Gospel Christi an Models Filading

Home , Congregation of Jesus, Just Right for Me, What More Can I Give

The Liturgical Season Living lh~ Gospel Christi an Models Filading God QUARTERLY 68.1 2009 Review for Religious fosters, dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul Vl said, our way of being .church is today the way of dialogue.

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©2009 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue o[ Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections ! 07 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~ gournalof Cathode ~piri~ua~

Editor David L. Fleming sJ Associate Editor Philip C. Fischer SJ Canonical Counsel Elizabeth McDonough OP Scripture Scope Eugene Hensell OSB Editorial Staff Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp

Advisory Board Paul Coutinho SJ Martin Erspamer OSB Margaret Guider OSF QUARTERLY Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard 68.1 Bishop,Terry Steib SVD 2009 contents

prisms 4 Prisms

the liturgical seasons ~ ,~, John’s Seasonable Words: Christmas, Lent, and Easter Andrew Ryder SCJ uses the readings from John during the Christmas, Lent, and Easter seasons to show the Lectionary’s help in hearing/reading God’s word meditatively. Personal Reflection/Group Discussion 21 The Suffering and Death of Jesus Julius D. Leloczky OCist tells a German ~olktale to enter us into a reflection on the new heart humankind received in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

living the gospel ~’~

26 The Prayer of Jesus Richard Gribble CSC seeks to advance our personal and communal conversation with God by looking at the prayer of Jesus as described in the Gospels. Personal Reflection/Group Discussion 41 , My Gospel Spirituality Richard M. Nahman OSA describes through various examples how his experiences provide the "music" which puts him-- body, mind, and spirit--in harmony with the Divine in his life.

Reviera for Religious christian models 49 The Feminine Genius of Mary Ward and Calcutta’s Teresa Robert Conroy MC shows similarities in the lives and charisms of these two well-known founders of religious communities.

61 Situating St. Joseph: Like Wife, Like Husband John M. Samaha SM reflects on the richness of the vocation of St. Joseph, especially as seen through the lens of Mary’s vocation. Personal/Group Reflection Questions

finding God

67 A Hidden Blessing Megan Kate Taylor, a convert to the Greek Orthodox faith, describes with grateful feeling the worldview her limited vision enables her to have.

73 Transfiguration and Motivation Damian C. Ilodigwe emphazies that the transfiguration of the Lord is a powerful reminder that our destiny as disciples of Jesus is tied to the destiny of the crucified and risen Savior.

80 A Guide for Religious Beginning Spiritual Direction Melvin C. Blanchette SS and Robert P. Maloney CM offer directors and directees an introductory survey of Christian mentoring’s what, why, and how.

departments

88 Scripture Scope: A Preface to Reading Romans 93 Canonical Counsel: The Role of Law in the Church 99 Book Reviews

68.1 2009 t always seems a bit abrupt the way our liturgical year moves from the Christmas season to the Lenten-Easter seasons, no matter the few Sundays of Ordinary Time celebrated in-between. Yet this rapid conflation of the liturgical seasons almost seems required for a sound theology. The birth and death/resurrection of Jesus represents a passage of time, yes, but it is better expressed as a "moment" of God’s total identification with his own creation, what we call prisms "God’s salvific action." The early church councils devoted all their energies and decrees to looking at what the incarnation and birth of the Son of God made man really meant. That God could desire and identify with his creation by becoming a human being--true God and true man, as the council says--was such an amazing fact/belief that the problems--all the early heresies and schisms--are violations of this central dogma of our Christian faith. As we pray in the fourth Eucharistic canon, "Father, you so loved the world that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior. He was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, a man like us in all things but sin." A life--even divine life--is not seen only in its beginnings or in its endings. A life must be viewed in its entirety; its value or worth is in the entire sweep of its living. And so it is with Jesus.

Review for Religious In the second millennium, the Roman Latin (or Western) Church began to focus on the end of Christ’s life, restricting, as it were, the true value of his life in the final hours of passion, death, and resurrection. No councils ever defined the terms of redemption or salvation. But the strained theology of atonement that developed in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions over the last four centuries is showing its limitations as we enter into the third millennium. Today we seem to he recapturing the "moment" of Christ’s life--the value or worth of a total life lived from birth to death--as the one salvific event of God in relation to our world. That suffering and pain and even an unjust-death execution are part of God’s salvific action is true. But it also seems true that God’s salvific action includes the pains of adolescence and young adulthood, of ordinary daily work, and of friendships made and so too enmities. Jesus is God taking on the whole of human life, from birth to death, and so letting our human life in its totality--save sin--be taken into God’s eternal divine life. Jesus spends the whole of his life giving himself over to his Father. Our sin, requiring a saving action of God, comes from taking some part of our human life away from God’s divinizing incorporation. We hold some part of ourselves, some action, even some relationship as our own posses- sion as if God has no place .in it. God becoming man did not take away our choice to sin, but Jesus offers compas- sion and forgiveness--a standing offer of divine incorporation-to us in any sinful behavior. We are trying to spend our lives giving ourselves over to God. Christmas to Easter: a "moment" in God’s action to make us one with God in Chi’ist. David L. Fleming SJ

68.1 2009 ANDREW RYDER

John’s Seasonable Words: Christmas, Lent, and Easter

In a previous article I drew attention to the Lectionary’s structure and its usefulness for ,the reading the word of God meditatively,l I now illustrate the point with particular reference to liturgical the writings of John. The Fourth Gospel is used season extensively during the liturgical year, especially in the Christmas, Lenten, and Easter seasons. Hearing John through these major Christian festivals, we are led step by step into his profound teaching on the Word made flesh.

The Christmas Season The three Masses on Christmas announce the good news of Jesus’ birth in different ways. The midnight and dawn Masses take their Gospels from Luke; they tell us about Jesus’ ¯ birth at Bethlehem, the angels’ proclamation of the birth, and the coming of the shepherds

Andrew Ryder scJ teaches theology and church history at All Hallows College and writes from 66 Inchicore Road; Dublin 8, Ireland. [email protected]

Review for Religiot~s to worship the newborn child. John’s prologue (1:1-18) provides the Gospel for the daytime Mass. The opening verses have a particular relevance for Christmas: they introduce John’s concentration on the person of Jesus Christ. Through the Word’s incarnation the divine light has come into the world: "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth" (1:14). So important is the prologue’s message that it is read three times within Christmastide.2 The coming of the Word in the flesh is the decisive theological category of the Fourth Gospel. Everything that follows, even Jesus’ death, is subsidiary to the birth of the Word in human history. For John the incarnation is the defining moment.3 By saying the Word becomes flesh, the evangelist insists on Jesus’ tangible reality. He uses the wordflesb in a positive sense, without the connotation of sinfulness that we find in Paul’s letters, but referring to the true humanity and full mortality of Jesus. "Flesh is now the habitation of the holy. Human flesh is now the embodiment of God in the world. The presence of God dwells in the flesh, not in the Sbekinab of the wilderness tabernacle or of the Holy of Holies. God can be seen and known in a human life and in the fullness of that life. The Word became flesh and dwells among us. The intimacy of this theological moment cannot be overemphasized. God is .known because the Word, who dwells near the Father’s heart, also dwells with human hearts. Indeed, the Word has a human heart. The incarnation places the most positive value on human life.’’4 The prologue reinforces the point with another word: "only-begotten" Son. As the Christmas liturgy makes clear, the word "only-begotten" does not just

68.1 2009 Ryder ¯ John’s Seasonable Words

refer to a unique or one-and-only Son, but refers specifically to his generation and birth. The only-begotten Son’s birth in time is the Father’s supreme gift to the world, as will be emphasized in the oft-quoted verse "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16). There could be no true and saving death of Jesus on the cross if there were no incarnation of the Word. Christmas, then,, is not just a prelude to Lent and Easter. Jesus’ birth is already the essential element of the work of salvation. His death on Calvary redeems the human race because it is the death of the Word made flesh. The feast of the Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Christ to the nations, his manifestation to the world. For the early Christian communities, the Epiphany was more important than ~ Christmas Day, and still I is for many Christians. The only-begotten Son’s ! Its various titles, divine birth in time is the Father’s ! appearance, manifesta- ! tion, and day of lights, supreme gift to the world. I are a reminder that it is t not just about the Magi’s adoration at the crib, but includes two other major revelations of Jesus, his baptism in the river Jordan and the miracle at Cana. Around the feast of the Epiphany (2-7 January), the Fourth Gospel provides the daily Gospels. In a series of encounters (Jn 1:19-2:11), Jesus shows himself to his first disciples. The revelation announced in the prologue now becomes public in Jesus’ ministry. These manifestations culminate at the wedding feast of Cana. The glory of Jesus is revealed to the disciples, and they believe in

Review for Religious him. At Cana the disciples begin an initiation that will culminate in Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection (his "hour"). At that critical moment the Mother of Jesus, who of course plays a significant role at the wedding, will make her second appearance in John’s Gospel. Concluding his analysis of the Cana story, which he calls "The Miracle of the Epiphany," Bultmann emphasizes its symbolism rather than any particular detail or even the miracle worker’s power. The Cana epiphany is a picture of divine glory, introducing and connecting the Fourth Gospel’s other symbols. "For here, as elsewhere, the evangelist’s figurative language refers not to any particular gift brought by the Savior Jesus, but to Jesus himself as the Revealer, as is true of the images of living water, the bread of life and the light, as well as the shepherd and the vine; equally the vine refers not to any special gift, but to Jesus’ gift as a whole, to Jesus himself as the Revealer, as he is finally visible after the completion of his work.’’5 The First Letter of John is read right through Christmastide. Composed most likely after the completion of the Fourth Gospel, the Letter emphasises the moral implications of faith in Jesus Christ: the life of the Word incarnate has set an example for us to follow in daily living. Belief in the incarnation of the Word is not enough. If we do not keep the commandments, the author insists, we are not in the light but are still walking in the darkness (1 Jn 1:6). The Fourth Gospel has insisted on the paramount need of faith in Jesus Christ. But the First Letter of John is a corrective to any notion that behavior is not important as long as people have faith. Since the followers of Jesus share the divine light he brought into the world, they must reflect that light, above all through deeds of

68.1 2009 Ryder ¯ v~obn’s Seasonable Words loving concern for their brothers and sisters (3:11-12). Like the incarnation of the Son of God, Christian life is not a static once-and-for-all moment of illumination but an ongoing struggle to do what is good. Our faith has to be a living faith, and not just a theoretical acceptance of doctrine. Belief in the divine nature of Christ will not give us eternal life if we ignore the need of repentance and conversion. The actions of believers should reflect the divine light that abides within them. Fidelity to the will of God is not only a sign that our knowledge of God is correct; it is the natural outcome of the life of grace. Right conduct, living a life of mutual love, is the surest way to deepen our understanding of the mystery of the incarnation (2:4). The Letter draws our attention to Jesus’ example. His birth was a beginning rather than a complete saving action. His coming in the flesh was not the end of sin in the world, not even for those who were directly touched by him. Right up to the moment of his death, the conflict between light and darkness, between good and evil, continued. The followers of Jesus, too, have to struggle courageously to walk in the light (1 Jn 2:9-11). Walking in the light, the Letter’s author tells us, requires us to choose between options. Such decisions require an awareness of the spirits that motivate us. Without entering into any details about discernment,6 the Letter advises us to test the spirits carefully, lest we be misled: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 Jn 4:1).

Lent, Holy Thursday, Good Friday The forty days of Lent, the church’s preparation for Easter, are a privileged time of grace. During Lent

Review for Religious the Liturgy calls those preparing for baptism, and those already baptized, to conversion of life and deeper reflection on the Christian faith. The Gospel of John plays a central role in this holy season. From the Third Sunday of Lent onwards, in Years A and B, the Gospel stories of the cleansing of the temple (John 2), Nicodemus (John 3), the Samaritan woman (John 4), the man born blind (John 9), and the raising of Lazarus (John 11) illustrate the possibility of conversion and the new life that Jesus offers his followers. These Gospel encounters present "a wide spectrum of characters who have responded quite differently to Jesus--from the inquiring caution of Nicodemus to the inquiring openness of the Samaritan woman, from the worshipful acceptance of the man born blind to the skeptical rejection by the Pharisees. Each of these stories has provided the Lenten congregation with the opportunity to experience each of these different responses for itself, because these stories show rather than simply tell of the challenges and possibilities that arise from encountering Jesus. As the Lenten congregation arrives at the story of John 11, it has seen both responsiveness and resistance to Jesus, and has experienced glimpses of the radical newness that Jesus reveals.’’7 The daily Gospel readings have an important sup- porting role in Lent. They start with John on Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent (and continue right up to the feast of Pentecost). In Lent they focus on the grow- ing antagonism of Jewish leaders to Jesus that leads to his crucifixion and death (Jn 4:43-11:56). Beginning with the debate over the meaning of the Jewish Sabbath, chapters 5-11 contain some of the most difficult parts of the Fourth Gospel. "The Jews" hurl abuse at Jesus. Jesus replies in kind by denouncing them as children of

68.1 2009 Ryder ¯ John’s Seasonable Words

the devil (8:44). Such passages require a lot of careful preparation by the homilist who wants to make sense of them to the Lenten congregation on a dull March morning. John presents the passion and death of Jesus as the moment that begins his glorious return to the Father. Although abased and executed as a criminal, in the eyes of believers Jesus is exalted to the right hand of the Father. The "hour" of The foot washing refers in Jesus is the moment of this the first place to the saving exaltation. He has spoken of "the hour" at the very grace of his passion. beginning of his ministry (2:4). It includes not only ...... his passion, death, and resurrection but also the preparation for the sacrifice of the Passover lamb in the words and actions of Holy Thursday: "Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (Jn 13:1). Inspired by total love, the true Passover lamb, Jesus, goes willing to his death and embraces all that happens to him in his passion. While the washing of the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper is an example of service for all to follow, there is another, even more significant, meaning in the gesture. Jesus’ dialogue with Peter (13:3-11) reveals that the foot washing refers in the first place to the saving grace of his passion. Through the death of Jesus on the cross, living water will flow upon the disciples’ hearts to wash them of sin and enable them to take their place with Christ in the Father’s kingdom (see Jn 7:37-39). Without such a

Review for Religious washing, they can enjoy no communion with the Lord, either here or hereafter: "Unless I wash you, you can have no share with me." The foot washing predicts the coming death of Jesus, though the disciples will only understand this later. John’s Good Friday passion narrative has a distinc- tive quality: the way of the cross in the Fourth Gospel is a royal road that leads to the ~xaltation of the Son of Man. Though of course Jesus clearly experiences the pain of rejection, physical abuse, and public humiliation (only the Fourth Gospel has the "Ecce homo" scene), the sufferings of Jesus are not the central issue. What the Synoptists depict as total debasement, John sees as the elevation of the One who draws all people to himself through the very act of being lifted up on high. Even in his passion, indeed above all in his passion, Jesus reveals himself to the world and calls for a response of faith and commitment. This is "the hour" in which he conquers the powers of evil, though only the eyes of faith can read this message in the horror of the passion scenes. The Roman trial has the central place. Jesus’ explanation of his case to the official judge, Pontius Pilate, is one of the ways he calls for faith "before the forum of world opinion.’’8 Apart from brief mentions of Annas and Caiphas, there is nothing about the Jewish trials. (John has already dealt with these in the conflicted debates of chapters 5-11.) The kingship of Jesus is at the heart of the Roman trial. The evangelist continues this theme even at the crucifixion, the journey to Calvary having been com- pressed into one sentence (19:17). John avoids the scenes !13 of weeping women and helping hands and portrays Jesus making his own way, resolutely, to his destiny. He is lifted up, ascends his royal throne, and takes his place

68.1 2009 Ryder * ~ohn’s Seasonable Words between two thieves. John omits the gory details of the nailing to the cross and the mockery and blasphemy that are given prominence in the synoptic Gospels. The chief priests object to the public proclamation of Jesus’ kingship. They demand a re-wording, but Pilate refuses (19:22). So, despite the objections of "the Jews" and even though he reigns from a cross, Jesus is proclaimed a king. According to their different theological perspectives, the evangelists present the final moments of Jesus in diverse ways. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus carefully puts the finishing touches to a life of total union with the Father. He knows he has done all that was required. His atrocious death is, in reality, the hidden triumph of the Son, who is going back to the Father after complet- ing his earthly mission. Jesus utters his last words, "It is finished," and dies, faithful to the end (19:30). Nothing is left but to give up his spirit. He accepts death as a conscious act of self-offering to God. He has already said that he lays down his life of his own accord (10:18), and now he bows his head in peaceful death.

The Easter Season Beginning with the report of the empty tomb, John’s resurrection narrative (20:1-29) supplies the Easter-week Gospels. Though making profound theological state- ments about the resurrection, the evangelist emphasizes the human dimensions of the mystery. He does this with Mary realizing the stone has been rolled away (20:1), the stark image of the empty tomb (20:2), the Beloved Disciple and Peter seeing the linen cloths and the nap- kin that wrapped Jesus’ head (20:6-7). Such details make it clear that all the burial materials have been discarded. Death has been vanquished.

Review for Religious Peter and the Beloved Disciple witness the action of God. Only the Beloved Disciple sees and believes. By her tears Mary Magdalene shows both her love and her lack of understanding. The portrayal of her confusion deepens when she fails to recognize Jesus as he stands before her. She persists in supposing that the body has been taken away (20:15). Only when the Good Shepherd calls her by name does she recognize him. In the joy of this awareness, she desires to cling to him. But the days of clinging to the historical Jesus are over. His ascension to the Father is about to take place. The apostle Thomas is typical of those who need to see the evidence (20:25). The dismissive way he reacts to the excited news of the other disciples is a forceful expression ¯ of unbelief. He must put his fingers in the wounds before he will ~i~y h~? tears Mary Magdalene believe in the resur- .....-,,~hows both her love and rection. Only the gift *¯ ~ her iack of nd di g of the Lord himself u erstan n. can ensure such a leap of faith, as Jesus urges -- - the doubter not to be faithless but to believe. "Thomas answered him, ’My Lord and my God!’" (20:28). Thomas’s act of belief is the most profound confession of faith in the entire Fourth Gospel. Using an expression that has its roots in the Old Testament worship of God, Thomas moves from skepticism to confession. Like the other apostles, he now believes fully in the resurrection of Jesus. Thomas the doubter becomes Thomas the man of faith.9 The fifty days of Eastertide spell out in greater detail the message of the resurrection. They conclude with the

68.1 2009 Ryder ¯ John’s Seasonable Words gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Roman Missal lists the Sundays of Easter, not after Easter, because all these Sundays and indeed the weekdays too are an extension of the solemnity of Easter. Texts from John "indicate the importance and richness of this season that is the center and summit of the liturgical year. It is not simply a fifty-day extension of a particularly important feast: it sets the paschal mystery at the heart of Christian life for every celebration of the sacraments and for every Day of the Lord. Christ’s resurrection is the primordial object of the faith and hope of the disciples and the church, their reason for living, the spring from which all else flows.’’1° The entire Last Supper discourse of the Fourth Gospel is covered in the daily readings of Eastertide. Its heart is the farewell speech. The intimate address of Jesus to his immediate circle of disciples begins after Judas’s departure into the night darkness (13:30). Jesus is left alone with his closest friends, and he speaks to them with great tenderness and love. In words reminiscent of the farewell speeches of the Old and New Testaments (such as Paul’s address to the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20:17-38), Jesus’ thoughts go beyond the first group of disciples to those who will be faithful in future generations. In this way the Last Supper discourse speaks directly to the readers of the Gospel. We too are invited into the intimate circle of faithful disciples to hear the final words and promises of the Master. The prayer of Jesus On 17), read during the weekdays after the ascension, illustrates the intercession that our Great High Priest offers to God on our behalf. At the end of the Last Supper, Jesus lifts his eyes to heaven and addresses God as "Father." The petition for his own glorification (17:5) moves to a prayer for his disciples

Review for Religious (17:6-19). Because the Father has given them to him, Jesus can rightly seek the Father’s care for those he is leaving behind in a hostile, unbelieving world. Knowing their frailty and the temptations to which they will be exposed, Jesus relies on his Father to keep them together. "For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth" (17:19). Jesus goes on to pray for all who will believe in him. He stresses the love that must exist among them. This has to be so strong that it mirrors the bond between the Father and Jesus himself. Communion with the Father and the Son requires communion among the disciples. The mutual love of the Father and the Son will not only be a model for believers; it will be the source of their unity in the midst of the world’s confusion and disarray. Pentecost is the crowning festival of the Easter season, celebrating the risen Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the apostles and the church. The Pentecost liturgy encompasses two Masses, one for the vigil and the other for the Sunday. They look at the outpouring of the Spirit as promise and fulfillment. The Gospel for the vigil is John 7:37-39, the promise of living water. The image of water is first elaborated in Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman (Third Sunday of Lent, Year A). Living water, the Holy Spirit, is a personal gift of the risen Christ to those who believe in him. The Spirit will empower believers with a divine energy that penetrates every aspect of their being: "On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, ’If anyone thirst, let him come [to me]; and let him drink who believes in me. As the Scripture says, "From within him shall flow rivers of living water."’ (Here he was referring to the Spirit which those who

68.1 2009 Ryder ¯ John’s Seasonable Words came to believe in him were to receive. For there was as yet no Spirit, since Jesus had not been glorified.)’’11 Pentecost Sunday commemorates the gift of the Holy Spirit to the apostles. The paschal mystery, the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is complete only when Jesus breathes his Spirit on the disciples and gives them the great commission: "’Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ’Receive the Holy Spirit’" (19:21-22). The coming of the Holy Spirit is the foundation of the church. Through the Spirit the heavenly Christ commissions and empowers the apostles with the strength he received on coming into the world. His breathing on them is evocative of the divine breath that gave life to the first man, Adam, at the beginning of creation (Gn 2:7). A new beginning takes place with the creation of the new people of God, formed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the yearly feast of Pentecost, the Spirit continues to make Christ ever more present, ever more comprehensible, ever more transforming. In their Spirit-impelled mission to the world, the followers of Jesus continue discovering and developing an ever deeper understanding of the incarnation and the true meaning of the Word made fleshY Through the celebrations of the liturgical year, John’s writings enrich the members of the Christian assembly, according to the needs and capacity of each. Although John gives a clear call to retain an orthodox faith in the person of Jesus Christ, he is not simply concerned with dogmatic purity. He writes so that the reader may have life (20:31). Jesus has come to give his disciples life to the full (10:10). From the person of Christ flow the pro-

Review for Religious found sayings and powerful signs that call for a response of faith. Those who believe in him are illumined by the divine light he brings. The presence of the Word made flesh gives life to the world. Christmas, Lent, and Easter, the yearly festivals of the Word, ensure that the divine presence of Christ, so vividly described in the Johannine writings, continues to renew the church, radiate through her members, and confirm that the liturgy is the source and summit of Christian spiritual life.

Notes 1 "The Bible and the Lectionary," Review for Religious 65.4 (2006): 365-374. 2 Daytime Mass on Christmas Day, the Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas (31 December), and the Second Sunday after Christmas (Years A, B, C). 3 The feast of St. John the Apostle (27 December), so close to Christmas Day, reinforces the message that the fourth evangelist is the theologian of the Incarnate Word. 4 G.R. O’Day, "The Love of God Incarnate," in Life in Abundance (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2005), p. 160. s R. Bultmann. The Gospel of Jobn (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), p. 120. 6 Several reputable Johannine scholars, including Dodd, interpret the "listening to the spirits" referred to in 1 John 4:5-6 as obedience to the voice of the church, speaking through its responsible teachers. The text itself does not make this clear, and we are left with a question mark concerning the crucial issue of the manner in which to make a proper discernment of the spirits. Raymond Brown writes: "In my judgment the criterion [given in 1 John] had little practical chance of success, and ultimately some of the author’s adherents may have sought out the clearer criterion of hierarchical teachers who claimed apostolic authen- tification." The Epistles of John (New York: Doubleday, 1982), p. 510. 7 G.R. O’Day, The Word Disclosed (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2002), pp. 91-92. s R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to John, vol. 3 (New York: Crossroad, 1982), p. 219.

68.1 2009 Ryder ¯ John’s Seasonable Words

9 R. Brown, The Gospel according to John, vol. 2 (London: Chapman, 1966), p. 1047. 10 Days of the Lord, vol. 3 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993), p. 83. " John 7:37-39, R. Brown’s translation, in The Gospel according to John, vol. 1, p. 319. There is a divergence of opinion on the interpretation of this text: Is the flow of living water from the heart of the believer or from Jesus? Among the modern followers of the latter view are Bultmann, Dodd, Brown, and Boismard. 12 j. Nissen, New Readings in John, ed. J. Nissen and S. Pedersen (Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 231.

Personal Reflection / Group Discussion How has Ryder helped me to understand better the unity among the different liturgical seasons of Christmas, Lent, and Easter made evident in the New Testament readings from John?

o What are the ways that my prayer might be better focused for my growth through these Johannine images?

Review for Religious JULIUS D. LELOCZKY

The Suffering and Death of Jesus

egin with a brief telling of a beautiful German ~f~l~tale. Not far from a small town, deep in the forest, there was a dark cave in which there lived a giant. This giant had a strange hobby: he collected human hearts. Fastened to the walls of his cave like trophies, many warm human hearts were throbbing. The giant chose as his next victim a young merchant. He arranged a seemingly accidental encounter and promised the merchant great business successes if he would visit him in his cave. The merchant, pleased with the offer, followed the giant to the cave. When he entered, he was horri- fied at seeing the throbbing hearts, but it was too late to back out. The giant grabbed him, removed his heart, and replaced it with a stone, just as he had done with his other victims. The young man soon became one of his country’s most successful businessmen. Money

Julius D. Leloczky OCist last wrote for us in 2006, from the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas; 3550 Cistercian Road; Irving, Texas 75039. [email protected]

68.1 2009 Leloczky ¯ The Suffering and Death of]erus was pouring his way from every side. But his business transactions gradually became more and more shady. His heart of stone was unable to feel pity when he saw human needs and suffering. This went on for a while until, one evening in a fit of rage, he slapped his wife so hard that she fainted-- and the young merchant came to his senses. He realized his brutal behavior, the unloving pattern of it, hurting his wife, hurting others, making money--and for what? After caring for her, he ran out in the middle of the night to the giant’s forest cave. He tricked the giant into putting back his real human heart "just for a minute," but with his heart back he slipped out of the giant’s hands and escaped. After that his income was small, his business less than thriving, but he began living a happy family life. So ends this little fable. With creation God took a tremendous risk. He created male and female human beings in his image and likeness. He enabled them to think with clarity and to make decisions freely. God’s purpose in creating these magnificent creatures was to have them participate in the divine happiness, in the love among the persons of the Trinity. God’s plan, however, was frustrated. Not satisfied with being created in God’s image and likeness, they wanted to be their own god. They misused their gift of free will, wanting to decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. They rebelled and sank into the swamp of their own sins. With hearts of stone, they became capable of cruelty. But the Creator did not give up hope. Several times he made alliances, covenants, with his human creatures to bring them back to himself, but their hearts of stone went back to their sins. Finally God decided on a radical procedure. Through his prophet Ezekiel he said, "I’ll

Review for Religious remove from their bodies their heart of stone, and I’ll give them in its place a heart of flesh: then they’ll keep my laws" (Ezk 11:19). To achieve this goal he sent his only Son to become a man like us, truly one of us. He piled all the sins of all human beings on his Son, although the Son himself was absolutely sinless. All the sins, the whole misery of our hearts of stone, became the burden of this one man. He became, as Billy Through the passion and death Graham said in one ff the one man, Jesus, of his lectures, the "sin-bearer." He the heart of stone was carried the whole removed from every human being of the human race’s sin on his shoul- wishing to live a new, ders in the form fuller,.richer life, and it was of the cross. In St. Paul’s words, "God ~repl~aced by a feeling, made the One who compassionate human heart. knew no sin, sin, so that through him we could become God’s goodness" (2 Co 5:21). Jesus as "sin-bearer" evokes an illustration in a medical school textbook, where on the figure of the body of one human being the artist represents all the possible diseases. Yes, humankind was mortally ill; it badly needed surgery, to replace its heart of stone with a real human heart. God performed this surgery on his own Son, Jesus. Although the purpose of every surgery is the res- toration of the patient’s health, not his death, there is no surgery without incision, without blood, without a

68.1 2009 Leloczky ¯ The Suffering and Death of Jeyus wound. The surgical intervention for the salvation of humankind, this open-heart surgery, took place outside the walls of the Holy City, Jerusalem. Calvary became the operation room, the cross was the operation table, and the lance of the soldier was the scalpel. Through the passion and death of the one man, Jesus, the heart of stone was removed from every human being wishing to live a new, fuller, richer life, and it was replaced by a feeling, compassionate human heart. The old sinful human being died on Jesus’ cross and then was buried. When on the third day Jesus rose from the dead, the whole of humankind rose to new life. The surgery took place on one man, but through it every human being was restored to health who wished to be restored to health. Isaiah writes: "It was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins" (Is 53:4-5). During his life on earth, Jesus called people to himself with familiar words like "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart [the only one with such a sensitive human heart]; and you will find rest for yourselves, for my yoke is easy, and my burden light" (Mt 11:28-30). But few took him at his word. Some just wanted to see his miracles. People’s attitude toward him manifested itself on Good Friday when they shouted "Crucify him! Crucify him!"--a shout that really meant "This Jesus is disturbing our peace, away with him!" Even his closest followers, the apostles, fled. But look! What was the effect of the surgery performed on the cross? What happened is what Jesus pre-

Review for Religious dicted: "When I am lifted up, I will draw all men and women to myself" On 12:32). The magnetism that Jesus had all his life did not work well because people had hearts of stone. But, when he was lifted up on the operating table of the cross, and the soldier’s lance pierced his heart, the hearts of all those seeking recovery were healed. The stony hearts were changed into warm, throbbing, loving human hearts, and they were deeply attracted to Jesus. Millions and millions of famous and unknown saints have allowed themselves to be attracted to him. Jesus has attracted them and us because our hearts have become like Jesus’ heart. As long as we live on this earth, of course, we are in danger of letting our heart of flesh again become stony. That is why we are warned in Psalm 95: "Today, if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts!" But the definitive victory has been won, and we can always return to Jesus with another change of heart. This was and is the great divine open-heart surgery. This is the way that God achieved our eternal salvation. This is the way that we got back our lost divine relationship. This is the way that our life and friendship with God have been definitively revived and enduringly given to us.

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68.1 2009 RICHARD GRIBBLE

The Prayer of Jesus

Prayer, our daily conversation with the Lord, is central to the Christian life. Scripture tells living us of its need and its efficacy. St. Paul (Col 4:2) says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keep- the ing alert in it with thanksgiving." Jesus tells his gospel disciples, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile" (Mk 6:31). Jesus himself often went to the mountain, spending much time in prayer (Mk 6:46, Lk 6:12). The psalmist provides ample evidence of prayer’s efficacy: "I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears" (Ps 34:4). "Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord will hear me when I call to him" (Ps 4:3). The central nature of prayer becomes evident when the first thing people do when problems arise is pray and ask for prayers. Yes, we implore God for our

Richard Gribble CSC is associate professor in religious studies at Stonehill College; 480 Washington Street; North Easton, Massachusetts 02356. [email protected].

Review for Religious needs, but we also speak to the Lord seeking contrition and forgiveness and giving thanks and praise. For the Christian, prayer in many ways defines our relationship with God. We need to be people of prayer. This essay seeks to advance our personal and communal conversation with God by looking at the prayer of Jesus as described here and there in the Gospels. What did he challenge his followers to do? What does Jesus’ prayer tell us about our personal lives of faith? After an introduction showing that Jesus was the perfect pray-er, and exhorted and taught us to pray, this essay reviews four prayers of Jesus: the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus’ priestly prayer (John 17), his prayer in Gethsemane, and his seven last words on the cross. Learning more about Jesus’ prayers can inspire Christians to emulate the conversation he regularly held with his Father.

Jesus and Prayer There is no question that, while countless people over Christian history have prayed, there is only one ultimate pray-er, and that is Jesus. A 1988 article in this journal says: "Jesus is the pray-er to whom God has responded. God raised Jesus from the dead, sure sign that God heard the prayer of Jesus. His whole life was prayer because his whole life led to the response of God in raising him up. In prayer we are asking that we be heard as was Jesus."l Jesus came to earth to do the will of his Father (Mt 10:40, Mk 9:37, Jn 4:34). In carrying out this mission, Jesus often spoke with his Father; this was obviously direct revelation. Moreover, Jesus’ prayer and actions were totally Consistent; he practiced what he preached. There was no hypocrisy in him. As the ultimate pray-er, Jesus prayed all the time. St. Paul understood this, for he

68.1 2009 Gribble ¯ The Prayer of ~esus told the Ephesians (6:18) to pray "in every opportunity" and "constantly and attentively." We will, however, look at specific times when Jesus prayed. Before his public ministry, he went to the desert and prayed and fasted for forty days (Mt 4:1-2). Before choosing the apostles, Jesus spent the night in prayer (Lk 6:12-16). In the garden of Gethsemane (Mr 26:42), he fervently asked his Father, "If this cup cannot pass unless I drink of it, your will be done." Jesus often retired to deserted places (Lk 5:16, Mt 14:13) to be alone and pray. Not only did Jesus pray at all times, he also spoke to his Father in every location. As a good practicing Jew, Jesus worshiped in the local synagogues in Nazareth and Capernaum and in the temple in Jerusalem. He excori- ated the merchants and other tradesmen for using the temple as a place of business rather than prayer (Lk 19:45-48, Mt 21:12-17, Mk 11: 5-19). Jesus prayed in the fields (Mk 6:41), the desert (Mk 1:35), at meals (Mk 14:22), and on mountaintops (Mk 6:46). The content of Jesus’ prayer, like his overall ministry, was always directed outward for the betterment of others. The scripture scholar Mary Ann Getty has commented, "The content of Jesus’ prayer, whether alone or in public, was inclusive and communal.’’2 This is dramatically illustrated in Jesus’ prayer of unity, "that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (Jn 17:21). All had equal access to Jesus; no one was beyond his purview.

Jesus’ Exhortation to Pray Jesus’ life as the ultimate pray-er prdsents a great challenge to his followers--we must pray as he did. The story of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8 provides

Review for Religious the perfect example of Jesus’ challenge to pray always. In fact, Luke introduces this tale with these words, "Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." The parable emphasizes persistence. The widow’s constant harangue of the unjust judge is a model for how we must implore heaven for the needs in our lives. God wants us to believe that if we persevere our requests will be met. Such persistence acknowledges our complete dependence Jesus" life as the upon God, and it enables us to hear God’s response. ultimate pray-er As the scripture scholar presents a great challenge Anne Wierzbicka has written, "If people attempt to to his followers- say things to God, not we must pray as he did. only will God hear them but also they will hear God, who is saying things to them in the first place; and if they hear God, they will know that God can do things for them, wants to do things for them, and does do good things for them." She adds, "God wants people to pray.... God wants people to know of their dependence on him and to place their trust in him and to do so throughout their lives, regardless of their circumstances.’’3 We must believe that our daily conversation with the Lord is efficacious. In the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 7:7-8), Jesus assures us that our need will be satisfied: "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks on the door will be

68.1 2009 Gribble ¯ The Prayer of yesus opened." A simple appeal, however, is insufficient; we must cry out with faith. If we have faith, the seemingly impossible is made possible. Jesus told his apostles, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ’Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you" (Lk 17:6). Prayer will not remove all the challenges and difficulties we face in life, but will enable us to face them, be strengthened, and be better prepared for challenges in the future.

Jesus’ Methods of Prayer Knowing our need for prayer and believing in its efficacy, we must also see how Jesus suggested that we pray. Again, the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6:5-7) provides great insight. We are not to pray like hypocrites, praying in public places so that others will notice. Rather, Jesus says, "Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Commenting on this passage, the scripture scholar C.G. Montefiore has written: "[Jesus] is not thinking here of synagogal worship, and certainly not deprecat- ing it. But he is anxious that his disciples should practice what he himself cherished and practiced: the habit of private prayer.’’4 There is a need for public worship, but also a need to listen "in secret" to the Father’s response. In such private prayer, there is no possibility of being ostentatious. Georg Strecker says proper prayer "must not satisfy a passion for public recognition but should be an act of obedience. It must concentrate exclusively on the God who is addressed in prayer.’’s What does such prayer seek? It transforms the person who prays. Our prayer is not meant to impress God or to be the correct formula. It is an expression of trust

Review for Religious in a God who knows our needs before we ask. Our asking "is not a matter of informing or manipulating the deity, but of aligning ourselves in trust and acknowledg- ing our need.’’6 In other words, it helps us understand better and accept the will of God in our lives. Jesus emphasized private prayer, but he also acknowledged the need for prayer in community: "Truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Mt 18:19-20). Jesus’ i.,,je s s emphasized private prayer, promise that he ,~ bu ,he also acknowledged the would be present when people gather .eedjurprayer in community. in his name has been a catalyst to organized religion. People experience the power, the synergy, that comes when voices are raised in collective praise, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication. Human beings are communal by nature; we seek to be together. Certainly we need God, but we also need each other. Jesus was constandy in prayer with his Father. Pope Benedict XVI has said, "Jesus’ entire ministry arises from his prayer and is sustained by it.’’7 The Scriptures provide us with a few highly significant prayers of his.

The Lord’s Prayer Unquestionably the prayer most associated with Jesus is the one he personally taught his apostles, the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father. The gospel message it

68.1 2009 Gribble * The Prayer of yesus distills shows its importance. Tertullian (160-235) said the Lord’s Prayer is "truly the summary of the whole gospel.’’8 St. Augustine, writing two centuries later, said, "Run through all the words of the holy prayers [in Scripture] and I do not think you will find anything in them not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer.’’9 St. Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval Dominican scholar, called it "the most perfect of prayers .... In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired; so that this prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order to desire them.’’l° While the prayer is not long or complicated, theologians of the past have shown its depth and profundity. In our day the spiritual writer Patricia Collins has said that the Lord’s Prayer "has such simple, direct words, yet leads us to ever deeper mean- ings. It stands as the very essence of our faith.’’ll The roots of the Lord’s Prayer are found in Judaism and the Aramaic language. The prayer is similar to the Kaddish and its eighteen benedictions. Additionally, Jewish prayer of the first century often addressed God as "our Father," asking that God’s name be hallowed and seeking the coming of his kingdom. The prayer was originally in Aramaic, the popular language of the people in Jesus’ time. This is clear from the use of the word Abba for Father and from the concept "debts," which only Aramaic uses for "sins.’’’2 The prayer is found in three ancient texts: the Gospels of Luke and Matthew and the Didache. The latter two versions are quite similar, owing probably to common sources. All three versions reflect institutional needs and provide a guide for Christian prayer. With time, the Lord’s Prayer became not only a cry of praise and petition, but a basis for Christian teaching as well.

Review for Religious The Lukan version (11:2-4) is thought to be the most original. Exegetes believe that later redactors would not have thought of shortening a prayer of Jesus or removing invocations. Therefore, the shortened version in Luke is thought to be more original. The most widely accepted theory today is that Luke’s version goes back to the Aramaic teaching of Jesus. In due course this was incorporated into "Q" and thus entered both Luke’s and Matthew’s Gospels, each altered according to the writer’s style, structure, and doctrine. As might be expected, with Luke and Matthew sharing the "Q" source, the whole of Luke’s version is contained in Matthew’s. Luke differs from Matthew in three ways: (1) Luke’s initial invocation is only "Father," not "Our Father"; (2) Matthew has an added petition, "Thy will be done as it is in heaven"; (3) in Matthew the last petition has an added ending, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.13 The Matthean version, written for his Jewish-Christian audience, has for a thousand years been the most "accepted" one because of its inclusion in the Roman Mass, and so it will be the form analyzed in this essay. With the word Abba for Father, Jesus invites his apostles to be as intimate with God as he himself is. The scripture scholar Joachim Jeremias comments, "He empowers them to speak to their Heavenly Father literally as a small child speaks to his father, in the same confident and childlike manner.’’~4 For Jesus, "Father" means one who loves, forgives, and knows how to give good gifts to his children. This image dominates the Sermon on the Mount, but is also found elsewhere. The Lord’s Prayer begins praising God in three ways, first, "hallowed be your name." God is to be honored above all. Next is "Your kingdom come,"

68.1 2009 Gribble ¯ The Prayer of yesus with an eschatological meaning. Then we hear "Your will be done," implying contentment with God’s will. Summarizing these petitions, Jeremias writes: These petitions are an expression of an absolute confidence. The disciples of Jesus, standing in the struggle between Christ and Anti-Christ, seemingly a prey of evil and death and Satan, lift their eyes to their Father. In spite of all the demonic powers, they take God’s power seriously. They throw themselves upon his promise and his infinite mercy and give themselves completely into God’s hands in unshak- able confidence.15 These three praises of God are followed by three personal, so-called "we," petitions. First is the petition for daily bread. Most commentators believe this refers to the Sin is seen dS eschatological bread a debt owed to God, of the coming of God’s a debt one cannot ..... kingdom. "Daily" then means continual, nee- essary for survival. We ask for God’s bread, but there is a sense of the need to share his bread with those who have not.16 Some scholars see a direct reference to the Eucharist. Sister Paula Gonzalez offers a contemporary view based on ecology. She calls her fellow religious to bring ideas in this petition into their daily lives: "A trans- formed lifestyle among religious--visible, like the light on a mountaintop--might not only provide inspiring witness, but offer a sense of hope to the many in our overconsuming, addictive society who are starving for a path to a more meaningful and liberating life.’’17 The second petition, "forgive us our debts," assumes

Review for Religioua we are sinners who come before God guilty and in need of God’s healing and forgiveness. Sin is seen as a debt owed to God, a debt one cannot pay. Like the whole prayer, this section is eschatological, but it is also for present needs. Jesus’. disciples believe that God’s forgiveness will save them from the wrath to come in the hour of judgment, but nonetheless they ask that their debts be forgiven today. Matthew assumes three things: (1) God’s forgiveness is unconditional; (2) it precedes human forgiveness of other humans; and (3) it serves as the prayer’s basis. This is a clear example of Matthew’s eschatology of "already but not yet." We have God’s forgiveness, but it can be lost in the final judgment if we do not forgive others.18 The last petition, "lead us not into temptation," has roots in the early Judeo-Christian tradition. Some scholars suggest that early Christians believed that God could lead Jesus’ disciples into temptation if they did not ask to be relieved. In apocalyptic thought, before the final victory of God and the coming of the kingdom, the power of evil would intensify and the people of God would have to endure great tribulation. Thus, Jesus instructs his disciples to ask the Father to keep them from the great test. The petition, however, also implies that contemporary manifestations of evil abound and must be avoided. In this light Jeremias describes the petition’s meaning as "Do not permit that we would be overcome by temptation.’’19

Jesus’ Priestly Prayer In Jesus’ priestly prayer in John 17, he prays for himself and his disciples. In verses 1 through 5, he real- izes his hour has come; the end Of his mission is upon him. He prays that he may use the hour now upon him

68.1 2009 Gribble ¯ The Prayer of Jesus to give God glory, and that he may persevere so that eternal life may be given to all whom the Father has committed to his care. No two ideas were more fulfilled in Christ’s life. He tells the Father, "I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed." Clearly, Jesus taught the goodness of God and carried out his mission to the full. John 17:6-19 addresses Jesus’ relationship with his apostles and other followers. His prayer speaks of the reality that God is for us, on our side, taking care of us in our weakness and foolishness. Jesus says, "I protected them in your name .... I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost." He continues, "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world." Jesus has been the protector of his disciples; he has shown them the way to live their lives. Now, as he returns to the Father, his prayer encourages them to do as he has done for their brothers and sisters. Jesus sees the disciples as a great gift. It is a great compliment and highly significant to say they "do not belong to the world." Why should Jesus devote his life to their salvation? Yet, strangely, he sees this as a fair reason for his life. In a similar vein Jesus said earlier (Jn 10:17-18): "I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." Jesus’ prayer of unity (Jn 17:20-24) has significance for his apostles and for Christians today. Clearly, Jesus realized that the path he was setting for them and us would not be easy and they would need each other. So

Review for Religious he prays that they may be one as Jesus is one with his Father. As the apostles could not "go it alone," so we today need each other. Many scholars point to this section of Jesus’ final discourse as a perfect entrde for the ecumenical movement. The theologian Edwin Gordon nicely summarizes the efficacy of Jesus’ words: "To a world which because of its fallen condition has lost its sense of direction, the mark of unity stands out as a great beacon of hope and rock of firmness.’’2°

Jesus’ Prayer in Gethsemane Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane manifests his humanity while providing a fourfold invitation to his apostles and to Christians today. The spiritual writer Brother Joel Giallanza CSC has captured this. First, he says, the prayer is an invitation to stillness: "Sit here while I go over there and pray" .... (Mt 26:36). Jesus seeks, more than silence, a stillness of the heart. Second, Jesus seeks, more than silence, Jesus’ prayer is an invita- stillness of the heart. tion to trust. Todaywe want a sure thing, but trust asks something - more and different--to allow the Lord to be present and to pray within our stillness: "To trust the Lord while he prays is to believe the love he bears for us, to accept what he wills for us, and to rely on the promises he made to us." Third, Jesus’ prayer is an invitation to humility: "To be humble is to acknowledge our dependence on the Lord, to recognize our need for him in life, and thereby37 to accept that he is the source of all good and we are gifted by his goodness." Lastly, Jesus’ prayer in the garden is an invitation to self-knowledge and self-acceptance:

68.1 2009 Gribble ¯ The Prayer of Jesus

"To know ourselves is to know God, to accept ourselves is to accept God as intimately involved in our life.’’2~ In this fourfold invitation we see that, while Jesus prays in ear- nest to his Father for delivery from his hour, he remem- bers the ones to whom he was sent, those for whom he was given responsibility in the world.

Jesus’ Seven Last Words Jesus’ final prayer comprises the "seven last words" of Jesus on the cross. In a gesture of understanding and forgiveness he cries out, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:34). He prays for those who have tortured and crucified him. He holds no ill will; they are ignorant of their crime. Jesus’ words encourage us to forgive others when they act against us. Jesus continues his prayer for others by telling the good thief, whom tradition has given the name Dismas, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (Lk 23:43). His words suggest, like the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16), that it is never too late to return to God. From the cross Jesus provides for his mother, saying "Woman, here is your son" and, to John, "Here is your mother" (Jn 19:26). He gives them to each o~er for their mutual care. In his last four words, Jesus is in communication with his Father and his humanity. He cries, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34). Again Jesus’ humanity is evident when he says, "I thirst" (In 19:28). When the time for his return to the Father is imminent, he resigns himself and says "It is finished" (In 19:30). Jesus’ final words, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," acknowledge that he will return to God. He has come into the world and done the Father’s will. He has preached the word, cared for those God

Review for Religious gave him, and initiated the kingdom of God on earth. He is ready to return home. Jesus’ prayer in the Scriptures teaches us many things. Jesus is the ultimate pray-er, and his whole life was a prayer. Through the pattern of his life and his message of love, hope, and peace, we learn of our need to pray and to do so always, everywhe.re, and fervently. As Jesus prayed in synagogues, on mountaintops, and in gardens, we too must open our hearts to the Lord in the multiple venues of our life. Jesus’ prayers give us an understanding of life. We never pray alone, even when we pray in private. We must pray for others as Jesus did, who never, even at the hour of death, forgot the brothers and sisters his Father gave him. As Christian people, bearing his name, we follow in Jesus’ footsteps, needing to pray, ever learning to pray, and praying.

Notes ’ David P. Reid, "The One Prayer of Jesus," Review for Religious 47 (January-February 1988): 26. 2 Mary Ann Getty, "Jesus Prayer," Modern Liturgy 24 (June/July 1997): 22. 3 Anne Wierzbicka, What Did Jesus Mean? Explaining the Sermon on the Mount and the Parables in Simple and Universal Concepts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 424 & 426. 4 Quoted in Wierzbicka, p. 147. s Quoted in Wierzbicka, p. 145 6 New Interpreter’s Bible ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), vol. 8, p. 202. 7 Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVl), Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 132. s De Orat. 1: PL 1, 1155; Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2761. 9 Ep. 130, 12, 22: PL 33, 503; Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2762. ~0 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae.83.9; Catechism of

68.1 2009 Gribble * The Prayer of Jesus the Catholic Church, §2763. tt Patricia Collins, "The Prayer of Our Lord: A Gospel View," Spiritual Life 31 (Spring 1985): 21. ~2 New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p. 202. ,3 Joachim Jeremias, "The Lord’s Prayer in Modern Research," in New Testament Issues ed. Richard Batey (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1970): 92. ~4 Jeremias, p. 96. 15 Jeremias, p. 96. ,6 New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p. 204. ,7 Paula Gonzalez SC, "Prayer of Jesus in an Ecological Age," Sisters Today 67 (March 1995): 86. ,s New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, pp. 204-205. ,9 Jeremias, p. 99. 20 Edwin Gordon, "Our Lord’s Priestly Prayer," Homiletic and Pastoral Review 92 (July 1992): 21. 2~ Joel Giallanza CSC, "Sit Here While I Pray," Contemplative Review 16 (April 1983): 12, 14, 13.

Personal Reflection [ Group Discussion 1. How has Jesus’ way of praying in the Gospels affected the way I pray? 2. What do I do to continue to grow as a pray-er?

Review for Religious RICHARD M. NAHMAN

My Gospel Spirituality

~t! ~]~ h, how I wish I were with you. But, in his " "x~," inscrutable way, God is asking me to ’fast’ this year from the banquet of your companionship. Please keep me in your prayers." When Bob White asked if I would prepare something brief on "gospel spirituality," I said "Sure," without the foggiest notion of what it would be all about. What follows is a sample of the stew I concocted after reflecting on ingredients gathered from various experiences. If God can use them to speak to you, great! As I have grown in age (and, I hope, wisdom)--I am seventy and have been an Augustinian for fifty years-- my approach to the Gospels has changed. I used to reflect upon them to learn more and get deeper insights into Jesus and all he revealed about Divinity and our relationship with Divinity. Now, however, something different happens. It is not that I think I have plumbed deeply and know all 41

Richard M. Nahman OSA first wrote this for an ecumenical clergy assembly, but then could not present it himself. His address is 2345 University Avenue; Bronx, New York 10468. [email protected]

68.1 2009 Nahman * My Gospel Spirituality

there is to know, but rather that, when I reflect on the Gospels now, I find myself focused less on the "factual" content and more on the music they play. It is something like listening to Beverly Sills sing an aria in a foreign language. I do not have to understand a word, but simply allow my spirit to resonate with and be touched by the music. For me, that is what "spirituality" is: all those experiences that provide the "music" which puts me, body, mind, and spirit, in harmony with the Divine in my life. When I now reflect on the Gospels, I allow myself to be challenged by the consonance or dissonance of my spirit in relation to the melody of God’s Word. I take owner- ship of my life and allow myself to be challenged by the rhythm of Jesus’ life, allowing him to lead the dance and observe when I stumble over his or my feet. Like "pillow talk," I imagine, this is so personal and individualized that I find it hard to "put it out there" for others. But what I have I offer you.

Jesus the Itinerant Preacher Responding to the call of my present ministry with Food for the Poor, my awareness leads me to identify with Jesus, the itinerant preacher. Instead of the Suffering Servant, healer, teacher, and some other images which my present health and ministerial opportunities prompt me to link with Jesus, I find myself more in sync with Jesus the traveling preacher. When I realize he ministered publicly for only about eleven hundred days and found himself in Lebanon, Syria, Galilee, and Judea, hoofing it all the way, I get some flavor, especially from Mark’s Gospel, of a .~esus always on the move. In the course of these three years of word and action (24 parables, 47 miracles, several major discourses), Jesus

Review for Religious traveled with an urgency to reveal his experience of the Divine and invite his hearers to share in the joy of this experience. I challenge myself, "Is this what I am doing when I travel from parish to parish?"

¯ Jesus Preaching with Authority Scholars have told me that the popular understanding of the English word "authority" misses the boat. The word is from the same root as we get the words "author" and "authenticity." Jesus spoke as if he had Walking among us, written the book. As I dance ..... Jesus was a salesman. with Jesus to this tune, I am challenged. How authentic am I? Especially with Food for the Poor, do I challenge myself, asking, "Am I ’selling’ a heartrending ’product,’ or the Word of God alive in me?" Walking among us, Jesus was a salesman. He had something he wanted others to own. There are sales- men who have excellent production records, record sales numbers. But, like the proverbial used-car salesman, they may not be selling with "authenticity." All they may be doing is speaking "about" an attractive product, but not of their experience of what they are selling. Every male obstetrician can talk learnedly "about" childbirth. Only a mother can give authentic testimony to childbirth. Do I testify.to the gospel message as authentically as a mother testifies about childbirth, or do I proclaim "about" it as a learned obstetrician?

Loving the Poor without Being Poor For the longest time I struggled with the authen-

68.1 2009 Nabman ¯ My Gospel Spirituality ticity of my lifestyle, my vow of poverty, and my message. I wanted to "imitate" Jesus. I accepted uncritically the image of Jesus that I was handed: From his birth in an animal shelter to his shameful death, naked on the cross, he was the poorest of the poor. With these images in mind, I continually struggled with the dissonance between how I lived and how my "dance partner" lived. Gradually it dawned on me that I was out of step, not with the tune the Gospels were playing, but with my images. The Gospels do not present Jesus as poor. I now think that, when Jesus said "the Son of Man has no place to lay his head," he was saying he was the itinerant preacher, always on the road, and was not describing his economic status. Indeed, the Gospels tell us that Jesus was born in an animal shelter, but fairly quickly they tell us that the family were visited by foreign nobility who enriched them with gifts befitting a king. He grew up as a mem- ber of an artisan family, which was a comfortable enough economic category. He seems to have had two homes, one in Nazareth and one in Capernaum, and when he died his clothing was worth dividing up and his tunic worth gambling for. Unlike many people, Jesus seems to have had economic stability, as I do. But again I find myself challenged, challenged to respond to that stability with the same mind as was in Jesus. The challenge for me now is in facing a sneaky sense of entitlement that creeps in. I believe I am gaining an insight into why Jesus said "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Jesus loved the poor, not because he was one of them, but simply because they were his brother and sister. It is with that Jesus, living a life of simplicity not by the force of circumstances but by choice, that I find myself dancing more comfortably and in sync.

Review for Religious Modern transportation allows me to be at my "Capernaum" more than Jesus was at his and "on the road" less than Jesus was. But mutatis mutandis I experience a satisfaction that I am following in his footsteps-- being the itinerant preacher and echoing his message: "We are all children of a loving God. And God, like any loving parent, has a deep desire for us to share with our brothers and sisters so that each of us children may have what we need to experience the fullness of the life he has given us and continues to give."

Feeding, Slaking, Clothing, Sheltering, Companioning The sketch above gives a glimpse of my dance with the Lord in the ballroom of ministry. There was a point in my life when I would have said that my ministry was my life, but I have come to realize that what I do in ministry flows from who I am. For me this seems an impossible dichotomy~reminding me of little Tommy who wanted to know how his cat worked, so he took it apart. But there is a difference between who I am and what I do. The challenge is to be authentic, to be who I am in what I am doing. There is an adage which speaks to me: "Who you are shouts so loud I cannot hear what you are saying." What is a gospel spirituality for me, then, when I am not the minister? For me this has been a slowly developing awareness. I used to depend upon the structure of ministry and the satisfaction I got from it to define my spiritual life. I was somewhat like people who allow their work to define their life and then, when retirement occurs, find their life meaningless. I had fallen into the same trap once before. I allowed the seminary structure to define my prayer life. Community life had provided something, but when I left the seminary that structure

68.1 2009 Nabman ¯ My Gospel Spirituality

was gone. I was on my own. Only then did I realize how unintegrated, how inauthentic, how dependent upon something outside myself my prayer life had been. I must be a slow learner, for in later years I was doing the same thing--substituting structure for substance, accepting the nourishment of ministerial satisfaction as spirituality. It was only after I "burned out" that I realized how spiritually malnourished this left me. Perhaps it is my Augustinian heritage, but the rhythm of Matthew 25 is what now gives consonance with the strings of my spirit. It is the passage on which Augustine wrote more than on any other-- about 125 times. For The rhythm of Matthew 25 ’ Augustine, God is inseparable from the is what now gives consonance poor, and he tells us with the strings of my spiriL that this relationship is the unique and definitive criterion of salvation (Sermon 389.5). People in Alcoholics Anonymous have a twelve-step program for recovery. I have adopted a seven-step one, based on Matthew 25, and I allow Jesus to be the pro- tagonist. How do I experience Jesus feeding my hunger, slaking my thirst, clothing my nakedness, sheltering me, welcoming me, comforting me, companioning me in my isolation? It is not that I have loved, but that I have first been loved. It is when I allow myself to be overwhelmed as the recipient that I become involved in giving what I received and then receiving what I give. I go out, week after week, more and more augmenting holy human sympathy and empathy for brothers and sisters of mine in their various miseries (what I imagine

R~view for Religious to be Sally Struthers’ empathy in "Feed the Children"), augmenting it with what I feel to be an echo of Jesus’ motivation--a burning desire to bring to these, my brothers and sisters, what I have received and what I know God intends for them, a parental embrace of me and them in one and the same hug.

Meeting Jesus in the Poor As I muse over the Gospels, I have recently been asking myself, "Do I see in the poor what Jesus saw in the poor?" I challenge myself with the probability that I do not. Did Jesus see himself in the poor? I try. Under my desk glass I have the before and after pictures of Hector, and as I begin my day’s work I pause, look at the picture, use the Speakers’ Bureau Prayer as a motif, and try to attune my day to seeing Jesus in the poor. But, since I began working on this reflection, I have been questioning myself. In my effort to see Jesus in Hector, have I missed Hector? When was the last time I inquired about him or prayed for him by name? What do I know of the car window washers to whom I give a donation as they smear my windshield while I am at a red light? There are homeless people sleeping below my window at the church doors. I do not know their names, much less their stories. Busy finding Jesus, do I miss the person right in front of me? I realize a gap within me. My prayer is too generic. While holding all the poor in prayer, I must be more specific--the child I held at Mustard Seed, the woman I danced with in Haiti--and from now on I must be sure I know and remember their names. How people treasure the scribbled pages they receive from absent loved ones! Letters from home to a battlefield, or from a battlefield to loved ones at

68.1 2009 Nabman * My Gospel Spirituality home. A quiet time.., a private space.., moments of mutual presence, no matter how tenuous. Rapt mutual attentiveness and simple nurturing love! For me, the Gospels are such pages which make present a seemingly absent Loved One. And, with the miracle of grace, at times the presence does not seem tenuous at all: it is consolingly real. And it is then that one can share some pillow talk. I wish I could be there to embrace each of you with a similar hug. Dick

The Task What shall I do With the mounting frustration, The waves of desolation ? What shall I do with the restlessness? The hopelessness, Repeating without meaning? Where am I going? Shall I diverge from the path Without knowing Where or why? These thoughts passing by In the mind of a man called Simon Known to be of Cyrene Were suddenly erased The day he was faced With - or forced to - a task With meaning that cast The man in long remembrance To last To this day and forever: One most magnificent endeavor. Mary Alban Bouchard CSJ

Review for Religious ROBERT CONROY

The Feminine Genius of Mary Ward and Calcutta’s Teresa

Photos of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta often show her in situations of service--cuddling christian an orphaned infant, feeding a homeless man in Nirmal Hriday (the home for the dying)- models or walking the streets near the motherhouse with a gaggle of children around her. The woman that became known as the "Saint of the Gutters," and was recognized all over the world by her blue and white sari, would seem to have little in common with the religious sister who in the 1940s lived in the large com- pound of the Sisters of Loreto at St. Mary’s Entally. Mother Teresa left the security of that convent in August 1948 in order to serve Calcutta’s poor more directly and begin the Missionaries of Charity. She left with only five rupees in her bag, but she also took twenty 49

Robert Conroy MC is superior general of the priestly branch of the Missionaries of Charity family. His address is P.O. Box 530809; San Diego, California 92153.

68.1 2009 Conroy ¯ Mary Ward and Teresa years of formation, experience, and training in the institute Mary Ward founded. The many pictures of Mother Teresa in books popularizing her life and mission tell only part of the story. It is more than twenty years since Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter Mulieris dignitatem, "On the Dignity and Vocation of Women." It seems to me that, through her consecrated life and her tender witness as a mother to the poorest of the poor (and to the religious communities she founded), Blessed Teresa reveals the beauty of what John Paul calls the "feminine genius." In the document the pope refers to the many ways that the church has promoted the dignity of women over the course of history. He says, "In every age and in every country we find many ’perfect’ women (Pr 31:10)who, de.spite persecution, difficulties, and discrimination, have shared in the church’s mission." He then lists some particularly extraordinary women: "Monica, the mother of Augustine, Macrina, Olga of Kiev, Matilda of Tuscany, Hedwig of Silesia, Jadwiga of Cracow, Elizabeth of Thuringia, Birgitta of Sweden, Joan of Arc, Rose of Lima, Elizabeth Ann Seton, and Mary Ward.’" I am especially interested in the woman who appears last in that list, because of her association with Teresa of Calcutta. It is common knowledge that Mother Teresa lived and professed vows in the Irish branch of Mary Ward’s Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I would like to suggest that, even though they were separated by three hundred years of history, a striking number of inter- secting lines run between Mary Ward and her probably most famous daughter. Numerous things could be said of these two "perfect" women, but in this article I offer only two themes for your consideration.

R~view for Religious Foundresses Both Mary Ward and Mother Teresa received the grace to begin religious communities that were unusual for the times in which they were living. The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, begun in the early 17th century, is an apostolic community that is considered one of the fruits of the Council of Trent and the reform of religious life. The radical way of life embraced by Mary Ward and her followers continues to be a sign of the power of the Holy Spirit to awaken new charisms in the church. The Missionaries of Charity also began as an apostolic community (although the M.C. religious family now has male and female contemplative branches). They were founded less than twenty years before the Second Vatican Council and seemed to anticipate the direction of conciliar documents such as Perfectae caritatis, "On the Renewal of Religious Life," with regard to poverty and inculturation and Gaudium et spes, "The Church in the Modern World," on the poor and suffering. In 1585, about twenty years after Trent’s last ses- sion, Mary Ward was born at Mulwith near Ripon in the north of England. Her family was strongly Catholic and suffered in different ways because of persecution of the church at that time. Mary received a solid religious formation and felt the call of God around the age of fifteen, but her parents did not allow her to pursue her desire for religious life until she reached twenty-one. She left for St. Omer in the Netherlands because there was greater freedom of religion on that side of the English Channel. She had a brief experience with a group of Poor Clares, and afterwards, being financially indepen- dent, she decided to found her own community of Poor Clares with women from England. After some months the Lord revealed "that I was not to be of the Order of

68.1 2009 Conroy ¯ Mary Ward and Teresa

St. Clare; some other thing I was to do, what, or what nature I did not see.’’2 She returned to England and for some months during 1609 did some apostolic work by serving the poor in London. While praying one morning she experienced an intellectual vision that consisted of an infused light and the words "glory, glory, glory." Later, Mary Ward would see ;houses after returning to spring up in England, Belgium; the Netherlands, she heard the words: Italy, Germany, Aust ria, "Take the same of Bohemia, and Hungary. the Society.’’3 Mary Ward felt that these experiences of inte- .... rior enlightenment were signs that the Lord wanted her to found a community of women religious in the spirit of Ignatius Loyola. Her desire to begin a new religious community based on the charism of the Jesuits was not met with favor by her Jesuit confessor, Father Roger Lee. The Lord’s inspirations, however, would not depart, and she convinced her director and the local bishop, James Blaise, that this was the will of God. She tried to write down the graces that she had received in a simple rule that underwent various revisions; the essentials are these: ¯ Mixed life: "to render to the neighbor the services of Christian charity, which cannot be discharged in the monastic life.’’4 ¯ Schola Beaiae Mariae (Blessed Mary’s school): Those who would be called to this way of life were to try and live perpetually in the presence of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Review for Religious ¯ Aims: "Besides attending to our own perfection, we desire, in the second place, to devote ourselves with all diligence and prudent zeal to promote or procure the salvation of our neighbor, by means of the education of girls.’’5 ¯ Modified cloister: Mary Ward wanted areas reserved for the exclusive use of the sisters, but did not want them to live the strictly cloistered life of contemplative communities. She wanted areas open to both sisters and stu- dents. ¯ Habit: They would adapt the simple respectable dress of virtuous local women in the place where they were serving. ¯ Poverty: The sisters would observe a simple lifestyle and furnish their house with common items easily found. ¯ Ignatian spirit: The sisters would follow, in an adapted way, the spiritual life as designed by Ignatius Loyola. ¯ Holy Father: "Her women were to be governed by a woman, who was directly responsible to the Holy Father, on the Jesuit model.’’6 The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM) soon grew and spread in Europe. In 1617 the bishop of St. Omer received a favorable response from the Holy See in regard to the rule of this new community. During her lifetime Mary Ward would see houses spring up in England, Belgium, Italy (where they would become known as the Sisters of Loreto), Germany, Austria, Bohemia (Czech Republic), and Hungary. By 1974 the IBVM, in its different branches, had about 3,500 members working on five continents. There are some interesting similarities in the lives of these two foundresses. Both Mary Ward and Mother

68.1 2009 Conroy ¯ 1Vlary Ward and Teresa

Teresa received a solid Catholic upbringing in their homes. The two of them experienced a comfortable lifestyle that was not without the cross. Mary Ward came from a well-to-do family, but lived in a time of religious persecution. The home life of Agnes Gonxhu Bojaxhiu (the future Mother Teresa) was stable for her first nine years, but her father’s death and the Balkan countries’ struggle for independence brought her personal suffering. Both women were inspired to give themselves completely to God and took the necessary steps to pursue their vocations. They shared a great "thirst" for intimacy with Jesus that led them to make great sacrifices and disposed them to receive great spiritual graces. Mary Ward had various experiences of religious life and service of the needy before the graces of 1609, which is considered a Loreto "foundation year.’’7 A series of intellectual visions aided her in outlining the future community. Agnes followed the call to religious life, professed her vows in the institute founded by Mary Ward, and subsequently reached a high degree of sanc- tity. The Lord spoke to her on 10 September 1946, known as "Foundation Day," and, through a series of intellectual visions over the course of two years, Jesus revealed the outline of her new religious con. gregation, the Missionaries of Charity.8

Darkness The recent book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light is built to a large extent around the interior suffering or "darkness" that Mother Teresa experienced from the time she began her work for the poor until the end of her life. Brian Kolodiejchuk MC cites Mother’s words: "If I ever become a saint--I will surely be one of ’dark-

Review for Religious ness.’ I will continually be absent from heaven--to light the light of those in darkness on earth." Father Brian comments: "Taken as a kind of ’mission statement,’ these words of Mother Teresa provide a key to the understanding of her spiritual life, and indeed of her whole life.’’9 As all of us now know, Mother Teresa suffered an incredible trial of purification for almost fifty years. Her interior darkness has come to be understood Mary Ward was a pioneer as a way in which the Lord allowed her to experience in the religious life. a "reparatory night of the spirit.’’~° In other words, -- she was allowed to experience deep desolation on a spiritual level as a means of solidarity and reparation on behalf of her beloved poorest of the poor and the missionary society that she founded. Mary Ward lived in the 17th century, and many of her reflections, letters, instructions for her sisters, and comments on her life and vocation have been preserved. Throughout her writings she appears a woman filled with courage, inspiration, and love for the church. In the 21st century, with so many ways in which women live consecrated life, it is hard for us to appreciate fully that Mary Ward was a pioneer in the religious life. What she proposed for her sisters was nothing less than a radical break from the centuries-long traditions of women’s communities before the Council of Trent; think, for instance, of Poor Clares and cloistered Benedictine and Dominican sisters. Jests Alvarez Gomez CMF, a recognized historian of consecrated life, says that what Mary Ward accomplished "was an authentic revolution in the structures of religious life and in the way

68.1 2009 Conroy ¯ Mary Ward and Teresa

to understand the apostolate.’’11 This "revolution" was certainly inspired by the Holy Spirit, as evidenced by its fruits these past four hundred years, but to live out and put into practice this new charism in the 1600s required nothing less than heroic faith and persever- --- ance. I believe one could say that Mary Ward suffered her own "reparatory night of the She remained faithful spirit" through the persecu- to her call and fervent tion that followed the estab- lishment of her community. in her obedience. There is not much recorded as to what she experienced interiorly from the beginning of her institute in 1609 until her death in 1645, but there is much in external-forum records about what she had to endure. It does not take much imagination to understand just how heavy a cross the Lord asked her to bear. Almost from day one, Mary Ward experienced oppo- sition to the call she had received. She writes: "My confessor resisted, all the Society [Jesuits] opposed .... ,,12 As I mentioned before, her Jesuit confessor was gradually won over to her cause, but the Society of Jesus did not recognize the new institute as being of Ignatian inspiration. Mary Ward had hoped to use and adapt the Jesuit Constitutions for her newborn community, but this permission was not to come for several hundred years. In 1614 there was a written attack on her insftute, and over the next few years accusations were made against Mary Ward and her sisters. She had initially received support from the Holy See, but as time passed concerns about this new way of religious life began to accumulate. What Mary Ward was presenting to the Holy See in the 17th

Review for Reli~ous century was a controversial proposal that would alter an established idea of how women religious were to live and act. She wanted to move away from the cloistered and contemplative model to one akin to "contemplatives in action." Moreover, the attempt to place her congregation directly under the guidance of the Holy Father was not received by all, especially some bishops, with equanimity. The work of Loreto continued to expand, and Mary Ward encouraged her sisters to be faithful to their call, but by the year 1628 dark clouds of unrest appeared. By order of Pope Urban VIII, the nuncios of Flanders and Germany were to begin suppression of her communities. Mary Ward went to Rome to appeal these closings and reconfirm her obedience to the pope. Unfortunately, reports from different countries had been sent to Rome impugning the sisters’ work and expressing concern for the mixed life embraced by the institute. On 13 January 1631, Mary Ward and her sisters received a bull of suppression from the Holy See, which ordered her communities closed and the members sent home with their vows dissolved. An even greater shock still awaited them: a little less than a month later, Mary Ward was "arrested" in Munich by order of the Holy Office "as a heretic and schismatic."~3 Darkness surrounded her, but she remained faithful to her call and fervent in her obedience to the church. In spite of her present condition-which included an illness that brought her close to death--she wrote a letter to the Holy Office on 27 March 1631: I have never, to my knowledge, said or done anything against his Holiness, whose wishes I have offered to obey in the past and offer totally to obey in the present, nor have I ever undermined the huthority of the

68.1 2009 Conroy ¯ Mary Ward and Teresa

Holy Church. On the contrary, for twenty-six years, with great respect for both his Holiness and the Holy Church and in the most honorable way possible, I have put my frail efforts and my industry to their service and this, I hope, by the mercy of God... will be accounted for at the right time and place. Nor would I for anything in the world.., act in any way which might be unbecoming in carrying out my duty as a true and obedient servant of Holy Church.14 After more than two months of incarceration, Mary was released and began to work with great zeal to rebuild the reputation of her community. She went back to Rome and received an audience with Pope Urban VIII. During their meeting she made the following requests: "that he remove from her and her companions the stigma of heresy; that he order the release of [one sister] still imprisoned . . . ; that, as there were still members who wished to live under her direction and under the protection of the Holy See, he give permission for them to come to Rome." The Holy Father accepted her request, and the Holy Office issued a letter that "attempted to rehabilitate Mary Ward and her companions.’’~5 She died in England on 30 January 1645. The followers of Mary Ward were not prohibited from operating schools or teaching. With the approval of bishops in different countries, they continued to serve the needs of young women. The superiors that succeeded Mary Ward diligendy worked to gain pontifical approval of their institute, but it was slow in coming. In 1703 Pope Clement xI approved the Rules of the Institute; it was not until 1877 that Pope Pius IX, through the office de Propaganda Fide, confirmed the institute. In 1909 Pope Pius x allowed Mary Ward to be officially recognized as foundress. Mary Ward’s cause

Review for Religious for beatification was opened in 1928. The Constitutions were approved in 1935, and in 1978 the Holy See allowed the IBVM to use the same Constitutions as the Jesuits. In 2003 the Roman branch of the IBVM adopted the Jesuit Constitutions and changed its name to the Congregation of Jesus. Pope John Paul II refers to Mary Ward as a "perfect woman"--this servant of Christ who remained faithful through many years of trials and purifications. Her "reparatory night" lasted for many years, but her strong witness through the darlmess has subsequently born fruit in the coundess lives of those touched by her faithful followers. It is not hard to see what called forth the following beautiful testimony from Mary Ward’s loyal daughter Blessed Teresa of Calcutta: Mary Ward is God’s gift to the church and to the world, for she brought, especially to women, a new dimension; she made it possible for women to be involved in the wide field of education .... In my deep gratitude to the [Irish] Loreto branch of the Institute for the twenty fruitful years I spent with the sisters, praying and working with them, I pray for each sister, that each may grow in holiness by closely following Mary Ward, especially in her love both for Mary and for those she served?6

Notes l Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 1988, §27. 2 Margaret Mary Littlehales IBVM, Mary Ward (IY8Y-164Y), A Woman for All Seasons: Foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Hrgin Mary (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1974), p. 6. 3 M. Emmanuel Orchard IBVM (ed.), Till God Will (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), pp. 27 & 29. 4 Emmanuel Orchard IBVM, Mary Ward: Once and Future Foundress (London: The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society, 1985), p. 10. Till God Will, p. 44.

68.1 2009 Conroy ¯ Mary Ward and Teresa

6 Once and Future Foundress, p. 8. 7 A Woman for All Seasons, pp. 8 & 9. s See Brian Kolodiejchuk MC, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, The Private Writings of the "Saint of Calcutta" (New York: Doubleday, 2007), chap. 3. 9 Kolodiejchuk, p. 1. ~0 Kolodiejchuk, p. 380, fn. 59. 1~ Jesfis Alvarez Gomez CMF, Historia de la Vida Religiosa, Ill, Desde la "Devotio moderna" basra el Concilio Vaticano II (Madrid: Publicaciones Claretianas, 1990), p. 449. The English translation is mine. ~2 Till God Will, p. 33. ~3 A Woman for All Seasons, p. 23. ~4 Till God Will, p. 111. ~5 Till God Will, p. I 14. ~6 Till God Will, p. vii.

This Morning a Dove After two weeks of below-zero days, a dove coos on the tree outside my window, its claws securely curled around a branch. Is it waiting for a mate? Waiting for spring?

Perhaps it’s not waiting at all, content to sit and coo in the warmth it has found, content not to flit from branch to branch, from tree to tree to seek more sun.

My prayers rest in my hands, unread. "Look at the birds of the air," Jesus said.

Irene Zimmerman OSF

R~view for Religious JOHN M. SAMAHA

Situating St. Joseph: Like Wife, Like Husband

~’A’~Sen asked about the di gnity of St. Joseph in ~ P’ Christian tradition, the late Father Francis L. Filas SJ, the U.S.A.’s leading authority on the subject in his time, responded simply, "Like wife, like husband." The man closest to Jesus and Mary rightly deserves all honor and praise, but he rarely enjoys great press. Usually he is forgotten, or left standing obscurely in the background. His self-effacement seems to have fore- shadowed the scant attention given him by many church teachers. St. Thomas Aquinas, in a hymn honoring the Holy Eucharist, refers to the inadequacy of human language to express full appreciation of it. St. Bernard and other great devotees of our Blessed Mother voiced the same idea about her. Perhaps readers have noticed that it is true also of St. Joseph, Mary’s husband and the virgin father of Jesus.

John M. Samaha SM currently works at Villa St. Joseph; 22840 Mercedes Road; Cupertino, California 95014. [email protected]

68.1 2009 Such appreciation unfolds slowly after much study and reflection. It is not evident at a single glance. Today many Catholics are inclined to think that St. Joseph is a wonderful saint, but was not the real father of Jesus, so they honor him as protector of Mary. With that brief observation they put Joseph in the background and quickly forget him. Actually this benign neglect was common in the first thirteen centuries of Christianity, as lives of early saints and writings of church fathers and doctors show. St. Augustine and a few others wrote about Joseph, but his mention is sparse. The tide toward a strong devotion to St. Joseph turned slowly in the years after 1300. The theology of his vocation, dignity, holiness, and intercession began to flower only in late medieval times, and the 17th century was the golden age. St. Teresa of Avila’s enthusiasm for St. Joseph was remarkable; it was vividly expressed in her writings and perpetuated in the twelve new convents given his name. Renewed attention to Joseph began in the 19th century. All the popes from Pius IX to our present Holy Father have issued substantial teaching about Joseph in their official documents. In 1870 Pius IX, now beatified, officially declared St. Joseph Patron of the Universal Church. The next pope, Leo XIII, set St. Joseph before us at a special rank best described in his encyclical Quarnquarn pluries, 1889: "There can be no doubt that, more than any other person, he approached that super- eminent dignity by which the Mother of God was raised far above all created natures." Such an understanding and appreciation of St. Joseph’s dignity does not blossom all at once. Sustained study and meditation on his twofold vocation are required. The extremes of too much or too little must

Review for Religious be sedulously avoided. A reaction often encountered is that the gospel says Joseph was a just man--what more can be said? Plenty! In 1989 Pope John Paul offered us a master- ful explanation and reflection of the unique vocation of St. Joseph in God’s plan of salvation with Redemptoris custos (Guardian of the Redeemer). This inspirational pastoral letter marking the centenary of Leo XIII’s land- mark encyclical treats the person and mission of St. Joseph in the life of Christ and of the church. It recalls what makes him special, not only for us personally, but for the universal church. Some muse that Joseph’s role is not treated in any detail in Holy Scripture. But neither is the vocation of Mary. What little is said, however, is highly significant. Theologians have reasoned to the many functions and o ~ privileges granted to Mary. i " DeVotion to St. Joseph The same process is followed in regard to Joseph. ,is in reality a facet Once Jesus’ divinity and Mary’s virginal motherhood deVotion to Mary. of God were firmly established in Catholic doctrine and in popular understanding, Joseph began to emerge without anyone’s concern that his unique position as virgin father of Jesus and virginal husband of Mary would be misunderstood. Devotion to St. Joseph is in reality a facet of devotion to Mary. Probing more deeply Joseph’s mission leads us to knowing more deeply the greatness of Mary. St. Joseph’s position in relation to Jesus Christ comes from his position with regard to Mary, Mother of the Redeemer. Something parallel holds true for Mary and

68.1 2009 Samaba ¯ Situating St. ~osepb

Jesus. The better we know Mary, the better we know her Son, from whom she derives all her dignity and whom she reflects so faithfully. Pope Benedict xv expressed this clearly: "By St. Joseph we are led directly to Mary, and by Mary to the fountain of all holiness, Jesus Christ, who sanctified the domestic virtues by his obedience to St. Joseph and Mary." It is certain that God did not choose any unwor- thy man to be the husband of Mary, who was to be the Virgin Mother of God. Even if St. Joseph had been merely Mary’s protector and not her husband, he would still have occupied a position far surpassing that of any other human being. But Joseph is her husband, related to the Mother of God in a marriage that was not less genuine because it was virginal. God brought the marriage into existence for the express purpose of serving the incarnation, so that the Son of God might be received and reared within that holy conjugal union. In all creation God found none more worthy than Mary to be the Mother of Jesus, and none worthier than Joseph to be her husband and to be related to Jesus by the spiritual ties of a true fatherhood. In the words of Leo XIII, "If God gave Joseph as a spouse to the Virgin, He assuredly gave him not only as a companion in life, a witness of her virginity, and the guardian of her honor, but also as a sharer in her exalted dignity by reason of the conjugal tie itself." On Calvary, when Jesus entrusted Mary to St. John’s care for the rest of her earthly life, it was a sign of divine predilection. And we marveled at John’s holiness. But what rnust have been the divine predilection when Joseph was chosen to be Mary’s husband for the many years of Jesus’ hidden life? to be one of the few persons entrusted with the secret of the incarnation? to be the

R~view for Religious only man to receive the primacy of Mary’s affection for all human beings? and to return that love? Mary would not have been perfect in her wifely vocation if she loved any creature more than she loved her husband. And for Joseph the converse was true. The similarity of holiness between Mary and Joseph must, of course, be kept in proper proportion. Mary’s relationship to Jesus was far superior to Joseph’s. But Pope Leo XIII reminded us that after Mary no one was of greater dignity than Joseph; none possessed greater holiness than Joseph. How shall we understand that Joseph is all that he is because of Mary? This means Joseph was given his fatherly responsibility for Jesus because of his virginal marriage with Mary. Through this marriage Joseph was not a mere fosterer, nor was he an adoptive father of Jesus. He was much more than that. Jesus was given to Mary not simply because she was a single maiden, but because she was the virginal and true wife of St. Joseph. Jesus was given to the family of St. Joseph, and that was accomplished only through Mary. Even though St. Joseph was not the physical father of Jesus, he was given the spiritual ties of fatherhood over a Son who was his own because he was the Son of Mary. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph constitute the Holy Family, the basic unit of God’s strategy for the incarnation and our redemption. They belong together in the history of salvation. The three are inseparable and should always be seen and understood together theologically, pasto- rally, and in church art. Their special identities in God’s plan are interrelated. To see them separately is regrettable and misleading. Let us not forget St. Joseph. What St. Joseph did for Jesus and Mary, he will do for us personally and

68.1 2009 Samba * Situating St. Joseph for the universal chui’ch. In this third millennium of Christianity, Jesus and Mary will bring us closer to Joseph as we realize more clearly and deeply the mission of the Holy Family in salvation history. Veneration of St. Joseph will increase in proportion to the intensity of our devotion to Jesus and Mary. Like wife, like husband.

Questions for Personal Reflection / Group Discussion

1. How has this article helped in gaining a richer appreciation of St. Joseph?

2. There is a saying that "you come to know a person through the company he/she keeps." Who are the saints most important for me and my life?

Review for Religious MEGAN KATE TAYLOR

A Hidden Blessing

I am a convert to the Greek Orthodox faith. Here is a snapshot of life as I see it. My view finding of life is not always what it seems. Imagination is great company when there is nothing to see God out the window. I was born on the day of St. Parasldvi. She is patron of vision. God in his wisdom, however, did not bless me with the gift of sight the way most people know it. I may be unable to drive a car, catch a tennis ball, or sign my name neatly. But what use is seeing the colour of your eyes if I am incapable of seeing the goodness within your heart? Mercifully I possess a little vision. Not enough to avoid puddles when it rains or trip- ping over the occasional step. However, I am able to distinguish colours and contrasts and shapes with relative ease. I do not appreciate

Megan Kate Taylor writes from 10a Berith Street; Kingsgrove NSW; 2208, Australia. Her email address is [email protected].

68.1 2009 Taylor ¯ A Hidden Blessing a self-serve buffet or the painstakingly minute detail which goes into a Byzantine icon. But I am in awe of the intention behind it, and admire the symbolism of transfiguration. I love the smell of night jasmine and the sound of the ocean. I may not understand a sunset with its exquisite beauty and transformational colour- ing we are rewarded with each day. But, through my connectedness to our Heavenly Father and my inner experience, I draw magnificent riches and fulfillment from the splendour of the outer world. Make no mistake: I have not always been as peaceful with my vision impairment as I am these days. Orthodoxy has certainly helped with that. Just as anyone else, I have my moments of weakness and doubt. Sometimes I simply cannot comprehend why God would have chosen this for me. "What good can I do if I can’t find acceptance?" I say to him, throwing my hands up in exacerbation. Sure enough, it does not take long for him to show me the answer, restoring my faith beyond its original scope. "I don’t know why I ever doubted you," I giggle. Ever grateful and humbled by his higher perspective, and graceful presence within my life. Thankfully, for the most part I am quick to see the humour within any given situation, and take great delight in sharing it with my loved ones. I have been known to mistake chicken stock for fruit juice. Hair- removal cream, for toothpaste. Chocolate topping, for teriyaki marinade. Each item closely resembling the other through their packaging. Earlier this year I ran into exactly the same lamppost three times in three weeks. Not exactly my most glorious moments, but incredibly funny. I feel guilty when I have to ask for help. Particularly if it is a task I consider to be easy, and in theory I should

Review for Religious be resourceful enough to complete. I have fantastic the- ories. It literally does not occur to me I cannot do them, until I can’t do them. Surely, if I can think of it, it can be done. Apparently this is not always true. I am fre- quently surprised by this. Much like playing Lotto, I am astonished when I do not win. After all, I did enter. I experience enormous indecisiveness over using my white cane. On the one hand, it makes my life so much easier, and I am more confident in asking for help with what I need when I have it. Yet, on the other, I feel I feel guilty when vulnerable and cumbersome. have to ask for help. People take more notice when I use it, and it is not always positive attention. Sometimes I am made to feel ashamed by the way people treat me. I know it is only fear that elicits this, but it is hard not to take it personally. I mean, I can manage without it. Well, sort of. Perhaps more regularly than I care to admit, I do not enter premises because I am unsure of where the door is situated. I am often curious as to what treasures might be inside, or what useful service might they offer, but I am not courageous enough to ask. Besides, how am I to balance a cup of coffee, answer my phone, and carry that new pair of red shoes, all with one hand, if my cane is in the other? Along with the necessities of a handbag and usually a laptop and magnifying glass for good measure. I need a donkey. Not to mention the constant suvlaki- ing myself on the many cracks in the footpath when I am walking. I kid you not, this is a real dilemma. Denial is not an antidote, it is a well-refined coping strategy, which I wear much like a beautifully warm and

68.1 2009 Taylor ¯ A Hidden Blessing richly coloured cloak, designed not only to shield one from the rain on an exceptionally cold winter’s day, but to distract the focus of any onlooker from the unique yet sometimes fragile woman beneath it. Nothing ever quite prepares or protects me from those seemingly ran- dom and quite unexpected harsh inescapable moments of steely realization, no matter how much of a good example I may aspire to be, or how hard I work to com- pensate for my disability. The fact is, there are those for whom my best, no matter how great in thought, word, or deed, will never be good enough. Where my lack of vision will continually overshadow every virtue, value, or victory I may yield. I can be reduced to tears when on the odd instant that I find myself stranded on the corner of a busy road because the lights do not beep, or a bus drives straight past me, even though I am clearly standing at the desig- nated bus stop. It is my disappointment in me more than anything else that provokes this reaction. I find myself feeling foolish and incompetent--"If only I could see." I scold myself as I search my mind frantically for an appropriate solution, or at least some sort of understanding. However, I am in the luxurious position of having to get creative. I cannot read a road map or street sign, even armed with a monocular. I do recognize, however, the golden "M" for McDonald’s, a big red letter-post box, or the smell of a butcher. So items such as these become my landmarks. It is far more efficient to learn something once, than having to repeat it if I forget. A gift born from necessity. I prefer to be having the most delicious lunch with my best friend in a gorgeous Kafe Neo somewhere, than searching my mind trying to recall where it is or how I get there. It pays me to remember.

Review for Religious I find heading into new situations and circumstances daunting at the best of times. There is a lot of fore- thought and planning that goes into it for me. For start- ers, who will show me the bathroom? Not only do I have to face my own insecurities, but I know more often than not I will be facing other people’s preconceptions, prejudices, and ignorance surrounding my vision impairment. Sadly, my capabilities, credibility, and character are time and again brought into ques- ~- tion because of this. I am no less worthy Orthodoxy is responsible for or accomplished for ,rny renewed sense of safety, having a disability. The fact is, it has Centeredness, and confidence. improved my quality of life, rather. .~ than diminished it. ~ I have been given vast opportunities, skills, and wisdom I otherwise would not have had. My limitations pale in comparison with my potential. I do not get out of doing the dishes, mopping the floor, or cooking dinner .that easily. If only. Orthodoxy is responsible for my renewed sense of safety, centeredness, and confidence. Through my participation in the Holy Sacraments and, with my pastor’s reassurance and constant encouragement, my involve- ment in church life. It has been a learning curve for all concerned. From Mr. Arthur, who lights my candle at the front door, to wonderful patient Presvitera, who no longer flinches when I pick up a knife. I have had to leave the comfort of that which is familiar, give up the struggle, and find meaning where there was previously none. Humble pie is delectably sweet once swallowed.

68.1 2009 Taylor ¯ A Hidden Blessing

I have achieved goals I never knew I had, found friendship in unlikely places, and acquired skills I thought previously impossible. God has rewarded me greatly for my efforts. I see it as a choice. I choose to put my faith in God, asking him to quite literally guide my footsteps, my hands, my head, or my heart. I pray for perspective to understand his timing, accept his will, and the resilience to make a difference. Surely it is the responsibility of all to encourage, empower, and inspire the love and light within one another. How will God’s work get done if we do not do it? It is important to recognize, not every prayer is answered with a resounding yes. Sometimes God hon- ours our requests with a gentle no. It is not for us to tell God what to do, but to be open to the many miracles he performs each and every moment. We are always offered a new opportunity to become aware of the many hidden blessings excitedly waiting to be found. Where are yours?

Another Lent When you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites. -Mark 6

It begins, the long fast. 0 God, make my body a home for hunger. Help me unstock my glutted shelves and let me look merry, Mardi Gras still in my eyes, voice shiny as strings of cheap beads. I’ll fling prayers like penny candy and trust these honest deceptions may please You. Patricia Schnapp RSM

Review for Religious DAMIAN C. ILODIGWE

Transfiguration and Motivation

ur experience in life is that it is impossible to Opass through life without difficulties. From time to time we will have to contend with difficult situations. But God never abandons us; he always sends us his help. If we make proper use of the assistance he gives us, we will come through our difficulties, with our faith strengthened and our enthusiasm renewed. Being renewed by God’s grace is integral to our Christian experience. We are assured that "for those who love God all things work together unto good." Discipleship will always have its tough moments, but there are also glorious moments. So it has always been since the time of the first disciples of Christ. They often had to contend with difficulties, first concerning his teaching and later regarding some Jewish authorities and other matters, but they were never left alone. They always received assistance, which enabled them to make the best of their situation.

Damian C. Ilodigwe wrote on discipleship in our 67.2 (2008) issue. He is a priest and lecturer in philosophy at Ss. Peter and Paul Major Seminary; P.M.B. 5171; Secretariat P.O.; Ibadan, Nigeria. [email protected]

68.1 2009 Ilodig~ve ¯ Tran~figruration and Motivation

Think of the doctrine of the bread of life. At the start they found it difficult to accept. Indeed, on account of Jesus’ seemingly oudandish claim that he would feed them with his body and blood, some ceased to follow him. The rest, however, chose to stay with him despite their confusion (Jn 6:25-71). Think also of his teaching about the cross and its place in discipleship. It came on the heels of Peter’s profession of Jesus as the Son of the living God, the long-awaited Messiah. In offering this teaching, Jesus meant to clarify his identity and leave the disciples under no illusion about the suffering that awaited him in the hands of the authorities, without prejudice, of course, to the truth of his divinity.1 He was also careful to indicate that his followers would share in the same fate, that they could not associate with him without carrying his cross (Mk 10:38). In other words, the cross is a condition for discipleship. This doctrine did not go down well with his apostles and, as always, they did not hide their frustration (Mk 8:32-33). It does not go down well with present- day Christians. The gospel of the cross will always be a sign of contradiction to a materialistic world. It may be hard to accept the gospel of the cross, but it is nonetheless the gateway to life. It is the narrow way that leads to life (Mt 7:13-14). Jesus does not change his position or tone down the message despite the difficulties it raises. On the contrary, good teacher that he is, he finds another way to bring his disciples to terms with this rather upsetting teaching. A few days after this encounter, he takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain and is transfigured in their presence (Mk 9:2-8). The transfiguration was no doubt well designed to boost Jesus’ disciples’ confidence in him before the passion. The transformation is

Review for Religious such that his physical appearance is thoroughly affected. His clothes become dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them.

The Paradox of Christian Experience The transfiguration encourages them, helping them see his identity as suffering messiah despite its apparent contradiction. The transfiguration, revealing his glory to them, prepares them for the scandal of the cross. Whether or not they accept his prediction of his passion, he is going to suffer and die, and transfiguration would this is going to happen soon. The transfiguration ,counterbalance the shock would counterbalance the of Jesus’ passion and death. shock of Jesus’ passion and death.2 But beyond this physical transformation, reminding us of the resurrection, Elijah and Moses appear and speak with Jesus. A cloud overshadows them and a voice from the cloud says, "This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him." All this makes a deep impression on them. Like any experience of the sublime,, their initial reaction is fear, but also an intense pleasure. Indeed, the three disciples do not want it to pass. They want to preserve it as long as possible. As usual, it is Peter who expresses their sen- timents, He says to Jesus, "It is wonderful for us to be here, so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." We should not be at all surprised that Peter wanted to preserve this moment of gloW. It is always like this when we experience the presence of God. We do not

68.1 2009 Ilodig-we ¯ Transfiguration and Motivation

want to part with it. We want to cling to it. The disciples, too, want to cling to it. But this is beside the purpose of the transfiguration. It is meant to prepare them for what is to follow, namely, the passion and death of .Jesus. Now that they have seen him in his glory, they should not doubt at all when they see him maltreated and crucified. Their experience of.Jesus’ glory is to sus- tain them through the impending difficult period, when the whole world will turn against the world’s Savior. But the transfiguration did not have that immediate result. Indeed, it did not. We know that, as soon as .Jesus was arrested and handed over to be crucified, the apostolic band deserted him. Peter denied him three times, and another of the twelve betrayed him into the hands of his enemies. But beyond the crucifixion the experience bore tremendous fruit. We see this in the postresurrection experiences of the disciples. After seeing the risen Lord, they could make sense of what they previously had not understood. The transfiguration had made a deep impression on them, but now they understood its import vis-a-vis the full paschal mystery. It provided a rich source of inspiration and conviction for witnessing boldly to the gospel. Indeed, as time went on, they often recalled this experience of the Lord’s transfiguration in justification of their mandate to preach in his name. Peter, for instance, will argue thus to convince his audience of the authenticity of his message: "It is not any cleverly invented myths that we were repeating when we brought you the knowledge of the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; we had seen his majesty for ourselves. He was honored and glorified by God the Father when the sublime Glory itself spoke to him and said, ’This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favor.’ We heard

Review for Religious this ourselves, spoken from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have confirmation of what was said in prophecies; and you will be right to depend on prophecy and take it as a lamp for lighting a way through the dark until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your minds" (2 P 1:16-19). So, from the apostles’ postresurrection experience and their entire ministry, it is evident that the transfiguration fulfilled its purpose in their lives. It not only strengthened them for the scandal of the cross, but also helped transform them into effective witnesses of the Lord’s passion and resurrection, witnesses to something that was deeply rooted in their personal experience. They may have had difficulties accepting the truth of Jesus’ passion and death when he unveiled it in Caesarea Philippi, but after his resurrection, and of course with the memory of the transfiguration, they were to become such ardent believers in the paschal mystery that they were ready to die for their belief. Peter, James, Paul, and others eventually suffered their Master’s fate, being servants not above their master (Mr 10:16-24).

The Transfiguration and Our Present Situation In our time the Lord’s transfiguration serves much the same purpose it served in the lives of the apostles. It reminds us that our destiny as Jesus’ disciples is tied to his destiny. We cannot escape suffering in our lives, but, for disciples of Christ, there is no suffering all by itself or all by oneself. Suffering has a redemptive import (see Heb 12:3-11). In carrying our cross, we are following in the footsteps of Christ. If we truly share in his sufferings, there is every assurance that we shall also share his glory. That is the plain truth about the nature of Christian discipleship. There is no room for picking and choos-

68.1 2009 Ilodig’we ¯ Transfiguration and Motivation

ing, as if we can divide the crucified Lord and the risen Lord. The crucified Lord is the risen Lord. We cannot separate them. It is out of the question. Our cross is the passport of our discipleship. Only by carrying it do we have a share in his glory) This will always be a painful teaching as it was when first taught by Christ, but it is not likely to be changed to accommodate the hedo- nistic mentality of today. In contrast to the narrow way In our time the Lord’s of the cross, the broad way of transfiguration serves hedonism has its attraction, like an expressway that many much the same purpose flock to. But hedonism leads it served in the lives nowhere. It is a cul-de-sac. The difficulties of the narrow of the apostles. way are undeniable, but anyone with a little experience of life would remind us that the difficult things in life often turn out to be fruitful, while easy things often end in disappointment. So the diffi- culty is precisely a good reason for trying. Be that as it may, we should also say that there are plenty of consolations in carrying the cross along the narrow way. We may feel God’s assistance and encouragement as we persevere amid difficulties. And, at the end of one or another tunnel, looking back on the entire experience is likely to deepen our faith as well as our character. We may remember many such consolations, moments of finding God’s presence in our life. We have received many blessings, and we really need to count them from time to time. But the crucial question is, what do we do with these blessings, these shares in the transfiguration? What we

Review for Religious do matters a lot. They have the potential to strengthen us, but that will happen, only if we use them properly, as inspiration for our mission. If we keep in mind God’s goodness to us in the past, it can empower us. The Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8). He is always there with us. That presence is a reason to persevere in our struggle. It is a reason for optimism. It is a reason to look beyond present darkness to the dawn.

Notes i See Joseph A. Grassi, The Five Wounds of Jesus and Personal Transformation (New York: St Pauls / Alba House, 2001), pp. 13-28. 2 See Joseph Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVl, Jesus of Nazareth (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007), pp. 310-318. 3 See Ralph Martin, Called to Holiness: What Does It Mean to Encounter the Living God? (Bandra, Mumbai: St Pauls, 2001; also Servant Books and Ignatius Press), pp. 57-83.

Sonnet to the Huge The world was all there was, once: the one blue globe in nine, the live one amid the flaming gas and distant ice. It was easy to imagine that one day we’d know it all, green depths of mountain forests, dark waters inhospitable to human flesh.

But now, they say, my galaxy is one in five hundred billion swirls. So many stars, attendant planets, so many lives, perhaps, beyond our carbon breath. And time no longer lingers in monuments alone, or word: the past is visible and solid as the stars themselves, unfolding in our present, light years in their future.

M. Doretta Cornell RDC

68.1 2009 MELVIN C. BLANCHETTE AND ROBERT P. MALONEY

A Guide for Religious Beginning Spiritual Direction

Od loves us. The whole human journey is a Gresponse to that love. Again and again, life invites us to give ourselves to God. As Bernard Lonergan points out, authenticity on the human journey involves fidelity to five imperatives: be attentive, sift through experience intelligently, be reasonable, be responsible, and be in love with God and God’s creation. The fifth step sometimes knocks us to the ground, but when we get on our feet again the marvelous unpredictable journey continues. That is where spiritual direction comes in. As we discover that God loves us and that we had nothing at all to do with it, we begin to experience life as a gift that is both human and divine. We are drawn into the mystery of the incarnation and called to walk with Jesus through death to new life.

Melvin C. Blanchette SS and Robert P. Maloney CM are both at Theological College; 401 Michigan Avenue N.E.; Washington, D.C. 20017.

Review for Religious When we fall in love with someone, everything changes. When we fall in love with God, everything changes radically. We discover that God’s love is not only the beginning and end of everything; it is also the way to everything. Our lives call for not just the moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and tem- perance, but also the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. This means living our human lives as Jesus did, through the power of the Spirit. Believing, hoping, and loving lead us to know not only who we are, but who God is. Being in love with God fulfills our deepest long- ings and brings "a deep-set joy that can remain despite humiliation, failure, privation, pain, betrayal, desertion. That fulfillment brings a radical peace, the peace that the world cannot give. That fulfillment bears fruit in a love of one’s neighbor that strives mightily to bring about the kingdom of God on earth.’’! Spiritual direction is a way of companioning people on their journey. Finding such a companion is a great grace. Since the time of Jesus and his disciples, it has been a special grace in the rich tradition of the church.

A Word about Spirituality Spirituality is an energizing vision, a driving force in someone’s life. It is, on the one hand, the specific ways in which God relates to individual persons. It is, on the other hand, the specific ways in which they relate to the world around them. It is insight as the source of action. It is the vision that focuses people’s energy in a particular direction, enabling them to move beyond mere self-interest and self-concern. For Christians it is a way of seeing Christ and seeing their own existence

68.1 2009 Blancbette and Maloney ¯ Beginning Spiritual Direction

in Christ, a way that directs their energies in the service of the kingdom. Historically, religious traditions have developed a variety of spiritualities. Christians, particularly Catholics, have a long history of rich reflection on spiri- Christian spirituality tuality. Within Catholic thought we often speak of is our experience of various "schools" or kinds being in a gifted faith-filled of spirituality: monastic spirituality, Franciscan relationship with Christ. spirituality, Ignatian spirituality, and the "French _3 ¯ School." We speak of the spirituality of religious communities, the spirituality of diocesan priests, and also of "lay spirituality." All genuine spirituality, both Christian and non- Christian, has a transcendent thrust. Sandra Schneiders describes spirituality as "the experience of consciously striving to integrate one’s life in terms not of isolation and self-absorption but of self-transcendence toward the ultimate value one perceives.’’2 The main characteristics of spirituality, largely agreed on by theologians today, are included within this definition: progressive, consciously pursued, personal integration through self-transcendence, and movement toward an ultimate horizon (which, for Christians, is God as revealed in Christ). Christian spirituality is our experience of being in a gifted faith-filled relationship with Christ, which is expressed in life’s specifically human dimensions: the affective, related to feelings; the cognitive, related to thoughts and ideas; and values/atftudes, related to decisions and actions. Some elements of the spiritual life are the following: (a) An encounter with Jesus, the model of

Review for Religious the spiritual person. (b) The experience of intimacy. (c) An appreciation of silence. (d) Fidelity amidst transition, crisis, or conversion. (e) Integrity as a central guiding principle, drawing one’s words and actions to coincide with one’s inner values. (f) The capacity to "notice," a contemplative way of "looking." (g) Speaking and relating with others out of a faith perspective. In summary, one might say that, as a person recog- nizes the movement of God’s Spirit and responds to it, the elements of authentic spirituality are these: ¯ perspective: a realistic perception of the complex reality of life, ¯ principles: a comprehensive set of tested truths, and ¯ practices: consistent ways of interacting with the changing world.

Words of Wisdom about Spiritual Direction History provides us with abundant words of wisdom about life in God and the value of spiritual direction. Many wise men and women have written about the spiritual journey and the need for a guide. At the heart of the rich Ignatian tradition, assimilated by many religious communities, lie the Rules for Discernment of Spirits, which, with the help of a spiritual guide, can show what God is saying through our prayer, our feelings, and our daily experiences. Below we offer some brief contemporary descriptions of spirituality and the spiritual journey that may be helpful. Etty Hillesum, who died at Auschwitz in November 1943, wrote:3 There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there too. 83 But more often stones and grit block the well, And God is buried beneath. Then God must be dug out again.

68.1 2009 Blancbette and Maloney ¯ Beginning Spiritual Direction

Similarly, Patricia Livingston writes, "The deepest yearnings of our hearts are messages from God.’’4 The challenge is to interpret those messages. A Quaker saying tells us, "Our God is hidden in plain sight.’’5 But, in times of turmoil and struggle, it is often difficult to see God. Spiritual growth means dropping our defenses and focusing our vision so that we may see the hidden God, especially in moments of darkness. Henri Nouwen writes: "In the contemplative life, every conflict, inner or outer, small or large, can be seen as the tip of an iceberg, the expressive part of something deeper and larger. It is worthwhile, even necessary, to explore that which is underneath the surface of our daily actions, thoughts, and feelings. The most persistent advice of John Eudes in his spiritual direction is to explore the wounds, to pay attention to the feelings, which are often embarrassing and shameful, and follow them to their roots. He keeps telling me not to push away disturbing daydreams or hostile meanderings of the mind but to allow them to exist and explore them with care. Do not panic, do not start running, but take a careful look.’’6 Douglas Steere, an ecumenical observer at Vatican II, writes: "To ’listen’ another’s soul into a condition of disclosure and. discovery may be almost the greatest service any human being ever performs for another.’’7 A Celtic saying, often attributed to St. Bridget, declares: "Anyone without a soul-friend is a body without a head."8

Spiritual Direction Itself Spiritual direction is a confidential relationship which aims at assisting people to experience God more

Review for Religious deeply in the present moment and examines how our experience of God is affected by our relationships and responsibilities. These relationships and responsibilities evoke dilemmas and tensions, which abound in the lives of religious. We sometimes use paradoxical language to describe persons living this way of life: saintly yet sinful, intimate yet celibate, detached yet living in a culture of attachment, powerful yet collaborative, living a public life yet nurturing a private life, faithful to the law yet theologically imaginative. In the spiritual-direction relationship: (a) The focus is on the interior life: awakenings; growth in relating with God, oneself, and others; prayer; fidelity in the "night" or in times of suffering; discerning how to make a life of service concrete. (b) Various dynamics of conversion occur: curiosity, conversation, confron- tation, commitment. (c) Time, trust, and truthfulness are required. (d) Respectful attention must be given to moments of contemplation/awareness and discernment/ decision-making. One would hope that a spiritual director would be a mentor for the directee, an interpretive voice of the truth, or--to use the metaphor of William Butler Yeats--a "transparent lamp around a spiritual flame."

Some Topics That Might Be Talked About It is important for the directee to take the initiative in setting the agenda for the dialogue. At times, the director too will suggest topics to be talked about. A whole series of themes might be touched upon, some at one time, some at another: prayer, apostolate, chas- tity and celibacy, friendships, relationships within the seminary or community, other relationships, the balance between closeness and appropriate boundaries in

68.1 2009 Blanchette and Maloney ¯ Beginning Spiritual Direction relationships, developing a simple lifestyle, authority/ obedience, vocational stability, physical health, studies, leisure and relaxation, ongoing formation (reading, personal development), evaluations received in the external forum, spiritual direction itself, one’s diary, homilies and conferences, other matters pertaining to spiritual growth. In spiritual direction, it is especially important to speak about what is going on in one’s prayer. In times of pain, disappointment, or crisis, it is important to ask: Where do I find God in all this? What is God saying to me through this experience? In an ongoing spiritual-direction relationship, three themes are particularly important: (1) growth in one’s vocation, (2) growth in love, (3) growth in practical service to others.

A Minimum of Spiritual Practice in Religious Life (1) Attentive and frequent participation in the sacraments: daily Eucharist, reconciliation, and a renewal of baptism and confirmation. (2) Contact with the Word of God, especially by way of the Lectionary and the Office of Readings. (3) Participation in the Liturgy of the Hours. (4) A half hour of daily meditative/contemplative prayer. (5) Spiritual reading, some type of lectio divina. (6) Times of silence, so that one might hear the deepest voices of reality and reflect on the "signs of the times." (7) Cultivation of a devotional life/piety, including communion with the church as the Body of Christ, with Mary, and with the saints. (8) Self-denial. (9).The habit of intercessory prayer for others. (10) An annual retreat. These spiritual practices should, of course, issue forth in concrete works of justice, love, and peace.

Review for Religious As he left for the Trojan War, Odysseus placed his son Telemachus under the tutelage of Mentor. Countless subsequent Mentors ha~]e held a special place in human history, especially in the history of spirituality. The first recorded modern usage of the now often used term can be traced to the Sulpician theologian FranFois F~nelon, who became archbishop of Cambrai and tutor to the son of Louis XIV. In 1699 he published Les Aventures de Tilimaque, whose lead character was Mentor. The book became immensely popular during the 18th century. The modern sense of the term stems from this publication: a guide in life, usually a more experienced person, a trusted friend, counselor, and teacher. A good mentor is one of life’s precious gifts. Notes ’ Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), p. 105. 2 Sandra Schneiders, "Spirituality in the Academy," Theological Studies 50 (1989): 684; see also her "Theology and Spirituality: Strangers, Rivals, or Partners?" Horizons 13 (1986): 266. See also, Michael Downey, "Christian Spirituality: Changing Currents, Perspectives, Challenges," America 172 (2 April 1994): 8-12. 3 Etty: The Letters and Diaries ofEtty Hillesum, 1941-1943, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 91. 4 Patricia H. Livingston, This Blessed Mess (Notre Dame, Indiana: Sorin Books, 2000). ~ See Mary Garman (ed.), Hidden in Plain Sight: Quaker Women’s Writings, 1650-1700 (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill Publications, 1996). 6 Henri Nouwen, Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery (New York: Doubleday, 1989), pp. 81-82. 7 Douglas V. Steere, On Listening to One Another (New York: Harper and Harper, 1955), pp. 14-15. 8 The soul-friend, or anmchara, was evidently an important position in both pagan and Christian Ireland. See Leslie Hardinge, The Celtic Church in Britain (Teach Services, Inc., 1995), p. 139.

68.1 2009 A Preface to Reading Romans

No one in the Roman Catholic Church can scripture honestly celebrate the Year of Saint Paul without spending some quality time with the scope Apostle’s Letter to the Romans. It is impossible to overestimate the influence Of this letter on the history of Christianity. The first words that St. Augustine read after hearing a child next door say "Pick it up, read it" were from Romans 13:13. The reformers Luther, Calvin, and Wesley all relied heavily on Romans for their theological insights and personal spiritualities. The renowned Swiss theologian Karl Barth turned Protestantism upside down when in 1918 he published his now-famous commentary on Romans. Catholic and Protestant biblical scholars produce commentaries and

Eugene Hensell OSB writes this column to help our readers in their theological understanding and prayer- ful use of the word of God. His address is St. Meinrad Archabbey; 100 Hill Drive; St. Meinrad, Indiana 47577. [email protected]

R~view for Religious monographs on this letter year after year. Still the ordinary Bible reader, and many preachers and teachers as well, find this letter of Paul’s dense, yielding almost no meaning or relevance. Obviously this problem cannot be solved in a few paragraphs. Nevertheless, following the dictum "If you can’t do a lot then do a little," one can suggest a few approaches to this all-important letter. The first and perhaps most important suggestion is to start fresh. For a while at least, suspend your presuppositions regarding what this letter is about or what it means. Keep in mind that it was not written for biblical scholars or the degreed intelligentsia of Rome. It was written for ordinary Christians who were members of small house churches in Rome. These communities comprised both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. In the year 49, the emperor Claudius had expelled all Jews from Rome including Jewish Christians. These Jews were allowed to return five years later upon Claudius’s death. Both the expulsion and the return caused difficulties and tensions for the Christian church. When the church was initiated in Rome, Jewish Christians predominated. When they returned after their exile, the Gentile Christians had shaped the church in ways that favored themselves. Disputes emerged. Perhaps the Jewish Christians now felt marginalized. Should they split up and become two churches, or was unity still a possibility? This could well be the social situation Paul Was addressing in his letter (see Rm 14-15). This could also be why Paul is so insistent on stressing God’s grace to Jews and Gentiles alike. For Paul unity89 between the two is absolutely essential. A second suggestion for making the Letter to the Romans more comprehensible is to become famil-

68.1 2009 Scripture Scope

iar with its overall structure. In his Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary, Luke Timothy Johnson states, "The argument of Romans is, at root, simple. God is one and God is fair." The thematic statement in the letter itself is found in Romans 1:16-17: "I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ’The one who is righteous will live by faith.’" The rest of the letter unfolds around this thematic statement. Chapters 1-4 outline how God has remained faithful to a faithless humanity. This reaches a climax in chapters 5-8 as Paul sets forth a new situation based on God’s faith- fulness called justification by faith. In this new situation, believers die and rise with Christ and live in the Spirit. Paul then addresses in chapters 9-11 the question of what will happen to those Jews who do not accept the gospel. At no point does Paul think God will ever give up on the Jews. Moreover, for Paul the gospel is not a theory; it is a way of life. What kind of behavior the gospel requires, especially regarding holiness and hospitality, is set forth in chapters 12-14. Finally, in chapters 15-16 Paul connects all of this to God’s overall plan of salvation and the specific role that Paul’s mission plays in it. If one approaches Romans with the above ideas in mind, the letter appears less daunting. This letter weaves a rich tapestry of pastoral concerns and theological insights. The pastoral concerns are found mostly in chapters 12-15, where Paul discusses Christian behavior. Every reader would do well to give these chapters careful consideration. They are often overshadowed by the more popular issue of ’.’justification by faith," which ¯ many commentators want to make the most important

Review for Retiglous teaching of Paul’s entire theological agenda. While this teaching is extremely important for Paul, and particularly in this letter of his, it is not his only theological concern and therefore must be understood within the context of all his letters. Justification by faith is the subject matter of Romans 5:1-11. Michael Gorman in his book Apostle of the Crucified Lord offers a concise and accurate definition of justification: "reconciliation with God in the present, together with certain hope of salvation (acquittal and glory) in the future, based on the death of Christ in the past, and all known through the gift of the Spirit." This amazing grace of justification is for both Jew and Gentile and for all who respond to it through faith. The profundity of this teaching cannot be grasped in just a few readings of Romans. It is a mystery that should occupy the believer for a lifetime. More recently interest has shifted from preoccupa- tion with justification by faith to Paul’s teaching about the future of Judaism set forth in Romans 9-11. Fresh viewpoints and better informed understandings both about Paul and about Judaism have shown that Paul never gives up on the possibility of salvation for the Jews. They have not so missed their opportunity that they must simply suffer the consequences. It is not altogether clear how this will all work out, but Paul is convinced that the Jews were and remain God’s chosen people. Israel will not be replaced by Christianity, but it will be reconstituted as an eschatologically inclusive people in fulfillment of the eternal promises beginning with Abraham and reaching their climax in the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. A third and final suggestion for reading the Letter to the Romans is to listen to what Paul has to say with the

68.1 2009 Scripture Scope ears of your heart and not only the ears of your mind. Paul invites readers to experience the mystery of Christ Jesus as the Apostle himself has. We are invited to share in a vision of faith, a vision that requires faith, but more importantly a vision which enormously expands faith. The good news is that it is all ours for the believing.

Resources Brendan Byrne. Romans. Sacra Pagina. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1996. Joseph A. Fitzmyer. Romans. Anchor Bible 33. Garden City: Doubleday, 1993. Michael J. Gorman. Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2004. Luke Timothy Johnson. Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary. New York: Crossroad, 1997. N.T. Wright. "Romans," in New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 11. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000.

Poets’ Addresses

48. The Task 72 ’Another Lent Mary Alban Bouchard CSJ Patricia Schnapp RSM B.P. 35 614 Oakwood Road 98 Chris}-Roi (Bourdon) "Adrian, Michigan 49221 Port=au=Prince ¯ [email protected] Haiti

60 This Morning a Dove 79 Sonnet to the Huge Irene Zimmerman OSF M~ Doretta Comell RDC 3601 S. 41st Street 155Benic Place Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53.221 Hawthome, New York 10532

Review for Religious The Role of Law in the Church

From a theological perspective, law is an external means to promote habitually good actions canonical in our external behavior. That is to say, legal norms apply to the external forum or, expressed counsel less technically, to those actions which can be observed (whether or not they happen to be observed). Laws generally command what is good, forbid what is evil, and permit what is indifferent in human activity. Grace is the internal means offered us by God to promote our habitually good actions, internally and externally. Obviously, church law is not in charge of grace. Only God is. But church law is applicable to human beings as created in

Elizabeth McDonough OP, JCD, STL, regularly writes this department of canonical information and reflection. She serves as canonical consultant for many religious communities and for several dioceses. She is Bishop Griffin Professor of Canon Law at the Pontifical College Josephinum; 7625 North High Street; Columbus; Ohio 43235.

68.1 2009 Canonical Counsel

God’s likeness and considered as intelligent and free and also responsible for actions which are done with a basic degree of knowledge and freedom. In general, church law concerns only those good or evil actions which are related directly to the common good, rather than to an individual good. But church law also understands the common good as including the particular good of each individual in relation to salvation. Thus, it is no acci- dent that the last canon in the 1983 Code affirms the supreme law of the church as salus animarum. ~ Law in the church attempts to embody norms of action which are reasonable and "do-able." These norms are neither self-justifying nor self-implementing. That is, they have to have the purpose of accomplish- ing some legitimate, acknowledged, usually long-term (that is, teleological) goal in the church. They must also be interpreted and implemented in real life situations in the church, so it is important that laws be accurately worded, correctly interpreted, and properly applied insofar as possible.2 In addition, the church rec- ognizes there is a certain existential lag whereby written laws can fall behind the pace of real life situations. Therefore, custom is recognized as able to acquire the force of law in certain circumstances. Custom--what people actually do with deliberate intention over a long period of time--is also considered "the best interpreter of the law.’’3 So church law truly acknowledges a genuine lex vivendi (or "law of living") as accurately manifest- ing the collective, ongoing good actions of the faithful in a unique and acceptable manner. Basically, law in the church is structurally free- ing while also enjoining certain structural restrictions and designating certain internal systems of operation. In some sense it can be compared to the "structure"

Review for Religious of human beings, who have a skeleton and skin and internal operating systems. Our skeleton provides the structure which makes it possible to stand and walk and communicate as human beings, rather than standing and walking and communicating as birds or cats or fish. Our skin provides the tangible boundary of each individual and keeps the physical matter of our bodies safely inside while keeping foreign objects outside. And our human internal makeup includes multiple systems of nerves and muscles and circulation and digestion which ordinarily keep us going on a regular rhythm of everyday life for many years. So, too, law in the church provides a skeleton, or basic structure, for various church entities such as religious communities, parishes, dioceses, bishops’ conferences, the Roman curia, and ecumenical councils. Each of these entities has its own internal structural divisions that most people are aware of, especially in the case of religious institutes, parishes, and dioceses. Moreover, these church entities have identifiable boundaries making it possible to know who belongs to a particular religious institute or parish or diocese. These boundaries function somewhat as our human skin does. The church as a whole also has legislation regarding verifiable boundaries. These are primarily the boundaries of faith and liturgy and governance, beyond which church members may not stray in a manner detrimen- tal to fundamentals of belief or worship or behavior without being judged to be outside the communion of the whole. The church is also replete with laws about internal systems which are intended to keep functions operative from day to day and year to year in a manner conducive to the commongood and the good of indi- viduals. One such internal, ongoing, operative system

68.1 2009 Canonical Counsd in the church is procedural law, which must always be observed for everyone in the same manner.4 Treatment of all in the same procedural manner helps to assure justice in decisions and fairness in the application of laws, without undue respecting of persons because of their social position, personal wealth, or political influence. If we think of church law as somewhat analogous to skeleton and skin and internal operating systems, we -can readily learn something else rather significant about concern for legalities in the church. We know that most people who are considered normal do not worry about their skeleton or skin or internal operating systems unless something is awry and needs the attention of competent and responsible people. The case is the same for church law regarding its structures and boundaries and internal systems. Namely, they should not be uppermost in our minds or first on our list of concerns. Church law as a whole is structured so that, when something does go awry (as is often the case), there is usually an identifiable place where "the buck stops." Moreover, in church law there is supposed to be a real person in the place where "the buck" actually "stops," and that person is supposed to be able to do something constructive about what did go awry. Thus, parishes have pastors and religious communities have ~uperiors and dioceses have bishops. This is not to suggest, however, that everything in a parish or. religious community or diocese depends on one person any more than is the case in most organizational systems. The point is that the structures, boundaries, and internal systems of good law--like the skeleton, skin, and internal functions of a healthy human being--are usually functioning well and doing their job in the best possible manner when they are least noticed.

Review for Religious Finally, within church law it is understood that the exercise of authority is intended to bring out the best in people, rather than merely to control them. Authority comes from the Latin word auctoritas, which derives from the verb "to enrich or increase" (augere). Thus, the purpose of exercising authority in the church is to influence others in the direction of doing good and becoming good without violating their freedom. Only God can influence every person at all times in every way in the direction of doing good and becoming good without ever violating anyone’s freedom. The rest of us can only share to some small extent in this ultimate authority of God, and we do so by prudential participation in God’s eternal providence. In the church, and especially in institutes of consecrated life, those in positions of authority are considered as participating prudentially in God’s providence by seeking counsel from others (such as council members) who offer assistance from their own experience or knowledge or insight or reasoning. Those in positions of authority also participate prudentially in God’s providence by arriving at good judgments through application of sound, time-tested principles--such as not bringing divisive matters to a decision prematurely or moving forward before multiple other means of addressing contentious matters have been tried. When putting a decision into action, those in positions of authority also participate prudentially in God’s providence by exercising foresight and caution and solicitude for all who may be affected by the far- reaching ripples of any decision. Most decisions made by those in authority in the church can be rescinded 97 if necessary; but centuries of experience indicate that, even if a problematic decision is withdrawn, irreparable harm may already have occurred through failure to seek

68.1 2009 Canonical Counsel adequate counsel or to use sound principles of judgment or to foresee unnecessary negative consequences which might otherwise have been avoided. In short, law really is but one aspect, albeit a universal and indispensable aspect, of the church as a whole. The role of law in the church is significant, though not primary, regarding salvation. Its role is also educational and formative when law is properly understood and applied in the communion of believers who are called to the salvation offered to all through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Notes ~ Canon 1752, "The salvation of souls . . . must always be the supreme law of the church." See the Canonical Counsel essay "Salus Animarum," 64:1 (2005): 94-98. 2 See the Canonical Counsel essays "No More, No Less, and No Other... ," 64:2 (2005): 206-211, and "Additional Comments on Interpretation," 64:3 (2005): 321-325. See also the i’ecent essays on "The Lacuna Canon," 67.2 (2008): 209-214, "The Lacuna Canon: Equity and Practice," 67.3 (2008): 322-326, and "The Lacuna Canon: Common and Constant Opinion," 67.4 (2008): 430-434. 3 Canons 23-28 indicate how custom can attain the force of law through passage of time provided other requirements are met, and canon 27 affirms custom as the law’s "best interpreter." 4 See the extensive procedures contained in more than 300 canons in Book 8 of the Code, titled "Processes," and see canon 87, §1, which does not permit the bishop to dispense from procedural laws.

- ~.~ Please~ note new email for Editorial ~ Offf~ces-- Review for Religious ~

Review for Religious Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God. By Elizabeth A. Johnson CSy. New York: Continuum, 2008. Pp. vii + 234. Cloth. $24.95. There is no end to our waiting, desiring, and searching for God. The process leads us in a variety of directions and will continue as long as we live. Each time we experience more profoundly that my beloved belongs to me and I to him, as the Song of Songs reminds us, we realize that we have only been given a glimpse of the mystery reviews of the divine presence. Realizing that our union with Christ will be fully experienced only at the end of time, we continue the search in a fragmented world. Along the way we need people who can assist us in making progress on this journey. With invaluable insights, the author of this book is such a person. In her first two chapters Johnson traces the history of the quest for the living God. She writes about the beliefs and rituals of people seeking in their lives the presence of the divine. When considered in their entirety, the world’s religions indicate a continuing mammoth search for what is vital, whole, and holy. Johnson’s thesis is that we are now living through a vivacious new period in this never ending quest. She proposes three ground rules for talking about God and develops a Christian theology of the human person in a world filled with despair and hope, sin and grace.

Materials for this department should be sent to: Book Review Editor; Review for Religious; 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, 99 MO 63108. Reviews published in Review for Religious are indexed in Book Review Index. Neither Review for Religious nor its reviewers can fill orders for any tides. Interested parties should inquire at their local booksellers or direcdy from the publishers.

68.1 2009 Reviews

The subsequent chapters articulate rich experiential concepts about God. The massive unjust suffering of the Holocaust calls people to cry out to God in order to bring the divine presence into such darkness. The struggle of people enduring unjust persecution or living in deplorable poverty not only calls for action; it also calls people to realize that our conversations with God cannot be separated from our work for social justice. The struggle for women’s equal dignity stirs both men and women to realize that God calls them to eliminate whatever demeans and violates. The continuing occurrence of racism calls people of faith to act justly in a way that is intertwined with their search for God. Addressing the dilemma of Latin American people migrating to this country is a way for people to seek and find God. Restoring and nurturing the ecological life of our planet can make us aware of the beauty of what God has given us, and make us grateful for it. The author brings all of these concepts together in a final chapter on the mystery of the Trinity. This book is very well written. Not only will it help satisfy readers’ deep need to find God present in today’s world; it also provides valuable resources at the end of each chapter in case readers want to explore a topic more deeply. --Eileen Jaramillo; Diocese of Lansing, Michigan.

Basil Moreau: Founder of Holy Cross. By Gary MacEoin and revised by Joel Giallanza CSC. Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press, 1962, 2007. Pp. 2Yl. Paper. $15.95. This new revised edition was published to celebrate Basil Moreau’s beatification in Le Mans, France, on 15 September 2007. Some chapter headings provide a glimpse of Father Moreau (1799-1873): chosen instrument, youth in revolutionary France, teacher, organizer, leader, trial and division, the supreme sacrifice, the cross leads to the crown. If those words do not find a place in our experience, what about these: nature and grace, loggerheads, enigma, and the undermining of authority? All of them describe aspects of Moreau’s life. Gary MacEoin compares Father Moreau to St. Ignatius Loyola. He acknowledges how different the two men were, but sees similarities in their total dedication to God and their role as founders during times of crisis in the church, placing their orders at the pope’s disposal. MacEoin’s familiarity with various religious orders enables him to speak with authority about the unique gift Holy Cross is to the church. The family spirit of Holy Cross flows from the spirit

Review for Religious of our founder, who chose the hearts of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to symbolize the union of love he wished for the priests, brothers, and sisters of Holy Cross. The pace of the book is swift as it crosses the span of almost seventy-four years from Basil’s birth in Laign~-en-Belin to his death surrounded by his faithful Marianites. The condition of the Catholic Church in France during and immediately after the French Revolution sets the stage for the foundation of a new religious congregation. The author portrays the difficulties encountered, the blessings received, and the complete trust in Divine Providence that mark Moreau’s life. Much of his ministry was to the laity-- preachipg missions, forming organizations for spiritual development and for collaboration with his foundations, writing newsletters, and composing devotional prayers, meditations, and hymns. Because of his warmth, affection, holiness, and organizational skills, laypersons were generous in their financial support of his activities. MacEoin does not hesitate to write about Father Moreau’s con- flicts with several personalities, such as Bishop Bouvier of Le Mans, Mother Euphrasia Pelletier, religious of the Good Shepherd canonized in 1940, and Father Edward Sorin CSC, founder of Notre Dame University. Moreau’s vision for Holy Cross and his love for the men and women who followed him are conveyed throughout the book, and MacEoin carefully unfolds the details leading to Moreau’s resignation as superior general. The book concludes with a discussion of the cause for canonization. You feel that it will only be a few years before Father Moreau is canonized. Brother Joel offers an enlightening exposition about Vatican Council II and the changes that ensued to explain why the cause for canonization did not progress as fast as had been expected. Why would anyone want to read the life of a man who lived two hundred years ago? Because Moreau teaches us how to live today. He educates, motivates, inspires, encourages, leads, and guides us through our own everyday struggles with difficulties, betrayals, financial ruin, and doubts. He did not turn into a bitter, resentful old man. As one observer said, "his appearance reflected an intense interior life, a deep humility, and a charity without limits." This is a man for all times--a man who gave himself to God and used the 101 graces he received to become a faithful instrument in God’s hands, a man deserving to be called Father, founder, and traveler with us on the journey to God. ---Sue Pablovich MSC; New Orleans, Louisiana.

68.1 2009 Reviews

bookoshelf,.life In "Anima Pellegrina," in three hundred words, Alice Meynell warmly praises as untranslatably wonderful the French word ensoleillg. For each day of winter’s three months, in A Light to Enlighten the Darkness (Cistercian Publications, $16.95), Emma Cazabonne offers paragraphs from Cistercians Bernard, Aelred, Gertrud, Guerric, Gilbert of Hoyland, and others about the sun and light and Light. Think of Meynell’s words as implicitly praising this gem of a book, which, if you let it, may help you become ensoleill~ or ensoleill~e. Other names, intent like moths upon "gladdening light" (phos as in phosphores- cence and hilaron as in hilarious), are St. Athanasius, John Keble, and Jaroslav Pelikan. Good company. Getting back to Cistercians, Soul Searching edited by Morgan C. Atldnson and Jonathan Montaldo (Liturgical Press, $19.95) arranges words--from an array of twenty-four observant and per- ceptive surveyors, many known to our readers--into a relief map showing contours of Thomas Merton "territory" both geographical (with some photos) and spiritual. An enlightening book. Bonnie Thurston, who contributed to Soul Searching above and often to our pages as well, in her Spiritual Landscape of Mark (Liturgical Press, $12.95) takes note of geography, calling attention in Mark’s Gospel to desert and sea, valley and mountain, houses and temple, transfiguration and gard.en. She can enliven your pilgrimage and your prayer. The renowned Eugene Boylan OCSO died four years before Merton did, but like Merton is still with us. Partnership with Christ edited by Chaminade Crabtree OCSO (Cistercian Publications, $24.95) is a fifty-year-old retreat preached to Cistercians in Conyers, Georgia, and now in book form and ready to help many a person be better. Some books are simply solid. One can only humbly recommend them for people’s humble use, at various times, in homey ways. I refer to Blessings and Prayers for Home and Family from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (ACTA Publications, leatherette, $19.95). The worth to parents and children is likely to be immense. Regrettably, I think I knew ahead of time that I would be dis- appointed with Daniel O’Leary’s effort at "recovering a sacramental vision" that he calls Begin with the Heart (Dufour/Columba, $38.95). The author seemed new to me and the endeavor grand and

Review for Religious glorious, so how could he avoid some degree of failure? Others have failed of full success too, and still others, after notable success, have been forgotten. Do not, then, forget this book. As with King Alfred in Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse, inspiration can come from likely defeat. Mary tells Alfred "naught for your desire, save that the sky grows darker yet, and the sea rises higher." Metaphor is blunt comparison. "Shoving his younger brother, that chubby youngster is already the image of his short-tempered father" is a close comparison, not a blunt one. Blunt would say "He is a rhino of a boy." Blunt would say, of a tall and talky young woman, "She is a sunflower, not a violet" or "She is a noisy light- house." Blunt helps us see the point of something that has no visible point, like fog ("on little cat feet") or hope ("the thing with feath- ers"). Permeating all metaphors and transcending them is the incarnation. Through Jesus, the living visible tangible and real metaphor of God, we get to see the Father whom we cannot see. And that is what makes Opening Up the Scriptures: Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation edited byJos6 and Carlos Granados and Luis Sfinchez-Navarro (Eerdmans, $25) a specially worthwhile book. It insists on the Bible’s unique "documentation," its unique and unifying Word or Logos, resisting our time’s inclina- tion to make something like archaeological or evolutionary jigsaw puzzles the primal metaphor. The Catholic Companion to the Psalms (ACTA Publications, $10.95) by Mary Kathleen Glavich SND is a good little book whose text is not pushy like its title. It answers, gently, some trivial questions that good people are forever asking, but it answers their bigger questions as well, along with inviting them to settle down now and chew the crust or two they are unknowingly hungry for. For our sake, mystics use blunt words to intimate their unique intimacy with God. We have to use subtle care in understanding them, and in understanding Scripture too. That is why Thomas M. McDermott OP wrote Catherine of Siena: Spiritual Development in Her Life and Teaching (Paulist Press, $27.95). Catherine used and lived some, to us, off-putting metaphors. We owe it to ourselves not to misunderstand them, but rather to understand a blunt candor with subtle insight and personal love. Robert A. Brungs SJ (1931-2006) devoted his life to bringing 103 faith and science back together. Written in Our Flesh: Eyes toward Jerusalem (see ITEST in Books Received below), an ensemble of words (and some pictures) by and about him edited by Marianne

68.1 2009 Reviews

Postiglione RSM, shows his resolute matchmaking efforts. It shows him keeping scholarship and spirituality working together in his own life. It shows us how to keep our own head and heart together, without stinting either one. In 1937 Mathematics for the Million was published, and in 1968 republished, to allay people’s reluctance, fears, regrettable ignorance--a phenomenon later called innumeracy, something that efforts never quite vanquish but are no less noble for that. In today’s world there continues to be a lot of bewildered and bewildering spirituality and science (and some antagonism between them). Call the present book Christianity and Science for the Million. Think of the present book as, all told, a readable and noble endeavor; then read it. Ursula King’s wise and hopeful book mentions science entering a "wisdom phase" (p. 158), and she brings many of life’s tangible and intangible "elements" together as Brungs did. I regret, however, her title: The Search for Spirituality: Our Global Quest for a Spiritual Life (BlueBridge, hardcover, $24.95). Seeking a spiritual life is too much like piecing a jigsaw puzzle ’together; the result will not BE the actual awe-inspiring waterfall that C.S. Lewis discusses with reference to The Green Book in his own "global spirituality" book, The Abolition of Man. His point is that the universe’s awesome existence seeks human minds and hearts, and not the other way around; and that it cannot be otherwise. I think King agrees that a person cannot achieve a spirituality like a mountaintop, but must receive one humbly, like a child, like the two children rescued in Adalbert Stifter’s Rock Crystal. I wish her title somehow could have expressed that thought. The Illustrated "Life of Christ" Presented to the Chinese Emperor (Institut Monumenta Serica, ~55) in 1640, by Johann Adam Schall von Bell SJ, is told about historically, shown pictorially, and described and translated in Nicolas Standaert’s new book of that name. The original book, the occasion, and the present book are stunning and stirring achievements of art, diplomacy, and technol- ogy that, culturally and spiritually, many in our century ought to see for our own good. Those hundreds of years ago there were engravings, miniature paintings, Chinese woodcuts, and Chinese texts in several editions for different readers. Relatively speaking, 104 chronologically speaking, is our planet even as close now in trans- world accomplishments as it was in 1640? Two or three generations ago, there were twenty-seven years (a sort of Rubik’s cube) of closeness between American women reli-

Review for Religious gious and .the Chinese they lived among. Of those years the late Edward Malatesta SJ said: "Difficulties characterized the enterprise: poverty, hardships in travel and communications, thieves, bandits, warring Chinese factions, Japanese bombers and invaders, and the Communists." He notes, "Especially touching are frequent passages describing the affection and admiration the American sisters had for the Chinese women who joined their community." Their story is told in photographs and lively prose in Havoc in Hunan: The Sisters of Charity in Western Hunan, 1927-19Yl by Mary Carita Pendergast SC (College of Saint Elizabeth Press, checks payable to Sisters of Charity, $14.95, s&h $1.50). Two years ago I recommended Reformation Christianity, volume 5 in A People’s History of Christianity. Now I recommend volume 4, Medieval Christianity edited by Daniel E. Bornstein (Fortress Press, hardback, $35) for the same reason: it can stretch, challenge, refresh, and enrich many Christians, including Catholics. My eye fell on a passage (p. 291) about Christian/Jewish tensions in Spain. There is shock and sadness here, but also positive value. We are reminded of awesome earnestness about religious faith, faith that many in today’s .culture have unwittingly, and sadly, come to see as a consumer commodity that, for various solid or slight reasons, has lost its appeal. Among many stimulating ideas, Edward Hays says something like this in his Letters to Exodus Christians (Ave Maria/ Forest of Peace, $11.95), which he wrote to help people seek the religious nourishment they need and to help churches supply that nourishment to people who feel bored or frustrated by many aspects of today’s culture without knowing why. Richard McBrien’s The Church: The Evolution of Catholici~n (HarperOne, hardback, $29.95) surely must impress readers, but, more than that, it deserves their engagement in our world’s great need to understand the church, whether from within or without. Good ecclesiology has relevance to all of life, including personal spirituality. Reaching Out (Catholic Book Publishing/Resurrection Press, $9.95) happens not to be just right for me, but its heart and hands are in the right place, and so Joseph Lynch SM’s book on "how to communicate gospel hope and love to 21st-century Catholics" has a good chance of being right for you as you go about helping 105 uninformed or unenthusiastic or "ex" Catholics (and others) to be happier. Or you might prefer Good News, Bad News: Evangelization, Conversion, and the Crisis of Faith by C. John McCloskey and Russell

68.1 2009 Shaw (Ignatius Press, $12.95). I like this one better, but suit your- self. The proof of the pudding is not in talking about it, and there is much to be energized and equipped to do, and to be happy in doing--and, of course, much good thought to try to keep in mind. Philip C. Fischer Sy books received ACTA PUBLICATIONS: Blessings and Prayers for Home and Family by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, pp. 376, leatherette, $19.95; The Catholic Companion to the Psalms by Mary Kathleen Glavich SND, pp. 125, paper, $10.95; Well Seasoned Living, Winter: A Guided Journal for Increasing Your Enjoyment of Everyday Life by Vicki Kessler and MaraBeth Soneson, pp. 112, paper, $19.95; Let Me Sow Light: Living with a Depressed Spouse by Amy Viets and Bernadette Stankard, pp. 151, paper, $10.95; Craving Hope: A Spiritual Companion on Your Weight Loss Journey by Joni Woelfel, pp. 247, paper, $12.95; The Book of Catholic Jokes by Deacon Tom Sheridan, pp. 95, paper, $10.95; Stories by John Shea, pp. 271, leatherette, $14.95. AVE MARIA PRESS: (Sorin Books:) When in Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life (new ed.) by Jane Redmont, pp. 448, paper, $18.95; (Forest of Peace:) Letters to Exodus Christians: Comfort and Hope for Those Who Have Trouble Going to Church by Edward Hays, pp. 158, paper, $11.95; (Christian Classics:) Newman 101: An Introduction to the Life and Philosophy of John Cardinal Newman by Roderick Strange, pp. 192, paper, $15.95; Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text by Aelred of Rievaulx with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy CSSR, pp. 159, paper, $15.95. BLUEBRIDGE: The Search for Spirituality: Our Global Quest for a Spiritual Life by Ursula King, pp. 256, cloth, $24.95. CISTERCIAN PUBLICATIONS: Partnership with Christ: A Cistercian Retreat by Eugene Boylan ocso, pp. 230, paper, $24.95; A Light to Enlighten the Darkness: Daily Readings for Meditation during the Winter Season by Emma Cazabonne, pp. 146, paper, $16.95. CROSSROAD PUBLISHING COMPANY: What Your Money Means (and How to Use It Well) by FrankJ. Hanna III, pp. 248, cloth, $21.95; Common Sense Spirituality: The Essential Wisdom

Review for Religious of David Steindl-Rast, by David Steindl-Rast OSB, ed. Angela Iadavaia, pp. 188, paper, $16.95. DUFOUR EDITIONS: (Columba:) Prayer--The Heart of the Gospels by James McCaffrey OCD, pp. 184, paper, $29.95; Begin with the Heart: Recovering a Sacramental Vision by Daniel J. O’Leary, pp. 183 (and a DVD), paper, $38.95; (Veritas:) Inter- Church Relations: Developments and Perspectives: A Tribute to Anthony Farquhar, ed. Brendan Leahy, pp. 203, paper, $25.95; The Audacity of Spirit: The Meaning and Shaping of Spirituality Today by Jack Finnegan, pp. 400, paper, $28.95; The Breaking of Bread: Biblical Reflections on the Eucharist by Cardinal Cahal B. Daly, pp. 255, paper, $22.95; When Silence Falls: The Stations of the Cross by Anna Burke, pp. 70, paper, $13.95; When a Child Dies: Footsteps of a Grieving Family by Jim O’Shea, pp. 141, paper, $16.95. EDIZIONI CARMELITANE (Roma): The Carmelite Rule (1207- 2007): Proceedings of the Lisieux Conference, 4-7 July 2005, ed. Evaldo Xavier Gomes et al., pp. 629, cloth, no price given. WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY: Put Down Your Sword: Answering the Gospel Call to Creative Nonviolence by John Dear, pp. 203, paper, $16; God of Surprises (3rd ed.) .by Gerard W. Hughes SJ, pp. 183, paper, $18; Opening Up the Scriptures: Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation ed. Jos~ Granados, Carlos Granados, and Luis Sfinchez-Navarro, pp. 174, paper, $25; Imagination and the Journey of Faith by Sandra M. Levy, pp. 202, paper, $I 8. FORTRESS PRESS: Medieval Christianity, Vol. 4 of the seven-volume People’s History of Christianity, ed. Daniel E. Bornstein, pp, 429, cloth, $35. ICE CUBE PRESS: The Desert Pilgrim: En Route to Mysticism and Miracles (new ed.) by Mary Swander, pp. 303, paper, $19.95. INSTITUT MONUMENTA SERICA: An Illustrated Life of Christ Presented to the Chinese Emperor: The History of~incheng shuxiang (1640) by Nicolas Standaert, pp. 333, cloth, ~55. ITEST FAITH/SCIENCE PRESS (20 Archbishop May Drive, Suite 3400A; St. Louis, Missouri 63119; www.faithscience.org): Written in Our Flesh: Eyes toward Jerusalem by Robert A. Brungs sJ, 107 ed. Marianne Postiglione RSM, pp. 361, paper, $15.95 (including s&h). LITURGICAL PRESS: The Spiritual Landscape of Mark by Bonnie B. Thurston, pp. 100, paper, $I 2.95; City of Prayer: Forty Days

68.1 2009 Reviews

with Desert Christians by Rachel M. Srubas, pp. 174, paper, $14.95; The Oblate Life ed. Gervase Holdaway OSB, pp. 332, cloth, $29.95; The Birth of Jesus according to the Gospels by Joseph F. Kelly, pp. 118, paper, $14.95; Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton ed: Morgan C. Atkinson with Jonathan Montaldo, pp. 216, paper, $19.95; (Michael Glazier Book:) The Vision of John Paul II: Assessing His Thought and Influence ed. Gerard Mannion, pp. 301, paper, $34.95; (Pueblo Books:) Baptism Today: Understanding, Practice, Ecumenical Implications ed. Thomas F. Best, pp. 462, paper, $39.95; Sacraments, Revelation of the Humanity of God: Engaging the Fundamental Theology of Louis-Marie Chauvet, ed. Philippe Bordeyne and Bruce T. Morrill SJ, pp. 266, paper, $29.95. LOYOLA PRESS: What Is Ignatian Spirituality? by David L. Fleming SJ, pp. 123, paper, $12.95. NEWMAN HOUSE PRESS: Dominus Est--It Is the Lord! Reflections of a Bishop of Central Asia on Holy Communion by the Most Reverend Athanasius Schneider, pp. 63, paper, $8. PAULIST PRESS: Henri Nouwen and Soul Care: A Ministry of Integration by Wil Hernandez, pp. 118, paper, $14.95. QUEENSHIP PUBLISHING COMPANY: I Am Sending You Prophets: The Role of Apparitions in the History of the Church by Edward D. O’Connor CSC, pp. 376, paper, $14.95. ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER PRESS: Bringing Home the Gospel: The Year of Mark: A Weekly Journal for Catholic Parents by Judith Dunlap, pp. 132, paper, $10.95; Virtuous Healers: Models of Faith in Medicine by Edgar A. Gamboa, pp. 176, paper, $15.95; Saints at the Dinner Table by Amy Heyd, pp. ¯ 174, paper, $19.95; ("Called to Holiness: Spirituality for Catholic Women" series:) Making Sense of God by Elizabeth A. Dreyer, pp. 121, paper, $11.95; Living a Spirituality of Action by Joan Mueller OSC, pp. 107, paper, $11.95; Grieving with Grace by Dolores R. Leckey, pp. 112, paper, $11.95. ST. AUGUSTINE’S PRESS: The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism by Edward Feser, pp. 311, cloth, $27. ST PAULS / ALBA HOUSE: Paul and His World by Stephen Tomkins, 1081 pp. 192, paper, $16.95; Novena to St. Paul, the Apostle of Love and Ap6stol de amor, Novena a San Pablo by Jeffrey Mickler SSP, pp. 38 each, paper, $3.95 each; What Is Jesus Like by Concepci6n Cabrera de Armida (Conchita), trans. Bp. Donald W. Montrose, pp. 133, paper, $9.95; Authentic Love: Theory

Review for Religious and Therapy byJ. Brennan Mullaney, pp. 542, paper, $25.95; At Your Fingertips: A History of the Roman Catholic Church until the Council of Trent by Msgr. Lawrence J. Spiteri, pp. 232, paper, $19.95; Living the Love Story: Catholic Morality in the Modem World by Christopher P. Klofft, pp. 253, paper, $19,95; Walk with God by Fulton J. Sheen, pp. 159, paper, $12.95; (Pauline Books and Media:) Letters of Saint Paul, pp. 300, paper, $7.95. SERVANT BOOKS: Lourdes Today: A Pilgrimage to Mary’s Grotto by Kerry Crawford, pp. 159, paper, $I 3.99; Holy Simplicity: The Little Way of Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, and Thtr~se of Lisieux by Joel Schorn, pp. 142, paper, $12.99; Deeper Conversion: Extraordinary Grace for Ordinary Times by Ann Shields SGL, pp. 128, paper, $11.99; God Loves You and There’s Nothing You Can Do About It: Saying Yes to the Holy Spirit by David Mangan, pp. 112, paper, $12.99. UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS: Opening the Qur’an: Introducing Islam’s Holy Book by Walter H. Wagner, pp. 568, cloth, $45. UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA: Boundless Love: The Parable of the Prodigal Son and Reconciliation by Joel W. Huffstetler, pp. 89, paper, $19.95. WORLD WISDOM, INC.: In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, with a Translation of Abba Zosimas’ Reflections (rev. ed.) by John Chryssavgis, pp. 202, paper, $19.95.

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