the "organization man" in our "secular city.:’ Such-labels indicate’ the personal alienation that threatens urbanized man today. We all know the reac-tion formation which arises against this situation, offering a purely secular salvation in terms of this-worldly ful-fillment of man’s four basic desires: his desire for security, affection, variety, and esteem. Man’s real salvation today, however, according to our Christian world-view based on the ’new covenant announced in Jeremiah 31, 31 ft., entails being radicallygraced by God in such a way that the divine presence and will can be known and hcknowl- ’ edged personally by each man. Confronted exclusively with general principles and laws, or the enunciation of general truths based upon them which do not focus on each man as a unique per-son but necessarily treat him merely as another instance of numerically multipliable human nature undistin-guished by any name, modern man will remain deaf to ¯ his true personal call to greatness, spiritually immature. If the Christian logic of concrete personal vocation is ignored today, there is a growing danger that tomorrow both Peter and Paul will search for their identity out, side the authentic Christian view of things., perhaps against it. It is only through the gradual and inevitably painful education of a man’s faith-view of concrete particulars, that is, the education of his capacity spiritually to dis-cern concrete reality within himself or others, that he can be entrusted with the responsibility of personally determining the steps and measures which bear on his own salvation or that of others. ~ We are far from endorsing, therefore, an undiscerning confidence and blind acceptance of everything that a man spontaneously is inclined to think best. According to the view of some, everything is acceptable or good which inwardly attracts or moves a man, as long as it is not a clear inclination to sin. As a matter of fact, if it were all that easy it would hardly be worth discussing. Spiritual responsibility is insured only by an authentic growth of the capacity to discern the personal word and will of Christ for onself or for another. This merely re-affirms the central Christian position which is one of lis-tening to and following the word of God addressed to man: "Blessed is hewho hears the word of God and keeps it"; or again: "My mother and brothers and sisters are those who hear the word of God and keep it." To some degree or other all of us have this problem of faith-maturity. Therefore, we must consider maturity not as a terminal achievement but rather as maturation, a continuum of emerging awareness of interior en-counter and personal vocation initiated by the Lord. All this applies to community experience as well as to that of the individual, and it includes in its ambit the beginner as well as the teleios in the sense of Hebrews 5:14, "the one who has faculties trained by experience to discern good from evil." This points to faith-guided discernment as the cor-rection of Adam’s fault who attempted, :according to Genesis 3, on his own and independently of the Lord’s personal indication, to "eht of the fruit of the tree of. the knowledge of good and evil," that is, to discern for himself independently of God what was good and evil in the concrete. Hence any education in the discernment of right from wrong must emerge from the radical faith-position of one who is a listener to the Lord: "All that is not of faith is sin" (Rom 14:23). Structure and Individuation We are always confronted with the necessity of ad-mitting the young into formation structures in such a way as to allow for varying degrees of spiritual maturity already achieved and to foster further personal growth in the knowledge of God’s will and love by discernment. Moreover, at the beginning of the process of formation there are two factors polarized, which, I feel, need to undergo considerable change in their basic relationship .by the end of that formative process. We can label those two factors "structure" and "in-dividuation." Structure, here, means a generally pre-dictable behavior pattern within which the individual and the group are directed to maturity in their en-counter with the Lord. For beginners there is need of a ÷ ÷ ÷ Maturity and Discernment. ,~.~ VOLUME 27~ 1968" 589 ÷ ÷ ÷ D. T. Asselin~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~90 meaningful and reasonable overall structure in which the young candidates are .introduced to spiritual re-sponsibility. This structure will be more extensive and more detailed in virtue of the greater need for assistance and protection required in the period of initial growth. By individuation, in the context of formation, I mean everything that falls under the general heading of per-sonal admonition, directive, prescription, correction, or guidance. It is my general i~npression that we have not been afflicted so’much with overstructure in formation (we have had much structure but I think much is needed to ¯ .begin the process of faith-growth) as with a kind of rev-erence for this structure which tends to find maturity in terms of structural function and hence to preserve initial structures unchanged throughout religious life. ¯ I also believe we have been afflicted with an anxious protection and maintenance of this structure by over-stricture, so that the individual has been given to feel that the structure is an absolute value and that his least exterior failure or fault will be judged as maximal when, in fact, it might be objectively and spiritually minimal. A process of destructuring must occur. But, more im-portantly, we ought to begin formation with complete gentleness, patience, and the allowance for personal uniqueness, in the application of strictures within the required structure. With structure and individuation polarized in this way at the point of departure of formation, let me. degcribe the general evolution .which hopefully might occur with respect to the relationship between structure and individuation over the years, By its end a period of formation ought to reveal much less structure (because we’ can presume that with discernment the spiritual adult has become more personally aware of his Lord and has achieved a more refined sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit) and much more stricture (because he has grown in spiritual sensitivity, in his capacity for self-direction, for discerning the Lord in all things by faith and love, and is consequently more accountable, that is, responsible, for these things). No community ought to aim at being completely un-structured or informal as long as men are mortal and original sin still, affects their motivation, decisions, and efforts. But I believe much failure in formation is due to the initial overemphasis of both stricture and struc-ture, producing a reaction against¯ both. We often end up with serious:difficulties not so much with the young as the old and religiously "formed," who, when it is safe to throw off structures, will no longer listen to stric-ture either. This, of course, reveals that their formation left them spiritually immature. How difficult it is at times to tell a man who has been~ twenty-five years in religious life what to do or not to do. It is not easy, if he is obstinate. It is not easy if he feels: "Now that I have gone through that formation bit, you don’t push me around." I think a lot of our scandal emerges precisely when the process of destructuring takes place reveali.ng little faith-education or spiritual maturity to fill up the vac-uum created by ~his process. It shows that no growth in spiritual responsibility has.supplanted the firmness of protective structures. By the end of our periods of formation, when the col-lective factors have been diminished on the level of structure, there ought to emerge a deeper spiritual rela-tionship with the superior, confessor, personal director, on the individual level, that is, on the level of concrete prescription, spiritual direction, and discernment. I feel that little faults in mature persons are much more serf-otis than little faults in beginners. Perhaps we ought to increase the importance of private direction for the ma-ture, not only in the sense of reprehension and correction of faults, but also of more tailored discernment of the will of the Lord. Existentially, this continuum of for-mation ought to be a movement, from external law to the interior law of love. , St. Paul had insight int~ such freedom. He claims that we are freed by learning to love like Christ. He does not mean by freedom that we are no longer bound by ex-ternal law, but rather that we are no longer driven, cap-tured, or urged by anything except by divine love: "Caritas Christi urget nos." To the degree that mature Christian love existentially directs a man’s choices, his need for external law and direction is lessened. Only.by the "strength of the Lord’s personal initiati~ces of love in his regar~l wi!l he be stimulated to respond to the Lord’s word calling him to share responsibility for his own salvation and that of others. This call in its fullness is identical with the vocation to enter the paschal mystery of the Lord’s suffering service, death, and resurrection. Hence, we can say with Vatican II that it is "only by faith and by meditation on the word of God" that we can find God’s will in anything, discover Christ in our fellow man, or evaluate temporal things in their true light, that is, in the light of salvation history into which all things have happily been assumed by the risen Lord. There is no possibility of mature faith-growth unless, between the beginning and the end of its spectrum, there is inserted personal, incommunicable experience of en-trance into the mystery of Christ’s dying and rising. The problem today is a growing tendency to skip the + + + Maturity and Discernment" VOLUME 27, ’1968 591 ÷ ÷ ÷ D. T. Asselin, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 592 passion and death in an attempt to establish the Resur-rection. We need more than ever a spiritual awareness of the contemporary dimensions of the passion and death, such as you find in St. Paul who identifies the mystery of Christ’s nekrosis with his own experiences of suffering, persecution, and rejection in the apostolate and. ministry . of the word. The word "mystery" in this context means a human experience of the Word made flesh such as we imply when we speak of the "mysteries" of the rosary Or when we contemplate the "mysteries of the public life of Jesus." The definitive mystery of the Word made ttesh is His redemptive experience of dying and rising, which is the matrix of all Christian formation and maturity. Growth and formation involve the development of a conscious love relationship with the Lord. Lovers are those who share intimately each other’s experiences of joy and suffering and know by experience the depth and the breadth and the mystery of the unique other. The Lord has this kind of knowledge of us--a knowledge which can become the friendship of .mutual love only if we dwell also in this kind of knowledge of Him. Therefore, our entrance into His mystery of passion and death implies, in the first place, a growth in our aware-ness of His complete entrance into our mystery, His complete appropriation of our personhood and life ex-perience. Neither this awareness nor the experience of entry into His mystery are vague abstractions. His definitive entrance into our present life was by a very real dying and rising. It is this experience of His that has become the key to our faith-awareness of Him. Thus, His suffer-ing, dying, rising, unfold anew in our life experience because of our intimate, mutual involvement with Him, revealed by faith. Conclusion The real spiritual theology of action, of renewal, and of labor (including the labors of the apostolate and min, istry of the word), centers on this contemporary sharing in Christ’s redemptive death and resurrection. You will find this everywhere in St. Paul, for instance in I Corin-thians 1:3 ft. and 4:7 ff: "The sufferings of Christ abound in us, the consolation in you"; or again: "We are con-tinually carrying about in our bodies the dying state of Jesus so that the living state of Jesus may be manifest in our bodies too." So, too, Paul speaks of the personal mandate through Christian baptism of entering into the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, which implies finding the dimensions of His mystery as it is realized concretely in one’s own. This Will involve a personal sharing of the emptying-out or kenosis of Christ, an experience of hu-man b~irrenness, agony, and dereliction out of which alone can emerge the marvelous truthfulness of the Lord rising in our personal world, today. I do not think this is going to be appreciated if it is merely described, as I do here. It is something that must be learned from experience under the guidance of that kind of spiritual discernment that calls a thing by its right name, as it is occurring in a man’s experience. No natural terms or categories are sufficient, to capture the meaning of this experience of.entry into the mystery of Christ that is ours. Hence, the language of faith is the principal language to be used in spiritual direction and discernment. Nobody can accomplish for me this work of collabora-tion with Christ to which I am personally called. With-out personal inner encounter I have knowledge only of a kind of "unknown God," which really is no knowl-edge at all; and the danger of not knowing God is of be-coming adokimos, someone of an undiscerning mind, who knows created reality by experience without dis-cerning the Lord and Creator. This was the failure of the pagans according to Romans 1:18 ft., where Paul degcribes their decline through various stages of degrada-tion because they were unable to discern the will and love of the Lord of all creation. The human conversation with God was broken off in the garden of Eden, not because God stopped speaking to man but because man stopped listening to God. All sacred history recounts the restoration not only in the individual but in the city of man of the ability to listen to the word olz God articulated in the contemporary events and realities of each successive age, as in a con-tinuing kaleidoscope of the Lord’s presence articulated in the eternal ’~today" of man’s relationship to his Lord. The builders of the tower of Babel were dispersed by God because they attempted to build the city on their own, without His initiative, His word. Abraham, in the next chapter, is the one in whom the listening to God’s word historically begins to be restored. Eventually, the city image of Babel in Chapter 11 of Genesis, the city which is almost a bad word in theearly parts of Scrip-ture, becomes the very end-time symbol of the awareness of God’s intimate presence and conversation in Apoc-alypse 21, where the new city created by God, the new Jerusalem, needs neither temple nor source of light other than God Himself and his Son the Lamb. Eventually, the Lord who is Father and the Lamb will themselves be both temple-of worship and source of light for the city of man. This symbol marks the terminal point of + + + Maturity and Discernment VOLUME "27, 1968 593 + ÷ ÷ D. T.’Asselin, REVIE~FOR RELIGIOUS community salvation. If you read Apocalypse 21, you will find that the individual relationship to the Lord emerges as perfect along with the destructured com-munity relationship to the Lord: "He who overcomes shall possess these things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son" (Ap 21:7). There is no opposition, then, between the community-growth and individual fulfillment. We reach full person-hood in the community of the Lord’s people by sharing an awareness of God’s personal presence and glory. We celebrate this in our daily Eucharist. We announce these Christian facts of life and we promote them, there. We increase and grow in our realization of them by listening privately and together to the word of God, and together and in private responding wholeheartedly. In conclusion I should like to indicate a fundamental criterion by which the authenticity of faith-growth and spiritual discernment must. always be measured. The fundamental attitude of the believer is of one who lis-tens. It is to the Lord’s utterances that he gives ear. In as many different ways and on as many varied levels as the listener can discern the word and will of the Lord mani-fested to ,him, he must respond with all the Pauline "obedience of faith." Obedience always implies an attitude of listening, signified by the Latin ob-audire and Greek hupo-akouo. It is the attitude of receptivity, passivity, and poverty of one who is always in need, radically dependent, con-scious of his creaturehood. Freedom, faith-growth, and spiritual maturity must always begin with fundamental obedience to the Lord’s laws, directives, and providence for the individual and the community. The evolution of faith to spiritual adulthood is measured not by neglecting or escaping these basic divine dispositions so as to be no longer bound by them, but rather by transcending external laws and prescriptions so as to be bonnd more deeply and intimately by the greater demands of an internal law uttered in the heart. One is always bound by general law and principle and by external authority legitimately exercised, but one can transcend this dimension as the motive of response to the Lord to the degree that one can discern and obey the internal law of love imprinted in the heart by the Spirit, establishing the new covenant announced by Jeremiah 31:31 ft. Bound by external law and authority, our faith-growth consists in being moved by the internal: "Caritas Christi urget nosl" No internal discernment of the Lord’s will and vocation is valid if it disobeys or degtroys the Lord’s external dispositions exercised by legitimate auo thority and institution. There is only one Spirit breath-ing on many levels where and how He wills. The authentic maturity of faith by spiritual discern-anent will manifest itself in a fourfold reconciliation of man, matching the fourfold human conflict introduced by man’s primitive disobedience: a reconciliation (1) with the Lord in a Spirit of prayerful sonship crying "Abba," (2) within oneself by the peace that replaces the shame of guilt, (3) with one’s neighbor by the love that replaces anger and fear, (4) and with ktisis or physical creation by a resurrection. ÷ ÷ ÷ Maturity and Discernment VOLUME 27, 1968 ". . 595 BERNARD LEE, S~M. The Spring Wants to Come: A Study in Community ÷ ÷ ÷ Bernard Lee, S.M., is on the fac-ulty of St. Mary’s High School; 4701 South Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Mis-souri 6311 I. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 596 Introduction I had originally intended to cast these introductory remarks into footnotes in very brief form. But a discus-sion and very helpful critique with members of my communi.ty suggested the importance of beginning with two observations that appear necessary for keeping the discussion in the" right context. The first point is this: what the article is not is a comparison between art and community life in which certain aesthetic principles are analogically applied to community. Beauty is a transcendental, and it is a real characteristic-of all that is. There are degrees of beauty and kinds of beauty. It can be recognized and experi-enced. Like many of the practical items we use and need, community is a practical response to a need: psychologi-cal needs stemming from our social nature, pragmatic needs for coping with the world around us. But over and above this, both the practical items and the practical community are capable of being works of art, pieces of beauty, as well. The application of asesthetic principles to community life is, therefore, a direct application of principles that are, in the philosophical sense, proper to it. This second introductory remark might seem a bit academic for the discussion that follows. But it has to do with basic presuppositions that govern the thought of the article. The characterization of beauty that I use is based very much upon the thgught of Alfred North Whitehead, the whole of his thought, but in particular his treatment of beauty in Adventure of Ideas. What is presumed is a world of reality whose nature is to be in process. Process is at the heart of the way things are. Process is reality. And an important qualifidation of this process is that it is evolutionary; it is directed to the creation of higher: forms and modes of existence. In Aristotelian thought the possibility of changing neces-sarily implies imperfection: "All change is by its nature an undoing" (Physics, IV, 222b). But in process philos-ophy, change is actually constitutive of reality. Becoming is no longer inferior to being. This obviously affects a philosophy of beauty--and therefore a philosophy of community--because process will be constitutive of beauty as well as of being. This is not the place to attempt a further characteri-zation of process philosophy. May I instead retommend the brief but superb introduction Charles Hartshorne wrote for Browning’s Philosophers of Process, and the excellent second part of Eulalio Baltazar’s Teilhard and the Supernatural which treats in more detail "The Phi-losophy of Process." The implications of all ttiis for theology and spirituality are immense--so immense that it almost seems ludicrous to toss off the observation so casually. I would like to conclude these introductory re-marks with some lines from Rilke: What keeps you from projecting His birth into times That are in the process of becoming, And living your life Like a painful and beautiful day In the history of a great gestation? For do you not see How everything that happens Keeps on being a beginning Since beginning is in itself Always so beautiful?... These very days Of your transition Are perhaps the time When everything in you Is working at him... And think that the least We can do is to make His becoming Not more difficult for Him Than theearth ¯ Makes its for the Spring When it wants to come. --Rainer Maria Rilke Community The history of humanity is the history of an evolution towards a more finely wrought community. The evolu-tion is not unmarked by failures, neither in the past nor now. But progress has been steady. And higher com-munity has normally been achieved when the demands 4, 4, ÷ Community VOLUME 27, 597 ÷ ÷ Bernar~ I=~ $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 598 of new social conditions have been responded to crea-tively. Today is a day of new demands, and we are on the verge of higher community if we can bring to those demands an adequately creative response. The movement towards the perfection of community has always been a part of human history, but a new inner urgency is communicated to the movement in Christ who calls men to brotherhood in God’s love: "This solidarity must be constantly increased until that day on which it will be brought to perfection. Then, saved by grace, men will offer flawless glory to God as a family beloved of God and of Christ their brother" (gaudium et spes, § 32). In this discussion we would like to deal with the dynamics of building community. And here dynamics must bear the full weight of its meaning; for the evolutionary nature of community among men neces-sarily implies movement and change, trial and error, mutual tensions and continual interactions. The para-dox is that these factors are not manifestations of rest-lessness and caprice, but are the only basis for in-tensified solidarity. There are many valid points of departure for a dis-cussion of community. Our point of departure Will be aesthetic. It is peculiar to man, of all earth’s creatures, to recognize beauty, to be moved and exhilarated by it. Because the quest for beauty and the response to it are both deeply human and deeply humanizing, we ought to be conscious of the beauty of community life that we work towards. We must even make that beauty a conscious aim--for it goes way beyond simply making community through the common task of meeting practi-cal exigencies; it calls us to create community. Throughout this discussion we will be thinking es-pecially of "community" in religious life. But the prin-ciples should be valid and operative within any social structure. The plan of this discussion is as follows. We will first talk about beauty and the degrees of harmony that mark it (and also that mark community life). Then we will try to show how greater intensity is possible in beauty (and how this is related to the perfection of community life). Then, from the psychological point of view of man’s enjoyment of beauty, we will discuss the "move-ment" that is demanded by human appreciation of beauty (and the "movement" that is demanded for a constant human satisfaction with community life). I can recall having been asked for a reaction to some piece of architecture or other, and having replied that while I didn’t really think it was great, it was at least pleasing and didn’t jar. That something "isn’t jarring" is an acknowledgement of at least a minor form of beauty, an absence of elements that would disturb the harmony. There are many elements in an art work (color in painting, rhythm, tone, and harmony in music) that might be independently quite pleasing, but which to-gether in certain combinations inhibit beauty. It is pos-sible to juxtapose two brilliant colors so that when they are together the b,rillance of neither comes through fully, though alone each would be striking. In this case there is a mutual inhibition that keeps either color from rising to the strength proper to it. It is likewise possible in music to counter two rhythms ~o each other in suchwise that neither is discernible; of course, a counterplay of two rhythms might well put each of the rhythms in bolder relief and make them easier to ap-preciate. In the first case, the mutual incompatibility of two rhythms is not only inhibitive of beauty, the two elements are actually destructive of each other. A minor form of beauty, oi: pleasingness, then, consists in the absence of elements that are either destructive of one another, or that keep each other from rising to the strength proper to each. This same aesthetique applies to community. When the fact of community is the result of the juxtaposition. of certain individuals within the same house, and not much more than that, the minor form of beauty just described.is probably the limit of communitarianbeauty available. There is a certain smoothness and harmony that results from not having personalities that are to-tally incompatible, and from having personalities that are enough alike (or have been made so by the repres-sion of differences) that they do not inhibit each other member from "being himself." The walls of a living room may be painted a ’very pleasing color and may provide quite a satis[actory experience. But if the walls are done in several colors, and if furnishings are chosen which blend and con-trast, much attention has to be given to composition. Two colors which cannot be tolerated next to each other might, in composition with a third and fourth color, give a heightened aesthetic experience not possible with the minor beauty of the one-color room. For this height-ened aesthetic experience derived from a contrast of contents, composition becomes increasingly important. For each element must stand in relation to every other element as well as to the whole. This is the only con-dition under which different elements can, by virtue of their very differences, not simply coexist juxtaposed, but become a truly powerful experience together. And there is a corollary to this. Not only does the individual element help heighten the aesthetic value of the compo- + + ÷ Community VOLUME 27, ~.968 ,599 + 4. 4. Bernard Lee, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS sition as a whole, but the whole itself ~s a setting for the individual element enhances the individual element. The whole uses and profits from that which is most unique in the individual element. It is what is different about this individual element that heightens the effect" of good composition. But that difference only becomes valuable and desirable in this setting of effective con-trast. Alone it is... well, just different. Again, ~his aesthefique applies to community living. A more intense community experience is possible through effective contrasts of personalities. This can only be a reality if ther6 is a community consciousness directed toward the creation of such a "composition." A minor form of beauty attained simply through the absence of jarring elements does not put upon "relationship" the premium it has in the heightened aesthetic experience towards which we work. "Relationship" is the basis of composition, and it requires conscious and deliberate effort to bring it off. By conscious effort we cannot mean a belabored preoccupation with improving or building interpersonal bonds--that is almost doomed to failure by the artificiality that would destroy what can only be fully natural, or else not be at all. But it does mean being quite conscious of the fact that differ-ences between us are the seed of greater community beauty. It does mean consciously and openly and hon-estly dealing with differences rather than shu~ing them under the carpet in favor of a minor and easier harmony. It is from the very desirable (and often painful) per-sonal confrontations in view of differences that such consciousness occasions interpersonal relationships really happening, and "composition" really occurring. And be-cause we are human beings, something happens in the composition of good community that does not happen in the’composition of good art: we individual elements have to stretch ourselves intellectually, socially, emo-tionally, psychologically, to contain the contrasts of our community. But what grow.th! And growing pains too. Only a community like this can address itself to the yearning of the contemporary man who wants to be where the personal identity he has worked so hard foI is ’appreciated and desired. He wants to be part of a community that challenges him to become and, in be-coming, to be his unique self. Only an aesthetique of striving for great communitarian beauty can provide for a whole that frames rather than swallows individuality. A beautiful nature scene which is exciting on a 16mm screen might well be overwhelming on the Cinerama screen. This introduces a new consideration into our discussion of beauty. There is something about the hu-man spirit, perhaps allied to the appetite for tran- scendence, that makes it reach out for what is grand. "A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, else what’s a heaven for?" Traditionally, being big-souled is being virtuous: magnanimity. In our aesthetic satisfaction there is a certain proper kind of intensity just in comparative magnitude. Nor is this to devalue the beauty of small delicate things--there are beautiful things that would suffer violence in enlargement. Yet it does remain true that sheer magnitude awakens the human spirit and issues a call to it to be likewise grand. This is as true of the aesthetic exlSerience as of other realms of our. ex-perience. Let us again apply our aesthetique to community life. Perhaps we should begin with the acknowledgement that there is a kind of intensity in the relationship between two friends that cannot be enlarged to a whole com-munity- this would be a naive aim. Yet on the other hand, there is a magnificence in the spirited unity of a large community that is an inspiration to behold, and that is an even greater inspiration to be part of. There is a strength and a power in such a unity. Of course, in speakirig of comparative magnitude as adding strength to beauty, we mean not sheer size alone, but one that is marked by the aesthetic qualities we dis-cussed already. The final point in our discussion of the qualities of aesthetic perfection has to do with variety of detail. Variety of detail can be worked at in many ways. The baroque and rococo are not our ways. But variety is im-portant even in an age that wants its architecture to have a naked beauty often drawn from nothing more or less than the unadorned structural elements. Variety of detail, then, is not extravagance. It is variation and contrast that, from a negative point of v.iew, prevents monotony and boredom; and, from a positive point of view, adds interest and excitement. This aesthetic qual-ity is somewhat akin to the previous one we spoke of. There is a grandeur in variety of detail. Mere variety is not the point; the variety must be well composed so that the contrast is effective. But all else being equal, variety of detail does add an aesthetic perfection. And, of course, variety exacts a keener attention to insure such an ef-fective composition. It doesn’t just happen. Effective unity does not just happen in a community marked by a great variety of temperaments and per-sonalities. It can only be brought about by careful and patient care. Again, that must be conscious effort. It cannot happen unless a community has decided that it wills to work for a greater degree of communitarian beauty and then has begun the communitarian creativity which alone can bring it off. + ÷ ÷ Community ¯ VOLUME 27, 1968 601 Bernard Lee, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 602 At this point something should be said about discord and disharmony, about their positive worth and de-sirability, or rather, about the circumstances in which they are desirable. Effective contrast of different elements makes possible a higher form of beauty. It is discord which makes known the fact that different elements are present which have not been unified in effective contrast. It is dis-cord, then, that points a finger to the spot where at-tention is needed, where effective relating is needed, to incorporate these different elements into a community which will be richer for having taken them unto its own. Even if the minor forms of communitarian beauty have been attained quite well, it is probably humanly im-possible to move to a higher form based on effective contrast without experiencing discord. The discord must be expected. It must be welcomed as the herald of something better to come if it can be dealt with openly and sincerely. And it must not linger to haunt the new unity when it is born. In music the transition from a single tone into a harmony might well--and often does--pass through an intermedi~i(e disharmony. That disharmony often serves to heighten the experience of a ricli harmony which it (even in its split second existence) teased us into yearn-ing for. The application to many of the disharmonies of community life is obvious enough to need no com-mentary. Thus far we have discussed, from a somewhat philo-sophical point of view, the qualities of what is beauti-ful, the qualities which occasion the aesthetic experience for the human spirit. We would like to turn now to the human spirit~ and from that point of view discuss one further factor of prime i.importance in’our experience of beauty. So let us speak of the human spirit. There is a certain restlessness that makes it tire’of repetition. Even if it ha~ accommodated itself to the ease of repetition, it is un-likely that much of the deeper yearning of the human spirit can thus be satisfied. It can at best be anaesthe-tized. Clumsily but accurately rendered, the word "an-aesthetized" means unbeautied, deadened to the aes-thetic. Even beauty can anaesthetize when it is endlessly repeated in the same form. "Perfection will not bear the tedium of indefinite repetition" (Whitehead). To sus-tain the ardor of aesthetic enjoyment requires a con-stant’ search for new perfection. Sometimes the new perfection need not even be a higher one, only an equal perfection. The new experience keeps the spirit aes-thetically intent, alive, and active. Change for the sake of change is capricious. But change, even when the practical situation does not de-mand it, even when the new thing is not an improve-ment, may still be quite desirable if it can sustain the intensity of our aesthetic experience of communitarian beauty. We must emphasize again that conscious recog-nition of striving for communitarian beauty as it has been described is a necessary context for welcoming change and movement and variation. Outside of this context, the change that is not pragmatically necessary is indeed obnoxious. If a com.munity has opted to strive for higher forms o[ beauty in its life together, the element of change needs attention; but to some extent it will take care of itself. The texture of a community changes with every personnel change. The addition or subtraction 6f even one member is bound to affect the quality of a com-munity that has determined its "composition" in view of each unique individual member, ff one member o~ a community has grown and been enriched through per-sonal, experience, the community grows too and accom-modates itself to the new experience within it. In this way each community should have a personality of its own, a beauty of its own that is particular to this com-munity because it is composed of these unique, indi-vidual persons. To the extent that communities have not achieved a beauty characteristic of each, one com-munity will look quite the same as any other. And per-haps we should be reminded here by Bishop Robinson that God is as much in the rapids as in the rocks. Nor is all of this discussion without import for that celebration of community which is the Eucharist. We h~ve probably all reflected how daily repetition of Mass ~can weaken the quality of our experience of it. I think we salve the situation too unctuously by countering that the eye of faith sees behind any possible tedium in the daily repetition. Mass is not simply the presence of God through the signs of bread and wine; the full symbol is the community that is gathered there to further in-tensify its unity in the breaking of one bread and the sharing of a Common cup. Because each community is-- or should be--unique, it must vitalize its celebration of the Eucharist by finding ways of expressing its unique-ness (and thus its beauty) in Mass, for this is how the community offers to God what is most beautiful to Him. The dynamic interaction of individuals in community is constantly modifying the texture of community, be it ever so little. There is, then, the challenge always to find new ways of offering God the new beauties that come to be in our midst, the new Beauties that ARE our Midst. ÷ ÷ ÷ ~,ommunity VOLUME 27, 1968 603 JOHN COWBURN, S.J. The Analogy of Religious Authority and Obedience ÷ ÷ ÷ John Cowburn, s.J., is a faculty member at Loyola College; Watsonia, Victoria S087; Aus-tralia. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS In discussions of authority it is sometimes assumed, I think, that the authority of a father over his children is the first experienced and universally understood form of authority, and that all other forms of authority are ultimately analogous to it. On the basis of these as-sumptions, then, other forms of authority are explained by comparing them with this primordial form: God’s authority over us is explained as being that of a father; the pope is called the Holy Father, bishops are told to be like fathers to their priests and people, pastors like fathers to their parishioners, and religious superiors like fathers and mothers to their subjects; and secular rulers, too, are thought to be like fathers to their subjects. On the other hand, it has been maintained that every form of authority is completely sui generis, so that argu-ments a pari from one form to another are never valid; or that, whatever may be said about secular forms of authority, at any rate the kinds of authority found in the Church are not analogous to natural forms, so that it is not really enlightening to compare them with these. Since, however, theology continually presupposes that analogy is possible and that one can argue by means of it, and since the. gospel has always been preached with the aid of analogies, it is surely reasonable to suppose that analogy can be used in discussions of authority. And if this is agreed on, perhap~ it can also be agreed that the family is the fundamental human society, that all forms of authority are ultimately analogous to forms of au-, thority found in the family, and that reflection on au-thority and obedience as they are exercised there can be helpful for an understanding of the nature of religious authority (not to mention other forms) and of the way in which it ought to be exercised. What I wish to question, however, is that this means that all authority, including that of the religious superior, is analogous to that of a father over his children--but I anticipate. Authority in the Family A family, surely, should not be seen simply as a group of people one of whom has authority over all the others. Rather, it should’ be seen as constituted by two different relationships, or kinds of relationship: there is the re-lationship which binds the husband and wife to each other, and there are the relationships which bind the parents to the children and the children to the parents. Both these relationships involve authority on one side, and the.~recognition of that authority, or obedience, on the other: a husband is the head of the couple formed by his wife and himself, and she promises to love, honor and obey him; and of course parents have authority over their children, who owe them obedience. However, I suggest that we find here two distinct kinds of au-thority and obedience, and that reflection quickly shows that there are radical differences between them.1 Firstly, children do not choose to enter a family and they do not choose their parents, but a woman chooses. to marry and to become the wife of this man rather than of any other. The authority of parents over their chil-dren, then, is not given to them by the children, whereas a husband obtains authority over his wife when she freely gives it to him. The facts, that a woman cannot marry a man without giving him authority over her and that the authority once given may not arbitrarily be taken back do not affect the contention that one of the relationships is constituted by the free consent of both parties and the other is not. Secondly, one relationship is essentially between two adults, whereas the other is essentially between adults and children. If this were not obvious already, it could be shown by stating that a woman cannot marry until she is capable of making freely an important decision that will affect her whole life, that is, until she is no longer a child. Thirdly, in a normal family the parents are superior to their children in knowledge, understanding, wisdom, ¯ common sense, fortitude, and almost every other respect, and the lack of these qualities in children is the reason why they are subject to their parents in the way they are. In a normal family, however, the husband and wife are much more nearly equal in human qualities than par-x I have made this contention in The Person and Love (New York: Alba House, 1968), p. 157. (The English edition, published in London by Geoffrey Chapman, is called Love and the Person.) + + + Authority and Obedience VOLUME 27, 1968 605 ÷ ÷ 1ohn Cowburn, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 60g ents and children are; indeed, if there is very great in-equality a true marriage is virtually impossible. And if in a normal family the husband is usually somewhat older than his wife and in some respects superior to her, this is not the reason why he has authority over her, as is shown by the wives who are actually superior to their husbands in intelligence and other human qualities and who nevertheless give them obedience. That is, if one asks in general why children are always under someone’s dominion the answer is that they are incapable of being left in charge of themselves. If, however, one asks why most women are under the dominion of husbands, the answer is not that. It is, one supposes, that for the unity of a couple it is necessary that one partner be the leader and that the other--who, if she were living alone, would be quite capable of looking after herself--accept his leadership. Fourthly, the authority of parents over their children is transient, whereas that of husband over wife is perma-nent. The authority of parents over their children is greatest when the children are small; as they grow up it lessens; eventually, it ceases--for although adults respect their parents they do not strictly speaking owe them obedience. In contrast to this, the authority of husband over wife is constant and permanent. Fifthly, it would be abnormal for a grown person to obey his parents just as he did when he was a child; and to train anyone to obey in this way all his life would be to prevent him from achieving maturity. But it is per-fectly normal for a mature woman to recognize her husband’s authority--indeed, to be unwilling to accept or acknowledge this kind of authority would, generally speaking, be a sign of immaturity--and a married woman achieves maturity and fulfillment partly by schooling herself to give recognition and willing obedi-ence to her husband. Sixthly, in both cases the exercise of authority and the obedience are expressions of love: a man gives himself to his wife partly by assuming responsibili.ty for her welfare, with the authority that that responsibility car-ries with it, and she gives herself to him in accepting him as head; and parents express their love for their children by not letting them run wild but authoritatively con-trolling their development, while children show their loving acceptance of their parents by obeying them. However, conjugal love and parental-filial love are surely different in kind; and so the authority and obedi-ence in which they are expressed are also different in kind. We come, th(n, to this conclusion: in a family there are two radically.different kinds of authority and obedio ence. In previous ages, I suppose, people would have disagreed with this by maintaining that the authority of husband over wife is not essentially different from that of father over children. When fathers retained their authority over their daughters .not until these were twenty-one but until they were married; and when fathers chose husbands for their daughters and then led the girls to the altar where they handed them over to the bridegrooms; then it seemed to everyone that it was from her father that a man obtained his authority over his wife, and so it was supposed that his authority was essentially of the same kind as that which the father had had, and men supposed that their wives and children were all subject to their authority in much the same way. Today, however, disagreement with my thesis is likely to take a very different form, for it is now being said that husbands do not have real authority over their wives, and that wives do not strictly speaking owe obedi-ence to their husbands. It is, says Julian Gosling, very unnatural and misleading to describe in terms of "au-thority" and "obedience" the relationship between hus-gand and wife, given that the wife has the right and duty to enter fully with her husband into discussion of any decisions that are to be made.~ But discussion is in-compatible with authority and obedience only if these are understood in a very restricted way; and since even today a husband is in some. sense the head or leader of the couple, it seems reasonable to continue to talk Of con-jugal authority and obedience--provided that these are sharply distinguished from parental authority and filial obedience. Religious Obedience Let us now put the question: to which of these two kinds of authority is that of the religious superior analo-gous? Well, firstly, a person is a Christian by virtue of his own free option, and he is a religious by virtue of a choice which in a sense is even more free, since there is" no obligation to make it. If these facts were once ob-scured, when people thought they were Catholics be-cause they were born citizens of Catholic countries br members of Catholic families, while some people~ were religious because their parents had given them into religion at an early age, they are now very clear. Secondly, the relationship between religious superior and subject i~ essentially between two adults, since a person taking religious vows is presumed to be mature "Rhetoric and Marriage," Month, January, 1967, p. 29. + + + Authority and Obedience VOLUME 27, 1968 607 enough to do so. Moreover, many reli, gious superiors are younger than some of their subjects. Thirdly, the precise reason why in religious orders. there are superiors and subjects is not that the superiors have knowledge and virtue,’ while the subjects are stupid and irresponsible. It may well be that on the average those who are superiors are more gifted than those who are subjects, but if all were equally intelligent and prudent it would still be necessary for religious com-munities to have superiors. Fourthly, the state of religious obedience is not tran-sient, extending only over a period of growth, but life-long. ’Fifthly, if the authority of a religious superior were thought of as being analogous to that of a father over his children, then it would be implied that either the subjects ought to live all their lives in a situation which. is abnormal for mature persons, or else that once they have finished their training they can reasonably consider that they have outgrown obedience, strictly so called, and claim a very large measure of independence. If, however, it is thought of as being analogous to conjugal authority, then obedience presents itself as quite con-sonant with personal maturity; indeed, it becomes rea-sonably easy to see how a religious can achieve personal fulfillment and maturity partly by schooling himself to give recognition and willing obedience to a superior. The conclusion seems inescapable: religious authority and obedience are analogous to conjugal authority and obedience rather than to parental authority and filial obedience,a But is this theologically sound? Firstly, it is traditional doctrine that a religious ought to see Christ in his su-perior. But Christ, surely, was Master to the Apostles and He is our Lord, Master, friend, brother or spouse; but He was not their father and He is not ours. It seems, then, entirely in accord with this traditional doctrine to say that a religious superior is lord or master of his subjects in the way that a husband is the head of a couple, and not in the way that a father is in authority over his children.4 However, secondly, it is also tradi-÷ ÷ ÷ .lohn Cowburn, $o~o REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 608 s Karl Rahner says that religious obedience is not analogous to that of children because this is (1) based on lack of knowledge and responsi-bility in the child as compared with the parents; (2) temporary, having as its aim its own eventual disappearance; (3) given by nature, not chosen by personal election ("A Basic Ignatian Concept: Some Reflec-tions on Obedience," Woodstock Letters, v. 86 [1957], pp. 293--4). This is exactly what I maintain, but Rahner does not develop an alterna-tive analogy. ~ Dora Olivier Rousseau writes that St. Benedict "would have the subject see Christ himself in his Abbot with whom he lives con-stantly: Christi enim agere vices in monasterio creditur [abbas]" tional to compare a religious superior to a father or mother. Could it be that this was simply because it was assumed that paternal authority is the basic form of authority to which all other authority---including con-jugal authority--is analogous; and if this assumption is modified, so may the traditional comparison be cor-rected? Some authors begin by affirming that all authority is analogous to that of a father over his children, but they then go on to point out how vastly different is the authority of a religious superior from that of a parent and end by virtually denying their original affirmation.5 It seems more consistent to suppose that all authority is analogous either to that of a father over his children or to that of a husband over his wife; one can then deny that there is any analogy between a religious superior and a parent without coming into conflict with one’s own supposition. Qualifications Firstly, let it be clearly stated that, as with every analogy, there are differences between the terms under comparison. The husband-wife relationship is sexual, which the superior-subject one is not. A husband has only one wife, whereas a religious superior may have many subjects. In most religious orders, superiors are regularly changed, as husbands are not. And so on. Secondly, to say that religious authority is analogous to that of a husband is not to say all that can be said about it. That is, this article makes a point about re-ligious authority but does not attempt to give a com-plete account of it. Thirdly, in all I have been saying I have been con-sidering the normal case, which is that of a superior and a formed religious, rather than that of a superior and a religious who is still in training. In his early years a religious is perhaps something of a child in his order, learning the elements of religious life, and the au-thority of superiors over him has something of a pa- (Introduction to Obedience [London: Blackfriars, 1953], p. 15). "The abbot," Dora Olivier then goes on to say as if it followed naturally, "ought to be the father of his community." But this, surely, is pre-cisely what does not follow from St. Benedict’s principle. ~ For instance, Desmond F. McGoldrick ~ays that the prototype of "dominative power" is that of parents in the home; but he then--and this is what seems to me to be somewhat inconsistent--plays down and even denies any analogy between a parent and a religious superior (Fostering Development [Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 1965], pp. 77-8); and he says: "The attitude which an enlightened Superior should not use towards the other members of the Community is that of the parent-child relationship. She is not a parent; her subjects are not children" (ibid., p. 151). + + + Authority. and Obedience VOLUME 27, lO68 609 ÷ ÷ John Cowbu~n, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 6111 rental character; but, firstly, this is plainly not the case to have in mind when working out a theory of religious authority and obedience, hnd, secondly, the authority of stiperiors over subjects in their years of formation ought even then to be mainly "conjugal" and it ought grad-ually to lose its partly parental character as the subject develops. Practical Implications The thesis maintained above has certain practical implications. Firstly, there is frequently a certain "distance" between parents and children, and some fathers even deliberately maintain a degree of aloofness from their children. Also, some political and military leaders, understanding their authority to be quasi-paternal, have quite deliberately kept aloof from their subjects, and they have incited their subjects to think of them as mysterious, superior beings, to be almost worshipped from afar below, and to be obeyed without question in all things. But since no husband should be aloof from his wife, no religious su-perior should be distant from his subjects or use mys-terious aloofness as a device for obtaining unquestioning obedience. Secondly, parents usually call their children by their Christian names or family nicknames, whereas children call their parents by some respectful form of address such as "Father," "Mother," or abridgements of these; but husbands and wives use reciprocal forms of address towards each other. Also, children are frequently taught to adopt a respectful posture when addressing their parents or other adults, at least when asking for some-thing or "being spoken to"; but wives do not as it were stand to attention when a.ddressing their husbands or being addressed by them. It would, then, seem to be nor-mal for a religious to address his superior in much the same way as he would address the same man if he were not the superior--which in many cases means his Chris-tain name, his name in the order, o~ his nickname if he has one. Thirdly, it frequently happens that parents~if one may put it this way--live more expensively than their children do. They do not, for instance, give to their children as much money to spend .on an outing as they themselves would spend; and if from time to time they entertain friends at restaurants they do not make it pos-sible for their children to’entertain thdir friends at those same restaurants. Similarly, in many armies the officers have a higher standard of living than the men. But husbands and wives share and share alike. Of course, it may sometimes happen that a man has an expensive business lunch while his wife, in town for the day, is having a cheap lunch at a department-store cafeteria; but in general they have the same standard of living. Just so, in a religious community superiors and subjects share and share alike, and superiors do not, because they are superiors, have a higher standard of room furni-ture, dress, means of transport, and so on. Fourthly, parents do not ordinarily bring their chil-dren fully into their consultations, but find it su~cient to give them some sort of explanation of whatever de-cisions have been made which affect them, after they have been made. Children for their part exercise filial obedience by trusting their parents and accepting their decisions without argument. Between husbands and wives, however, full consultation is the rule. It may oc-casionally happen that a man must make some decision without consulting his wife, because he is not given enough time to get in touch with her, because the de-cision involves some information which he is obliged to keep secret even from her, or for some other reason; but such an action must be seen as exceptional and in need of a good reason to justify it. In normal circumstances it would be positively wrong for a husband to take an important decision without genuine consultation with his wife--and this means listening to her really seri-ously- for she has a right to be consulted; and for that matter it would be wrong for her to refuse to enter .into consultation, for he has a right to her participation in the decision-making and the responsibility that it en-tails. Usually the final result is a decision which they feel comes from both of them-~either a wife or a hus-band will often say "We have decided" to do this or that--and yet from first to last it is understood between them that the husband is the head, and that the final word rests with him. He feels this and accepts the re-sponsibility that it carries with it; the wife feels it, positively wants it, and participates in the discussion, which may become an argument, in such a way as never to challenge her husband’s position but rather always to maintain him in it. In view of this we may perhaps sum up a good deal that is being said about the need for dialogue between religious superiors and their subjects by saying that in the past religious superiors often acted as if they were parents and as if their subjects were children, whereas the superior-subject relationship ought to be modeled on that of husband and wife. That is, in the past superiors did not bring the majority of their subjects into their consultations and merely announced decisions to their subjects after they were made, sometimes adding a brief explanation; and subjects exercised a filial obedience by + + + ,Authority and° Obedience VOLUME 27, 1968 611 trusting their superiors and accepting without argument the decisions they made. Now, however, it is everywhere being said that the fullest possible sharing of informa-tion ought to be the rule. Also, while there are times when general discussion is impossible and when su-periors are fully justified in acting on their own, it should be seen as exceptional and as only justified when there are good reasons, for superiors to act without prior consultation of their communities.6 That is, the re-sponsibility for the right government of a community and the carrying out of its work should be shared by all its members--and yet it must be clearly understood and willed by all that the superior is the head of the com-munity, with real authority over its members. In conclusion it might be said, firstly, that present developments are sometimes described--by both those who favor them and those who oppose them--as amount-ing to a change from monarchical to democratic govern-ment in religious orders. It seems better, however, to look for analogies in the family rather than in the po-litical arena, because the family is the fundamental ’ human society and also because in the family authority and obedience both plainly spring from love, as they do in the Church. Secondly, it might be said that those who think of the religious superior as essentially analo-gous to a father or mother inevitably see in contemporary developments a weakening of religious authority. If, how- .ever~ they can accept the proposition that the relation-ship between superior and subject is not’as a rule anal-ogous to the parent-child relationship but to the husband-wife relationship, then they will see that con-temporary developments are tending to realize the true nature of religious authority and obedience,, not to weaken them. o Particularly significant, perhaps, is the suggestion which is being made in various quarters that information about the finances of a house and even of a province or an entire order should be made avail-. able to all members of the house, province, or order; for parents do not normally tell their children how much money they have or keep them informed about income and expenses, whereas modern husbands do normally share this information with their wives and discuss finan-cial problems with them. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS SISTER M. RUTH FOX, O.S.B. PrOviding an Atmosphere for Personality Growth in the Postulancy Religious life* has long been regarded by many as a mode of living almost wholly distinct from human life. Religious men and women were often in the past looked upon as creatures set apart to live an angelic life, a life free of all that was naturally human. They actually tried to live this way and tried to form the candidates to this life in the same manner. That is, the candidates were put into a mold when they entered the postulancy, and they spent their lifetime assimilating this mold into their very being. This procedure turned out molded religious who were not angelic nor human--nor happy. Today, however, we once again realize the basic Christian belief that our human nature is the greatest natural gift we have. It is to be enhanced, not destroyed, during our temporal life. Therefore, it does not matter what specific work or way of life we undertake, we all have a vocation to be human first of all. We cannot be Christian, much less religious, unless we are first of all human. This realization is especially important for those re-ligious who have the responsibility of "formation" in their communities. These sisters have been entrusted with the growth and maturity of not one but many human personalities. They should .be aware that it is possible in the first years of religious life to completely stunt the natural personality growth of the candidates. * This article was written with the help and supervision of Leo R. Kennedy, Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Psychology, Creigh-ton University, Omaha. Dr. Kennedy; who has given professional service to many religious communities of men and women, encouraged the publishing of the article in the hopes that the suggestions con-tained in it would be implemented in Sister Formation prggrams. ÷ ÷ ÷ : Sister M. Ruth Fox, O.S.B., is the postulant directress at Sacred Heart Pri-ory; Richardton, North Dakota 58652.. VOkUME 27~ 1968 613 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister M.. Ruth REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 614 But on the other hand, it is also possible, and impera-tive, to accept the human personality and to help it grow to its fullest capacity.1 In order to help the postulants achieve a mature per-sonality, the directress must first be aware of the char-acteristics of these young women o{ the 1960’s. She should also have a kn6wledge of the process of per-sonalit) growth and the means to encourage proper growth. These topics will be discussed in this article. Who are these young women that come to the postu-lancy in 1968-69? Most of them are in their late teens or early twenties; therefore, they belong to a class of our society commonly called young adults. They are no longer adolescents or teen-agers, or at least they are in the last stages of that group. But neither are they adults. So the postulant directress cannot base her guidance of them on either adolescent or adult psychology exclu-sively, but must choose from both. An excellent way to get to know them is to read current articles written by, on, or for young adults. But the articles must be cur-rent. Even to go back to material written in the 1950’s could be detrimental, because our young people have different ways of expressing their needs in the 1960’s. Though it is true that the basic needs of human nature do not seem to change, there are certain needs that are either more emphasized now or are expressed differently than they were 5, 10, or 100 years ago. In current writing, today’s young adults are classified as the New Breed, the Restless Generation, the Hippies, the Now Generation. But no matter what they are called, their main concerns are fulfillment, personalism, honesty, integrity, authenticity, and love.2 They have been raised in an era of prosperity and plenty. When they ask how to find personal worth, they are only told to take another helping from the silver platter. But they see that materialism does not give any meaning to life. They see the American society as a cold, mechanical, abstract, and emotionally mean-ingless place.3 Because society offers them so little that x W. W. Meissner, S.J., Group Dynamics in the Religious Li/e (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1965) presents a thorough discussion of the community’s responsibility to foster growth. ~ See John Evoy, S.J., "How Neurotic is the New Breed?" Catholic Mind, v. 64 (December, 1966), pp. 28-42; Daniel Goulding, "The Rest-less Generation," Vital Speeches ol the Day, v. 32 (1966), pp. 506-508; Andrew Greeley, "A New Breed," America, CX, 21 (1964), pp. 706-709 and "A Farewell to the New Breed," America, CXIV, 23 (1966), pp. 801-804; George Herndl, "Time of the Now Generation," Liberal Education, LIII, 2 (1967); "The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture," Time, July 7, 1967, pp. 18-22; Robert Jones, "Man of the Year: The Inheritor," Time, January 6, 1967, pp. 18-23. 3See "Meet the Restless Generation," Changing Times, XXI, 6 (June, 1967), pp. 6-11. is meaningful and relevant, they are often forced into cynicism. But they nonetheless wish they could find val-ues, goals, or institutions to which they could commit themselvesA. They reject formal organization, legalism, and out-moded forms and regulations because these seem to stifle individualism. They want to be concerned with persons as persons.5 Perhaps this accounts for their~ emphasis on love and fulfillment. They desperately want to love and be loved for what they are. But they are afraid they are loved only for what they, do. In fact, they have been raised this way: "Do what I tell you, and I will show you I love.you." So they have no real faith in them-selves as persons, no real proof that they are lovable for what they are. Thus they preach love to the world in a frantic effort to find it in themselves and others. Our young people are deeply committed to decency, tolerance, and brotherhood--not as a goal, but as a reality to be lived now. "This generation has no utopia. Its idea is the happening. Let. it be concrete, let it be vivid, let it be personal. Let it be nowl" n Because tomorrow is so unsure and ever changing, today must be lived to the fullest. Living and experiencing cannot b.e postponed. It must be made to happen now. In summary then, the 1968-69 postulant is a member of the Now Generation who comes to the convent not to be "formed into a religious; she comes to be fulfilled as a person." 7 The goal of fulfillment need not frighten the postu-lant directress if she is aware of the process of per-sonality growth. The fundamental theory that should dominate the planning of formation (or fulfillment) is that the growth and development of the candidate must come from within the person. Growth cannot be di-rected from the outside because each individual must develop in terms of his own inner capacities. "The a~- tempt to produce growth by putting man into a mold or demanding conformity is based on a total misunder-standing of man, of his nature and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is sacrificing the person for the con-venience of the system; it is the mechanizing of man. It is a basic lack of respect for the mystery of the human person." 8 If growth and development are individual inner proc- 4 A good presentation of what youth is looking for is found in Erik Erikson, ed., The Challenge of Youth (New York: Doubleday, 1965). ~ Consult the articles by Andrew Greeley mentioned above. o Jones, p. 20. 7 Sister Miriam Rooney, O.P., "The New Breed Enters the Con-vent," C~;oss and Crown, v. 16 (1964), 397. s Paul D’Arcy and Eugene Kennedy, The Genius o] the Apostolate (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965) p. 5. + ÷ ÷ P o stul ancy " . . VOLUME 27, 1968 615 esses, what is the role of the postulant directress? She must provide the atmosphere in which the maximum growth and development are possible. To do this, she must first of all be aware of the psychological process called ego identity. Although this is a lifelong process in which the self links the past, present, and future into one person, there is a crisis of identity which occurs duri.ng late adolescence. At this time the young person realizes he is leaving the security of childhood and entering the uncertainties of young adulthood. He is wavering be-tween what he was and what he hopes to be.a Thus the postulant is seeking to clarify her understanding of who she is and what her role is to be. She is seeking for a sense of self and self-acceptance. "The adolescent hopes to forge for himself a perspective and direction, to achieve an effective integration out of the remnants of his childhood and the hopes of his anticipated adult-hood. Failure to resolve this crisis can result in neurosis, psychosis, or delinquent behavior." x0 To help the postulant through this identity crisis, the directress must provide her with acceptance and un-derstanding. Experiencing warm acceptance by impor-tant people in one’s life is a prerequisite for knowing and accepting oneself. Obviously the important person in the postulant’s life is her directress. So if the postu-lant is to grow, she must know she is loved by her superior. This means that the directress must be warm and loving, not just toward the group but toward each individual in the group. She must take each one into her lieart and really love her. She must be so warm and ac-cepting that the postulant would feel free to confide in her all that she was, is, and hopes to be. Each postulant should realize that she would be loved no matter how many unlovable things she may have done or will do. It is in this atmosphere that the girl can admit and accept her feelings and failures. A person who accepts him-self is also secure enough to accept others. So when each postulant can accept herself and the other postulants, a Christian community of love is. Sister M. Ruth REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 616 ~ A complete explanation of the identity process is found in Erik Erikson, lnsight and Responsibility (New York: Norton, 1964) and "Identity and the Life Cycle," Psychological Issues, v. I (New York: International Universities Press, 1959), pp. 111-117, by the same au-thor. The application of the process to religious life is found in Walter DeBont, O.P., "Identity Crisis and the Male Novice," Rrw~w roR RELigiOUS, v. 21 (1962), pp. 104-128; Barry McLaughlin, S.J., Nature, Grace, and Religious Development (Westminster: Newman, 1964); and Sister Thomas More, C.S.J., "Self Identification and Religious Li~e," in The Retreat Master Faces the Nun in the Modern World, ed. John Powell and others (St. MarTs, Kansas: St. Mary’s College, 1965). ~ McLaughlin, p. $4. formed. Having experienced a sense of love and security in the postulancy, the young woman is better prepared to be an apostle of love. Not only should the directress be warm and loving, but the very surroundings in the convent should reflect this feminine warmth. Why can’t postulancies (and con-vents) look homey? Warmth and growth would be en-couraged by such things as colorful drapes on the windows; a vase of flowers on the table, pictures ’(not just saints!) on the wall, end tables cluttered with cur-rent magazines and newspapers, family photographs on the piano, a knitting bag on the floor. If we have nor-mal healthy conditions, we will. foster normal healthy growth. Many times, normal people leave our convents because they cannot lead abnormal lives in abnormal living conditions. Let’s keep the normal ones111 In an atmosphere of warmth and affection, the postu-lant will feel more free to be herself, and her per-sonality will thus grow in a healthful manner. To make her growth and establishment of identity easier, the directress should realize another difficulty that the postu-lant faces. If the girl experienced normal adolescent de-velopment, she probably established a certain sense of identity before her entrance into the convent. She had a secure place in her family and probably had definite responsibilities to fulfill at home. She possessed ~a certain status in her peer group and perhaps held offices of importance in her high school or college. But in entering the religious community, all these former securities and relationships are either greatly modified or broken en-tirely. She is no longer able to live her identity in the same way. Therefore, to give her a sense of security and continuity, couldn’t these healthy relationships be al-lowed to continue? The postulant’s family was the main environment for her personality growth since birth. Should it suddenly be .discarded as if it were no longer of value? "The breakdown of family ties magnifies the identity crisis." 12 Thus the postulant’s family should feel free and welcome to visit her anytime. Frequent letters should be en-couraged. Perhaps she could go home for weddings, graduations, anniversaries, and an occasional weekend. There is no apparent reason for cutting off all ties with her former friends either. Letters should be allowed to come and go without inspection or limitation. As the postulant gets involved with college and new friend- ~ See Eugene Kenned)’, M.M., "Differentiated Discipline in the Seminary," National Catholic Education Association Bulletin, LX, 1 (August, 1964), pp. 79--89. m Joseph Simmons, C.S.C., "The Catholic College Student: His War against Protection," Ave Maria, CIV, 16 (October 15, 1966), p. 6. 4. 4- Postulancy VOLUME 27, 1968 617 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister M. Ruth REVIEW FOR REI;IGIOUS 618 ships, the letters will gradually decrease. Perhaps rthe postulant’s closest friends could spend a weekend with her at the convent. (This would not only .be good for ,her, but also for the convent’s public relations program.) Discarding uniforms for the postulants might also favor personality growth. If the postulant continues ¯ wearing’ the same dresses she wore before entrance, she has another source of security. At a time when many former securities are left behind, this will give her a sense of identity with her past. It might also help to abolish the notion that "the habit makes the nun." Such a notion is harmful because the postulant may ex-pect the uniform to produce automatic changes in her behavior. She is thus disappointed in herself and in the life when she discovers that she remains the same per-son. Perhaps there is a reason for the donning of a habit at the time of reception into the ,novitiate or at profes-sion of vows. But it seems that at this time of identity crisis, the postulant would be "more secure in her own clothing. Obedience also poses a problem for the directress and the postulants. Today’s youth feel that obedience de-stroys their freedom and perhaps smothers their in-dividual identity. They will ordinarily not refuse to obey; but before carrying out a command, they want to sit down and discuss th~ "why" of it with the superior. This is not to be taken as disrespect or unwillingness to obey. They only wish to obey in a more human manner by understanding what they are doing.13 When they un-derstand, they are able to commit themselves to the deed in a responsible manner. If the directress can find no r~asonable answer to the postulant’s question, "Why should I~do this?" perhaps it should not be done. Even occasional rebellion on the part of an individual may be a healthy assertion of self. Though often referred to as obedience, strict ad-herence to rules and schedules is frequently an escape from responsible, decision making. Directresses should provide as many opportunities as possible for the postu-lants to make their own decisions. It is difficult to see how this can be accomplished if every minute of the day is scheduled for the girls. Other college girls of their age devise their own schedules. They decide the times to study, to write letters, to ~lean their rooms, to retire. A postulant- will soon learn that if she spends all her study time reading novels or watching TV, she will begin to fail in her college classes. She learns this through per-sonal expgrience the hard way.. But this is much more ~ See Stafford Poole, C.M., "The New Breed and the Old Semi-nary," Jubilee, XIII, 2 (June, 1965), pp. 8-13. effective in producing healthy growth in responsibility than if she were simply told the first night in the con-vent: "We study from 8:00 to I0:00 every night." The minimizing of rules and scheduled living is not a relaxation. It is just putting responsibility where it be-longs, on the person. It is changing enforced discipline to self-discipline. Related to rules and schedules is the assignment of household chores such as cleani.ng, ironing, and washing dishes. It is certainly profitable for all members of a community to participate in keeping house. These tasks should be looked upon as means of serving the other members o[ the community. Again, as much initiative as possible should be left to the girls in deciding when and how to do the work. They could also decide among themselves who would do what, and how often they wanted to exchange tasks. These are just a few of the small but important ways in which postulants can be encouraged to grow in maturity. "When we take youngsters out of high school who are still adolescents--a rebellious stage, still longing for adult status--and never let them get a taste of what it means to be an adult, what can we expect but that they will be unhappy subjects." 14 Too often, our candi-dates are not only kept in adolescence, but are even thrown back to childhood. We can help them grow into adulthood simply by giving them trust and responsi-bility. 15 However, there is really not much initiative and re-sponsibility involved in pushing a broom, and a young woman’s need for self-actualization is not met in this way. College girls of our day see themselves as creative and productive, and they have great social concern.1~ They want challenging and difficult work with little intervention from others. If they are not stimulated in this direction, they may withdraw into themselves or develop other signs of maladjustment. If we wish to have zealous sisters, we must not let this youthful enthusiasm of the postulant wither while she is busy writing term papers and wiping dishes. Since she is a member of the Now Generation, she wants to do something meaningful for others now. She wants to undertake a task where there is a definite need for her services and self. In doing a~ John Evoy, S.J., and Van Cristoph, S.J., Personality Development in the Religious LiIe (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 183. an A very helpful book is Psychological Aspects of Spiritual Develop-ment, Michael O’Brien and Raymond Steimel, ed., (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1964). a0 See Elizabeth Monroe Drews, "Counseling for Self-actualization in Gifted Girls and Young Women," Journal of Counseling Psy-chology, XII, 2 (Summer, 1965), pp. 167-175. ÷ ÷ ÷ P ostulancy VOLUME 27, 1968 619 Sister M. ~ Ruth REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 620 a task in which she i~ needed, the young woman comes to ’see her own personal worth. "Every man needs to know that he has an intrinsic’ value, that he is im-portant, worthwhile." lz It often happens in the religious life that people who want to do great things are de-mobilized. But it should be realized that it is a sign of health if a person longs to do something important with his life.is Since postulants are expected to be normal young women, they should be allowed to fulfill this normal need by doing something meaningful for others. Op-portunities within the convent can be found to satisfy some of this need. The older sisters, especially those in the infirmary, need and appreciate the friendship of youth. And youth, in turn, can profit greatly from the wisdom and experience of age. The postulants should be permitted the enrichment of their personalities by close association with all the other members of the com-munity. A meaningful apostolate for action should also be sought outside the convent. Some areas of investigation might be the parish CCD program, high school or young adult discussion clubs, Newman Club, homes for the aged, hospitals, schools, and so forth. Of course, these are only temporary apostolates, but they will satisfy the need for meaningful action now. Howevdr, the postulant must also be well aware of the !ongterm goal toward which she is working. That is, she should have some idea of her future status in the com-munity so that she sees her future role in the group as an important one, one that is worthwhile waiting for. In the fulfillment of self-enjoined and community-appointed apostolates, the postulant will reveal her psy-chological maturity. The directress should watch for manifestations of inferidrity feelings, egotism, undue competitiveness, hbstility, rigidity, and a false sense of reality.~9 Because the girls are not conforming to rigid standards of performance, their personal strengths and weaknesses will appear. The directress can then counsel them accordingly and either help them to grow toward maturity or to realize that they would find greater ful-fillment in another way of life. One other means of providing an atmosphere favor-able to personality growth will be mentioned. Postu-lants, like other normal young women, negd to be free to agsociate with young people of their own age who are 1~Thomas Dubay, S.M., "Psychological Needs in the Religious Context," REvmw FOR Ra~LIGXOUS, V. 21 (1962), p. 525. ~s Refer’ to the article by Eugene Kennedy noted above. ~ Trafford Maher, s.J., Lest We Build on Sand, (St. Louis: Catholic Hospital Association, 1962), pp. 203-208. not necessarily in the religious state. Means should some-how be provided for them to meet and make friends out-side the convent on an intellectual and social level. They will grow through these new interpersonal relationships, for in growing concerned and interested in others, there is a loss of self-centeredness. In listening to the prob-lems of a new college girl friend, the postulant may come to appreciate her own life more. And in relating to a boy of her own age, she will grow in maturity and womanliness. Yes, the postulant should have contact with boys. She grew up amid boys in her family, neighborhood,: and school. She hopefully had the experience of dating. Now after she enters the convent, why should the sight of a person of the opposite sex be denied her? Will the sight of a boy suddenly be harmful to her? It would be so much healthier if she could continue to relate to young men of her own age especially. In relating to them, she grows in femininity, which is very important to her as a young woman. If there is a danger to chastity, if the postulant is not able to control her sexual drives, then it is certainly best for her and for the community to find this out soon. How sad it is for women who have taken vows to discover they cannot speak to a man on the school faculty or a doctor on the staff without becom-ing either rigid and afraid or sexually stimulated. To permit these healthful relationships with other young people, the postulants could be permitted tO at-tend (sometimes without their directress) Newman Club gatherings, interfaith meetings, weekend retreats, and an occasional evening concert or drama. Healthful personality growth in the convent does not just happen. The proper atmosphere has to be prepared and sustained. This is the task of the postulant di-rectress. She must know the characteristics and needs of the young women she is guiding. She must accept and love them unconditionally and provide them with op-portunities for growth in love, responsibility, and womanliness. "Every state in life is meant to lead its followers to a rich personality development together with (and we might add because of) their achievement of the beatific vision of the divine Trinity." ~0 SUPPLEMENTARY ]~IBLIOGRAPHY Allport, Gordon. Pattern and Growth in Personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961. Cameron, Norman. Personality Development and Psychopathol-ogy: A Dynamic Approach. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963. Edward Carney, OSFS. "The Seminary Rule," National Catholic ~0 Dubay, p. 523. ÷ ÷ Pos~laney VOLUME 27, 1%8 62] Education Association Bulletin, LXIII, 1 (August, 1966), 108-114. D’Arcy, Paul."’Differentlated Seminary Discipline," NCEA Bul-letin, LX, 1 (August, 1964), 85-91. Dignan, Sister Howard, B.V.M. "Identity and Change in Re-ligious Life," RrvIEw fOR RV.LICIOUS, XXV, 4 (July, 1966), 669-677. Dondero, Autin, F.S.C. No Borrowed Light: Mental Health for Religious. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1965. Frick, Willard. "Healthy Interpersonal Relationships’. an Ex-ploratory Study," Journal of Individual Psychology, XXIII, 1 (May, 1967), 59-66. Gallen, Joseph, s.J., "Femininity and Spirituality," REVIEW for RrL~G~OUS, XX, 4 (July, 1964), 237-256. Goldberg, Arthur. "J.uvenatrics’. Study of Prolonged Adoles-cence," The Cleartng House, XLI, 5 (December, 1966), 218- 222. Hargadon, Kevin, F.S.C. "Psychological Requirement for Re-ligious Vocation," National Catholic Guidance Conference Journal, X, 4 (Summer, 1966), 271-279. Huyghe, Gerard. Tension and Change: The Problems of Re-ligious Orders Today. Westminster: Newman, 1966. McKinney, Fred. Psychology o[ Personal ~ld]ustment. New York: Wiley, 1941. Maher, Trafford, S.J. Self--.4 Measureless Sea (Cou.nseling: Theory and Practice). St. Louis: Catholic Hospital Associa-tion, 1966. Regan, Francis. "Authority and Obedience in Seminary Train-ing," NCE/1 Bulletin, LXIII, 1 (August, 1966), 103-107. Rogers, Carl. On Becoming a Person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960. Schneiders, Alexander. "Adolescence and the Challenge of Ma-turity," National Catholic Guidance ConIerence Journal, X, 2 (Winter, 1966), 109-117. Simmons, Joseph, C.S.C. "Seminary as Institution," Catholic Education Review, LXIV, 26 (February 1966), 97-105. Stafford, John, C.S.V. "The Religious Rule and Psychological Development," Rrvxv.w voR R~ioIo~s, XXV, 2 (March, 1966), 294-304. Van Kaam, Adrian. Personality Fulfillment in the Religious Life. ~.Vilkes-Barre: Dimension Books, 1967. Walters, Sister Annette, S.C.J. "Attitudes, Values, and Motiva-tional Systems of the American Catholic Woman College Student," Catholic Psychological Record, IV, 1 (Spring, 1966), 20-34. Wilson, C. R. "Self-Acceptance and Religious Security," R~vi~w vo~ R~Lxcxoos, XXI, 6 (November, 1962), 555-559. 4- 4- $i~t~r M." Ruth REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS JOSEPH F. GALLEN, S.J. Proper Juridical Articles of.Constitutions In the article, "Constitutions without Canons," REw~.w fOR R~.LIOIOUS, May, 1968, the purpose was to eliminate as far as possible the canons or laws of the Church from the constitutions of congregations of sisters and brothers. The result would be that the constitutions would almost completely consist of laws proper to the particular institute, which is the nature and definition of constitntions. These proper juridical laws are n~cessary determinations of matters that are undetermined in canon law or’ matters over and above the norms of canon law. It was also advised in the same article that all detailed matters now found in constitutions should be placed in the custom book or in a similar book. The present article lists in ’the first section the juridical topics of proper law that should be in the constitutions, and in the second section gives added matters that I now believe should also be placed in the custom book, that is, matters over and above those put in the custom book in the "Constitutions Without Canons" article. The number in parenthesis after each topic is that of the corresponding article in "Typical Constitutions of Lay Religious Congregations," RrwEw for REL~C~OUS, 25 (1966), 361--~57. The vote of a council is mentioned in the first sec-tion for the purpose of information, but we recom-mended in the "Constitutions without Canons" article that all votes of councils be confined to lists in the cus-tom book. The listing of the matters proper to each institute will also enable all o[ these to make a more accurate study of the juridical matters that should constitute the proper law of an institute. This can result ultimately at least in the increase,or decrease o[ the matters listed in this article. A close study of this aspect was not too easy ÷ ÷ ÷ Joseph F. Gallen, $.J.," writes ~rom St. Joseph’s Church; ~1 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Penn-sylvania VOLUME 27, 1968 in the past due to the large number of canons contained in the constitutions. I. MATTERS THAT MUST BE l~TAINED IN THE CONSTITUTIONS ]oseph F. Gallen, s.l. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1. General purpose (1) 2. Special purpose (2) 3. Authorization necessary [or a change in the special purpose or in the particular works (3-4) 4. Classes of members (5)1 5. Authorization necessary for a change in the reli-gious habit (16) 6. Superior competent to admit to the postulancy and any vote of a council (38)2 7. Duration of postulancy beyond six months (40) 8. Higher superior competent’ to prolong the postu-lancy and any vote of a council (40); to abbreviate a postulancy longer than six months and any vote of a council (40)3 9, Superior competent to dismiss a postulant and any vote of a council (38)4 1 "Unless the state of affairs suggests otherwise, care must be taken to produce in women’s communities a single category of sisters" (Ab-bott- Gallagher, The Documents oI Vatican li [paperback edition], 478). * The Code of Canon Law contains no legislation concerning the superior competent to admit to the postulancy. The matter is there-fore governed by the particular constitutions. In the modern practice of the Holy See the mother general has the right of admission when the congregation is not divided into provinces; if such a division exists, this right is given to the higher superiors or to the mother general for the entire congregation and to the mothers provincial for their own provinces. In the latter type of congregation the right is sometimes given only to the mother general. A very small number of congregations demand the consultative vote of the respective council and an equally small number prescribe a deliberative vote. * Canon 539, § 2, gives the right of prolonging the postulancy to higher superiors. In the constitutions the higher superior who has the right of admission is also the one who has the right of prolonga-tion. Therefore, this matter was explained in the preceding note, and the statements there made on the consultative’ and deliberative vote are also applicable here. Recent constitutiofis permit the mother general, provincial, or higher superiors to abbreviate a postulancy longer than six months provided a postulancy of six months is preserved. At times no vote, th( consultative, or even the deliberative vote o[ the respective council has been prescribed for the abbreviation (REVIEW for RELI¢IOVS, 21 [1962], 409). * In the practice o[ the Sacred Congregation of Religious, the dis-missal of postulants is reserved in the same manner as admission to higher superiors. Some constitutions demand a consultative vote of the council for dismissal even though no vote was required for ad-mission. A few constitutions give a local superior the right of dis-missing a postulant in an urgent case. I0. Higher superior competent to admit to the novice-ship and vote of a council (44)5 11. Authority competen.t for the establishment or transfer of a novitiate (46) 12. Necessity or advisability of a novitiate in each province (47)° 13. Duration of a noviceship beyond a year (50)7 14. Authority competent to dispense from the second year of noviceship (50) 15. Manner of beginning the noviceship (52) 16. Superior competent for the dismissal of a novice and any vote of a council (67)s "In virtue of canon 543 admission to the noviceship appertains to a higher superior, and consequently to the mother general or provincial in a centralized institute, to the superior of a monastery of nuns, and to the mother superior in a congregation that has a similar monastic structure. The same canon demands that the council or chapter have a vote in this admission. The particular constitutions decide whether the council or the chapter has the vote. In centralized institutes the council will always have the vote; in monasteries of nuns and insti. tutes of similar structure the chapter has the vote, but there can be also a previous vote of the council. It is likewise left to the constitu-tions to determine whether this vote of the council or chapter is deliberative or consultative. According to the ordinary practice of the Sacred Congregation the vote is deliberative, but in a few congre-gations it is only consultative. Congregations divided into provinces can have variations. The competent higher superior is frequently the mother provincial with the deliberative vote of her council, but often this must be supple-mented by the confirmation, approval, or consent’of the mother general either alone or with the deliberative or consultative vote of the general council. In other constitutions admission appertains to the mother general or the higher superior with the deliberative or consultative vote of the council, and, finally, in some institutes the mother provincial with the deliberative vote of her council merely proposes the admission to the mother general, who admits with the deliberative vote of her council. ~ Canon law does not oblige each province to have its own novitb ate, but the constitutions impose this obligation either absolutely or as far as it is possible. The Normae of 1901 stated that it was appro-priate for each province to have its own novitiate (n. 303). ¢ Canon 555, § 2, states that a period beyond a year demanded for the noviceship by the particular constitutions is not required for validity unless this is expressly stated in the constitutions. In practice it is required only for liceity. This longer period is practically always two years, but a few institutes have a noviceship of eighteen months. S According to canon’571, § 1, the competent authority for the dismissal of a novice is the superior or the chapter according to the constitutions. In the practice of the Sacred Congregation, the dis-missal of a novice is reserved to higher superiors with the vote of the council, which is more frequently consultative than deliberative. In congregations without provinces, this higher superior is the mother general. In congregations with provinces, the right is more frequently reserved to the mother general, but in some institutes it is given to the higher superior or the mother provincial. When the right is reserved to the mother general, the constitutions at times enact that the mother provincial and her council are to be con-sulted. Constitutions VOLUME 27, 1968 ÷ ÷ ÷ SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 17. Superior competent for the prolongation of the noviceship and any vote of a council (68)9 18. Duration. of temporary vows beyond three years; length of each temporary profession, for example, one of three, another of two years, or vice versa; five annual professions, and so forth (72) 19. Higher superior competent to admit to the pro-fessions, to prolong temporary profession, and vote of a council (73)1° ~ Canon 571, § 2, gives the right of prolongation of the noviceship to higher superiors but does not prescribe any vote of the council. Great variety is found in this matter in constitutions. In congregations without provinces, the right appertains to the mother general. The constitutions often demand no vote but in some the consultative and less frequently the deliberative vote of the council is prescribed. In congregations divided into provinces, the right of prolongation is given to the higher superior or the mother general, alone or with the consultative or deliberative vote of the respective council. 10 In virtue of canon 543, only a higher superior is competent to admit to any religious profession, whether temporary (first, renewal, or prolongation), or perpetual (solemn or simple). The competent higher superior is the mother superior in a congregation that has the monastic’structure and the mother general in a~centralized congrega-tion that is not divided into pr6vinces. In a congregation that has provinces, the constitutions determine whether the one admitting is the mother general or the mother provincial. Such constitutions fre-quently reserve the admissions to all professions to the mother gen-eral. This right is often given also to the mother provincial or higher superiors. Frequently also, and especially for perpetual profession, the mother provincial admits but her admission mnst be confirmed by the mother general. In a few institutes, at least sonde admissions ap-pertain to the mother general and her council but the request for the admission is made by the mother provincial with her council, for example, with the deliberative vote of this council for admiss!on to first temporary profession. If the constitutions do not determine the legitimate higher superior for the prolongation of temporary vows (c. 574, § 2), this appertains to the higher superior who has the right of admitting to either temporary or perpetual profession, but more probably to the latter when the higher superior for both of these admissions is not the same in the law of the constitutions. Canon 543 demands that there be a vote of the council or chapter, without specifying whether the vote is to be deliberative or consulta-tive, for admission to first temporary profession and perpetual pro-fession, whether simple 9r solemn, but not for the renewal of tem-porary vows nor for the prolongation of temporary profession. Canon 575, § 2, demands that the vote for the first temporary profession be deliberative, which is also to be extended to institutes in which the first profession is perpetual by privilege. The same canon appears to prescribe that the vote for the perpetual profession, simple or solemn, be only consultative; but the Holy See in approving consti-tutions interprets the canon as permitting a deliberative vote. There-fore, the Code of Canon Law permits either a consultative or delibera-tive vote for perpetual profession. In centralized congregations the council of the competent higher superior always has the vote. In congregations that have the monastic structure, the chapter has the vote; but there can also be a previous vote of the council. In the constitutions of centralized congregations: (1) the vote of the council.for the first temporary prgfession must be deliberative by reason of canon 575, § 2; (2) for renewals of temporary professions the constitutions commonly prescribe the consultative 20. Superior competent to permit an anticipated re-newal of temporary vows and any vote of a council (78)11 21. Authority competent to dispense from duration of temporary vows beyond three years (74) 22. Superior competent to receive the vows (74) 23. Formula of professions (75) 24. Definition of the vow of poverty (82) 25. Prescription on common life with regard to pov-erty (93) 26. Definition of the vow of chastity (94) 27. Definition of the vow of obedience (95-6, 100) 28. Obligation to obey constitutions and other orders of superiors (99) 29. Superior competent to exclude from renewing temporary vows or from making perpetual profession and any vote of a council (152)t-° 30. (Diocesan) A petition for dismissal of a professed of temporary vows must be made by the mother general and any vote of her council (155)la 31. Previous judgment on the incorrigibility and dis-missal of a. professed of perpetual vows and vote of coun-cil (158)a4 32. Superior competent for the declaration of fact in an automatic dismissal and vote of council (161)15 vote; (3) for the prolongation of temporary vows, the constitutions more frequently demand no vote but some require the consultative and a few the deliberative vote; (4) for perpetual profession the vote prescribed by the constitutions is practically always consultative. a According to canon 577, § 2, an anticipation as such may be per-mitted by any superior, whether a higher or minor local. However, this right is only to admit an anticipation. Since the renewal is a juridical profession, all the requisites of such a profession must be observed, and therefore the admission must be made by the compe-tent higher superior according to the constitutions, as explained in the preceding note. In constitutions an anticipation is usually re-served to a higher superior or to a particular higher superior. ~ Canon 637 leaves to the constitutions the determination of the superior competent for exclusion. The constitutions usually assign this right to the superior general with the consultative vote of her couucil, but a few demand the deliberative vote. A small number of constitutions give this power to the provincial or higher superiors cither alone or with the consultative or, less frequently, the delibera-tive vote of the council (REvmw FOR RELIGIOUS, 25 [1966], 391). ~ In a diocesan congregation the superior general will present the petition for a dismissal to the local ordinary, but the constitutions will frequently require the consultative or deliberative vote of her council for such a petition (REVIEW fOR RELmtOUS, 16 [1957], 272). x, Canon law does not clearly demand the intervention of the mother general nor of her council in the dismissal of a professed of perpetual vows. However, from analogy with the law on the dismis-sal of religious men of perpetual vows and the constant practice of the Sacred Congregation of Religious in the approval of constitutions, the dismissal of a professed woman of perpetual vows in both pon-tifical and diocesan congregations is to be referred to the mot City of Saint Louis (Mo.), http://www.geonames.org/4407084 http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rfr/id/495 |