Review for Religious - Issue 37.6 (November 1978)

Issue 37.6 of the Review for Religious, 1978. ; Burnout in SuPeriors The Practice of Supervision in Spiritual Direction Paul VI: Prophet of Our Time Volume 37 Number 6 November 1978 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is edited in collaboration with faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. © 1978 by R~vlEw FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $8.00 a year; $15.00 for two years. Other countries: $9.00 a year, $17.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor November, 1978 Volume 37 Number 6 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REvmw FOR RELIC~OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph’s College; City Avenue at $4th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Oppression, Deathand Liberation: Thoughts in a Context Carl F. Starkloff, S. J. Father Starkloff is superior and director of St. Stephens Indian Mission; P.O. Box 294; St. Stephens, WY 82524. ne might be tempted to call this reflection a symptom of the "burnout" which is now so often being applied to social activists. However, since I am probably not a social activist, I prefer to call it’ simply a reflection on reflections. One of the most valuable and at the same time troublesome developments among, church people today is the labor that goes into the production of literature on faith and justice, oppression and’ liberation, on "sinful.social structures." Being one of those Christians who seek to realize redemption from sin in their lives, I have struggled to apply these reflections in the context of my own ministry. Amid the crisis calls and the routine demands, I long to be able to pray and reflect and dream .and plan. Reflection is often difficult because it makes one more deeply conscious of the "strife" and "contradiction" which make up the environment in .which the "theology of hope" is carried on. But reflection is also refreshing; whenever I am able to look close.ly with a sensitive human eye and a contemplative faith-vision, there emerge visible signs of a life that is strug-gling to grow into what one day might be a community of faith rooted in a healthy humanity. In the recent documents of the Society of Jesus, the recurring phrase is "the servic~ of faith, of whi.ch the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement." It is our calling to share solidarity with the oppressed and somehow to proclaim a6d help effect the gospel of freedom amid. the sin- 801 802 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 laden structures of our contemporary society. Resting close to the writings I mention, there are also at my right hand a set of information papers on anti-Indian resolutions how in the United States Congress, three volumes of Mission Trends (collections of critical essays on the state of mission work today), and a six-hundred page congressional report by the American Indian Policy Review Commission. It is a reading collection capable of evoking much guilt and inadequacy. One has to study such materials with a strong conviction that St. Paul was truly inspired when he wrote, "God has imprisoned all in disobedience, in order to have mercy on all" (Rm 11:32). These readings all go to make up part of the "law" that convicts me of failure to combat injustice or of hesitancy in living the demands of the New Testament, but Paul’s gospel message offers me hope of divine mercy even in the face of my failures. The people among whom I live and work have suffered religious op-pression- and for them especially this means social oppression--in a country that prides itself on being a haven for the seeker of religious freedom. These people possessed a rich and all-pervasive tribal religion, like all religions not without its imperfections and limitations, but a spiritual way of life all the same, fixed upon the things of the spirit and mindful of One who oversees the world they experience. For various reasons., most of their recent ancestors accepted, in degrees ranging from profound con-version to desperate expediency provoked by crushing despair, some branch of the Christian faith. The missionaries who brought this faith did much good, and provided the resources of a deep piety and even sanctity in many of the Indian people. They also made some false starts, some of them serious ones, and helped to create the conflicts that led to the chaotic cultural vacuum that prevails around my people today. Recently an Indian partner of mine, an,anthropologist, sharing a group discussion on a college campus, attributed a causal relationship to the tension existing between Christianity and tribal religion to the worsening of the. alcoholism problem. Perhaps this chaos-would have occurred, whether.the missionaries had come or not; in fact, many Indians believe it would have been worse without the Church. And how am I to say with any degree of certitude that our own present efforts are going to serve as a more enlightened source of wholeness? So we keep asking questions and trying to listen, each time hopefully better than we listened the previous time. What approach do we take to change oppressive conditions in religion or society when the injustice and turmoil have become profound interior elements in so many personal lives? What does the missionary in the field tell the bishops about ’qnculturation" and structural reform when the tribal culture lies moribund in a growing majbrity of the young pe6ple, and the language promises to die on the tongues of the present generation Of elders? How to dialogue with a religion when by this time most of its leaders are so suspicious that they usually elect to keep silent on such matters? The ideals of the Church and of tribal Oppression, Death and Liberation culture point to a .family or extended family solidarity as the nursery of values for the young. But in the breakup of the close extended family the young are increasingly ignorant of how to benefit by instruction, too often blinded by the haze of alcoholism that shrouds nearly every home in’some way. The spiritual crisisois so deep that tribal elders, pastors, teachers and counselors are inclined to see their efforts largely as bandaids covering a festering wound. It is easy to sympathize but~painful to swallow when an elder of eighty-one years, in the midst of a religious language discussion, laments, "’I sure wish we could have been doing this fifty years ago!" Or, when one asks a father whether or not he encourages his children to learn the language and .customs, the reply is, "They’ve beentaught too well by. now, Father, that Indian ways are finished." Spiritual apathy is worsening among the teen-twenties generation, and one is hard put to decide whether the old ways or Christian catechesis could be of greater help in stemming. the tide. The key for unlocking an integration plan for an inculturated Christianity still lies lost in the rubble, and one can only think of a renewed Indian culture in terms of generations, if at all. We turn to examine the hopes and ideals for_ redeeming the social struc-. ture from "sin,." to think about an’effort to do something about reservdtion conditions or the problems of white backlash, or to obtain a more en-lightened federal,approach to education and legal justice, to improve health care and housing. But as we~turn, the condition of an artificial or even totally absent reservation economy stares all social renewal in the face, and the consequent apathy emphasizes how simplistic it is merely to lobby for Indians’ "living their own way of life," or to appeal for industry on the reservation when it.~would simply have to be one more non-Indian import. Oppression.in the socio-ec.onomic order has been internalized, and I often recall Reinhold Niebuh~r’s distinction between "moral man and immoral society." When so much injustice on the structural level is reinforced by injustice between persons, and ther~ are so few.inner resources for breaking the inertia, this phrase expresses more than an ethical dilemma. Tile conscientious minister of the Christian faith, struggling to be free from his own sinfulness and enslavement, reflects on the daily incidents that seem to render ’all liberation talk hopelessly abstract. There is the eleven-year-old child .taken to court with her older brothers on "drunk and disorderly" charges, leaving her doll in the back seat of the old car. One talks to the social worker.about the many cries for foster homes for children of alcoholic parents, or to a pregnant young woman who wants her child but refuses to be caught inca sacramental marriage that she well knows would dissolve within the year. One sits in discussion sessions called by tribal legal officers to ponder how to help delinquent parents assume responsi-bility (the old cus.t0m-of grandparents educating children is now a-grave social abuse), or how to develop adequate detention facilities for the re-habilitation of young offenders. There are the numerous sessions for al-coholics, the training programs for effective parenting, the local self-help 1104 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 programs, where only two or three persons show up, the neediest of all being afraid of the threat to their present patterns of living. But enough of brooding. It is equally wrong to give.-i~io pessimism over a wounded people or to yield to cynicism about hberatlon or the language about faith and justice. These things must be pursued--perhaps less stri-dently and with less of the cocksureness one meets in liberal religious journals--but they must be pursued. "Solidarity with the oppressed" is such a mealymouthed phrase unless it steels us in these very moments of pessimism. I need to be reminded that incarnation means dying in the flesh before resurrection takes place, and that the obtaining of "powers" whether it be that power acquired by Indian people in long vision-quests or the power that God gives to the poor, means first submitting to the agonies of powerlessness. And so I have to examine my conscience once more on how I dealt with my anger, my failures, my obtuseness, about how I was able to look for a tiny beam of the transfiguration light in even one person’s struggles. To "do" liberation theology means looking less de-fensively at those events in which God has placed his word into the mouth of one of these people, and thus being willing to make constant adaptations in. religious dialogue and social programs, in trying to keep the fine dis-tinction between helping and paternalism. I find that the outcome of such prayerful reflection is often (though not often enough) the removal of a little more of the simplistic: idealism from my own planning and rhetoric, even as I resolve not to abandon all "utopian" dreaming and practical planning. I find that, in the face of oppression, there is no room for attachment to liberal or conservative ideologies, whose categories are so easily shattered on the rocks of life-situations. In the face of temptation either to foolish optimism or total pessimism about realizing the Kingdom of God, I hear Reinhold Niebuhr again: Thus wisdom about our destiny is dependent upon a humble recognition of the limits of our knowledge and our power. Our most reliable understanding is the fruit of "grace" in which our faith completes our ignorance without pretending to possess its certainties as knowledge; and in which contrition mitigates our pride without de-stroying our hope.* In this light, I find myself reflecting about that "event" that consumes so much of our time and energy on the reservation--the incarnational reality of death, and what takes place in this situation of final powerless-ness. A fellow mission worker once remarked, "There is so much death in this place!" It was a realistic statement in every sense. Traditionally, not only is very much made of funerals and remembrances of the departed in an atmosphere of~ awe-filled respect, but Death abides as a brooding presence on the reservation. The average death age is far lower than that for the rest *The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. 1I, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), p. 321’. Oppression, Death and Liberation I 1105 of North America. Illness, caused either by abuse or conditions, is still far more prevalent than among whites in the country. Funerals are about three times as frequent proportionally as in the white 1Satisfies nearby; and these are funerals which over a third of the time see the burial of a person under forty. Death is so often premature and catastr6phic the result of accidents or violent assault or suicide, or of cirrhosis of the liver or bleeding stom-achs- and the consequence of this is very frequently that the bereaved family simply turns further to drowning its sorrows in more drinking. Here, funerals are much more than an emotionally and physically drain-ing experience. There is also a profoundly moving wisdom evident among these people, especially among those who have experienced so many years of s.uffering and dying. It is a. wisdom that inevitably insinuates itself into the consciousness of the often disheartened priest who presides over the funeral. The old~ir people who preserve the best of Indian ways and who have a faith-filled appreciation of Christian death as well, have taught me many times not only how to live but also how to die, and how to accept death when it strikes others. Indians will do everything they can in the spiritual and physical orders to save a life and restore health. So they respect the efforts of both physician and priest to heal, and it is the medicine man’s calling to heal as well as to h~lp a person to pass from this world. A !ong life is considered a blessing, even with all iis sufferings, but once death comes, the mourning ritual emphasizes life--the solidarity of the people and the virtues the dead would want them to practice, especially a cou-rageous "’carrying-on,’" while the dead has gonq on to the "everlasting h6me.’" Looking on as the casket is opened for a last viewing at graveside, as the mourners file past to see or touch or embrace the body, generally with much weeping and wailing, I accept the stark realism of the situation. Death is final and tragic, and no one denies it. But there is a real transcendent faith as well. One evening as I finished the prayers at the wake of a highly r~vered h61y man of the tribe, one of his old colleagues walked up to the casket and called out to his friend’s sp!rit ig~the Arapahoe tongue: "Hallo! Do you hear me calling you over there? You’re on the other side now, and you are through with suffering. Remember us here and pray for us, still suffering on this earth. [Dasee bita’wu, "here on the earth," means that a pitiful person is calling for help.] Have pity on us!" And so goes the committal of the departed. The eulogies by tribal elders always follow the communion of the funeral mass, and many times the church itself resounds with the sound of drums and tribal songs for the dead. The whole complexus of things is somehow, inexplicably, a healing ther~apy. As I sit at~the feast held after the fune~ra!, while the family holds a "giveaway" of clothing, blankets, utensils~o~r cash, and thus expresses its thanks to the mourners for support as well as its ~detachment from all material bonds with the deceased, I begin to share the people’s sense of 806 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 healing. In a few months, ceremonies of painting will be held, in which the family have their faces painted with red paint representing the earth, to relieve them of their state of mourning, in the midst of this ritual, com-memorating a death and still imparting new life, I have found a sense of solidarity in being so powerlessly with the people. Indeed, many are the times when I have lamented and even cursed their pitiful slowness, to take creative steps to forestall some of these seemingly absurd tragedies. But as these parishioners go about-the business of committing the dead to Mother Earth and Father Above, I can contemplate their capacity f~r suffering and endurance, visible even on the faces of very young children. I am not conditioned b3) mY white American culture to accept this kind of thing, but I can see the lesson: fight injustice and needless pain, but let, your Christian understanding of suffering be strengthened by this remnant of an ancient ability to identify with the coming and going of all created things. There is a sense of justice and kindness that is better enabled here, than evoked through preaching or activism. I was watching one late winter day in our very dusty and desolate .cemetery, made more desolate by the drouth-caused sparseness of snow, as a fellow priest laid to rest ninety-four-year-old Francis Setting Eagle, a very traditional and also very Christian Arapahoe, who had traveled to London with Tim McCoy’s Rough Riders, had lived as both an Indian and a cowboy, and suffered much in his old age. He had been a true "~keeper of tradition." The relatives were lowering Francis’ few belongings into the grave for the journey across to the other side--an old hand drum, an ancient cowboy hat, a blanket, two suitcases of old clothes, and a saddle. One grandson suddenly climbed down ifito the grave, and emerged again with the old man’s saddle. Handing it to the priest, he said, "This is a gift to the mission, Father. Francis wants you to keep it." It would be a great transforming grace if the kindness and consideration shown at the time of death could be a constant presence. But isn’t th’~at the case with all of us? Here, as the tribe died a bit more, and as I meditated. on the p~ssage of this carrier of the ancient dignity, this one elder’s dying had once more called forth the good things of tradition. I, in turn, learn on such occasions to die to certain ambitions that I have "for them," enough to be~moved by the.simple respect shown here for persons. One can be so consumed by the imperative to "transform structures" as to run roughshod over the people who live within them. Indians already know all about whites reforming their social structures; they have had many "friends" and "experts" working on them. So, I often think, amid my troubled and often frantic labors to help save a culture, that I do my best ’work when I simply share a bowl of soup and a piece of fried bread at an Indian dinner, or when I kneel to receive the mir~istration of the Arapahoe woman who places the ceremonial paint Von my-forehead and cheekbones. 1 15elieve that I function as a priest much bet’ter, in many cases, when 1 sit and listen t6 an elder encourage his people, thah when I try to preach to them. This is all hardly Oppression, Death and Liberation a headline event of "raised consciousness," but I recall with delight one. occasion at a funeral mass celebrated with a full’panoply of Indian trap-pings, when, ~s ! prepared to recite the pre.-’communion prayers, the Arapahoe master of ceremonies walked over to me and whispered, "Would you hold it’ up a few more minutes, Father? Old Man Francis wants to sing another song first. It’s his tribute to this other old man." Somewhere in this kind of spontaneity, that shows itself most readily at a time of grief, there are the seeds of a new self-respect for the new generations. While we tr.y to offer these people our various projects for liberation, it may be that we actually best serve as we stand and wait, enduring, with them as they struggle to give rise to leaders who will ascend out of the chaos and misery to change their own sit.uatiqn, and perhaps to change it into something that will be edifying and challenging for the entire American populace. We live here, then, amid much death, and we have no guarantee as yet that the individual deaths are not the signs of the death of a whole culture. But we believe that all death has the seeds of life in it, and if the missionary has any calling in this context, it is to help find and nourish that life. To do this, of course, he has to share and live that "hard saying": "Unless the grain of wheat dies . " Having said all these melancholy things, I hurry to add a corrective. Today was Ascension Thursday, and I have just now returned from another wake service for an old woman, where the ,customai’y Catholic prayer (along with a prayer and painting of the corpse’s face by a medicine man), is the scriptural rosary. As I introduced the fifth meditation (on the As-cension of Christ), I was moved to urge th~ mourners to consider the words of the angel to the disciples: "Why stand you here looking up to heaven?" I reminded them of what t~’ibal mourning has always been: lament and pray for the departed, and weep for yourselves and for-all of us who remain in this world. But then let us be about our business of improving our world, as this departed friend and relative wants us t~) do, and as Jesus himself tells us to do as we await his return. His Spirit is with us even now to help us. No doubt, as in most instan.ces like thi.s, the priest was preaching most of all to himself, yet also to these people who know that such a sound outlook’ on the world is rooted in.tribal tradition, however much it may now be’ distorted and scarred by misery and decay. In any case, whether the little sermon was needed more by these people 6r by.me, the corrective is this: I compose these reflections to remind myself and all would-be reformers of the reality of death and of the imperative to accept it, as well as the limitations of our human condition. Perhaps then we will realize that even when we.fail to change structur.es and hearts dramatically and with dazzling swiftness, we will still be able to endure with suffering humanity in its human imperfection. Nonetheless, we also realize that when the angel told the disciples to cast their eyes back down from the heights and onto Je-rusalem and the world, he was mandating them to labor in this world. There 808 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 is in this command a repudiation of a "distinction of planes"--supernatural and natural, and a call to recognize the interpenetration of the two orders and to live by the Spirit in this world. This means that we preach good news that does not tolerate injustice and dehumanization. It means that from every funeral we return to our project--the world in which we are called to live, and which we must summon from death to life. May this reflection, therefore, by no means be an acceptance of the status quo, which it would be criminal for one in this situation to accept. May it only be, for its writer and for its readers, if such there be, a healthy dose of Christian realism free from both presumption and despair. Now Available As A Reprint Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development by Philip D. Cristantiello Price $.60 per cop),, plus postage. AddresS: Review for Religious Room 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Burnout in Superiors Norbert~Brockman, S.M. Father Brockman, whose name is familiar to our readers, continues to w0.rk on the leadership team of.the Marianist Provincialate; 4435 E. Patterson Rd.; Dayton, OH 45430. So many changes have taken place in religious life in the pabst fifteen year~s that it has not been easy to sort t.hem all out. Some have been intentional changes, others, events or patterns that "’just happened," often enough in an unexamined way. As we might well expect, the two types are interre-lated and have great impact upon one another. One of the syndromes of this period of transition and change has been the increasing instances of "burnout" among leadership personnel--major superiors, formation staff members, councilors, and others. Seeing this, many religious who are called to these positions have been instinctively avoiding them. It is increasingly difficult to find religious willing to be local. superiors, to join formation teams, or even to head up schools or hospitals. Burnout is a descriptive term. Those who suffer from it do find them-selve~ s depleted, run out of energy, unable to reanimate themselves, much less call others to a deeper, fuller life. Personal resources seem often at an end. When a superior finds himself sitting at his desk, not resting, but just not able to go through the,day’s mail or to handle even one little problem, ¯ he is experiencing burnout. The advisor who dreads chapter or a council meeting, and through it keeps counting the time until it’s over, is expe-riencing burnout. The formation person who finds himself planning a series for his candidates, less because of how it will enhance the formation pro-gram and more because "someone else" will give it and he doesn’t have to be present, is experiencing burnout. The depletion of energy that is so characteristic of all levels of burnout 809 810 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 hits religiOus leadership in a special way, because it really strikes at the virtue of humility. Since the Christian model of leadership is that of ser-vanthood, the burnout phenomenon eats away at the superior’s ability to respond as servant by making him anxious about his ability to control, direct, and assume command. It leaves him debilitated, frozen, unable to respond, and fearful of events.A provincial, still new to the office, re-counted how he was unable to answer his office phone for a short period because he could not bring himself to deal with one more of the many little crises that seemed to fill his day. Consequently he.became highly directive, dismissing issues as curtly and as quickly as possible. Others respond sometimes by ignoring situations, almost paralyzed in the face of them, because of their fear of lack of control. Above all, there is the sense of helplessness in the face of events, both great and small. Several years ago a midwestern bishop described the feeling very well when he said that many pastors felt as though Church renewal was a giant funnel into which programs, rules, and proposals were poured, and that the opening was right over their heads. The expectation that leadership will reform, catechize, raise consciousness, reanimate, and call forth others, while at the same time sustain struggling institutions, support dependent people, and be a sounding board for the feelings of many of the brethren, is only too real. It is also beyond reasonable expectation. We should hardly be surprised if the result is helplessness, ennui, with-drawal, or even occasionally, arrogance. One of the ~special areas of problems for religious leaders has been the built.in frustration of inheriting seemingly insurmountable long-term ques-tions. The difficulty of managing chan~e in a time of transition and even of confusion would seem to be easier if a superior (or’team) could count on forging ahead with his own programs: But leadership often has no chance to do anything else but to deal again (and again!) with issues that have plagued the community for a long time. The circular nature of our current problems exacerbates the natural frustration of dealing with any situation that is high in stress’ and has considerable potential for eventual failUre. There is the eternal personnel problem: how to keep institutions open, and to staff them in such a way that religious presence is felt and effective ministry is enhanced. Then, there is the lack of good personnel. There is the need to do something with the marginal religious, even though he" may even be de-structive in certain situations or communities. How does the superior find the resources for handling the seemingly larger number of dependent, drain-ing personalities who seem to resist or even undo his best attempts at furthering growth and development? There are also the increased number of the aging with their needs, expectations, and, often, thei~ disappoint-ments with the paths religious life has taken. There are economic problems, often of serious nature: empty buildings being maintained at great cost, Burnout in Superiors / 811 there are institutions that are financial drains on the community, and the like. In coping with the effects of leadership burnout, then, one of the real issues is the ability of the superior to deal with his feelings of anger at situations for which he feels responsibility ("But you are the superior, why don’t you do something about it?") but which he does not have the re-sources to resolve. This is most often a false guilt, but the anger it engenders is all too real. Unless dealt ~with openly and effectively, it can degenerat~ into pettiness, arrogance, and cynicism. Michael Mitchell, in a perceptive article, comments that "to say thb, t someone is in burnout i.s to,s~ay that he or she is somewhere in a progressive process of fatigue and depletion of personal resources."~Reflecting upon the root causes of consultant burnout, Mitchell suggests that it seems to occur because of the often nonreciprocal balance of the~relationship between consultant and client. The relationship is often, characterized by gi~’ing, supporting, listening, empathizing--much investment on the.part of the consultant with little feedback or even acknowledgment on the paFt of the client. Although nonreciprocity ~s inevitable and acceptable, it is also draining. No one can function long in a helping profession without feeling its impact? What Mitchell says in the context of the internal consultant applies with at least equal vigor to leadership ip religious community. If anything, the nature of the expectations placed upon religious leadership at all levels, and the intensity of both the community experience and one’s personal commit-. ment through profession only inte.nsify what Mitchell .speaks of.~ In fact, one of the accompanimen~ts of the burnout syndrome is an intensification of the experie.nce of loneliness which is dire_ctly related to the nonreciprocity of the leader’s situation. James Lynch reflects in a recent., book upon the unique characteristics of that loneliness that is part of being in close, regular contact with many persons without really being "’together" with them." Because so many religious superiors feel captured by their roles and unable to move out of~hem, this loneliness is especially poignant. Precisely those who call others to community are themselves among those denied its consolations. Added to’the situation of the religiou~ superior is the fact that often the sfiared colleagueship he expei-ienced in past ministry is absent. One of the terrible prices to be paid for en(ering religious administration today is to find oneself progressively made obsolete in the very ministry where °one’s success caused the recognition of one’s administrative abilities. The mo~-e technical the profession, the more this is felt. One former professor plain- 1Michael D. Mitchell, "Consultant Burnout," The 1977 Annual Handbook fi)r Group Facil-itators, J. E. Jones and J. W. Pfeiffer, eds. (La Jolla: University Associates, 1977), p. 143 ~James J. Lynch, The Broken Heart: The Medical Conseqaences of Loneliness (New York: Basic Books, 1977). 819 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 tively recounted to me how he was unable any longer even to read and understand the leading journals in his field. Underlying his expression of distress at being obsolete was the thought: what will become of me when I have served here for another few years? There is the pervading sense of being used up, consumed in service, and the fear of then being cast aside. The table conversation of one general council was described by a councilor as "whatever the agenda was that day; only at council meeting it is busi-ness, and at table it’s gossip." What is felt is a greater distance from ideas, fresh insights, or broader views of reality than the urgencies of the moment allow. Pettiness can readily set in. If lack of reciprocity is a root cause of leadership burnout, other lesser causes can also be pinpointed. One is certainly the changing role of lead-ership positions, There is lack of clarity in almost any role, compared with its place in the structures of religious life a decade ago. This is often popularly ascribed to the decline of respect for authority, but a deeper analysis reveals, it seems, that the functional role of the superior on all levels has changed in religious life. The citation of Mitchell’s article above is itself of interest, because the emerging role of the religious leader in community today is very much like that of the internal consultant in an organization. The role is facilitative, advisory. Leadership can only be ~tentative in conclusions and has vastly different modes of operation than in the past. If the key to previous modes of operation was decision, today it is critical intervention. The religious leader finds himself moving into sit-uations when they are at critical stages of development, either in the per-sonal lives of individuals or in the shared life of the community. What is different from the role of the internal consultant, however (and it is a decisive difference), is that religious obedience never allows a superior°to lay aside the final responsibility for decisions within his realm of authority, no matter how shared the decision-making process has become. Another cause of leadership burnout is the very stress implied in the urgency of problems facing religious leadership today, as has been dis-cussed above. The superior must find in himself a high tolerance of am-biguity and a means of finding what clarity can be discovered within it. Discernment has consequently come to be recognized as a prime skill and gift for this age. But there is a concomitant temptation to translate dis-cernment into a management technique with universal applicability to all problems. Perhaps one of the weaknesses resulting from original sin is the tendency to reduce mystery to technique. What a consolation for the hat-tied administrator if such a thing were possible! Stages of Burnout Religious leadership cannot function today unless it recognizes and even embraces the reality that it has been called forth in a time of death and rebirth in religious life and in the Church. We are living out the Paschal Burnout in Superiors Mystery in perhaps a more graphic way than any of us have known in our past personal or corporate histories. Just accepting the fact of this reality is to allow much of the burden of stress that produces burnout to be lifted. New skills of religious management become, therefore,-critical in both corporate renewal anO personal transformation. As Brothers Raymond Fitz and Lawrence Cada have remarked The revitalization processes im~ply that o~nly a sfiaall number of the many community experiments that are tried will eventually be selected out to be incorporated into the transformed community structure. Errors will be much more prevalent than suc-cesses. The ability actively to commit oneself with gr.eat hope to social experiments aimed at ~mprovmg the community must be tempered with an awareness of each experiment’s low likelihood of success. Such an attitude requires a brand of de-tachment and humility that can embrace and accept a multitude of errors, which are of necessity part of the social processes of revitalization? Therefore, to the skills of discernment must be added the ability to be "’error-embracing," that is, the ability to maintain hope and zeal in the face of the inevitability of failure, or. at best, tentative conclusions. The religious leader who is experiencing burnout, however, has a great impatience with just this reality Mitchell describes three stages of burnout, (I) physical fatigue, (2) psychological fatigue, and (3) spiritual fatigue. In the first the leadership person often feels worn out, listless, subject to’colds and viruses, without pep and energy. In the second, the experience is that’of an increasing distancing from one’s work and calling. There is an impati~nc~ with the routine work to be done---council meetings, visitations, interviews. It is harder to invest energy in what is happening, and a feeling that one doesn’t care as much how things will work out, 6r eveff whether they do. Mitchell summarizes the feelings ofthis stage by saying that "’everyone wants a piece of me, and there is not enough to go around." There may be some feelings of de-pression and a sense ofdOjit vu abotit the whole task of leadership. Mitchell comments that alone, alienated, tired, and bored, the final stage comes upon the individual only too quickly. In stage three we meet those religious superiors who are indeed "’burnedout cases." to use Graham Greene’s analogy to arrested, but badly disfigured leprosy patients. They have’little ability to summon up hope in their enterprises; they find increasing needs to escape, a’nd become conflict avoidant. There are episodes when the superior doubts his effectiveness. his values, and even the morality or goodness of his activities.4 Coping ,~ Having recited such a long litany of the dismal realities of the burnout 3Raymond L. Fitz, S.M. and Lawrence J. Cada, S.M., "’The Recovery of Religious Life," REWEW roa RE~-~G~OtJS 34 (1975), p. 717. 4Mitchell, op. cit., pp, 144-145. 1~’14 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 experience, how inevitable is it? What can be done to avoid it? How is one to deal with it as it develops? If it is inevitable and even acceptable, to emphasize what Mitchell is quoted as saying above, how does one learn to manage stress of this type, and deal with disappointment? First, the superiors management style must not give in to the canon-ization of ambiguity. Where clear decisions must be made, even though they wi!l produce distress for some, they must be made. The air, in short, needs, to be cleared in many cases. Douglas McGregor, one of the great theorists of management, reflecteffafter attempting to apply his theories to the concrete situation of a college presidency: I hoped to duck the unpleasan~ necessity of making difficult decisions, of taking responsibility for one course of actiop among many uncertain alternatives, of making mistakes and taking the consequences. I thought maybe I could operate so that everyone would like me--that "good human relations" would eliminate all discord and disappointment. I could not have been more wrong.~ In other words, management decisions must be faced squarely, and when one experiences failure, that failure must also be faced.openly. The mystique that tells us that superiors may never be wrong is also one that condemns them to the loneliness of maintaining a false front. "There must be a combination of personal courage and a willingness to take reasonable risks,n One would hope that it not be said of a religious leader what Tacitus said of the Emperor Galba: "Had he never been placed in authority, no one would ever have doubted his capacity for it." Normal administration ¯ admits, of the inevitability of failure, and normal religious experience acknowledges the weakness of sinful human nature. In developing the humility to which Fitz and Cada refer, the religious leader must place some limits on his time. Although it sounds like heresy in religious life, it is nevertheless true that the individual’s personal in-vestment of energy must be limited. This seems to strike at our very com-mitment. Have we not given ourselves totally to the lord’s service? Doesn’t the community have a right to depend~upon superiors in the servant role to which they have been called? The answer to those questions is, of course, "Yes, but . " The religious leader, whether major~ superior, institutional director, local coordinator, or chap~ter delegate, dares not assume total responsibility f6i" anything. If Jesus is Lord, then the leader must assume his support. In fa~zt, if superiors are to overcome their own tendencies to "’workaholism,’~ often a real reorientation of life priorities is necessary,r One important aspect of this is for the superior to be intentional about modeling the behavior which his values tell him is paramount. I recall a meeting of local superiors in which the provincial was speaking about things ~Douglas McGregor, Leadership and Motivation (Cambridge:,The M.I.T. Press, 1966), p. 67. ~Abraham Zaleznik, "’Management of Disappointment," Harvard Business Review 45 (1967), p. 69. rNorbert Brockman, S.M., "The Workaholic Priest," PastoralLife 27 (February, 1978), p. 27. Burnout in Superiors / t~15 to be done to foster local community development, when one oLthe local coordinators spoke up, saying "I’11 believe all this when I~see you fellows do it!" The frustration that caused this outburst allowed a simple truth to be expressed in that community, that the provincial adminigtration’s own house was the last place ’where local community development ,was hap-pening. Similarly, howmany in leadership positions find their prayer lives suffering in the name of the urgency of work and other commitments? Confronting openly and honestly the shear burden of tasks to be done, and the resulting harried workaholism, is a first step toward preventing burnout. Anyone in a leadership position must allow himself time to recoup. Feeling guilt about leisure does not mean that leisure is wrong. It often just means that there is a twisted sense of priorities. Taking time off, even if in the form of ~’little vacations" of a few hours or a day, is excellent therapy. Above all, there must be time to be in community, to share its life without pose, and to accept its support. To’be always on the go is to negate many of the values Of community ~nd to ~nal~e support almost impossible. When Mitchell speaks of the root cause of burnout as nonreciprocity, we recall that th~ Christian life embodies tile concept of faith-sharing, and that this is a distinc{ antidote~to that cause. What is the.spread of the gospel, evangelization itself, if it is r~ot a call to sharing of the good news? Unhappily, many who minister to others do not evangelize among them-. selves. Many religious ’houses are the last places io hear the go.od news shared with infectious enthusiasm. Yet, one can hardly imagine a greater healing power for burnout than this.° A point of examen for any religious leader and cortainly for any team is the degree to which faith-sharing is a priority in their lives and work together. Any leader will find strength and support in working with a team. This has become one of the more striking developments in the administration of religious communities in the past ten years. Nevertheless, team adminis-trations need even more attention given to faith-sharing than the older hierarchical models. In addition to fostering support for others on the working team, the religious leader must be attentive to the fostering and growth of his own support system. To a certain extent his local community and the team ~ provides this, especially if they are one and the same. Yet, beyond the local community, there need to be other resources cultivated. Among them should be a spiritual director, one who can monitor, suggest, listen, and encourage. One who is notfearfui, as need arises, to speak a prophetic word when it is called for. In addition, it is highly useful to have someone with whom to ventilate feelings, frustrations, and concerns~. Perhaps this might be the spiritual director, but above all, it should never be anyone for whom the "debriefing" is a burden. For that reason, it can rarely be another member of the administration, who has his own share of the community’s concerns to deal with. What is looked for here is support, affirmation, 816 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 utmost discretion, and a place to let down one’s hair. One church executive of my aquaintance meets monthly with a good .friend, a governmerit ad-ministrator, for lunch and a sharing of frustrations. After the flow of hor-ror- stories of the weeks past, they inevitably end in laughter and renewed perspective. They close with a few minutes of silent prayer in the crowded restaurant, .and depart. While this way of doing things may be unique, the pattern it represents should not be. Conclusion Burnout is only too common among religious superiors. There are those who step back from responsibility, putting in time until their terms end. Others react in different ways. When one recognizes, however, that lead-ership burnout is a normal pattern, that it can be acknowledged and either prevented or dealt with, it assumes far less fearsome characteristics. Part of the reality of leadership is that it calls forth inner resources that the leader often did not realize he possessed. To cope effectively with leadership means that to some degree (and sometimes to a great degree) one must undergo conversion. The mystery is that a religious community often calls someone to leadership on the basis of what it has seen, but it also often has expectations of that leadership based on what it has not seen! Normally, leadership time should be one of the times of greatest growth for an individual. The pressures to escape the challenge of that growth are great, and look so ominous. Yet these pressures have to be0resisted, placed in perspective. To do otherwise is to court disaster through burnout, leaving the superior at the end of his term an empty shell which had once been inhabited by a living soul. Evangelization in Theological Perspective Laurence J. O’Connell Dr. O’Conneli is acting chairman of the Department of Theological Studies; St. Eouis Uni-versity; 3634 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108 . In the wake of Pope’Paul VI’s encyclical entitled: Evangelization in the Modern World, there has been increasing discussion of evangelization, especially in religious communities and dioceses. Indeed, many are work-ing towards, the implementation ,of the pope’s message through the estab-lishment of evangelization commissions and programs., While this serious-minded response is well intentioned, it is not always theologically well informed! This occasional lack of theological perspective may stem from the fact that there is relatively little written on the popular level regarding the subject of evangelization from a specifically theological, point of view. The following remarks are aimed at ’meeting an apparent need for more theological~discussion about evangelization, Evangelization isrooted in the Greek word evangeliou which in the New testament refers to the Gospel, the Good News, or the content of the Christian message. We also find in the New Testament the verb-form, evangelizomai, which refers to the apostolic or ministerial activity of giving witness to the Good News or communicating the content of the Gospel. Our term evangelization, then, stems from the New Testament terms for both the content of the Gospel, namely, the Word of God, and the ministerial activity by which the Wortl is communicated. It may seem curious to begin a specifically theological discussion with etymology; yet, in this case, the ety.mology has theological implications.’In 817 I~’11~ / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 pointing to the intimate link between the content of the Gospel and its communication, the etymology suggests that perhaps a theology of evan-gelization should take this intimate link into consideration. Indeed, as we shall see, content and communication may be said to represent the north and south poles of the axis around which the discussion of evangelization revolves. In all communication, content or substance shapes or gives rise to a particular style of communicating. In other words, content largely deter-mines the form or mode of communication. For example, MacDonald’s, the hamburger people, have a message to communicate, namely, they do it all for us. The content of this message is of commercial value and consequently it is expressed or communicated in a commercial way on television. In contrast, when a man says to his wife, "I do it all for you," the content of the message is" personal and thus it reaches expression through a personal, intimate means of communication. The content, then, of any given message does influence the way in which it finds appropriate expression. And this is true of the Gospel, evangelion and the manner in which it reaches expression in the form of evangeli-zomai, evangelization. All evangelizing activity takes its form from the content of the Gospel, that is, the Word of God. Evangelization, in short~ is informed by the Ve~bum Dei. It follows that any discussion of evangelization should pre-suppose some understanding of the content of the message which God has addressed to us in his Gospel. Once" we clarify the content of the’ Gospel, the ap-propriate mode,of communication will become evident. ~ The Gospel is, as we all know, the Word of God, the Verbum Dei. But what do we. mean by Verbum Dei and what does our understanding of Verbum Dei tell. us about the communication of the Word through evangelization? What does the content of the Gospel tell us about the manner’in which that content is to be communicated? ~ At times the content of the Gospel message is viewed asa set of logically ordered ideas or a clearly defined philosophy of life. The Verbum Dei is conceived of,as’a blueprint which is to be read, rigidly followed,°and repeated verbatim. The Word of God, that blueprint, is identified with the contents of the seventy-two books of the New and Old Testaments. If the content of the Word of God is understood in this way, it will inevitably be communicated in a way which reflects this understanding. Indeed, when the Gospel is viewed as a clearly outlined philosophy of life, evangelization tends to be understood as the transmission of some objective teaching. The Word of God is reduced to the written word and evangelizing activity becomes a pedagogical exercise wherein the minister assumes that he or she has something to teach someone else. The minister has the blueprint of life and. his evangelizing activity is directed towards instructing others to read that blueprint objectively, that is, as he or his group or culture read it. Evaffgelization in Theological Perspective This view of the Gospel message and its communication is not as un-common as one might think. And this is unfortunate since viewing the Gospel as some sort of textbook and equating evangelization with simple teaching reduces the Gospel to an ideology, a closed system of thought. Evangelization becomes a pedagogical technique aimed at self-interested propagandizing. ° The Word of God is not a neatly reasoned ideology; nor is it simply contained in seventy-two volumes of’ inspired writing which are to be mechanically parroted. The Word of God, the authentic content of the Gbspel message, the Verbum Dei is the Verbum lncdrnatum,t The’ Word of God is the person of Jesus Christ. In him and through him, God is revealed in creation, in history, in our personal lives. The Epistle to the Hebrews.tells us that "after having spoken to our fathers through the prophets, God speaks to us through his Son, Jesus Christ" (Heb l: i). As Word, Jesug was existing from°the beginning in God. and he was God. In the prologue to John’s Gospel we read: The Word was with God And the Word was God He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be. not one thing had its being but through him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark. a light that darkness could not overpower. So the Word of God enti~red openly into history by being made flesh. The Word of God was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The content of God’s Word to us, then, is radically personal and thus must be com-municated in a personal way. Consequently, evangelization should not be conceived merely’as the transmission of some objective teaching. Evangelization should not be primarily understood as verbal proclamation.~Rather, ,evangelization~ should be viewed primarily in terms of ffitness to a personal encounter, an encounter with the living Christ. In discussing evangelization we should not be talking about how to push a prefabricated ]grogram; we shohld" be dis-cussing how to promote the spontaneous recognition of ~ person, namely, Jesus Christ. Indeed, we cannot afford to ignore the practical dimension of evangelization; yet, we should not, from a specificially theological point of view at least, be overly concerned about practicalities. Sound theology should lead to effective practice. Thus, in our theological discussion of evangelization, we can say with the author of the first letter of John: "’The Word, whois life this is our subject." ’ As we have noted, the content of God’s word to us is radically personal and thus must be communicated’in a personal way. So, whatever else it may be, evangelization, the process by which we communicate the Word of 820 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 God, is something personal. It both emanates from and eventuates in per-sonal encounter with Christ. :Evangelization is a process wherein, one person (or group of persons) communicates his explicit experience of God’s abiding presence to another person or (group of persons). It should be noted, however, that evange-lization is a two-way street. The evangelizer is not only inviting the other; he too is being invited. In his encounter with the other person, the evangelizer will inevitably encounter him "who through all things came to be." So evangelization is a spiraling process of ever deepening personal encounter with Christ. In revealing Christ to others, we find Christ re-vealing himself to us in ever new and more .profound ways. Evangelization, in the deepest theological sense, is an inter-personal process of unfolding revelation. Evangelization, like all interpersonal activity, is a growth process and, as such, iris characterized by the tensions which accompany all growth. Put more simply, we might say that evangelizing activity has two, poles: a self-oriented pole and an other-oriented pole. The effectiveness and healthy growth of the evangelizing process, at least from the human angle, demands both the other-directed and self-directed poles. For example, before moving out to others in any explicit way, it is best to come to grips with myself, to ex~imine my own life of faith. What does Christ really mean to me and how does this influence my life and work? This introspective moment within the evangelization process is crucial and often painful. It usually demands self-renewal, a renewed commitment in faith to the person of Christ. Further, this reflective moment serves to keep us in touch with the fact that we are merely the vehicles of revelation, not the content. Any light we give is, like moonlight, a reflection of the sun--Son in the case of evangelization. Having deepened one’s own appreciation of what Christ means to him or her, one is moved to take up the challenge which Christ addresses to everyone whom he encounters: "Go forth to the whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation."° The intensified encounter with Christ which one experiences in the introspective moment gives rise to the ministerial moment, the.other-oriented moment wherein one consciously strives to give visibility to the light of Christ through one’s life, work, and words. The distinction between the self-directed and other-directed moments within evangelization, that process of unfolding revelation, illustrates a point made by Pope Paul VI, namely, that evangelization is a complex process made up of varied elements. In these brief remarks we have only begun to unravel the complexity of the question. Indeed, we have simply made four points which we hope are relevant to the discussion of evangelization from a. theological perspective: . 1. The first point: In all communication, content or substance gives rise Evangelization in Theological Perspective to a particular style of communication. Thus, the way in which the Word of God is communicated in evangelizing activity is conditioned or informed by the content of the Word of God. Evangelization, as a mode of communication, must be defined in a way which is con-sistent with the content of the Gospel message. Therefore, we must look to the content of the Gospel before we move into a discussion of evangelization. 2. The second point: The content of the Word of God, the Verbum Dei, is the Verbum Incarnatum, the person of Jesus Christ. The content of God’s word to us is radically personal and thus must be com-municated in a personal way. Thus, in discussing evangelization we should not always be only talking about how to mount a program; we should be discussing how to promote the spontaneous recognition of a person, namely, Jesus Christ. "The Word, who is life--this is our subject!" 3. The third point: Evangelization is a spiraling process of ever deep-ening personal encounter with Christ. In revealing Christ to others, we find Christ revealing himself to us in ever new and more profound ways. Evangelization, in the deepest theological sense, is an inter-personal process of unfolding revelation. 4. The fou?th point: After giving a general characterization of evan-gelization, we moved to a brief description of the inner dynamic of evangelizing activity by distinguishing between the self- and other-directed moments within’the evangelizing process. We pointed to the necessity of a balanced interaction between these two moments{ We noted that the intensified encounter with Christ which one expe-riences in the introspective moment gives rise to the ministerial mo-ment or the other-oriented moment wherein we consciously strive to give visibility to the light of Christ through our lives, our work, and words. These brief remarks will have achieved their aim if they have clarified to some extent the theological meaning of.evaogelization and if they have drawn attention to the fact that evangelizing activity should be shaped by sound theology. Spiritual Growth in the Later Years: John XXlll on Death and Aging Raymond Smith, O.P. ’ Except for a new introduction, Fr. Smithrs article was originally given as a paper at.a workshop on "Aging Religious: Our Responsi.bility’" whichowas held at College Misericordia in Dallas, PA, June 14~16, 1978. He resides at St: Dominic Priory; 630 E St., S.W.; Washington, DC 20024. W’hen we consider the teaching of St. Paul on baptism, we realize that in a sense we are never old. We are a new creation. The old man is dead. Of course we know that the old man means the one in sin. Yet~ we might say that in the order of grace there are no generation gaps precisely because we are all new and perpetually young in Christ. While this is all true, we also know that in a real sense we do grow old and that old age is a fact that we have to face. Next we ask ourselves: Is there a different spirituality for us when we were young arid then another for us as we get old? It sounds like the old question of different spiritualities for the married and for religious. Again we see that in a sense we all have the same spirituality basically but in another sense we do have differences that are real and distinctive. Hence we do have a genuine topic for meditation when we speak of ~piritual growth in the later years. At the outset I should say that each one of us has his or her own personal spirituality. Each of us is unique. How-ever, we have enough in common so that we can consider some notions that we share and thus come to some understanding of what is involved in holiness as we grow older. Just as the spirituality of a child is different from his parents, so the spirituality we have in later years is somewhat different from that of our earlier years. 822 Spiritual Growth in the Later Years / 823’ When°’I was 46 I read Pope John XXIII’s Journal of a Soul. For an obvious reason the following passage struck me. Pope John was forty-six when he wrote it. "I have noticed certain things this yea~r which convince me that I am growing old and that my body sometimes shows signs of its frailty. This will make the,thought of de~ath familiar to me, rendering life more joyful, .active, and,industrious" (p. 211). Aside from the fact that this seemed.to me x, eryo early, in~ life to think a~bout dying, what the autho.r says about meditating on death was eyenmore striking. For him such a med-itation will make life more joyful, active and industrious. In fact it did. I was so fascinated by this remark in Pope John’s Journal of a Soul that I highlighted every statement he made on aging in the rest of the book. For those who are fond of statistics, I counted fifteen entries. I think that Pope John had the answer to spiritual growth in the later years. I don’t claim that if we follow his example it will bring any of us to the papacy, but I am convinced that it will bring us closer to Christ. I would say that a fundamental reality .with which any person striving for holiness must come to grips is death. Until I d? that I will be fencing with the tea! underlying problem of growing old. I will continue,to act and try to think that I will ,never die, which characterizes many of us in our younger years and which I think is gpod. But on.ce I reach a certain point in life, for Pope John it was forty-six, I ought to face the fact of dying. Unless I do, I might become like ,W.i!liam Randolph Hearst, the famous publisher, w~ho when he was getting old s~trictly forbade anyone to mention the word death in his presence.Some elderly people try to do th’at psyqhol~gicolly an,~l think it impedes their spiri.tual progress. Death is really an,angel and we’ should believe how good angels can be to us. Yet, I’ll be the first,.to concede that death is the great ambiguity of life.~ When we turn to the Book of (~nesis, we encounter death in th~ tension of the temptation. God created man and woman in hi~ image and like.ness, and God is life. In the opening chapters of Genesis we see God warning our first parents to avoid the tree of. knowl.edge of good and evil. He tells them that the moment they eat from the tree they are surely doomed to die (Gn 2:17). When the serpent tempts i~ve s~he spells out the warning referring to the tree even more clearly saying: "God said: You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you ~l’ie"’ (3:3). The serpent contradicts what God has said by remarking: "You certainly will not die!" This confrontation between life and death will haunt every person. Why are we given such a precious gift as life only to lose it in death? Even if we succeed in explaining to our own satisfaction why death is in the world, we still have to face dying. As i already mentioned, when we are young we rarely realize that we will die. True. we sometimes talk about dying and seem to tell ourselves that we will die and, in our more generous moments, are even ready to die. In fact, we don’t deep down inside accept death as a reality for ourselves. We know that others die but we still have a sense 824 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 of immortality. Only should we suffer a severe illness and almost die do we begin to accept that we are mortal. I also notice that when a person passes a certain age, certainly sixty-five, he orshe will revert to feeling that life on earth isn’t going to end. Such is not true for everyone but those in reasonably good health have a tend-ency to return to their previous thought patterns which pictures death as not happening to oneself. Perhaps some just dismiss the thought. I remember though an interview with an old timer in vaudeville, Ted Lewis, and he remarked that although he was then in his eighties he kepf thinking that he would go right on living. With no doubt a sense of humor a priest at our house, now eighty-eight, got a pacer when eighty-five to keep his heart beating smoothly. When he returned to the priory he told us: ~’This pacer will last for five years so when I’m ninety I’ll get a new one. By the time I’m ninety-five they. should have ones that last longer so I won’t have to keep changing them." The trutli of the matter is, as that old radio program The March of Time used to put it: As it must to all men, death came to . One of the ways that I have learned to accept the fact of death was by meditating on what St. Ambrose said on the subject. For the Christian, h~ wrote in effect, death is the blessing that comes at the~end of a safe journey. His idea is that we are baptized into Christ and so we died in Christ. Then by remaining with Christ throughout our lives we make our journey through life with him. This is true for all Christians. They use the rich sacramental system of the Church and develop a prayer life. We as religious should feeloespecially blessed since it is true for us whose religious profession is such a strong affirmation of our baptismal vows. To think about death as a blessing is quite a switch from thinking about it as a terrifying event, the ambiguity of life, the meanihglessness of living and so forth as happens today for many and I suspect throughout the history of the human family when people had enough time to think about such things. To see death as a blessing is one of the most significant discoveries we can make.Once We do, I think we are assured of spiritual growth not only in the later years but at any moment in one’s life. To borrow from Thomas Merton but in a different context, we might say’that death becomes that moment in life where the hills end and the stars begin. The hills represent the struggles we endured in life, especially loneliness. With Christ as our companion we conquer the hills and now with death we see only the glory of God before us. The more we see death in those terms, the better disposed we are for dying. Little wonder that Pope John could say that any ’day is a good day to be born and any day is a good day to die. The great French novelist Franqois Mauriac wrote a marvelous little book The Son of Man in which he offers’ another meditation on dying and death. He has an epilogue which he calls "The Final Answer." He begins by writing: Spiritual Growth in the Later Years / 1125 If 1 were to give a human reason for my fidelity to Christ in the evening of my life, I would call it his quieting of the radical anguish that is in me. This anguish is not to be confused with the fear spoken of by Lucretius, that gives birth to gods. This anguish " is not fear. My very singular anguish, which 1 did not learn from anyone, tormented me from the moment I began to grow aware of the tragedy implied in the fact of being a man; that is to say, a creature condemned to death and who lives under a stay of execution for an unknown length of time~(p. 112). ~Ie goes on to explain his own anguish as a child which many may have experienced in ttieir own way while others of us simply never did. Yet, all of us do share Mauriac’s awareness of the death sentence. Some have the time element announced as when the doctor says: "You have about six months to live." Even if we are not subjected to that verdict, we still have to face what one has called "the adequate torture" or "old age" which consists in our "gradual deterioration of strength, the decline of mind, the slow and noiseless approach of ineluctable dissolution" (p. 115). Toall this Mauriac replies! I exclaim with Lacordaire: "Gentlemen. I bring you happiness.’ i bring you the kind of happine,ss that a Christian.begins to discover at my age. In the measure that I have grown old. anguish has loosened its grip on me. ’The man who grows old becomes more aware of the eternal.’ says Romano Guardini. ’He is less agitated and the voices from beyond are better heard. The encroachment of eternity pales the reality of time.’ There is a prffyer by Saint Gertrude. who 6aust have been very old when she uttered’ it, in,which she calls Christ ’the love of the evening of my life." and in which she says: ’O my Jesus of life’s evening, let me fall asleep_ in You quietly . ’ But all of this was already expressed at the dawn of the Christian Era when the aged Simeon pressed the Infant God’to his breast: Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine". (p. 115). I think that growth in spirituality can be measured by this criterion of Franqois Mauriac. Do I find myself in less anguish now than before? If not, then I am apparently not growing in the spiritual life, unless our Lord just wants me to be in anguish as my way to God. Normally though what we mean by being free of anguish is that all those trivia that upset us so much in the past are seen in their proper perspective, namely, in the divine plan for us. We should have grown enough to rise above the pettiness Of mis-understandings within our community, with frustrations outside it over family affairs or those who crossed our path during our apostolates, also we should have reached a high degree of tolerance in accepting sickness and disappointments. That’s a large order but if we attain it we have arrived at peace. St. Thomas Aquinas said that if ha had to choose the title that most perfectly described Christ he would call our Lord, Prince of Peace. Our growth in the spiritual life at any point is evaluated by the degree o.f peace we possess. Peace is an effect of charity according to the theology of Aquinas. Hence, what we have increasing daily is divine love which is simply God loving himself througl~ us. As his love grows in us. we grow in peace. Our inter-personal relations take on a deeper meaning because we now see each other in the life of God and realize that we are one Body in Christ. The frictions 828 /Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 and competitiveness of our younger days give way to a sincere desire to assist others purely as others without thought of self, let alone self-gain. We will b~ able to .ligten to the same story over and over again from an old companion and somehow rejoice and even communicate to the other that we enjoyed hearing that story for the. umpteenth time. Returning to Pope John, I don’t want anyone to think that he was obsessed with aging~ If his first referepce seemed premature, his next is ten years later when he is fifty-six. Before his remarks on aging he mentions how he sees his spiritual progress. "When I look over my spiritual orga-~ nism, as it is right for me to do at this time, I see that, by the grace of God, all the parts are still functioning but some are covered with dust, some nearly worn out, others have gone rusty, and elsewhere the screws and springs are not working well or are working badly. So I must renew, clean ¯ . . and bring back to life" (p, 229). Saints have a marvelous way of uncovering their weaknesses and Pope John had a delightful way of ex-pressing his. Then he continues with this observation: "In December last year in Athens, I received a grave warning about my physical health. I took the necessary measures at once; a year later I feel much better." (ibid.). He doesn,t tell us what the warning was about, perhaps being overweight and hence on the high blood pressure syndrome which is a normal condition for many men of that age. Then he adds what is so perfectly human on his part and as a male: ". although I see signs of old age in my thinning hair, I must always keep myself familiar with the thought of death, not to sadden myself but on the contrary to fill with wisdom, joy and calm the. span of life that still remains for me here below" (ibidO. I often think that our Lord had some hidden humor when he said that the hairs of our head are numbered. Aside from that concern of tl~ male about his thinning hair, Pope John again has this wonderful approach to death, seeing it in a positive light and as a source of strength for the future if viewed properly. We note the word "wisdom" because that is meant to be characteristic of the old. Of course, Pope John had in mind that wisdom of knowing God and with it the joy that was bound tb follow. Growth in spirituality in the later years demands thai we grow in wisdom, the wisdom of the Scriptures and the spiritual writers, the wisdom that comes from praying well and the calm that follows from being one with Christ. When Pope John made his retreat in 1940 he’had reached a landmark that is often a traumatic experience. He writes: "I have chosen these particular days for myretreat because they are the first of my sixtieth year. I am now entering that period in.which a man begins to be old, and admits it" (p. 236). Today not all of use will, at least not publicly, but no doubt to ourselves we share the conv~iction of John. Pope John was a realist and he continues this entry in his Journal with these frank words of evaluation: "Oh may my old ag~ be one long straining after that perfection of which, as Bishop, I ought to be"master but from which I am still so far removed! Spiritual Growth in the Later Years / 1197 It is something at least to sanctify the beginning of old age with prayer and meditation, in a penitent spirit; it is~certainly pleasing to the Lord: it is an appeal for mercy" (ibid.). What a :consoling thought for all of us who have to say’the same thing: Here I am after all these years a.priest and/or religious arid still so far from the perfection I dreamed of as .a youth. Five years later John returns to the subject and this time in a much different mood. He writes: "I mustonot~disguise from myself the truth: Iam definitely hpproaching old age. My mind resents this and almost rebels, for I’~still feel so young, eager, agile and alert, ,But one look in my mirror disillusions me" (p. 264). This is one of his most human entries, so simple, so honest, so direct. However, that is not all he entered into his Journal on that day. What follows is a longer quote but I think important for our consideration: No. I do not weep and 1 do not even desire to live my life over again, so as to do better. I entrust to the Lord’s mercy whatever I hffve done badly Or less than well. and 1 look to the future, brief or long’as it may be here below, because 1 want to make it holy and a source of holiness to others. The Divine Office! Familiarity with these Benedictine monks and taking part in their liturgical services during Holy Week has given me new and gre~ater fervor in reading my Breviary. Now tha~t 1 have found a study for myself near the chapel, I shall always say my Hours in the chapel, saying matins the evening or the hight before, an~l following the monastic rules about rising and remaining seated, especi~illy at m~.tins. For this external discipline of the body is an aid to spiritual recollection. I shall also make a more intense study of the Book of Psalms. in order to know and understand them more thoroughly. There is so much doctrine and so much poetry"in the psalms! [How ofte~n we have said that or made that resi~ tition ]. In’order to simplify everything, 1 shall bear in mind ’the theological and cardinal virtues. The first cardinal virtue is prudence. This is what popes, bishops, kings and commanders have found difficult, and it is in this that they frequently fail. It is the characteristic quality 0f the diplomat, so I must cultivate it with particular care. Every evening I must examine _myself strictly on this point. My ready tongue often betrays me into saying far too much. Beware. beware! Know tiow to preserve silence, how to speak with moderation, how to refrain from jiadging people and their attitudes. except when this is an obligation imposed by Superiors. or for grave reasons (pp. 264-5). I need not comment-. The lesson from this entry is obvious to all of us, Two years later, Pope John is i,ntensifying his meditation on death: As regards my life. the central thought these days is of my death, which is perhaps near. and of my preparation for it. Now that I am in my~sixty-seventh year, anything may happen. This morning, 12 December. I celebrated°Mass for the ’grace of a gbod death’. In the afternoon, while adoring the Blesged Sb.crament. i recited the peni-tential psalms together with the Litany, and also the prayers for the departing soul. I think this is a good devotional practice. I shall make frequent use of it. This rendering myself familiar with the thought of death will lessen and soften the shock when my hour comes (ibid.). Later during this same retreat John gives us further thoughts that will help us in our spiritual growth in the later years as he writes: "I want to give more faithful and devout attention to the holy Eucharist, which I am blessed 1121~ / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 in being allowed to keep under my own roof, with direct access from my apartment. I shall take more pains about my visit to the Blessed Sacrament, making it more varied and. attractive, with reverent and devout exercises such as the recital of the penitential psalms, the Way of the Cross, and the Office of the Dead. Are not all these contained in devotion to the Holy Eucharist?" (ibid.). By the time he reached sixty-eight, John felt that his life for all practical purposes was over. "From my small Benedictine bed I have made my preparation for a good death, reciting very slowly the eight prayers set by Bossuet for this exercise. I now consider my life has come to its end. Whatever else the Lord may send me, be it years or days, I shall receive as something extra. I must often repeat the words of St. Paul, and live them: ’For I have died, and my life is hid with Christ in God’ (see Col 3:3) " (p. 270). Then he gives us a very profound thought for the spirituality of the later years: "This state of mystical death now means, more decidedly than ever, absolute detachment from all earthly ties: from myself, my own pleasures, honors, successes, material and spiritual benefits, and complete indiffer-ence to and independence of all this is not the Lord’s will concerning me" (ibid.), .Clearly we have poverty of sPirit combined with real material pov-erty. Unlike the aging priest in Bruce Marshall’s The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith who was forever collecting chocolate candy bars to sustain his energy, John saw detachment as a key to spiritual growth. Too often elderly people become grabbing and demanding in their later years, worried about every item of food and Clothing, convinced that things may run out before they die. No malice is in them, I’m sure, but their lives did not develop according to Gospel spirituality. Pope John’s did. John was never sparing in his judgment on himself’as this entry two years later indicates. "Twenty-five years of episcopal Masses, offered with all the splendor of good intentions, and all the dust of the road, oh, what a mystery of mingled grace and shame! The grace of Jesus’ tender love given as ’Bishop and Shepherd’ to his chosen priest, the shame of the priest who finds his consolation only in trustful self-surrender" (p. 275). Here I think Pope John is telling us to cling in these later years to the virtue of hope while being big enough to be honest about our failures. Soon another landmark is to be reached and Pope John has these thought.s. "When one is nearly sev.enty, one cannot be sure of the future." He then quotes what we number now as Psalm 90 which speaks of those ¯ who live to the three score and ten and the strong who even make it to eighty. Then he continues: So it is no use nursing any illusions: 1 must make myself familiar with the thought of the end, not with dismay which saps the will, but with confidence which preserves our enthusiasm for living, working, and serving. Some time ago 1 resolved to bear con-stantly in mind this reverent expectation of death, this joy which ought to be my soul’s last happihess when it departs from this life. I need not become wearisome to others Spiritual Growth in the Later Years / 1t29 by speaking frequently of this; but I must always think ofit, because the consideration of death, the judicium mortis, when it has become a familiar thought, is good and useful for the mortification of vanity and for infusing into everything a sense of moderation and calm. As regards temporal matters, 1 will revise~my will once more. I am poor, thank God, and I mean to die poor . Will the Lord call me soon to the heavenly fatherland? Here I am, ready. I beg him only to take me at a good moment. Has he perhaps reserved for me many more years of life? I will be grateful for them, but alway~ impl?re him not to leave me on this earth when 1 have become an en-cumberance and of no further use to Holy Church. But in thi~ also the Lord’s holy will, that is enough (pp. 276-7). Two years later Pope John again considers the fact of his seventy yea~ as a good age to review his life. He combines a slight sense of remorse with a strong optimism and some solid thoughts on the spirituality of the later years. Once more I let his own words speak for him. The ordinary term of human life, seventy years, isnow completed. I think back on all my seventy years, I must admit, "in bitterness of soul." Alas! I still feel shame and grief for my "countless sins, offences and negligences," for the little 1 have achieved and the much more that I could, and should, have done in the service o’f the Lord, of Holy ~ Chfirch and of soulsl But at the time I cannot’forget the wealth of graces and mercies Which Jesus has lavi-~hed io generously upon me, contrary to all my deserts: "There-fore his praise shall be always in my mouth.’" "Simplicity of heart and speech!" The older 1 grow the more clearly I perceive the dignity and the winning beauty of simplicity in thought., conduct and speech: a desire to simplify all that is complicated and to treat everything with the greatest naturalness and clarity, without wrapping things up in trimmings and artificial turns of thought and phrase. ’To be simple with prudence’--the motto is St. John Chrysostom’s. What a wealth of doctrine in these two phrases! (pp. 278-9). Later he gives us some advice that is essential for our spiritual growth in the later years. In al! things "consider the end." The end is drawing nearer as my days follow one another. 1 must be more concerned with the thought of imminent deatb, and with dying well, than with lulling myself with dreams of a longer life. But I must not be sad about this or talk too much about it. "The will of God is our peace," always, in life and still more, in death . My spiritual life must be intensified. No overloading with? devotions of a novel and secondary character, but fidelity to those which are fun-damental, with passionate fervor. Holy Mass, the Breviary, the rosary, meditations, the reading of good books, close and frequent~ union with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (pp. 27~-80). A year later comes one of the great and most cherished events in his life. John bec, omes the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice and it is not the honor that thrills him but the fact that at last he is back to pastoral work, free of the direct charge 6f being an ecclesiastical diplomat. He writes: I am beginning my direct ministry at an age--seventy-two years--when others end theirs. So, 1 find myself on the threshold of eternity~ O Jesus, chief Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, the mysteryof my life and death is in your hands, close to your heart. On the one hand I tremble at the approach of my last hour; on the other hand I trust in you and only look one day ahead. I feel 1 am in the sam6 condition is St. Aloysius Gonzaga, that is, I must go on with what I have to do, always striving after perfection but thinking still more of God’s mercy (p. 283). 8~0 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 Then he gives expression to a beautiful ideal of spirituality as he writes: "My day must be one long prayer: prayer is the breath of my life. I propose to recite all fifteen decades of the rosary every day, if possible in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, with the intention of recommending to our Lord and to our Lady the more urgent needs of my children in Venice and in the diocese:the .clergy, young seminarists, consecrated virgins, public authorities and poor sinners" (ibid.). Jumping ahead for a moment to the time of his papacy it is interesting to read these words: "The rosary, which since the beginning of 1953 I have pledged myself to recite devoutly in its entirety, has become°hn exercise of constant meditation and tranquil daily contemplation, keeping my mind alert in the vast field of my teaching office and my ministry as supreme Pastor of the Church and common Father of souls" (p. 315). I doubt that anyone has given a more practical and eloquent endorsement of the rosary than that. One final comment from his 1953 retreat is worthy of note. At the age of seventy-two and in charge of a large and famous archdiocese was bound to produce some negative .feeling and John was not beyond that. He betrays as much in the following reflection: "Sometimes the thought of the short time still left me tempts me to slacken my efforts. But with God’s help I will not give in. ’I neither fear to die nor refuse to live.’ The Lord’s will is still my peace" (p. 284). For John, God’s will was God’s love. So he was alw.~ays at peace. At the age of seventy-four, John finds himself celebrating the fifth cen-tenary of the death of St. Lawrence Giustiniani who was the first Patriarch of Venice and died at the age of seventy-four. Thinking on that man’s holy death, John writes: "Is not this a good way of preparing for my own? A grave and salutary thought for me . But the life still left to me will be a joyful preparation for death. I accept death and await it with confidence --not in myself, for I am a poor sinner, but in the infinite mercy of the Lord to whom I owe all that I am, all that I have" (p. 286). Seventeen months have passed since he was nominated as Cardinal and Patriarch of Venice and during that time three of his sisters have died. Emerson’s essay "On Compensation" comes to mind. We seem always to have a certain balance of joys and sorr.ows, something like the mysteries of the rosary too. John does not deny a sense of melancholy from it all but is quick to rejoice in the eternal happiness that he feels his sisters now enjoy. Two years later, now seventy-six, John begins his personal notes with the line from the hymn of the old hour of None: "Give me more light as evening falls." He continues: O Lord, we are now inthe evening of 0ur fife. I am in my seventy-sixth year. Life is a great gift from our heavenly Father. Three-quarters of my contemporaries have passed over tothe far shore. So I too mus~t always be ready for the great moment. The thought of death does not alarm me. Now one of my five brothers has also gone before me, and he was the youngest but one, my beloved Giovanni. Ah, what a good life and what a fine death! My health is excellent and still robust, but I cannot count on it. I Spiritual Growth in the Later Years / 1131 want:to hold myself ready to reply adsum at any, even the most unexpected moment. Old age, likewise a great gift of the Lord’s, must be for me a source of tranquil inner joy, and a reason for trusting day by day inlhe Lord himself, to whom I am now turned as a child turns to his father’s open arms. My poor life, now such a long one, has unwound itself as easily as a ball of string, under the sign of simplicity and purity. It costs me nothing to acknowledge and repeat that I am nothing and worth precisely nothing (p. 291)., We see here the humility of the man which brings out his strength. What is important for our Spiritual growth in the later years is to deepen our huniilit~ and become like the child who turns to our heavenly Father in the way Pope John did. How’genuine was John’s humility is found in a closing thought from that year’s retreat. "There are two gates to paradise: innocence and penance. Which of us, poor frail cre~itures, can expect to find the first of these wide open? But we may be sure of theother: Jesus passed through it, bearing his cross in atonement for our sins, and he invites us to follow him. But following him means doing penance, letting oneself be scourged, and scourging oneself a little .too. My Jesus, amidst .the many joys of my epis-copal ministry there also continual opportunities for mortification. I wel-come them. Sometimes they hurt my pride a little, but I rejoice at this suffering and ’repeat before God: ’It~ is good. for me :to be humiliated,: St. Augustine’s great saying is always in. my mind and comforts me" (p. 292). On October 28, 1958 Angeio Giuseppe Roncalli was elected pope and took the name John. He, tells us that he considered his first dut-y was to make his,will. He is able to write: ". even when it is written down:, it will still be the will of a poor and simple pope" (p. 298). Spirituality in the later years has to be rich in poverty. Only by letting go of material things are we disposed for the eternal joys of heaven. The retreat that. marks his eightieth birthday is als0 one in which he speaks of holiness, moved by the fact, .as he put it: ~’Everyone calls me ’Holy Father,’ and holy I must and ~wiil be~ (p. 303). Then he quotes a passage from the book on Christian perfectibn by Antonio Rosmini: Reflect on this thought, that sanctity consists in being willing to be opposed and humiliated, rightly or wrongly; in being willing to obey; in being willing to wait, with perfect sereni(y; in doing the will of your Superiors withoutLr~egard for your own will; in acknowledging all the benefits.you receive and your own unworthiness; in feeling a~great gratitude to others, and especially to: God’s ministers; in sincere love; in tranquillity, resignation, gentleness and the desire to do good to all, and in unceasing work "’ (ibid.). Pope John then adds his own commentary tothese words: "I find it comforting to note that these ire simply the applications of my own special motto,~which I took from Baronius: Obedientia et Pax. Jesus, this shows me that you are always with me! 1 thank you f~)r this doctrine which seems to follow me wherever I go" (pp. 303-4). One.later remark shouldaiso strike 8~12 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 us these days: "During my whole life I have kept faithful to my practice of weekly confession " (ibid.). The concluding thoughts from this retreat contain a beautiful act of humility and acceptance of God’s will. He writes: By God’s grace I have not yet entered upon helpless old age; but having now com-pleted my eighty years, I am on the threshold. So I must hold myself ready for this last phase of my life, in which restrictions and sacrifices await me, until the sacrifice of my bodily existence and_ the opening of eternal life. O Jesus, I am ready to stretch out my hands, now weak and trembling, and allow others to dress me and support me along the way. O Lord, to Peter you 9dded "and to carry you where y6u do not wish to go" (pp. 317-8). So ends the thoughts on’dying and death in Pope John’s Journal of a Soul. He had one more big task, t~he promulgation of the Apostolic Letter Numanae Salutis on Christmas day, 1961 with which he announced the calling of the Second Vatican Council. No doubt John continued to think about death but he was completely absorbed in a Church-shaking experi-ence that still indicates Pope John is very much alive. Now that I have exposed what we might call the teaching of Pope John XXIII on the spirituality of the later years, I should like to pull it together by way of summary. 1)The first requirement for spiritual growth in the later years is the acceptance of old age as a time for new opportunities to serve God ~ind the Church in fruitful ways suited to our strength. At the same time, we should take a positive view of death, not alarmed at its prospect but relating to it in faith and hope as a good to be antici~ pated. 2) Secondly, we should attain a level of peace within ourseives and with the world of people and events around us that reflects a deep faith and confidence in the goodness of Divine Providence. 3) Thirdly, we should continue to grow in self-knowledge with emphasis on God’s mercy rather than concern over past failings. 4) Fourthly, we should develop a prayer life that fits into our own particular life-style as a religious and/or priest, that is, community prayer whenever possible but also increasing the time spent in pri-vate prayer, spiritual reading, meditation, and especially presence before the Blessed Sacrament. 5) Fifthly, we should grow in detachment as a preparation for letting go of life in this world and in simplicity so as to embrace the Lord with all our heart. 6) Sixthly, we should remain actively involved mentally and physically in community and Church workand in no way withdraw from the drama of daily life. 7) Finally, we should use our leisure to enrichou~ lives "with the wisdom of the ages however this has been manifested, that is, in the Bible, spiritual maSterpieces, in art, music, literature as well as.in the con- Spiritual Growth in the Later Years / 833’ temporary media of television and radio, even attending classes when this is feasible. I think that St. Paul has summed up a great deal on this subject of spiritual growth in the later years when he wrote these words to the Corinthians: Indeed, we know that When the earthly tent in which we dwell is destroyed we have a dwelling provided for us by God, a dwelling in the heavens, not made by hands, but to last forever. We groan while we are here, even as we yearn to have our heavenly habitation envelop us. This it will, provided we are found clothed and not naked. While we live in our present tent we groan; we are weighed down because we do not wish to be stripped naked but rather to have the heavenly dwelling envelop us, so that what is mortal may be absorbed by life. God has fashioned us for this very thing and fias given us the Spirit as a pledge of it (2 Co 5:1-5). Now Available As Reprint An Apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice by Max Ofva S.J. Price: $.50 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The-Practice of Supervision in Spiritual Direction William A. Barry, S.J. and Mary C." Guy, O.S.U. Father Barry, presently Vice Provincial for Formation of his province, was formerly on the staff of the Center for Religious Development, where he supervised Sr. Mary in the course of her advancement to her Th.M. in Spiritual Direction. Sister Mary has joined the staff of Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin 3, Ireland. Father Barry’s present office is located at 393 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02115. piritual direction is a growing facet 6f the pastoral ministry of the Church. We define "spiritual direction" as that form of pastoral care. which aims at helping another person to become more aware of God’s personal communication to him or her, to respond personally to God, and " to live the consequences of that rei.ationship.~ The formation of men and women ffho can!offer this type of spiritual guidance with competence and confidence cal!.s for a look at the practice of supervision. At the outset it must be admitted that spiritual directioh has not always been so clearly focused on the relationship of an individual with God. Moreover, some present models of spiritual direction may not be so focused. For many of our readers the term "spiritual direction" will sum-!’ mon up memories of discussions of "problems in the community," or ~’personai problems," or of requests for help with moral dilemmas. Ad-’ vice-giving, consoling encouragement, and theological, moral, and legal 1Barry, W. A., "Spiritual Direction: The Empirical Approach," America, Vol. 134, no. 16 (April 24, 1976), pp. 356-358, and "Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Counseling," Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 26(1), Fall, 1977. Also Connolly, W. J., "’Contemporary Spiritual Direction: Scop6 and Principles. An Introductory Essay," Studies in Jesuit Spirituality, Vol. III, no. 3, 1975 (St. Louis, MO: American Assistancy Seminar on Jesuit Spirituality). 834 The Practice of Supervision in Spiritual Direction / 835"~’ clarification were the mainstays of the spiritual director’s trade. As psycho-’ logical counseling became more of a vogue, the gpiritual director ofte~ enotigh became a psychological counselor to those who sought him out. But discussions of experiences of a person’s relatiorishii~ With God were rare indeed. Moreover, the training of spiritual directors accented theological and moral knowledge. It Was presumed that the director should be a believing and praying person, but little or no attention was paid to the director’s own person and faith’life and his or her way of relating to others. Since right thinking and right acting were the goals of spiritual direction the emphasis was on the director’s grasp of dogmatic and moral tlieology. When present-day Christians ask for help with prayer, however, they ari~ ofteh hot ultimately satisfied with theoldgical or ethical formulations, however balanced, insightful and helpful these may be. They want help with a relationship; they want to find a center that holds~ a relationship to lifeand life’s mysterious center that will not buckle under the strains of modern conditions. SiAiritual directors today surely need theological knowledge,~ but more than that they need to be the I~ind~ of persons to whom other people can Speak abofit the most profound experiences they have, their experiences of’"the mystery we call God.’’3 Thus, the triaining of modern spiritual directors must accent the growth of the director as a person of faith and prayer and as a person who can be trusted with the joys and pains of afiothdr.~s relationship with God. Training for this kind ~f spiritual ~lirection, therel~ore, shbuld include the experience of personal spiritual direction and the experietice of personal’supervision, This article intends to describe as concretely as possible some experiences of supervision in the hope that the’-:’ description will help spiritual directors understand supervision and see its value. The experience the authors shared :as supervisor and supervisee during a ten month period at the Center for Religious Development in Cambridge is the basis for the ’article. The Concept of Supervision ’ ’~ Supervision has not been a total unknown in the’history of spirituality: Even where it was practiced, however for example, in consultation with a p~rudent person when a particularly’knotty confessional case arose--the 2Barry, w. A., "’The Prior Experience of Spiritual Dire_ctors," ~piritual Life, Vol. 23, no. 2 (Summer, 1977), pp. 84-89. ., 3A phrase often used by Karl Rahner. . ~ ~One instance of the reality seems to be in ihe practice~of the .ear!y Society of Jesus. In his Constitutions, lgnatius says of Jesuits in studies: ":After they. have had experience of the Spiritual Exercises in their ownselves, they should acqu,ire experience in giving them to others." Then in a note to this paragraph he says: "They could begi~ by giving the Exerci~ses to some in whose cases less is risked, and by conferring about, their method of procedure with someone more experienced, noting well what he finds,more useful and what less so" (Con-stitutions of the Society of Jesus, nos. 408-409, tr. George E. Ganss [St, Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970], pp. 202-203). 836 / Review for Re, ligious, Volume 37, 1978/6 focus was on the person with the problem, not on the confessor or the spiritual director himself. The modern use of supervision in spiritual direction takes its cue ~from the development of the theory and practice of supervision in psychiatry and psychology. Here the focus is on the person being supervised and on his growth as a helping person since the basic purpose of supervision of a counselor or psychotherapist is to help him to become more therapeutic.~ In our adaptation of this paradigm, supervision of a spiritual director aims to help him to.become more facilitative of another’s relationship with God, in other words, to help him become a spiritual director. If such is the purpose of supervision, then two basic presuppositions must be made: that those who seek such supervision believe that God does communicate with his people individually and in a way that is discernible, and that they themselves want to become or to develop as spiritual directors. The belief in God’s desire and ability to communicate must be gained from their personal experience of God’s communication, not just from catechism or theology classes. The spiritual director must be a person who prays contemplatively.~ The second presupposition, namely, the presence of the desire to become a spiritual director, is the basis for the -working alliance’’r that is to be established between the director and the supervisor(s). On this basis both agree to the often painful, yet challenging and exciting work of supervision. This working alliance relies on the desire of the supervisee to become a better director at whatever cost (or quit the work) and on the desire of the supervisor to facilitate that becoming,s Such a working alliance needs to be strong in order to weather some of the storms of supervision. Establishing a Working Alliance When directors ask for supervision, they may have a variety of purposes in mind. They may want help in understanding a particular dir~ectee; they may be looking for reassurance that their work is adequate; they may hope to find out how the supervisor would direct a particular directee, In our experience at the Center for Religious Development we have found that all of these purposes, while, perhaps, legitimate and even attainable in a supervisory relationship, are peripheral to the main issue. We believe that 5For a useful, insightful and full treatment of supervision in counseling and psychotherapy see William J. Mueller and Bill L. Kell, Coping with Conflict: Supervising Counselors and Psycho-therapists (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,. 1972). 6For a more extended discussion of the comtemplative attitude cf. W. A. Barry, "The Con-templative Attitude in Spiritual Direction," Review for Religious, 1976, 35, pp. 820-828. 7This concept is developed by Ralph R. Greenson in The Technique "and Practice of Psycho-analysis. Vol. 1 (New York: International Universities Press, 1967). 8There is a parallel here to the working alliance in spiritual direction itself which relies on the desire of the directee to grow in his relationship with God at whatever cost and on the desire of the director to facilitate that growth. The Practice of Supervision in Spiritual Direction / 1t37 the primary purpose of supervision as well as of studies in the various theological and spiritual disciplines---is the personal growth of the spiritual director precisely as,spiritual director. This belief means that directors who seek supervision are not basically asking for help with technique or with spiritual diagnosis or with the proper use of scriptural texts. They are putting themselves on the line and are asking for help to become someone, namely spiritual directors:’ Supervision is, therefore, a risky and challenging affair, and anyone with common sense approaches the enterprise with fear and trepidation. , The first questions that face both supervisor and supervisee in such a situation is whether they can work together toward t)ae end in view and whether there is agreement between them on what is the end in view: Working together toward personal growth of any kind requires trust on both sides. The supervisor must trust the capacity and desire of the super-visee to develop as a kndwledgeable, competent and confident facilitator.of another’s relationship with God. If the supervisor does not have or develop more trust than mistrust in the early stages of the supervision, he will communicate negative feelings by his attitude if not by his overt behavior. He. will angrily question the director or coolly point out mistakes. The director will not experience him as on his side, but rather as an opponent. Non6 of these feelings need be overt or even recognized by either person, but the atmosphere that they create will be at least somewhat noxious to growth. In these circumstances some spiritual directors in supervision tend to feel more and more self-doubt and lack,~of confidence; they dread supervision and quickly begin to doubt their capa~city~for spiritual direction. Other directors react with anger and a posture of self-defense before the super~’isor. In either case, growth is only with difficulty achieved, if it happens at all. The supervisee, too,.needs to grow in trust of the supervisor. Otherwise, he will hesitate to present hi~ actual experience as a director; he will put his best foot forward and will try to figure out what the supervisor wants to hear and give it to him. Before trust, develops, concepts are used to conceal experience rather than reveal it. In the shared ,.experience of supervision we had together, words like, ":contemplative attitude," -take it to the Lord," and "the Lord" sounded hollow, empty of experiential content, before our trust went deep. It is well to remember that individuals grow and change as persons through relationship with others, and that the amount of the growth will depend on the quality and depth of the relationship involved. Growth as a spiritual director cannot be superficial; it must take root in the core of the person, in the heart, in .that center where the director meets God and other people most intimately. He must develop as a person whose heart is open and discerning, whose faith, hope, and love are almost t.angible. To develop in this way he needs to relate to God’and also to his supervisor in depth. 1131~ / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 He must risk exposure of his heart, his mind, his faith, his hope, his love, each with all their strengths and limitations, to the supervisor. No one does this’ lightly; the director with common sense would only gradually develop such trust in another human being. And so the supervisor and spiritual director need to take time with one another to develop the kind of trust we are talking about. Moreover, the achievement of an’in-depth relationship of’ trust is not a once-for-all event, Such a relationship is alive; it shifts and moves, as new levels of trust and mistrust are touched. But its general trend, if it is to be most helpful, is toward deeper trust. Each supervisory relationship will differ precisely because the persons will differ; the ways any two people interact are unique. With one super-visee a supervisor might be rather passive, having little need to intervene frequently because the supervisee is so aware of his experience and is easily able to share it; the supervisor may spend more time helping the director to understand the meaning of his experience. With another supervisee he may find himself working very differently, intervening relatively frequently with questions about gestures, words, feelings because the supervisee is rela-tively unaware ofcertain parts of his experience. It may even be that certain types of supervisors, for example, the more intuitive, are better suited to supervising certain types of directors such as those who are more rational. Whether or not this is true, it is true that each supervisory relationship differs. Thus, as we sketch concretely how we two worked together, it must be remembered that the meld of our two personalities makes the concrete instance which serves to illustrate a general principle. We knew x;ery little of one another before we began the practicum~ but~ we each had heard positive reports of the other. At a faith-sharing weekend prior to the choice of supervisor both of us were moved by the honesty and openness and courage of the other. The fact that Mary chose to ask Bill for supervision impressed him, especially when it was made clear that she wanted supervision from him precisely because he seemed the kind of person who would confront feelings directly. ~ At thefirst meeting we discussed the reasons why we wanted to work together. Mary was encouraged to verbalize and concretize what sh~ hoped~ for from this supervisory experience. We shared expectations and through this process came to an agreement that our task together was to help her to develop as a spiritual director. The latter point"needs some developing. That agreement and the mutual trust that was its base formed our working alliance. Both of us agreed that we wotild strive to keep to this purpose. But-both of us are human beings and titus ambivalent about purposes. Bill would often rather daydream or watch a ball game or do crossword puzzles than do the sometimes hard work of being a supervisor. Mary only gradually came to the full acceptance’ of the fact that person~il growth, not the learning of techniques and texts, was what supervision was all about. She would sometimes prefer to chat The Practice of Supervision in Spiritual Direction about things in,general than to come to grips with’her experience of giving spiritual direction. Moreover, as human beings, we willy-nilly ruffled one another’s sensitivities, and so got one another angry and upset. In the beginning Bill experienced Mary as too quiel and passive. He felt that he was pulling teeth as he tried to get some idea of what she was experiencing. He began to wonder abo9t his capacity to supervise her. For her part Mary felt that Bill was too intrusive in supervision; she came to fear his directness and the readiness with which he expressed his feelings. She found herself trying to defend.~herself against him. But in spite of the mutual ambivalence and the sensitivities we both continued to grow in trust. Perhaps the most important breakthrough occurred when Bill trusted his intuition that Mary was experiencing powerful feelings of concern for a particular directee, but was unable to express them. When he said whathe intuited, she was able to own the feelings and became less afraid of them. Becoming a spiritual director means becoming among other things, a dis-ciplined, informed, believing and deeply caring person. Bill already knew that Mary had the intelligence and knowledge necessary for spiritual direction; now he knew that she also had the hearL Mar~y now was sure lhat he was on her side and also that he would help her not be overwhelmed by her feelings. The working alliance was firmly established, and although it was buffeted on many an occasion throughout the year, it never was in danger of foundering after this event. The Process of Supervision ’ Mary agreed io do a ~vritten report9 each week on ohe of her-direction sessions. Part of this repo~’t was the reconstruction of some of the-dialogue in the session. At the Center for Religious DeveiopmenLwe have found such reports the best vehicle for getting at the actual process ~f,spiritual direction used by a director,/ Immediately after an ifiteryiew the:,~irec, tor takes notes on what happened during it, picks Out a particular part of the interview and tries to reconstruct the convers~a~ion. The director gives the supervisor this report before the supervisory session. The supervisor reads it over, making written comments on it. The report, then, becomes the main focus of the supervisory session unless some other matter is more pressing. In the beginning the m~st obvious aspect revealed in Mary’s reports was her anxiety to say and do the right thing. As a result of this self-pre-occupation it was difficult for h~r really to hear the directee and to con-centrate oh the directee’s experiences in prayer or in life generally. It seems almost universal that when people begin a supervised experi~ ence of doing counselin~ ~r psychotherapy or spiritual direction they be-aConfidentiality is. of c~Jurse, in issue in supervision, especially when reports are written, it can be protected by the use~ 6f pseudonyms. The supervisor is also bound by the same code of confidentiality as is the director. In our experience at the Center. people who come for direction are not taken aback when,told that directors are supervised; indeed, many seem to welcome the idea. 1~41~ / Review for Religious, Volume 37,’1978/6 come self-preoccupied:’ They take on a role and seem to lose the major asset they have for-helping other persons, their humanity and their interest in others. In this supervision experience (as in every other one) the first need was to help the spiritual director to trust her own huma’nity; tier own love and concern for the people she was directing. ~ In the beginning, too, there is a tendency for directors to be pre.occupied with what they think~they are supposed to say, what texts they should propose for prayer, what they should recommend. Again such preoccupa-tions hinder them from being contemplative toward the directee, i.e., from looking at and listening to him or her. Directors also find it hard to pay attention to their own reactions to their directees, reactions which often enough are clues as to what is going on betwee.n them as well as to where their own strengths and weaknesses, faith and unfaith lie. In supervision it took hard work to help Mary to trust God and her own prior learning and experience as dependable sources of whatever sugges-tions she might need to make to a directee. Gradually her need to have answers and solutions diminished. There was less and less need to arrive at a spiritual direction session with a prepared agenda. She grew in the con-scious conviction (not without recourse to prayer and her own personal spiritual direction) that God’s Spirit was present in the interviews to help her and the directee. This conviction in turn increased her ability to enter into the other person’s experience, no matter how much it differed from her own. Indeed, she became more and more excited about the possibilities of learning more about God through listening to the experiences of her directees. The work of spiritual direction fed her own life with God just as her own prayer life nourished tirr spiritual direction. It seems axiomatic that, generally speak-ing, the more Contemplative one becomes in doing spiritual direction, the more contemplative one becomes in prayer, and vice versa. What Mary also found was that in her spiritual direction sessions responses, texts, and suggestions came to her as they were needed. She had a fund of knowledge and experience that was at her call because she was not anxious about what she should say. Earlier we mentioned the spiritual director’s reactions as she listens to the directee can be clues to her own faith and unfaith, i.e., to those areas where she does believe in the grace and power of God and to other areas where she does not--or at least hesitates. If I am afraid that God cannot heal my anger, for example, or will not accept me if I let my anger out, then I will be less able to let another person struggle with his anger in his relationship with God. In the present instance when Mary began to pay attention to her own’reactions, she became aware of her fear of letting directees experience sadness and a sense of desperation before God. Her tendency was to avoid discussions of such experiences or to offer counter-arguments to feelings of worthlessnrss. If a directee said that he felt he was The Practice of Supervision in Spiritual Direction / 1141 useless as a priest, for instance, she tended to point to instances where he was successful. What she seeined reluctant to do was to help the person to turn to God in this state of hopelessness and ask for help~ Supervision helped her to see this tendency and to deal with her unbelief in this area in her own prayer and in the direction,she herself was receivirig. As the year progressed, she was more and more able to listen to such experiences and to help people to turn to God for comfort and healing. Stie became more and more a believer in God’s desire and ability/to comfort the comfortless and hopeless. As a result of her own growth, mo~:e of her directees seemed to grow in ttleir ability to share the dark sides of themselves with her and with God. In another instance she came to a realization thaV~her deep feeling for people was a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it enabled her to establish a strong bond of trust in a situation like the following. She was directing a person who was beginning to sense the emptiness~of a rather successful life. She felt his longing for something more, and she wanted him to experience deeply the love of God for him. On the other hand, the strength t)f her desire for his good kept her from finding out whether he really wanted’ to meet God at this time. Their interviews focused on everythingbut his i’elationship with God. Mary began to notice a growing impatiehce with the man because nothing much seemed to change. In stiper~,ision one day"it was even dis-covered that she had avoided focusing on a significant religious experience which, he :brought up, an experience that clearly manifested his ambivalence before ’the invitation of God to a deeper relationship. As we talked, it became clear that she wanted to save him from the pain he would have to suffer if he faced his resistance to this invitation. Growth arid deeper relationships, however, are often bought with pain, Spiritual directors need to be able to let people, pay the price--indeed, help them to face up to the struggle. Compassion does not justify the removal of a person’s suffering. It rather establishes a sense of solidarity with him in that suffering which encourages him to present himself for healing to the God who loves him. "As long as we try to avoid pain, we avoid life," says Henri Nouwen.~° If we do not want our friends~to avoid life, we cannot help them to try to avoid pain. It must be obvious at this point that effective supervision requires that both persons be willing to work close to the bone of experience. The sessions can be humorous and light, but they can also be intense and emotionally draining. The supervisor, too, finds his belief and unbelief touched, finds that he, too, must risk or fail. During the year under discussion Bill found that he had to trust his feelings and intuitions much more than his reason. His own insecurities, his lack of confidence in the help of God became clearer. t°Nouwen, H., "’Compassion: Solidarity, Consolation and Comfort," America, Vol. 134, no. 10 (Mar. 13, 1976), p. 198. , 1~42 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 He, too, was~oflen tempted to try to spare the supervisee pain; he, too, wondered at times whether God would really "come through" for Mary and for her directees. He was tempted to "go,by the book," to prepare agenda, to trust hi~,tested, ways rather than to.’put his faith in the presence., of the" Spirit who ~seemed to be teaching him ~what he must say. He found that he needed to turn tq God for healing and light. In the course of supervising he came to put more trust in his heart and in the God who gives hearts of flesh. Bo,th.of us, t~hen, were changed by this process of supervision. There were times when we resisted the chapges that seemed to be demanded; we were tempted at times to give up the process as a bad job. It is our present conviction, though that we are better persons and better spiritual directors for having e0gaged .,one another so deeply. Conclusion Although this article was based on an experience of supervision in .a training program, the value and importance of supervision do not end with the conclusion of the training, Supervision ought to be an ongoing process. None of the relationships to God which directors facilitate is identical to any other.~God always treats individuals as individuals. Because of this fact, spiritual directors are drawn into the inner core of manL different. spoemrsoe neanltietirepsr iasned. Treol actoionntisnhuipes t.o S bpeir hiteulaplf udlir, edcitrieocnt oisrs a s Ohpeumlda~n dhianvge acnodn satwanet-and serious recourse to prayer, personal spiritual direction, and continued supervision. The latter may be with a group of peers, or with an individual. God is ever greater,.and those who desire to work closely with experiences of him had ~better obe ready for constant growth and c.hailenge. We are always becoming spiritual directors; we-never really arrive. Passages Continued: The Forgotten Fifties Anne Bickford, S.H.C.J. Sister Anne has been active in pre-retirement and retirement work for her own community for the past four years. She resides at Henze House; 40 Rosemont Ave.; R0semont, PA 19010. ~n attempting research for general background for this article, and in looking back over my own studies’, I have found that the age rang~(ro,ughly 48-62) that we are considering here falls into a no-man’s-land in which little research has been done. Child, ad61escent, and abnormal psy0chology have occupied center-stage in psychological s~tudy for years. Fairly recently, geriatric psychology has been getting some concentrated, heavily-funded attention, but the worldof the great in-between, from about 18 to 65, has been a comparatively dark continent. Only. recently, with books like Gall Sheehy’s Passages, have popular writers in psychology, taken an interest in adult-life developmental cycles. Even then i! is disconcerting to find Pas-sages itself cutting off consideration of life’s crises at 50, holding that "the years between.!8 and 50 are the center of life.TM "At 50.’" Ms. Sheehysays, "there is a new warmth and mellowness" and indicates, in her-own in-elegant terms, that after 50, we operate with fewer illusions, tolerate no nonsense." She implies that we have no problems. The work, Lifelong Learning: The Adult Years (October 197~), in a summary of recent research into adult life cycle.s, outlines post-adolescent life in this way: ~Gail Sheehy, Passages: Predictable Crises of Aduh Lift, (New York: Bantam,’1977), p. 15. Zlbid., p. 46. 843 844 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/6 16-22 Leaving the Family 23-28 Reaching Out 29-34 Questions, Questions 35-43 Mid-Life Explosions 44-50 Settling Down After 50 Growth Toward Wisdom An account in Time magazine (April 28, 1975) of adult life studies being done at Yale, Harvard, and U.C.L.A. details much the same outline, de-scribing the After-50 period as "The Mellowing." The Time report goes on to say: These years (50-t-) are marked by a softening of feelings and relationships, a tendency to avoid emotion-laden issues, a preoccupation with everyday joys, triumphs, irrita-tions. Parents are no longer blamed for personal problems. There is little concern for either past or future . The life cycle researchers are confident that the threatening 30’s and the mellowing 50’s will some day become as universally accepted as, say, the terrible two’s and the noisy nine’s of childhood. It is my private opinion based on pure bias that the life cycle researchers who reached these comfortable after-50 conclusions are just pushing 39 themselves. Speaking as one firmly past the 50 mark, I do not find the decade all that euphoric. Having looked briefly at what psychologists have or have not revealed about our age group, perhaps we could use what we know from experience and observation and say something that will be helpful. There are several ways t.o gowith this and I have had to make some choices. Oiae way to go would lean heavily on my gerontological background,- telling you, for instance, that the average life expectancy of a woman of 65 today is another 171A years3 (to age 82V2) and that by the time most of us get to be 65, it will be longer, so that, if I am 53 today, my life expectancy is at least another 30 years. I could review the possible diminishments that might occur at various intervals over this 30-year period and suggest various coping mechanisms we might begin to look at. I could urge that we study how to prepare ourselves for life in prere-tirement or active-retirement houses or even for life in an infirmary, and engage in projections and fantasies that might or might not prove interesting or helpful: I would rather ~ilot do any of that. I would rather look at where we are right now--ages 48-62--and see what w~ can identify as some of the pluses and minuses, hills and valleys, deaths and resurrections that are a part of continuing human development at this stage. I would like to try to identify some of the situations in which most of us find ourselves at some time during this period--and to state the 3Merle Dowd, "Practical Ways to Beat Inflation," Modern Maturity, June-July, 1978, p. 29. Passages Continued: The Forgotten Fifties / 1145 obvious: We have choices to make, by and large attitudinal choices, that have everything to do with (a) our survival in these the supposedly "mellow years," and (b) our successful passage into the next phase of life. The 50’s are a time when one’s illusions about oneself and one’s potential can take a terrific beating. Insofar as the illusions are in fact illusions, this disillusionment can be either a~ saivific or a shattering ex-perience. We can begin with a few obvious givens: One is that we have been aging since before we were born and that aging in itself is natural, necessary, and appropriate. Different powers, talents, and attributes develop, peak, and diminish at different times in our lives and this too is appropriate, e.g. ¯ . Olga Korbut may have peaked at 15 in gym